• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Explain modern Edm and house to me

Page 2 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
Justice_-_Cross_%282007%29.jpg
 
complicated incoming




"i agree that most EDM is bad, but some of the best music of the last 30 years is EDM."

because this generic statement applies to just about anything; go get Janis Joplin's albums, half the songs are crap filler. same for the stones, deep purple .. you name it. the vast majority of artists produce a few catchy songs and much worthless filler.

keeping that in mind ..

first off, i dislike the term Electronic Dance Music; i prefer, if we need to use a blanket term, "Techno", short for "music made with technology". Of which techno is a subgenre. (because we like it complicated)
EDM could also refer to many new wave songs played with synths; but Techno is only songs which are made with prerecorded sounds - no live performances.
(you can play a riff live, then sequence it - it still applies)

The key here is REPETITION. Repetition has been a "thing" since medieval music, where it was called "ostinato" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostinato
Monks found that repeating things "stubbornly" had a trippy effect which they liked, as they made music to "be closer to God", or, in plainspeek, to trip out - which is why pre-electronica trance also shares most of the characteristics of techno.
Incidentally, legend has it that the first wave of proper techno, was inspired by the trance played on the hippy beaches of Goa, back in the 80s and 90s a popular stoner holiday destination.

But i'll skip the history;

essentially, techno is designed to be that way, for the trance-like effect it has on the body, and mind you, i mean primarily on the body, not on the mind. Repetition has a physiological effect that "normal" music does not have; while normal music is mentally stimulating, techno is soporific - hypnotic, trancelike, calming.

Now, you'd think that "menatlly stimulating" is certainly the preferable of the two; but not quite.

Techno in general takes longer to have an effect; i too thought that techno was disgusting "non-music", until i was forced to go to sleep one day while it was playing. My brain tuned out a portion of itself, and my body relaxed. I understand this sounds gay AF but that's how intense the experience is.

Now, i won't say all techno is good; *most* music made past the mid 90s is crap, since it was made to make money and there was no spiritual inspiration in it. But much music before that period was really something else.

Of course there is the discussion about drugs. Techno and drugs - if you have already been initiated to techno - beats rock and drugs any day. You can have your grateful dead trip, techno just smashes it. The trance-like physical phenomenon of techno enhances the physical phenomenon of drugs .. while rock and trip might make you think weirder things, techno and trip makes you FEEL better.

Dance, and Disco before, were not different. It's about having a body experience, not a mind experience.

Also, there is the fact that techno *sounds* better; due to not having any real instruments, who need recording on physical medium (still using analog tape back then), there's air between microphone and amp, electrical noise, etc, techno sounds crispier, with far stronger and clearer lower frequencies.

When you go to a concert, it's loud. But when you go to a disco (where the speakers are much closer to you) you can feel the vibrations shake your ass; and your guts. You can literally feel the vibrations make your interiors go wobble.

Ok, lets move on.

Techno in general is about the quality of sounds. Not just as i described now, but also to "this sound sounds great". It's a distant child of "Rumorismo" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noise_music , and just like, when you were younger, the lightsaber made that awesome sounds, and so did the TIE fighter, techno is all about finding sounds that sound awesome.
If you will, this "sound palette" takes the role that arrangements had in classic music.

I'm afraid that, if you don't have experienced techno by now, it's too late. It was a great cultural movement, which sadly now has been eaten by the big labels.
 
slackerinabox said:
Well, if i had a better frame of reference i could say "dub fiend sucks, know where they play the good stuff like dj x?" Did that make me sound 100?
Click to expand...

Don't worry, it did 😀

A few examples off the top of my head
The Flashbulb, his major influence is probably chillout techno, and he's oldschool
https://theflashbulb.bandcamp.com/track/the-son-and-the-star

Uppermost, some guy in Paris, major influence is guys from Paris (like Daft Punk, except 15-20 years more recent)
https://soundcloud.com/uppermost/revolution

Anamanaguchi, I already linked them, they are known for bringing chiptunes to the masses.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EP1mczaq3zo

This is Skrillex, he is primarily known for being bad, and for live shows.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSeNSzJ2-Jw
This is also Skrillex
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGpzGu9Yp6Y

This is Deadmau5, he is known for being big back when EDM was just going mainstream, also live shows, and he's still relevant.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rp2KqZUCsBY

This is Infected Mushroom, they're Israelis that took a liking to Goa Trance but their recent stuff is all over the place, ranging from psychedelic trance to industrial. They're popular too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyP4yWyBpgI&list=PLbe_bMvCl-u3n3Pqfrk-mT9PPqx1L_1kl
 
DigDog said:
Techno in general takes longer to have an effect; i too thought that techno was disgusting "non-music", until i was forced to go to sleep one day while it was playing. My brain tuned out a portion of itself, and my body relaxed. I understand this sounds gay AF but that's how intense the experience is.
Click to expand...
No, nothing about that sounds homosexual.
DigDog said:
When you go to a concert, it's loud. But when you go to a disco (where the speakers are much closer to you) you can feel the vibrations shake your ass; and your guts. You can literally feel the vibrations make your interiors go wobble.
Click to expand...
I get this at all the concerts I go to, but I exclusively go to small venues, so YMMV.
 
Let's put it this way: they're using dubstep to sell cars and insurance these days. When it's co-opted like that, it is on it's way out.
 
Dig dog is so fucking wrong.


Techno is a legitimate sub genre of dance music. It was created in the late 80's and early 90's and is generally more "raw" then most forms of EDM. Detroit techno OG's, Richie Hawtin, to some extent Chemical Bros, represent this style of music.

The phrase EDM wasn't even popularized until the mid 00's and encompasses all forms of electronic dance music including trance, house, dub step, jungle, techno, et al.

