How were you introduced to electronic music?

no idea, its just always been something im aware of since i was a small child... even when i busted out a groove on a yamaha keyboard as a 6 year old

  On 10/22/2012 at 2:22 PM, mokz said:

  On 10/22/2012 at 2:05 PM, kokeboka said:

After that I got curious about Kraftwerk despite most people warning me it was cold and difficult; when I first heard Man Machine I was both amazed and hooked.

 

Lol, I can understand the cold part but not the difficult. Kraftwerk is one of the most accessible bands ever for me. It just clicked instantly.

 

I think the difficult part was mostly because the people I talked to were convinced Kraftwerk didn't age well, and that their music was too strange/awkward for nowadays trends.

 

I didn't find it difficult either, even at first listen. Man Machine is probably their most accessible record anyway; I picked that album half-randomly but looking back I couldn't have had a better introduction to their discography.

My father showed me bands like Kraftwerk and the Popcorn track by Gershon Kingsley when I was very young. I also used to steal my brother's CD's and listen to things like the compilation Bass Explosion USA, Rave 'til Dawn, and RDJ album around the age of 10. My other brother actually took RDJ album to school for a "Music Sharing Day" and played Milkman in an elementary classroom. I listened to NIN Downward Spiral quite a bit as well. That progressed into me using things like Napster and Limewire to further my education. I remember listening to Lords of Acid way before I should have been allowed to listen to that music. I would download it and use winamp on an old Compaq computer. My brother also showed me Rebirth around the same era and my friend and I would hopelessly attempt to make music with it even though it was out of our league. When I was a teenager I would party to a lot of Electroclash type music with my ex-girlfriend who was quite into it. After some binges on synthesizers and drum machines, peaking on some shrooms to Like Spinning Plates by Radiohead, and a growing disinterest in guitar music/music with words I find myself here.

Even though mostly rock and hard rock was on my dad's reel to reel stereo system when i was a child, i remember some electronic music he used to play too. i remember calling it 'diksy', probably it was my version of the word disco, but i sure remember it was not disco but probably early 70's electronic music. Definitely for a person who listened to Black Sabbath etc and was a Beatlesman, Pink Floyd was another addition to my childhood listenings. I recall my dad describing Floyd' s music as 'space rock', and as we know a lot of ambient elements were present in this music.

 

This probably explains my love for electronic music. Even though i finally turned out to be a metalhead (i still am) all my teens listening to heavy stuff like Pantera, Sepultura, Fear Factory etc, I could not resist to "The Future Sound Of London" . . .clearly i remember the day when i saw "We Have Explosive" on tv, i dint know at that time if i liked it or not because i found it so bizarre, but when i listened to Dead Cities for the first time, that was it, it was the moment my life was going to be changed for ever.

Edited October 22, 2012 by mollekula

  On 10/22/2012 at 2:07 PM, Npoess said:

So I'm actually pretty new to electronic music, even though I feel like I've listened to it my whole life for some reason.

 

I know what you mean, I didn't fully delve into electronic music until college. In retrospect I realize I've always liked it: snippets from sci-fi soundtracks, certain dance and hip-hop hit songs on the radio, the synth bits of certain rock songs, ambient and new age music on tv - it just wasn't until my late teens that I actively listened to such music.

 

Like ghosty and others, big beat was a major part of crossing over. I also remember playing "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors" off Amnesiac years before I listened to proper Techno or IDM

electronic music was just part of the culture, and in everything, if you cared to listen to and appreciate those sounds, eventually you gravitated towards it. Of course you had to have cash of your own, that didn't go on comics, and realise there was a scene reflecting and building on those noises from your childhood.

 

Also, lol LUDD you bad mon. ;-p

  On 10/22/2012 at 3:26 PM, kokeboka said:

  On 10/22/2012 at 2:22 PM, mokz said:

  On 10/22/2012 at 2:05 PM, kokeboka said:

After that I got curious about Kraftwerk despite most people warning me it was cold and difficult; when I first heard Man Machine I was both amazed and hooked.

 

Lol, I can understand the cold part but not the difficult. Kraftwerk is one of the most accessible bands ever for me. It just clicked instantly.

