Classification of Electronic Music Genre's

Zascar

Is it just me or is everyone else getting really tired of how people are getting so anal about classification of sub genre's in electronic music. I've seen it here a few times and on other boards even more, people arguing pointlessly over what artist or tunes fits into what category. Electro (or ElectroHouse ) probably gets the most confusion as of late, but really that genre is just open to a beating in almost all areas for some reason.

Just look at how many different genre's are in this list from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_electronic_music_genres - I don't see any real point in being so specific and selcective about music. Most tunes will fit into 2 or more genre's anyway, depending on who you ask...

I posted a message on another forum some time ago looking for some minimal recommendations, I mentioned a few artists I like so far to give people an idea. A few members just chose to thrash my examples, laughing at them, and calling them Commercial Minimal (I didn't really think there was such a thing tbh) and that i cannot be serious cause what I thought was minimal was more tech and progressive house.

WHO THE FCUK CARES!!!

Everyone should just relax and enjoy it for what it is... just music. I regularly surprise myself by liking a tune only to later find out it is classified as either a genre I generally am not a fan of - doesn't mean I don't like the tune!

MikeHoncho

Agreed.

hans aus dtschl

absolutely

I'm here to promote the club night I'm resident at, myself.
I play stuff and other stuff. The punters know exactly what they're paying their hard earned non-specific currency to get in for.
60% of the time, the description works every time.



I assume ye all know exactly what I play?

Oh wait...no...maybe the pigeonhole thing could be used for something after all....? No??

No, probably not.

I'm off to do thing in place, and not be specific about it.


PS electro house has nothing whatsoever to do with electro...Think I might make that my signature.

hans aus dtschl

I agree that all of the use of stupid sub-genres is terrible, but basically, if people were educated enough to know that ELECTRO HOUSE is just HOUSE, maybe I wouldn't spend hours trawling through mixes by people who are playing pop music, when I'm trying to find electro.

I don't call my music "death metal techno" electro, because its not.

Accordingly, stop calling crappy sawtooth house "electro"

Its not.

Selik

hans aus dtschl wrote: »

I agree that all of the use of stupid sub-genres is terrible, but basically, if people were educated enough to know that ELECTRO HOUSE is just HOUSE, maybe I wouldn't spend hours trawling through mixes by people who are playing pop music, when I'm trying to find electro.

I don't call my music "death metal techno" electro, because its not.

Accordingly, stop calling crappy sawtooth house "electro"

Its not.

This is one and has always been one my pet hates - the whole electro-house thing suddenly turning into "electro" which it obviously isn't and never will be to anybody who knows there stuff on electronic music of today and the past.

The problem is that even the producers of this music themselves are calling it electro these days - maybe coz it does or rather did sound a bit cooler or retro than the hybrid word of electro-house. This in turn feeds into the DJs and the punters, some of whom wouldn't have even been born when real electro was first being made.

Bottom line, it doesn't really matter of course - but for some reason I find it intensely annoying, especially when DJs etc who really should no better starting talking about how "into" electro" they've become and how much of they play and everythign else bores them or isn't "electro-y" enough. Fair enough if their fave artists were the likes of Tipper, Si Beggs. Redioactive Man etc but that usually isn't the case!

I don't even like proper electro much or that much electro-house for the record. Obviously certain tunes here and there can be excellent but they are few and far between, and further between than most genres at that. It's a a (sub)genre that's completely run out of steam imho. Minimal is going down the same road too however it's still a much more solid type of sound which can still develop so much further along the lines that straight up house and techno have over the years.

So with all this (admittedly silly!) genre-talk, I think I'll nominate the next big thing genre-wise for 2008 - Fidget / Fidget-house. Very little to do with house really in fairness and alot of it can be pretty ropey but there's also plenty of great tracks coming out not that would be considered this type of music. It's an extension of the sound which Switch pretty much invented but I have to say the guys doing it now are for me are already making better tracks than he had in the past. My brand new Spring 2008 promo which I have yet to record will definitely reflect this.

Artists to watch out for and some of my faves too include the following below:

Some are new enough kids off the block and some have been around for ages but all are currently pioneers or would-be pioneers of the bass-line influenced fidgety tearout sound.

