Electronic music and social class

DarrenDay

I've always thought techno was in Dublin was a very middle class thing. Why do decent, well educated sorts drift towards techno and the rougher elements towards trance and **** like that?

Android 666

DarrenDay wrote: »

I've always thought techno was in Dublin was a very middle class thing. Why do decent, well educated sorts drift towards techno and the rougher elements towards trance and **** like that?

Because trance makes the hair on shaggy ugg boots go all staticy. Good buzz...

Scubadevils

DarrenDay wrote: »

I've always thought techno was in Dublin was a very middle class thing. Why do decent, well educated sorts drift towards techno and the rougher elements towards trance and **** like that?

Tell me - how did you reach this conclusion?

Android 666

Scubadevils wrote: »

Tell me - how did you reach this conclusion?

Well when I once went to a John O’Callaghan recital I was most aghast at the amount of smelly oiks and festering wenches that were in attendance was most alarming. Ruddy proleteriat!

Scubadevils

No I expect a full analysis, complete with full descriptions of the cloth adorned by both sides of this electronic divide, their choice of ale etc.

DarrenDay

Well just from knowing a lot of promoters and punters from Dublin. A lot of private school lads in there.

Then you have guys like Jonny on the other side of the tracks. Despises education and all its trappings. But loves a good hard house set.

jtsuited

Techno in dublin really couldn't be any more middle class if it tried. Not that that's a bad thing.
The class divide is sooooooo massively evident in electronic music in Ireland. I don't know whether that's a modern phenomenon but anyone who doubts it needs to go to a John O Callaghan gig and then to a Saturday night in the TP.

es-cee

jtsuited wrote: »

Techno in dublin really couldn't be any more middle class if it tried. Not that that's a bad thing.
The class divide is sooooooo massively evident in electronic music in Ireland. I don't know whether that's a modern phenomenon but anyone who doubts it needs to go to a John O Callaghan gig and then to a Saturday night in the TP.

examples? i'm not goin to a JOC gig anytime soon and have only been to the TP once for tango a few weeks back, but i have never noticed a divide or even knew one existed till now lol. just curious how different styles are bein given different classes now, seems odd.

FLYNN-DOG

[. Despises education and all its trappings.]

brilliant

Zascar

This is going to be a great thread. Like it or not it's totally true, I've often wondered why exactly this is... Can someone please do a dissertation/thesis level paper on this to clear things up? Jeff I think this would be great direction for your studying.

Is mise le key

Im a Rave music socialist, no one form of Rave music should be exclusivley for one section of society, equality in music for all!!!!!!!

*Oh wait, that would mean i have to tolerate Paul Van Dyke, fu.ck*

Android 666

Is mise le key wrote: »

Im a Rave music socialist, no one form of Rave music should be exclusivley for one section of society, equality in music for all!!!!!!!

*Oh wait, that would mean i have to tolerate Paul Van Dyke, fu.ck*

Ah sure it doesn't matter Is mise, you won't be able to hear him because you've destroyed your hearing over the years from not wearing ear plugs...

jtsuited

Ironically, I've to go do some paid work today (I say work, but in all honesty, it's not laborious whatsoever), so won't have time to get into a proper dissertation on it, but tonight I'm sure I can rustle up some half-baked theories on this.

Actually, was considering going back to do a phd in the sociology/anthropology/ethnomusicology of electronic music, but as it turns out phd funding for the flaky humanities is nigh on impossible to get at the moment (probably rightly so haha).
I think I'll have to do something else to avoid a proper day's work for the rest of my life.

Btw, the issues of aesthetic taste and socioeconomic class have been well covered by social theorists like Adorno etc., if you are interested, I recommend using him as a starting point. Marx did a good bit about it in Capital too.

ntlbell

Is this a "new" thing?

When I started going out, when dublin was nothing but a field :rolleyes: in the early 90's one of the great things for me was the "scene" knocked down the walls of the usual devides, where conversations in a toilet between bartholomew the trinners proffesor and Pat the painter were common place.

kids today eh, ruin everything.

Is mise le key

Android 666 wrote: »

Ah sure it doesn't matter Is mise, you won't be able to hear him because you've destroyed your hearing over the years from not wearing ear plugs...