And then each sub-genre of "EDM" has further sub genres, e.g. Prog house, tech house, Goa trance, etc.
 
Growing up in Los Angeles in the 90's / 00's, I know quite a bit about this shit. I've been through almost every phase of EDM. Happy Hardcore, Trance, House, Drum n Bass, Dubstep, etc.

Anyways, I think a good place to start if you're looking for the "roots" of EDM might be Underworld. One of their songs from the movie Trainspotting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iKFn8dlxX8

Nowadays I listen to a lot of chill and tropical house. This song is quite popular right now. If you hear pan flutes, you just might be listening to tropical house:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUWYDaVp92I

edit: also, for the record i'm super sick of that song right now but its an example of the genre.
 
I really know nothing about EDM these days... I still listen to Aphex Twin / AFX / etc. Getting old I guess :|
 
Not a fan of dance music. For electronica, I like space and ambient, though I like some normal music that's electronicish, and wouldn't sound too out of place in a club. Björk comes to mind for the type of sound I like.
 
That's because the music you're listing to is actually pop music which all uses the same style pushed out by the major record labels.

The beginning and end of the music is usually boring but it's designed that way so it can easily be mixed with other music. It also only uses 4/4 and about the same bpm for easy mixing.

A lot of the less popular music is pretty good.

A few free ones:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugMwVOdPAfI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-38cHO89dsI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRcDth6d0uk
 
let's do this;

some stuff we called techno back in the days
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27AXunGRo5E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rD5BkVsqJuY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMHa1FbIoTA play at 1.25 speed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHYOwVW7YyA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hhsgDnTYW8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3oUFX_5KGY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hrph2EW9VjY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_NlLIAQWNU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJzD0_wxTEk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVgjC5Gw8y0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8Ucy4n77E4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uMOl8UEzrE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7raJBFUe0Yo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAnln0sGYSg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQjfHbZ4kuI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBl8YkmwiSI

if your idea of electronic music is the chemical brothers, fatboy slim, "born slippy", moby, or Children by Robert Miles, you don't know what electronic music is.
 
Came in to say EDM is terrible music for dumb people, but got tricked into reading some of these posts and am now kind of interested in reviewing some of this YouTube content. I'll be back later with my revised assessment.
 
Hard not to direct any personal attacks at DigDog right now. Incorrigible, pretentious ridiculous person.

You are not cooler or smarter than anyone because you listen to less-well-known music.

edit: Having said that, you went deep with some old school shit there with those links. So props on that. I don't think any of those links will draw someone into EDM though.
 
Last edited:
DigDog said:
if your idea of electronic music is the chemical brothers, fatboy slim, "born slippy", moby, or Children by Robert Miles, you don't know what electronic music is.
Click to expand...

To deny that underworld / moby / Robert miles / Chem Bros is electronica is just stupid and does not pass the critical thinking test.

Fun story time though now that you brought up Robert Miles - I was at a party in 2001ish and Robert Miles was slated to play a 4 hour set. At this point most people only knew him for his 2-3 anthems and didn't realize he actually played a more uh minimal/experimental style. So he opens up a 4 hour set with his 2-3 anthems and then goes into his normal stuff....


Oooooooomg there was no amount of ecstasy that was going to save him from that crowd - bottles started flying within 30 minutes and homie got booted off the tables by the end of the hour.
 
Last edited:
saying that moby is electronica is like saying michael buble is jazz.

i've been going to raves since 1986. between 1998 and 2001 my JOB was directly linked with electronic music, specifically techno, trance, acid, dance, progressive, and so on - that branch. If you are going clubbin in Boston, and they play EDM, you owe a good deal of that to ME.
I'm sorry if i come off as pretentious but .. yeah. Me and my crew singlehandedly changed the boston music scene from garbage commercial crap to proper techno.

im sorry if my constant use of the word TECHNO offends people; i mean the branch, not the sub-genre. so anything not-dance. trance, psy, progressive, acid, *some* house.
funny thing is, i generally don't like the techno subgenre, specially german techno. too aggressive, too little feeling.


Incidentally i was in boston because i was a Berklee (college of music) student; in the past, my library included mozart, jarret, manowar, a good helping of traditional chinese music, zorn, zappa, and tons, tons of techno. I've been a student of music, music history, audio technology, music business, since 1986 all the way until 2005. I write things like "multilayering filtered samples to recreate physical reverb" or "development of the EAX and related audio playback solutions".



electronic music or whatever you want to call the stuff they made with the roland 303, was a cultural revolution.
By the time the media got any attention to it - and thus when the more "professional" acts came out, such as the aforementioned Underworld (who, let's not forget, were on the WipeOut 2097 soundtrack with this epic progressive tune "Tin There" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTWgUdeAPhc ), there was none of the original inventiveness, anarchy, and inspiration which made it something worth following.

I will always feel sad at how quickly it was devoured by big money; obviously, when you don't need to pay the rights to use a song anymore in your tv ads, because you can pay someone to just crank out a tune that you OWN THE RIGHTS TO, for less money, it's no surprise it was considered the holy grail of profit. It's like we had crass and the sex pistols one week, and the offspring the next.
 
Ah so you're old and jaded. Except you've got 3 decades of jaded on you. My bad; I get it now.

But you're still using the techno verbiage wrong.
 
DigDog said:
electronic music or whatever you want to call the stuff they made with the roland 303, was a cultural revolution.
By the time the media got any attention to it - and thus when the more "professional" acts came out, such as the aforementioned Underworld (who, let's not forget, were on the WipeOut 2097 soundtrack with this epic progressive tune "Tin There" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTWgUdeAPhc ), there was none of the original inventiveness, anarchy, and inspiration which made it something worth following.
Click to expand...

Clicked on that link and it's like I kept waiting 5 minutes for the actual song to start and it never did.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top