Trevor Loveys
Sinden
Santiago & Bushido
Justin Martin
Speakerjunk (Herve and Loveys together)
Lee Mortimer aka Sawtooth Sucka
Chris Duckenfield (aka SWAG)
Herve / aka The Count of Monte Cristal (also has a bunch of other aliases, too many to list!)
Jesse Rose
Crookers
Duke Dumont
Geoff K
Catz & Jnr J
The Bulgarian
Riva Starr

jtsuited

right now, i think it's really easy to figure it out. there's only a handful of main labels

1. Minimal - that's an easy one
2. tech house - bit more funky minimal with more going on but musically very similar to minimal
3. electro house - big dirty analogue basslines, everyone knows the sound by now.
4.progressive house - like tech house done in a synthpop kind of way. Sounds very like a trancy version of house/minimal/tech house.
5.Breaks - breakbeat related stuff (not a fan at all)

Anywho they're the big genres in the dance music world at the moment.
Sub-genres tend to be made up by the labels themselves and then perpetuated by pretentious **** who say things like

"Deep funky minimal prog/italo/acid/gabba - if you're into that you've got to go to Estonia. That's where that whole movement started. Everything you hear nowadays that's called Deep funky minimal prog/italo/acid/gabba these days is actually ****e that's rippin off a whole scene in Tallinn. Blah blah blah"

cornbb

The ultimate guide to electronic music genres must be Ishkur's guide: http://techno.org/electronic-music-guide/

Then again of course thats all very subjective too, as all discussion of genres in music is. But it does give an indication of the diversity of stuff thats out there. I think thats where genres and labelling come in handy - they provide a rough guide to finding the new music that you might like, based on style. E.g. "I love The Orb, they have been called ambient house, so maybe I'll try The KLF next".

So I think genres and subclassification are useful, from that point of view. Its just that:

- Arguing that a particular artist should belong in Subgenre B rather than Subgenre A is pointless
- Dismissing an entire genre as crap because you don't like what you've heard is stupid

I just find the whole thing fairly interesting tbh, its interesting to trace an artist's influences back to their roots by exploring the different genres that evolved over time, leading to the styles we hear today.

So in brief: I don't think that genres or subgenres are pointless, I just think that pedantically arguing over the finer points of classification is pointless.

Executive Steve

except Ishkur's guide, as a rule of thumb, is absolute rubbish.

francois

2 categories should be enough-great and ****!

cornbb

[cm]tyranny wrote: »

except Ishkur's guide, as a rule of thumb, is absolute rubbish.

Some people are bound to think every classification system is rubbish as its so subjective. The guy obviously has a broad knowledge of electronic music but his choices might not even overlap with the choices of someone with similarly broad but completely different tastes. I like home-listening electronic music like abstract hiphop, ambient house, IDM etc. Its the sort of stuff that Ishkur's guide covers well, so I couldn't give a crap if he doesn't give a detailed breakdown of the questionable dance music from the last few years.

francois wrote: »

2 categories should be enough-great and ****!

Again with the subjective thing...

Executive Steve

cornbb wrote: »

Some people are bound to think every classification system is rubbish as its so subjective. The guy obviously has a broad knowledge of electronic music but his choices might not even overlap with the choices of someone with similarly broad but completely different tastes. I like home-listening electronic music like abstract hiphop, ambient house, IDM etc. Its the sort of stuff that Ishkur's guide covers well, so I couldn't give a crap if he doesn't give a detailed breakdown of the questionable dance music from the last few years.



Again with the subjective thing...

nothing subjective about it mate - if you're going to set yourself up as a guide and as an authority to the various strands of electronic music the least you can do is know what you're talking about.

as for what he likes and dislikes i couldn't care less; i think he's at least good enough to not let his personal tastes get in the way of most of his descriptions; he's just quite off the mark on a lot of pretty basic stuff.

again, his choices are irrelevant so

i don't know whay the hell you think you're talking about when you say I like home-listening electronic music like abstract hiphop, ambient house, IDM etc. Its the sort of stuff that Ishkur's guide covers well, so I couldn't give a crap if he doesn't give a detailed breakdown of the questionable dance music from the last few years.

"ambient house" was coined as a joke in an interview with the nme

his hip hop section is pretty rubbish as well and, along with most of the material on offer, betrays a terminal lack of historical perspective or wider knowledge of the actual genres, scenes that shaped them, geographical origins, and scenes they spawned. Come on... Coldcut "Timber" = "abstract hip hop"?

as for IDM granted he makes a cursory attempt to add in the whole musique concreete and avant garde movements, but i suspect you just think i'm an illiterate glowstick chomping loon and you picked three genres you don't own any music of (just soulseeked mp3's eh) that you think might make you look "grown up".

come back and try again when you're old enough to have been around the block and know what you're talking about.

cornbb

[cm]tyranny wrote: »

as for IDM granted he makes a cursory attempt to add in the whole musique concreete and avant garde movements, but i suspect you just think i'm an illiterate glowstick chomping loon and you picked three genres you don't own any music of (just soulseeked mp3's eh) that you think might make you look "grown up".

come back and try again when you're old enough to have been around the block and know what you're talking about.

Hold on a minute now. Don't try to second guess what mp3s my electronic music collection does or doesn't contain buddy, I haven't commented on your music tastes and you certainly don't deserve to comment on mine. See the Experimental Music forum for discussions I've had on the music I described and that I certainly do own. I don't care what your "scene" is or how many times you've been around the block.