 

I think the difficult part was mostly because the people I talked to were convinced Kraftwerk didn't age well, and that their music was too strange/awkward for nowadays trends.

 

I didn't find it difficult either, even at first listen. Man Machine is probably their most accessible record anyway; I picked that album half-randomly but looking back I couldn't have had a better introduction to their discography.

But Kraftwerk are not just cold neither. They have rather positive, funny little songs to put them on a sunny day....you know like "Wir fahren, fahren, fahren auf die Autobahn", "Computerwelt", "Antenna", "Europa Endlos", Computerliebe" or "Vitamin".. To me they've always sounded like a father singing to his little child... Very clean and picturesque melodies, minimalist percussion that went beyond that... Kraftwerk songs have groove and braindance at once. You could breakdance, boogie or airwalk to them, and yet the rhythm and melody are still so skillfully composed it makes up a very pleasing IDM-ish intellectual, european bourgeois intellectual work of art... In my opinion they are among the most relevant musicians of the century. Also because of the fact that their songs are so much more than just 'cold'. Some songs exhibit a peculiar absense of emotion, but I think that is intentional, for the listener is not influenced by the feeling of the song, but finds his own feelings connected to it. Take "Neonlicht" or "Trans Europe Express" for instance. There are gloomy songs too, like "Hall of Mirrors", "Radioactivity", etc. I just realized they are almost like an utopian pop music. Very accessible, with distinctive melodies, fun lyrics, sincere feelings... Just brilliant.

Let me get a little bit ranty..

 

I've listened to electronic music as long as I can remember. I've never been much into what people would usually consider non-electronic music. But I don't really know where the line between electronic and non-electronic music goes?

 

OK, maybe fully acoustic music played live without amplifiers is not electronic music and something like minimal techno done completely on a laptop with VSTs can be said to be fully electronic but is synthpop electronic music if there's a live singer? Is it electronic if there's live drums and the synths are played live? Is old school dub done with a mixing desk, analog effects and tapes electronic? Is an electric guitar put through digital effects electronic music? Are triggered drums electronic?

 

You might say that using sequencers makes the difference instead of playing "live" but isn't patching up the song together in a studio from various different recorded audio clips essentially the same as sequencing a sampler?

 

I'm just saying that the use of electronic hardware in music making today has made the differentiation between the electronic and non-electronic music little bit a moot point. There's just a continuous spectrum from fully acoustic to fully electronic.

  On 10/22/2012 at 4:26 PM, Godwin Austen said:

But Kraftwerk are not just cold neither..

 

Yeah, I don't consider them cold either but I can see how people might come to think that from the themes they have chosen.

I would also like to add that my father would always listen to Tangerine Dream throughout my childhood and while I do remember digging it, it did not spur me to go in search of electronic music.

  On 10/22/2012 at 4:35 PM, ZiggomaticV17 said:

I would also like to add that my father would always listen to Tangerine Dream throughout my childhood and while I do remember digging it, it did not spur me to go in search of electronic music.

 

I remember my brother also had the soundtrack to "Legend" and I would listen to that as well.

My first memory of being interested in electronic music was the theme to Dr. Who, which I used to watch with my dad in the early 80's. Some of the episodes scared me, but I couldn't resist coming back for more of that amazing theme!

 

I didn't start buying electronic albums until about 94 or so; whenever TVT reissued the artificial intelligence series from Warp. Fuse, Polygon Window & B12 were the records that really hooked me on electronic music; prior to that I was really into Britpop (yeah..) and listened to the Smiths, Morrissey solo albums, Blur, the Charlatans & Plush. After a friend played those AI records for me there was no going back.. I was soon spending all my time & money tracking down Richie Hawtin projects and discovering Aphex Twin, though it took me an embarrassingly long time to realise that Polygon Window & Aphex were the same person!

Watching Gary Numan and Kraftwerk etc on TOTP in the 70's.

Then I got into 80's electro and b-boy stuff.

Mid 80's house, acid and techno.

Late 80's-early 90's acid house parties/raves.

Late 90's-00's prog house and finally back to techno.

 

God I'm old !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vy1BTQC0gfQ

you guys have posted some seriously interesting music! gotta get some albums from some of these guys. also i recently discovered kraftwerk and was blown away by how long they've been doing what they do. "We are the robots" in particular, i was like... people made this stuff back then?

my sister got me into Electronic music when i was about 5. shes a huge Prodigy fan and whenever i was in her car she would blast Fat of the Land. 15 years later and Firestarter is still my favorite song of all time.

