Complextro, new electro, or the same thing with a new name?

[DJelixeR]

So me and some of my more musically inclined friends have been disagreeing over whether or not Complextro should be considered an offshoot of Electro House or if it is just Electro houes and people just call some songs complextro and some electro. There argument is that even though the sounds change a lot, its just electro which i think is a terrible argument ( i may be tilting what they say in my favor ) whereas my argument is that the different arrangment of multiple sounds, complex layering and heavier beats distiguish it against common forms of electro. here are some key examples of what EYE (eye so you can see the emphasis ) consider complextro





And so my question again, do you consider complextro a legitimate sub genre as I do? or are there just some electro songs with a lot of sounds and some without? excited for feedback

[DJelixeR]

also to prove my point that I believe that it's its own genre, here is my attempt at making complextro. feedback would be appreciated!

[Xonetacular]

I have to say "complextro" has to be one of the dumbest pretentious names for a subgenre I've heard. I don't know how anyone could seriously call their music complextro with a straight face.

People have been making this stuff for a while...



Whether or not you want to call it a different genre or not depends on how much you want to split up genres. They're slightly different styles- the part that bothers me is the name makes it sound like it is so self important and different from everything else, which maybe isn't such a bad thing since it's not really house music so maybe it's good to start labeling it accordingly.

[cymptom]

I think it should have a separate label too, but complextro? That's as bad as "intelligent dance music". I'm sure most "complextro" producers would not be too happy to have that pretentious label slapped on their name.

[Calum]

the funniest thing is there's nothing complex about it really

[TommyQuiet]

its music just enjoy it.

[JERC OFFICIAL]

Porter Robinson backhandedly called it Complextro on Facebook one time and it took off. He's to blame haha

[Era 7]

i refuse to use that term. it really is just glitchy electro house with brostep influences. just call it electro house.

[Xonetacular]

Porter Robinson backhandedly called it Complextro on Facebook one time and it took off. He's to blame haha

He would be responsible for that name... he is so full of himself I'm sure he genuinely believes it is complex music.

From urban dictionary on compelxtro

"This style of music is almost always confused with dubstep, mostly in the case of Skrillex, and Porter Robinson who are two artists currently raping the shit out the genre. Along with them is Wolfgang Gartner, and the aforementioned SebastiAn, and while there are new artists rising, the complexity and difficulty of producing complextro tracks usually makes this genre only fit for the select few."

There is absolutely nothing complex or difficult about combining 20 Massive presets you got from a pack and jamming them together- if anything it is incredibly easy to produce since there is so little musicality- evidence by hundreds to thousands of amateur producers on soundcloud doing it.

I'm not going to lie, I used to really like this stuff about a year ago when it was still kind of new and different but now it is so overdone and stale with so many people producing it and I just can't listen to it anymore more than a song or two let alone an hour straight of it.

Even the producers that were pushing it have topped out and don't really know what to do. I really liked the first couple tracks mord fustang put out, now he's put out like 10+ more tracks and an EP and every song sounds identical with a slightly different arrangement and he uses the exact same patches so it sounds like 10 versions of the same song. Same can be said for a lot of these guys.

[witchbutter]

There has been a natural progression of synth sound going back to the 1960s. The current infatuation with warped and spectrally thickened bass sounds, to me, is just a progression of that trend. A particular type of synthesized sound does not a genre make.

What I notice about the current state of electronic music is our DAWs have exponentially higher processor power especially in the laptop form factor and sample warping algorithms have become seriously refined. You can do more in a laptop today than you could have done with a stack of expensive external digital synthesizers 10 years ago. That's what has changed the sound.

The reality here is that dubstep ( a subgenre which does not need additional subgenres ) is a fad. It's been around maybe 8 years and is already creatively exhausted. The fact that we hear about a genre like "Complextro" from reputable sites like Beatport should tell you something about its nature--the name only exists to sell you more shit. This is house, and electro house if you must. And like every dance genre only about 15% of the music you can preview is worth listening to.

When i was in the peak of my djing about 10 years ago the gamut of dance techno sounds were not much different than they are now and the genres were delineated differently. Do you remember when it was a huge argument about what was jungle vs drum & bass? It didn't matter then and it doesn't matter now.

To me the greatest tragedy of dubstep, brostep, complextro etc. is what has happened with its fans. When I went to see Caspa all that people would do is rock themselves up and down with one hand in the air, text message and pass joints. There was no actual dancing and no community feel that I used to get when I would go see Orbital or Aphex Twin. I like a lot of dubstep but after several crappy shows I will only be listening to it via iTunes.