Is this specifically techno/underground clubs you mean? My pokey city in Aus has like a dozen "EDM" clubs that spin a decent breadth of techno to house to dnb etc. Perhaps I should count myself lucky?
EDM isn't Techno. It's a bit like saying that hard rock is like metal (somewhat bad analogy, but I hope you get the point). I know you listed a range of genres but it's important to note that the Berlin techno scene would never consider itself part of EDM.
There's two definitions of EDM, the first is it's original intended definition, which was as a blanket classification for all electronic dance music -- techno, jungle, house, dubstep, whatever. Instead of calling it techno or electronica, or whatever, EDM was meant to encompass all of it.
Almost immediately after the term started being used, though, it became strongly associated with a particular type of dance music -- namely the mainstream house music that got played at big "EDM" festivals -- think David Guetta and Afrojack and Avicii and Tiesto... They used a blanket term when putting the festival together because the festival booked all kinds of dance music, but the main stages were dominated by a particular kind of dance music, so for most people that went to those festivals, that was the kind of music they associated with EDM.
"Techno" went through a similar evolution. It was originally a term for a particular subgenre of disco and kraftwerk influenced dance music coming out of detroit in the 1980s, around the same time that house music was starting up in Chicago and garage music started up in New York. It pushed further into pure electronic sounds than house and garage did (at first) and early techno compilations solidified in people's minds that electronic music was "techno", especially in america, so "techno" for a while became a catch-all term for all kinds of electronic music. That faded away when "electronica" and then "edm" sort of took on that role, and techno continued as a subgenre of music by itself.
So, I think, properly, techno is a _sub genre_ of "electronic dance music" in the general sense, but is a different genre than what a lot of people think of as EDM (the kind of house music played at large festivals).
Thanks, that helps.
I would love to see a classifier try to cluster tracks across the different types of "not-necessarily-festival-EDM', and compare to see if it clusters as many fans also would.
Wow, mind-blown, thank you; this site alone should get UNESCO protection and/or robust archiving. Really cool how so much branching happening in the late 80s & 90s is illustrated =)
That's the case for a lot of "normies", but it really feels insulting to the electronic music fans in general. Unlike say rock nobody's gonna ask you to know every band in existence and every album they put out decades ago, but you should be able to distinguish between major electronic music genres like house, techno, drum and bass, trance, hardstyle and what not. Sometimes the line gets really blurry, sure, but 90% of the time it's pretty easy to know what you're listening to.
The vibe is different, the tempo is different, the people that go to those places are different, pretty much everyone develops some sort of a very specific preference, and European countries kinda "specialize" based off of that. If you want techno, you go to Berlin. If you want grime, you go to London. If you're into house, you go to a beach in Croatia. I'd say the Netherlands are a bit all over the place, but what really sets them apart is hardstyle, which is pretty much not a thing anywhere else. And so on, and so on.
That's not to say you can't find other things in those places, but they're always gonna be a bit more niche and you kinda have to know what you're looking for to find them.
> That's the case for a lot of "normies", but it really feels insulting to the electronic music fans in general. Unlike say rock nobody's gonna ask you to know every band in existence and every album they put out decades ago, but you should be able to distinguish between major electronic music genres like house, techno, drum and bass, trance, hardstyle and what not.
Plenty of people are able to enjoy music without getting caught up in nomenclature. The idea that those people aren't real fans always feels very snobbish.
I find the nomenclature discussion very interesting. I wonder why "modern" music has so many genres?
I listen to a lot of "classical". People will generally dump centuries of music into that label, or into the slightly better "baroque/classical/romantic/etc" bins.
But composers often have phases where their music can change considerably. Even with in a work (say, Dvorak's 9th symphony) individual movements can be very different. Yet I don't see classical music enthusiasts trying to place every single work into tiny bins (or maybe they do?). They just enjoy them.
I actually find that aspect of classical music really frustrating, subgenres are really useful to identify the particular elements of music that you enjoy.
I've come across plenty of classical music that I enjoy but I don't know where to begin to find more of it.
If I am being charitable it is probably partly to do with how much music is coming out, it is basically impossible to listen to all new DnB releases so it helps that they get categorized so you can find what you want.
If I am being uncharitable, some people just want to differentiate to feel special. Elitism in genres is nothing new either, rock and jazz have their own blend of genre snobbery and I am sure even Classical had people trying to look down on others from adjascent, equal height high horses.