Thank jaysus, i wonder if the social aspect to all this is the new direction the rave has gone,

Cool air environment
Keep the music low
Mild narcs in small amounts
zero calorie beer promotions

Bound to attract middle class posers this way:D

joker77

It's a strange one alright, but I also think age plays a large part.

With electronic music the genre/socioeconomic split has become more pronounced over the last few years - as ntlbell said - back in the day you'd find all walks of life in the big dance clubs in town, albeit a slightly higher proportion from the working classes (but maybe that proportion accurately reflected the breakdown in society - most people are working class)

DarrenDay

I think the split happened a long time ago when the middle classes left the imagist clubs due to excessive heroin taking and gun crime. I'm no old school expert living in the past but was Colombia Mills the birthplace of the middle class techno scene?

Interesting points Jeff, I suppose it can be equated to the better class liking jazz etc.

Pace2008

I was a trance enthusiast at the start of my clubbing career and I've attended countless events around the country, from Tiesto gigs in The Point, a string of Tivoli nights till the organisers moved elsewhere, to the infamous mashfest that is Planet Love.

I’m now into the house and techno side of things and I’m out in Crawdaddy most weekends with an occasional trip to the Twisted Pepper for a change of pace (great club, but the smoking area is so unbearably cramped it’s actually a serious deterrent).

The only things these nights have in common is there’s electronic music playing and everyone’s out of it. If you can’t see this you’re deaf and blind, and I’d have to wonder what you’re getting from all the tunes and pretty lights.

old gregg

Crikey I remember strolling down to a Green Velvet (or Blue Velvet or National Velvet or whatever) gig in Waterford a while back and maybe it was the huge spliff a few mins earlier but on arriving was taken aback to find that I was probably going to be one of the very few not wearing a shell suit and burberry cap on top of a menacing visage. I bottled and went off for a few quiet beers instead. Just thought I'd get that off my chest

copeyhagen

cameras ready, prepare to fook off

Android 666

copeyhagen wrote: »

cameras ready, prepare to fook off

copeyhagen

green velvet knee grow

DarrenDay

Are you being racist?

Nolanger

DarrenDay wrote: »

I've always thought techno was in Dublin was a very middle class thing. Why do decent, well educated sorts drift towards techno and the rougher elements towards trance and **** like that?

Yep, Francois and that '90s crowd. Probably too snobby to try hard house/too white for UK garage/too old for dub step/and too young for house?

CraicMusic

Any yokes?

g5fd6ow0hseima

im going to make a load of generalisations here, of which I hope other posters will follow suit as Id hope for some sort of a consensus formed regarding genres and their audiences:

Minimal techno, or shall I say 'mnml' is in my view a pretentious middle class affair, along with such things as deep house - 'Villalobos is god / Omar-S is a genius'. Indeed the whole aura surrounding Mr. Villalobos epitomises this.

With dubstep, ive always thought of it as a half-arsed krusty genre along with drum n bass, although saying that, they would attract a fair amount of techno / house heads.

Electro-House / Tech-House: The former being an introductory genre into electronic music or a staple for hipsters, while the latter.... what the ****? What the **** is tech house? music for people who dont wanna say they're into techno (as techno is a big dirty scummy genre to the masses)? Please, someone inform me.

jonnny68

DarrenDay wrote: »

Well just from knowing a lot of promoters and punters from Dublin. A lot of private school lads in there.

Then you have guys like Jonny on the other side of the tracks. Despises education and all its trappings. But loves a good hard house set.

are you referring to me?

For a start i don't like Hard House and secondly (and what a bizzare thing to say) how on earth did you come to the conclusion that i "despise education":eek: because i had words with jsuited is it, i went to school and college mate, if i "despised education" i would've never went to either.

You may want to actualy think before you post for future reference.

jonnny68

I don't know about nowadays in Dublin probably there is sadly a "class affair" when it comes to dance music but this was never the case years ago although places like the POD used to attract the D4 crowd, im not middle class nor do i profess to be but i used to be massively into the Techno scene in Dublin and you used to get a lot of geeks but at that time it didn't matter how you spoke or where you were from as long as you were into the scene that's all that matters.

DarrenDay

You used to be into techno? What sort of techno acts are we talking here.

And give over boasting about your plc certs, nobody cares.

jonnny68

Is mise le key wrote: »

Im a Rave music socialist, no one form of Rave music should be exclusivley for one section of society, equality in music for all!!!!!!!

