The Electro Wars

Is this what America is like?

This isn't a "how shit is music i don't like?" thread, because I like a couple of the artists alot, but its painful to see them compared side-by-side with the intellectual commentry LMFAO (who look like white kids who can't decide if they want to dress like black guys or clowns) or an educational voice over telling me "blog house" is a genre whilst showing a genre tree that includes "electro banger".

In an earlier trailer for this, DJ Qbert mentioned how he thought the term Electro was the stuff from Detroit from the 80s and 90s, for that I commend him. I hate how the term Electro is thrown around these days by fucking hipsters and this trailer only pisses me off. Especially when I see LMFAO

Get off my lawn.

Electro music is such a universal name for all kind of music this days, the same way techno went. I mean, i would never tell a stranger i listen to techno music.

Yeah, electro is electro (Detroit in general, Drexciya, Gerald Donald, Kraftwerk, etc. etc.), not anything electronic. The misuse of electro is starting to piss me off - seeing electro club nights is the worst when you finally think you've found somewhere playing that stuff locally and it turns out just to be shit trance/house/wank.

  On 4/13/2010 at 11:22 AM, futureimage said:

Yeah, electro is electro (Detroit in general, Drexciya, Gerald Donald, Kraftwerk, etc. etc.), not anything electronic. The misuse of electro is starting to piss me off - seeing electro club nights is the worst when you finally think you've found somewhere playing that stuff locally and it turns out just to be shit trance/house/wank.

Do you also hate the term Electronica?

  On 4/13/2010 at 11:22 AM, futureimage said:

Yeah, electro is electro (Detroit in general, Drexciya, Gerald Donald, Kraftwerk, etc. etc.), not anything electronic. The misuse of electro is starting to piss me off - seeing electro club nights is the worst when you finally think you've found somewhere playing that stuff locally and it turns out just to be shit trance/house/wank.

I agree, but whatwould you call the music in the trailer?

When talking to others, I never know wha to call that music without sounding like a wanker.

kill americans

  On 4/13/2010 at 9:35 AM, Backson said:

 

Is this what America is like?

 

This isn't a "how shit is music i don't like?" thread, because I like a couple of the artists alot, but its painful to see them compared side-by-side with the intellectual commentry LMFAO (who look like white kids who can't decide if they want to dress like black guys or clowns) or an educational voice over telling me "blog house" is a genre whilst showing a genre tree that includes "electro banger".

*projectile vomits out of every orifice*

  On 4/13/2010 at 12:32 PM, Spore said:

  On 4/13/2010 at 11:22 AM, futureimage said:

Yeah, electro is electro (Detroit in general, Drexciya, Gerald Donald, Kraftwerk, etc. etc.), not anything electronic. The misuse of electro is starting to piss me off - seeing electro club nights is the worst when you finally think you've found somewhere playing that stuff locally and it turns out just to be shit trance/house/wank.

 

Do you also hate the term Electronica?

is that Red from That 70s Show in your signature?

In hopes of placating this whole fiasco of a debate on the legitimacy of using the term "electro" nowadays...

What the fuck would you call this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNMPDlEIpUM

or this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FwbsSdWh-U

or this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJMuEB5hFdc

or this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPwCmhvmHeM

or this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WiBj0JZOig

or this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jn35gArcw2Y

etcetera etcetera

Some of it is somewhat french\filter house, some of it is somewhat fidget house, some of it is nu-rave yet none of the above are faithfully one single type of 4\4 electronic dance music. Some of it you may hate and some of it you may like. Thing is... it's getting mixed in the same sets and, like in every other case, the hype machine needs a catchy catch-all term to get the club-going kids to coalesce around something. And you're faced with either calling it "house" which is overly inclusive, "blog house" which is overly referential, or "maximal bass-centric 4\4 125-135 BPM electronic dance music" which might not sit that well on posters. So it's entered popular culture under the moniker "electro" or "electro house", which might not be ideally descriptive, but listeners know what to expect, and the confusion that may arise for listeners of old-school electro is manageable (especially considering that electro was also a catch-all term back then and that some modern "electro" acts, like Tiga, Boys Noize, Danger, Classixx, Ted & Francis etc are very tributary and referential to that era in their choice of sounds and sometimes even overall production).

I've never seen the term confused with trance or shitty Guetta house, at least in the context of party advertisement, so that's bullshit yeah. This whole nitpick is really funny actually; makes me think of gray-haired alcoholics in full denim attire saying Mastodon are not real metal. Shit changes, evolves, harmonizes with the zeitgeist, get with it.