Pretty much everyone is a fan of music in general or some kind of music in particular. But I would counter that being able to name and differentiate a genre is a valid minimum standard to be a "real" fan of that genre.
I also reckon that being a fan connotes something different from merely enjoying the sound when you happen to come across it. But I guess there's room for disagreement there.
I highly disagree. I'm not going to say someone isn't a a true fan of Bach and Vivaldi because they refer to the music as "Classical" instead of "Baroque." Saying they "merely enjoying the sound when [they] happen to come across it" because they aren't interested in how other people have decided to name these things seems incredibly dismissive. Enjoying music is entirely unrelated to being interested in where other people have decided to artificially create divisions and the names they give to those divisions.
I have had a hard time articulating this too. I really like trains, I travel to go ride them, but I don't sit on the internet researching trains in my spare time and I don't know thr minutae of the different train models. I just know what I experience, and love it when I do.
When I tell this to normal people they think I'm a superfan, but I am not even in the same conversation as actual train fans. I doubt I could even hold a conversation about trains with a train fan.
It is the same for music, and I have the benefit of having been both a superfan and now later just a regular person who loves the music. I have an in depth love for the music, and no one can take that from my heart. But I don't give a lick about genres anymore.
> Plenty of people are able to enjoy music without getting caught up in nomenclature. The idea that those people aren't real fans always feels very snobbish.
If you can't differentiate between neurofunk and liquid, you're probably not a big dnb fan.
That doesn't mean you can't enjoy it, but enjoying something and being a fan of something can be quite distinct things.
The word “fan” has become really watered down over time. Didn’t it used to be short for “fanatic”? If someone isn’t deeply familiar with the landscape of a genre, then it seems logical to say they aren’t a fanatic.
It may just come down to whether one uses the watered down meaning of “fan” or the original.
You can find good techno in almost any large city because those DJs tour a lot. I don't think you're going to find something like Berghain in any other city, but if your city has any kind of underground scene at all, there's going to be good techno nights. Like I could go out tonight and see Loco Dice and Marco Carola in my city in the US.
And don't assume that people in other cities don't get it. There's lots of underground clubs where people that go out are 100% into it for the music and "get it" and aren't just going for bottle service and VIP or whatever.
> That's the case for a lot of "normies", but it really feels insulting to the electronic music fans in general.
Which is a hang up that they should work on, because we are all just trying to love the same thing. I agree with your descriptions of the distinctions mind you. Genres are important to find and discuss music you like, but it gets wrapped up in the ego of the listener, and that can get expressed negatively through elitism and gate keeping.
They must really love the music then, they sure as hell aren't moving for the better housing prices.
I'm not at all in the Amsterdam EDM or hardstyle scene (just not my music), but I had indirectly got the feeling that it was slowly declining (ADE excepted), I could be quite wrong though, maybe they're just all in NDSM or something.
Hardly. Amsterdam is comparatively small city = much smaller audience. You can se the stability of the scene in how often clubs close down. Just recently De School closed (now it should be reopen again under different management/name).
Some of the Berlin clubs have been open and solid for 20 years.
Did De School close because lack of interest? From what I've experienced (during ADE) and also heard, Amsterdam is very popular for all the techno sub-genres.
The exact meaning of EDM has shifted over the years but I would say that currently it means stuff like Skrillex and Hardwell whereas techno is more like Carl Craig or Inigo Kennedy or Charlotte de Witte
I'm unsure which "pokey city in Aus" you're referring to as that arguably covers all of our capitals. You really can't compare any Australian club to Berlin's institutions, and that a good thing!
Music, events, and culture in general should be diverse. It would be a fucking bleak future if the world converges on the single right way to party, detach, relax, or feel.
That's fair enough. I guess I am just surprised that there would be only two clubs. Most clubs here don't specialize in one genre except the "core edm" clubs but that might be an artifact of our distance from everything.
Rather than popping over a city to enjoy a different scene, we try to sprinkle a bit of all scenes into the one city.
I am sure we don't hold a candle to the scene in Berlin, but I think my takeaway is that I'll be thankful we get a sampler of many scenes here.
I mean the kind of places the article is talking about ("the cultural heritage" lol). I would say it's opposite of "EDM".
Places where they only play ambient or techno (or disco lol) and music is loud to your core but not deafening. Where people get Club-Mate instead of Red bull, Skinny bitch instead of Cuba Libre, ketamine... Places where it's really hard to see because it's pitch dark but everybody is trying their best to look really hot when they go there.