*Oh wait, that would mean i have to tolerate Paul Van Dyke, fu.ck*

well said again mate;)

jonnny68

DarrenDay wrote: »

You used to be into techno? What sort of techno acts are we talking here.

And give over boasting about your plc certs, nobody cares.

ive a feeling judging by the number of your posts your already on here and are a troll so ill say no more on the subject.

bildo

Jungle is definitely for middle class whiteboys, that's for sure.

jonnny68

bildo wrote: »

Jungle is definitely for middle class whiteboys, that's for sure.

not necessarily mate,i like Jungle and im not middle class, certainly in London Jungle/Drum & Bass is more of a ghetto thing.

copeyhagen

DarrenDay wrote: »

Are you being racist?

nein

Scubadevils

DarrenDay wrote: »

You used to be into techno? What sort of techno acts are we talking here.

And give over boasting about your plc certs, nobody cares.

Ah tis Billy.

electrogrimey

What a bizarre thread.

Few points. Are we talking about techno specifically? Not house, or tech-house or anything, just techno?

I DJ every Friday in Pod, which is normally kind of house/tech-house, and they had Butch the other week, and the place looked like Ibiza. Shirtless lads pilled off their face and birds wearing nothing but a bra. Definitely not a middle class crowd.

Electro-house is definitely a middle-class hipster crowd.

Dubstep has a few different fan bases, the IDM/D'n'b crowd, the electro-house crowd that jumped on the bandwagon, and the house/techno crowd, so you can't really class dubstep as having it's own exclusive fan base yet I don't think.

I think techno will generally have an older fanbase than house etc, both because it seemed to be more popular years ago, so fans from then have now grown up, and because fans of other genres seem to eventually get into techno. It's kind of a fair assumption that an older crowd will be a less scummy crowd, because most scummers settle down a bit once they get a job etc, and stop throwing rocks at cars and all that.

Also, Johnny, why do you always post 2/3 times in a row? Just make one long post.

Zascar

Blair Greasy Drivel wrote: »

im going to make a load of generalisations here, of which I hope other posters will follow suit as Id hope for some sort of a consensus formed regarding genres and their audiences:

Minimal techno, or shall I say 'mnml' is in my view a pretentious middle class affair, along with such things as deep house - 'Villalobos is god / Omar-S is a genius'. Indeed the whole aura surrounding Mr. Villalobos epitomises this.

With dubstep, ive always thought of it as a half-arsed krusty genre along with drum n bass, although saying that, they would attract a fair amount of techno / house heads.

Electro-House / Tech-House: The former being an introductory genre into electronic music or a staple for hipsters, while the latter.... what the ****? What the **** is tech house? music for people who dont wanna say they're into techno (as techno is a big dirty scummy genre to the masses)? Please, someone inform me.

I've always said that the lines between Minimal, Tech House and Techno are so grey its sometimes hard to differentiate. I liked Electrohouse when it first became popular but actually as a side started getting into Minimal soon after - when a friend send me a couple of mixes and insisted I listen to them a few times - and I actually quite liked it - despite not likeing Techno at all at that stage. I have Always been into tech house - the kinda of tribal stuff from years back - and it just sort of all came together a few years ago as Electrohouse started to get the Ghey. I was listening to a fair but of plinky-plikny super wanky minimal - which was getting a bit boring, so I then headed towards the more chunky side and into techno - something with more depth.

I don't really play any Minimal any more but I still quite like it sometimes. It was always just going to be a bit of a fad, but the minimial-ish kind of Techno can be great to dance to on a good system if the mood is right. It defintiely was a bit super cool and wanky though - this article comes to mind talking about "Gabriel Ananda's 10-minute percussive epic Doppelwhipper" which funnily enough was the first tune that got me into it. Afaik there were a few 'minimal club nights' but I never went to any, it did not have enough depth to really hold its own for more than the fad it became.

Tech house though, I'm kinda surprised you question it so much Rich. Tech house has always been a staple in my opinion. Its has changed and merged over the years but I think its has remained relatively solid throughout. Compared to many other genre's tech house was bearable to a lot of people who did not really like dance music, but had depth, melody and complexity to those to liked it. Techno is almost to wide a genre by itself to actually judge it under one umberella. It is however for the most part an acquired taste, one that takes a little knowledge and taste to appreciate - hence its more middle class following.

