Electronic Music's "Grunge Moment?"

http://www.theverge.com/2015/12/3/9843888/electronic-music-grunge-arca-oneohtrix-point-never-sophie

This has got to be one of the strangest pieces of music journalism that I've ever read. The guy obviously knows plenty about music in general and different bands, but has the most twisted sense of history when it comes to electronic music. Apparently gritty, abstract electronic music has only existed in the past year:

  Quote

 

 

Two of the nascent genre’s cornerstones have been released within the last few weeks.Garden of Delete, Daniel Lopatin’s latest LP as Oneohtrix Point Never, was released on November 13th; Mutant, Alejandro Ghersi’s second full-length as Arca, came out a week later on November 20th. Garden of Delete cribs its structure and dynamics from EDM’s most aggressive forms — think Skrillex’s face-searing dubstep — but the palette is completely different.

And uh...

  Quote

 

 

Artists like Clark or Nicolas Jaar, Actress or Burial, or even Aphex Twin or Boards of Canada are no strangers to the dark, but their music still has a passing regard for structure, melody, and familiarity. They may be foreboding or even haunting, but they want to please.

Or by a "grunge moment" does he mean that Oneohtrix's singles will begin charting in the Billboard 100 and we'll see a lip synched version of "Ezra" on the next Top of the Pops Christmas special?

The underground to mainstream crossover must be what he's referring to. Probably will never happen at the same scale, though.

Electronic music's grunge moment was around the same time as grunge's grunge moment, in the UK at least. UFOrb being a number 1 album, FSOL and Aphex having high charting singles.

I love me some grunge but music journalists stay reachin'

The Verge's "evolution" into a general culture site has been p embarrassing.

The verge's gunge moment. He probably saw how many pages garden of delete has on watmm and was out of things to write about that week. We have speculated though that those kids that were in to bro step and the like would reach for some thing more as they aged a couple of years, but really there hasn't been an explosion of intresting electronica to support this, certainly I hope it never happens with opn, that shit is boring arse wank music for chin stroking muscally inept losenars. On top of that it can't even claim to be 'new' sounding.

There's always this awful consensus-type hype for some moderately weird stuff in mainstream media. Has to do with certain pop appeal (cool arty visuals and charming marketing by 0pn or shadow producing for pop divas like FKA twigs, Bjork and what not by Arca). Fuckin' normies.

  On 12/5/2015 at 3:56 PM, purlieu said:

Electronic music's grunge moment was around the same time as grunge's grunge moment, in the UK at least. UFOrb being a number 1 album, FSOL and Aphex having high charting singles.

Yeah and the Prodigy and Fat Boy Slim and Chemical Brothers and Goldie and Massive Attack and and and.. It feels like in the 90s half of the stuff in top 40 was electronic music.

  On 12/5/2015 at 4:21 PM, doublename said:

The Verge's "evolution" into a general culture site has been p embarrassing.

sent using magic space waves

  On 12/5/2015 at 4:45 PM, mokz said:

 

  On 12/5/2015 at 3:56 PM, purlieu said:

Electronic music's grunge moment was around the same time as grunge's grunge moment, in the UK at least. UFOrb being a number 1 album, FSOL and Aphex having high charting singles.

 

Yeah and the Prodigy and Fat Boy Slim and Chemical Brothers and Goldie and Massive Attack and and and.. It feels like in the 90s half of the stuff in top 40 was electronic music.

 

I thought the brostep fad a few years ago was more akin to a grunge comparison: Skrillex and Diplo help push al lot that stuff pretty mainstream, to the point where it was in commercials and even my mom was asking about "dubstep" because some kids who worked at her business mentioned it.

  On 12/6/2015 at 5:54 PM, joshuatx said:

 

  On 12/5/2015 at 4:45 PM, mokz said:

 

  On 12/5/2015 at 3:56 PM, purlieu said:

Electronic music's grunge moment was around the same time as grunge's grunge moment, in the UK at least. UFOrb being a number 1 album, FSOL and Aphex having high charting singles.

 

Yeah and the Prodigy and Fat Boy Slim and Chemical Brothers and Goldie and Massive Attack and and and.. It feels like in the 90s half of the stuff in top 40 was electronic music.

 

 

I thought the brostep fad a few years ago was more akin to a grunge comparison: Skrillex and Diplo help push al lot that stuff pretty mainstream, to the point where it was in commercials and even my mom was asking about "dubstep" because some kids who worked at her business mentioned it.

 

Yeah, maybe it makes a difference on which side of the Atlantic you are. :) In Europe electronic music in general hasn't ever been really that underground (as purlieu said).

Could you have imagined this shit going on in US television in 1989?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wx-4a2pgj9g

  On 12/6/2015 at 5:54 PM, joshuatx said:

 

  On 12/5/2015 at 4:45 PM, mokz said:

 

  On 12/5/2015 at 3:56 PM, purlieu said:

Electronic music's grunge moment was around the same time as grunge's grunge moment, in the UK at least. UFOrb being a number 1 album, FSOL and Aphex having high charting singles.

 

Yeah and the Prodigy and Fat Boy Slim and Chemical Brothers and Goldie and Massive Attack and and and.. It feels like in the 90s half of the stuff in top 40 was electronic music.

I thought the brostep fad a few years ago was more akin to a grunge comparison: Skrillex and Diplo help push al lot that stuff pretty mainstream, to the point where it was in commercials and even my mom was asking about "dubstep" because some kids who worked at her business mentioned it.

Seems this author missed the boat and we must call for his dismissal for the offensive misuse of incompatible parallels. It's the ejw way. Ready the twitter campaign. heheh.

  On 12/6/2015 at 6:09 PM, mokz said:

 

  On 12/6/2015 at 5:54 PM, joshuatx said:

 

  On 12/5/2015 at 4:45 PM, mokz said:

 

  On 12/5/2015 at 3:56 PM, purlieu said:

Electronic music's grunge moment was around the same time as grunge's grunge moment, in the UK at least. UFOrb being a number 1 album, FSOL and Aphex having high charting singles.

 

Yeah and the Prodigy and Fat Boy Slim and Chemical Brothers and Goldie and Massive Attack and and and.. It feels like in the 90s half of the stuff in top 40 was electronic music.

I thought the brostep fad a few years ago was more akin to a grunge comparison: Skrillex and Diplo help push al lot that stuff pretty mainstream, to the point where it was in commercials and even my mom was asking about "dubstep" because some kids who worked at her business mentioned it.

Yeah, maybe it makes a difference on which side of the Atlantic you are. :) In Europe electronic music in general hasn't ever been really that underground (as purlieu said).

 

Could you have imagined this shit going on in US television in 1989?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wx-4a2pgj9g

tru dat