  On 10/23/2012 at 1:46 AM, Frankie5fingers said:

my sister got me into Electronic music when i was about 5. shes a huge Prodigy fan and whenever i was in her car she would blast Fat of the Land. 15 years later and Firestarter is still my favorite song of all time.

 

+1 for cool sisters.

  On 10/23/2012 at 2:05 AM, ZiggomaticV17 said:

  On 10/23/2012 at 1:46 AM, Frankie5fingers said:

my sister got me into Electronic music when i was about 5. shes a huge Prodigy fan and whenever i was in her car she would blast Fat of the Land. 15 years later and Firestarter is still my favorite song of all time.

 

+1 for cool sisters.

 

yeah my sister really liked bjork and stuff... but the one track that changed my life for ever was Chemical Brother's The Test... The sublime sample of an eagle or whatever it is... it, it just gives me the chills... I thought that was powerful and magic at the same time... That made me search ChemBros stuff and, suddenly, heard Orb's Toxygene, which was like a 2º miracle... theeeeen, I heard Actium and I remembered: "hey, this are the dudes from windowlicker (I was like 11-13)" so I clicked some videos and heard "4"... and the rest is history :P :) :D

Edited October 23, 2012 by logakght

  On 10/23/2012 at 1:46 AM, Frankie5fingers said:

my sister got me into Electronic music when i was about 5. shes a huge Prodigy fan and whenever i was in her car she would blast Fat of the Land. 15 years later and Firestarter is still my favorite song of all time.

 

change my pitch up....smack my bitch uppppp

 

fat of the land was one of my first electronic albums too!

Kraftwerk

For me it was combination of listening to soundtracks leading me to Tangerine Dream, David Byrne leading me to Eno, buying random albums leading me to Orbital, hip-hop leading me to Massive Attack, and some great advice from friends.

 

I used to rap over this burned cd I had in my car that wasn't labeled and I had no idea who it was for years, and then I realized it was B.O.C. the whole time. That was a nice moment.

I've always been interested in small things [no pun], details, weird sounds and such.

Not really able to find music I actually like, so I don't really listen to music that much.

My bro listened/listens to a lot op hip-hop, later he found Radiohead. I didn't like it so much, but I liked after hearing it almost 24/7.

Later he saw Björk's Wanderlust video on MTV, he played it on youtube a few days later, thought she was singing weird, but also liked it after a few times since I wasn't really used to listening to music and such.

So a few months later I was a fan of them both.

Then my bro went to some art school and had a friend who listened to noise music and that sort of stuff, and Autechre.

By that time I was kinda used to experimental music, so my bro made me listen to it. I still thought it was weird and all over the place, but after listening some tracks a few times I noticed different sounds and that it wasn't as awful as I thought it was.

Listen to more of their music.

Now I love it and make my own experimental electronic music.

Though I thought my sounds were good when I started, most of it is horrible when I listen to it again, but I won't delete any of it 'cuz I might use it one day, maybe as a detail or something, not as something big, like I thought it would be when I just started.

I guess that's my story and such.

  On 10/23/2012 at 2:05 AM, ZiggomaticV17 said:

  On 10/23/2012 at 1:46 AM, Frankie5fingers said:

my sister got me into Electronic music when i was about 5. shes a huge Prodigy fan and whenever i was in her car she would blast Fat of the Land. 15 years later and Firestarter is still my favorite song of all time.

 

+1 for cool sisters.

+2 for me. that was just one of my sisters. the other one got me into heavier music. she was a huge Clutch fan and music along those lines. she helped introduce me into metal at the same age. even as a child i had a very diverse musical taste.

but neither compare to my brother. my brother basically knows everything about music, its a bit scary sometimes how much he knows. but this is an electronic thread so im not going into that.

I hate to admit it, but this is what really sparked my interests in "techno"(what my naive self thought it was called) when i was about 13

 

I actually think it was this video that made me discover teh ayphøx twin (pre-release GTA IV trailer)

 

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

Edited October 23, 2012 by Npoess