uk: healthier music culture?

someone said in a particular thread that music has the right to children was particularly successful, and i just can't help floling inwardly thinking of how marginal boc fandom really is in the big scheme of things. and then someone mentioned the random access memories hype and i wonder: is it just because watmm is populated mainly by brits that y'all have better taste and therefore are even able to anticipate good music, and whether the internet accurately represents music tastes, because to the latter i say i don't think so.

the internet has really been amazing in bringing obscure, high-quality artists into the forefront, but i'm not sure that like 90% of the world still wouldn't know good music if it bit them on the ass. i was into like nirvana and whatever was on mtv when i was most of the internet's age (it seems, maybe too informed by what.cd forum population) so i find it hard to believe the rose-coloured tint cast over the tomorrow's harvest stream and the like, because basically we are the only ones who really actually care. everyone else just listens to whatever they're force-fed, no?

My two cents is this: we're in the age of casual listeners with decent taste seemingly dominate. Kids who fire up spotify or youtube and browse and sincerely enjoy a diverse amount of music without becoming attached to specific scenes or artists. When I was in high school most kids didn't listen to music (that includes ditzy girls and douche-y bros who just listen to the same Top40 shit all the time loudly in their cars) or those who were really, really into certain bands and followed zines, subscribed to nice music magazines, followed forums, etc and it didn't matter if it was indie rock, emo (real emo) "emo" (screamo and post-hardcore), electronic and rave, metal, etc. I think now many more kids kind of follow everything and nothing at once - they like things on FB and repost things on tumblr and have playlists they create and discard often. I think right now many of those such listeners are streaming the new BoC album now.

WATMM is full of rabid fans of IDM and electronic in general, and many of us are fans of certain artists and bands that most others on WATMM aren't. I've seen people on here who are huge fans of Tool, Xiu Xiu, kvlt black metal, etc. In the past I think it was either folks like those here on WATMM, i.e. huge music lovers, or people who simply weren't. Those still exist too, but I think bridging the gap is, well, the internet and streaming music. It's rubbed off on the way music journalism works now too - that's why pfork is covering mainstream hip-hop as much as this album. We're still the only fanboys and fangirls but we'll be enjoying Tomorrow's Harvest with thousands for the next couple of weeks who will literally forget about the album in a month or so.

Also, I have no idea about UK versus US in this dynamic.

son i am still disapoint that "electroknicker" had a heyday in like 1997 before being forever banished beyond the realms of dub

'idm' is a cancerous genre name

must be ignored/routed/whatevere'd out of existence no matter what

saying 'idm' is like installing Windows ME for the OS on your brand new sam-google-sung glass iphone

all countries must work together to rid the world of idm (untruthful lie genre) ASAP

only people like fred mcgriff say idm (lamers)

i like the initials idm, and i think it is a perfectly valid descriptor, but i like armchair techno a lot better

I think the answer to the original question is that our individual countries create a rolling landscape of cultural phenomena - we can collectively point to a great number of milestones that in total create an environment where certain things are a logical next step, things that make sense to us and us alone - more so in the 60's, 70's and 80's because countries were more culturally separate, and the events were more limited and more of a 'shared national experience'. From that 30 or 40 year period a strong hub of cultural identity and landscape grew and then disseminated into many other forms - but still with a sense of heritage and locale. So that, even now, the UK will have things in it's charts that the US wouldn't even dream of having, and vice versa. It would be very foolish to say one cultural landscape was better, or more informed, than the other.. . they really are just different, and have developed differently. There will always be a sub-section of people that identify strongly with the other landscape and feel somewhat alienated in their own land.

From a young age I only liked instrumental music - I wanted music that didn't push some kind of message onto me - I wanted a world, a sensation, that I could inhabit and create my own feelings or images - so I listened to jarre, tomita, mike oldfield, vangelis, ebm, brian eno, harold budd. I can only suppose that this was a common feeling, created by the world we all lived in at that time, or, at least, a mix of a certain kind of person with that environment- because, then came along a little review in a music paper or magazine, that said Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works - it was music the reviewer had been dreaming of his entire life. .. . that must have been true for a lot of us. . . it was the next step that we were all so longing to take, and very shortly we found that there were others making this kind of evolutionary step. I don't doubt for one minute that the same was happening in the US. .. but it would have been particular to the US, different.

Genre names. . . bless.

Randomly spawned from the collective in as haphazard and organic manner as you could ever dream of - hence you get Funky (like why call a modern genre of music Funky?), and Minimal (jeez, really? is it minimal? no. is there already a well defined genre of music called that? yes.), Crunk (Oh hang on, there already is a crunk, let's put aqua on the front of it so that all the people you told at your cool office that you liked crunk don't get you confused with some stoned southern US rap fan!), dubstep (yes, we know there's already a very good kind of music called dubstep but we're going to make this terrible screaming banging rave-shite and call it dubstep too, is that ok? No? well tough!). .. . and now there's EDM. . . like why?! gggrrrrrr!

I think the UK has a healthier pop culture in general -- if you look at the kind of things BBC Radio, but also BBC TV put out, example ;; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNJoQwMnCMc

However, we're only seeing top tier shit getting exported out of the UK. I'm pretty sure the UK is still full of scummy braindead chavs who listen to Katy Perry and watch CSI, despite BoC/Burial/AFX, etctetctctctctc, being right on their doorstep. Or so I am told! ^^

I don't know why it exists, or what it all means, but I suspect all of Europe is that way, just that the UK are the most relatable as they're the only other primary English speakers.

20k people tuning into the livestream is REALLY marginal.

I prefer Manchester for music culture but I don't know if that's just because I'm more familiar with it.

Leeds knows how to throw a good party and I've heard nothing but good things from Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Never been amazed with anything in London yet as I find it's all a bit showy and pigeon holed.

I think the UK has a good electronic scene but it's kinda hidden with amongst the rest of the diversity and niche electronic/IDM/experimental has gone by-the-by as such where in Europe there are still healthy areas if interest with many event's that would never happen over here which maybe a language barrier thing or a more universal acceptance of none lyrical based music.