Having said that, i have no love for that documentary, LMFAO are... i dunno... hipsters rapping?! Same goes for 30h!3... I don't even KNOW what Pitbull is doing there... From the trailer, the only people i could ascertain that have any connection to the scene were Justice, A-Trak, Aoki (barely, more by signing Bloody Beetroots thant anything else), and Q-Bert on the oldschool side of things.

non-tl;dr version: Nobody owns anything, shut the fuck up.

/rant

What bothered me most about the trailer (aside from LMAFO's stupid do's) was the "it all started with Hip-Hop" bullshit; these guys don't have a fucking clue! about the electro term, it's been (mis)used for anything electronic sounding since forever; so no big deal for me.. I was reading this NME review of a New Romantics band in the 80's and they were calling it electro as well, so go figure...

Fuck NME (along with most of the press), fuck a hefty percent of the US audience for this stuff. Other than that i stick to the post above.

Europe has its own share of complicity in this. No need to bash the U.S. in this thread mmmmkay...

Yeah, true i guess. The french TEKTONIK kids are a mental handful...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-6Zkt3E1nE&feature=fvw

  On 4/13/2010 at 7:14 PM, Lube Saibot said:

Yeah, true i guess. The french TEKTONIK kids are a mental handful...

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-6Zkt3E1nE&feature=fvw

Thanks for that. Quite a few mentions of electro in that.

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not. Maybe it was unclear from my post, but i was agreeing with you and showing why.

  On 4/13/2010 at 7:42 PM, Lube Saibot said:

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not. Maybe it was unclear from my post, but i was agreeing with you and showing why.

I wasn't being sarcastic. I was thanking you for posting a video which backed up my point, because they refer to the music as "electro" several times in that piece.

What I'm trying to say is

  On 4/13/2010 at 11:22 AM, futureimage said:

Yeah, electro is electro (Detroit in general, Drexciya, Gerald Donald, Kraftwerk, etc. etc.), not anything electronic. The misuse of electro is starting to piss me off - seeing electro club nights is the worst when you finally think you've found somewhere playing that stuff locally and it turns out just to be shit trance/house/wank.

this.

  On 4/13/2010 at 12:32 PM, Spore said:

Do you also hate the term Electronica?

fuck yes i do.

WTF is "blog house"?!

man, i am sooooo glad i don't live in LA.

  On 4/13/2010 at 8:24 PM, scones to die for said:

  On 4/13/2010 at 7:42 PM, Lube Saibot said:

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not. Maybe it was unclear from my post, but i was agreeing with you and showing why.

I wasn't being sarcastic. I was thanking you for posting a video which backed up my point, because they refer to the music as "electro" several times in that piece.

 

What I'm trying to say is

In that case to you good sir.

the people in that documentary

  On 4/13/2010 at 9:34 PM, Bewarethefriendlyfoil said:

the people in that documentary

Indeed , my son .

There were a nice amount of faceplams in the vid........I still wanna see though lol

  On 4/13/2010 at 4:58 PM, Lube Saibot said:

 

 

Some of it is somewhat french\filter house, some of it is somewhat fidget house, some of it is nu-rave yet none of the above are faithfully one single type of 4\4 electronic dance music. Some of it you may hate and some of it you may like. Thing is... it's getting mixed in the same sets and, like in every other case, the hype machine needs a catchy catch-all term to get the club-going kids to coalesce around something. And you're faced with either calling it "house" which is overly inclusive, "blog house" which is overly referential, or "maximal bass-centric 4\4 125-135 BPM electronic dance music" which might not sit that well on posters. So it's entered popular culture under the moniker "electro" or "electro house", which might not be ideally descriptive, but listeners know what to expect, and the confusion that may arise for listeners of old-school electro is manageable (especially considering that electro was also a catch-all term back then and that some modern "electro" acts, like Tiga, Boys Noize, Danger, Classixx, Ted & Francis etc are very tributary and referential to that era in their choice of sounds and sometimes even overall production).

 

I am perfectly fine with it being called electro house.

  On 4/13/2010 at 8:30 PM, blicero said:

  On 4/13/2010 at 11:22 AM, futureimage said:

Yeah, electro is electro (Detroit in general, Drexciya, Gerald Donald, Kraftwerk, etc. etc.), not anything electronic. The misuse of electro is starting to piss me off - seeing electro club nights is the worst when you finally think you've found somewhere playing that stuff locally and it turns out just to be shit trance/house/wank.

 

this.

 

 

 

You can easily work this shit out from flyers/Facebook etc. Actual Detroit style nights will know their shit and promote it accordingly.

+1 for electro-house working well to describe whats about now

Remember electroclash?

That will inadvertently be shortened to "electro" in conversations and everybody gets pissed off again.

IMO "Detroit" is a genre in itself, i really don't think of its output as "electro".

  On 4/14/2010 at 1:36 AM, scones to die for said:

Remember electroclash?

No. Did i miss anything good?