Trance and Hard House etc are I suppose have an easier entry point. And if you are not really that 'into' music and getting more educated around the different type of stuff music wise you'll probably stay listening to the same crap Tiesto pushes out year after year. I remember a few years ago on this forum, in a discussion about trance, asking something along the lines of "Are there any people who are actually knowledgeable about electronic music - that like trance? Or is that just an Oxymoron?" - caused quite the backlash..

Paul1979

jonnny68 wrote: »

not necessarily mate,i like Jungle and im not middle class, certainly in London Jungle/Drum & Bass is more of a ghetto thing.

d&b/jungle was a ghetto thing in london untill about 95/96 when the (what was known in london as) "house & garage"scene took over overnight (house and garage later became what is now known as uk garage, literally in 24hrs all the pirate stations switched over and clubs soon followed, by 97 d&b was dead (in that "scene")

from that moment on d&b became middle class and krusty (my experience from living in london at that time anyway)

Android 666

jonnny68 wrote: »

not necessarily mate,i like Jungle and im not middle class, certainly in London Jungle/Drum & Bass is more of a ghetto thing.

I like Jungle and I'm middle class. I've got the Amnesty International membership to prove it...

jtsuited

electrogrimey wrote: »

What a bizarre thread.

Few points. Are we talking about techno specifically? Not house, or tech-house or anything, just techno?

I DJ every Friday in Pod, which is normally kind of house/tech-house, and they had Butch the other week, and the place looked like Ibiza. Shirtless lads pilled off their face and birds wearing nothing but a bra. Definitely not a middle class crowd.

just to point out something here, the pod complex always has the capability on any night to get a dodgy dodgy crowd in there. When I used to play in there, the odd night would be exactly as you described but the next week would be a completely different demographic, even though the music was the exact same.

Zascar

On a slightly related note, why is it that there is a an almost complete absense of women at Dublin Techno gigs, whereas overseas there seems to be a much healthier mix...

joker77

Zascar wrote: »

On a slightly related note, why is it that there is a an almost complete absense of women at Dublin Techno gigs, whereas overseas there seems to be a much healthier mix...

Why not ask all the ladies that post on this forum?

It's a little odd that there is such a huge difference in the male/female breakdown. Is it that message boards in general are populated by mostly males?

copeyhagen

joker77 wrote: »

Why not ask all the ladies that post on this forum?

they're probably all still recovering from deadmau5 last night

Zascar

Haha http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?threadid=2056119389

BaZmO*

I think you could just as easily say "Music and social class" as "Electronic music and social class"

There's always a class divide when it comes to music. I think it's just become more noticeable in Electronic music due to constant, and frankly boring, pigeon-holing and labelling of the different genres.

I've always seen Techno as the Electronic version of Radiohead. With most fans made up of students, and middle class men.

old gregg

Psytrance - music to cross all social divides and unite the masses into one big psychedelic love-in of peace and harmony and happy karmic vibrations that will heal the land and bring prosperity to one and all

Android 666

Zascar wrote: »

Haha http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?threadid=2056119389

I think that most win a prize for the stupidest fooking thread ever:

- Girls are stupid and don't like good music
- Yes they do!
- No they don't!
- Yes they do and I should know because I'm a fella that pets kittens
- No they don't and you're ghey
- Yes they do because I'm a girl that can list some indie bands

ad fooking nauseum…

jtsuited

honest to jesus, after hours is bloody grim. I wonder what I could do in there to get myself a permaban just to save me the couple of minutes I lose every week being intrigued by the amount of idiocy on there.

jtsuited

BaZmO* wrote: »

I've always seen Techno as the Electronic version of Radiohead. With most fans made up of students, and middle class men.

To get all anecdotal on this, Radiohead are my all time favourite band, and obviously I'm into techno. And I'm a middle class man who still wants to be a student. All boxes ticked!:D

BaZmO*

jtsuited wrote: »

honest to jesus, after hours is bloody grim. I wonder what I could do in there to get myself a permaban just to save me the couple of minutes I lose every week being intrigued by the amount of idiocy on there.

After Hours, the tabloid wing of Boards Ltd.

electrogrimey

I don't get the Radiohead - techno thing. Radiohead to be are on the end of rock(?) music with much more artistic merit and complexity, but I don't consider techno to be that equivalent for dance music, that'd be IDM for me.