I will say again that any musical classification system is subjective. Everyone's tastes are different, Ishkur makes this clear on disclaimer for the site where he emphasises that its there for entertainment purposes and is heavily biased by his own tastes.

I haven't found a better guide to electronic music on the internet. If you want to pick holes in historical inaccuracies please go right ahead, but at least back them up. I noticed you haven't given any examples (apart from saying that Coldcut isn't abstract hip-hop, which is a subjective opinion, and one that I completely disagree with). I disagree with a lot of his opinions myself - he doesn't make any differentiation whatsoever between IDM and Experimental for example. That doesn't make the guide any less informative and entertaining though.

BaZmO*

I find it ironic that Zascar started off by saying how annoying it can be when people start
"...arguing pointlessly over what artist or tunes fits into what category..." and then that's exactly what happens in the thread.


The only reason for the classification of music types/genres is to in some way give a indication, in words, as to what the type of music you're describing is similar to. It's just an indication and imo not to be taken as Gospel as it can be very subjective.

hans aus dtschl

Thats a nice way of putting it Bazmo, but when people **** up in their naming of a genre (there is SOME order to the naming of genres) people will get upset, and get specific.

My "electro house = electro" hatred knows no bounds.


PS its NOT electro.

BaZmO*

hans aus dtschl wrote: »

but when people **** up in their naming of a genre (there is SOME order to the naming of genres) people will get upset

Well if that's all they have to get upset about they mustn't have too many worries in their lives!

hans aus dtschl

I'm very upset about it, personally.

cornbb

BaZmO* wrote: »

I find it ironic that Zascar started off by saying how annoying it can be when people start
"...arguing pointlessly over what artist or tunes fits into what category..." and then that's exactly what happens in the thread.


The only reason for the classification of music types/genres is to in some way give a indication, in words, as to what the type of music you're describing is similar to. It's just an indication and imo not to be taken as Gospel as it can be very subjective.

Yes, I completely agree and I don't want to get sucked into pedantic discussions about pigeonholing and classification.

BaZmO* wrote: »

Well if that's all they have to get upset about they mustn't have too many worries in their lives!

The only word I get upset about is "electronica", a bullsh1t meaningless word popularised by Madonna in order to sound cool

Executive Steve

cornbb wrote: »

doesn't make the guide any less informative and entertaining though.

it does; it makes it less informative


it's still "entertaining"


not "informative"

cornbb

[cm]tyranny wrote: »

it does; it makes it less informative


it's still "entertaining"


not "informative"

Of course its informative. Occasionally inaccurate, occasionally opinionated, but how on earth is it not informative?

Zascar

BaZmO* wrote: »

I find it ironic that Zascar started off by saying how annoying it can be when people start
"...arguing pointlessly over what artist or tunes fits into what category..." and then that's exactly what happens in the thread.

The only reason for the classification of music types/genres is to in some way give a indication, in words, as to what the type of music you're describing is similar to. It's just an indication and imo not to be taken as Gospel as it can be very subjective.

Exactly.

The reason I'd assume most people called "Electro House" "Electro" is just cause Electrohouse is a bit of a mouthful, and if you say "My favourite music is tech house and electro" - 99% of people will know what you mean. Here are some examples of "Electro" from the wikipedia article - radically different and not easily confused. It's not exactly a big "Problem" in the world of Electronic music...

Oh, and I see nothing wrong with using the phrase "Electronica". I think it's quite apt actually!

hans aus dtschl

Zascar wrote: »

Exactly.

The reason I'd assume most people called "Electro House" "Electro" is just cause Electrohouse is a bit of a mouthful, and if you say "My favourite music is tech house and electro" - 99% of people will know what you mean. Here are some examples of "Electro" from the wikipedia article - radically different and not easily confused. It's not exactly a big "Problem" in the world of Electronic music...

Oh, and I see nothing wrong with using the phrase "Electronica". I think it's quite apt actually!

I'm sorry, if someone said they were listening to tech house and electro, 99% of people will disregard the description and think "I bet they REALLY listen to electro house and tech house"

?

How does that work?

If I tell you I listen to electro, what am I referring to, Zascar?


If I tell you, online, that I'm French, and 50 years old, do you extrapolate, and think "he's a French Canadian 15 year old" because it's more of a likely scenario?



Either use the description or don't at all, IMO.

People saying they listen to techno, when they're listening to euro-trance/pop music I can understand, but people making "electro" mixes, with no electro in them, I find a little tougher to empathize with.

Zascar

You're not wrong - I'm just saing it doesnt bother me and I don't see the need to be pedantic about it...

hans aus dtschl

Ah....indeed....

I am very guilty of getting pedantic about it, but in the wise words of peter griffin; it really grinds my gears!