Is EDM Killing Techno/House?

[squidot]

that's right, back in the days when mtv played mostly music and they had whole blocks of time dedicated to underground electronic stull...although it was on at like 2 or 3 am. i'm a night owl and worked swing shift so i watched it a lot. that and 120 minutes when it was still going on.

[Lilac]

I've noticed in my own home town that the club scene has exploded with the EDM culture. Rare is it to find a club/venue that plays pure House and Techno.

We used to have a decent venue that hosted underground nights on a bi-weekly or at the very least, monthly basis. However, Tiesto happened to come along and destroy our sacred establishment. Tiesto demanded that the club be opened up (the club has an upstairs and downstairs) so as to accommodate a larger amount of people. The stage was moved to the 2nd floor balcony which over looked the main room, and the upstairs wall which separated the two rooms was removed so people could view Tiesto from directly across.

In the process of doing this, the club owners managed to ruin the sound system and acoustics of the secondary room. Any time there's an underground night, there's conflicting sound from the downstairs mainroom which plays pop/rap/EDM so it throws the dancers off and requires you to awkwardly beatmatch to dance.

They put up another wall since then but the sound has never recovered. The owners saw more money in the mainstream EDM movement and focused their resources towards the growth of that scene instead. So now we're left with a venue that has flat sound and poor service. It's obvious that the owners don't put their all into developing or promoting the second room of the club and it shows in the atmosphere. Now I've heard that they want to shut down the second room and revamp it, which I only hope can be for the better and not the worse. The second room has slowly started to loose money and it's customer basis, with fewer regulars showing up each event.

We've been trying to ferment an underground scene but it seems that some people are too occupied with their own business at the moment (we had one successful underground night at an undisclosed venue put on by ourselves with no outside promoter).

I really want to see the underground thrive but I'm not quite sure how to go about it, and I fear that Techno/Underground is fading away. Do people just not like Techno/House? I know there's a small group of dedicated fans here but no one to coalesce them.

How is the underground scene in your area, is it a loss cause trying to support Techno? Is the future EDM/Pop? What are your thoughts on this matter?

It's really not a problem here in London. Maybe it's just because it's such a vast city but if you're into anything, search hard enough and yee shall find.

[backtothefront]

It's really not a problem here in London. Maybe it's just because it's such a vast city but if you're into anything, search hard enough and yee shall find.

I tend to agree with this. I don't there is such an issue in the UK in general.

My view is 'EDM' is mostly a recent (last couple of years) US phenomena; basically a shift away from the traditional staple diet of R&B, Rap, Rock and Country which generally dominates the US Top40. Now we have US R&B/Rap artists teaming up with dance music producers to knock out commercial, chart friendly pop electronic music or 'EDM' as it's known. UK/Europe went through something similar in terms of big, charting dance music in the 90's - this still happens to some extent but the underground dance music scene (of many different genres) is well established for 2 decades now.

Someone mentioned elitism further up the thread, I don't think this is the case, moreover a frustration that 'EDM' is dominating the attention of the wider listenership, particularly in the US who are just beginning to get in to 4/4 dance music albeit not a particularly good version of it and who don't know any better than Guetta. Don't get me wrong this is not a dig at the US, House Music originated from there but it was in the UK & Europe where it exploded in the early 90's. The US are just catching up to some extent.

[Jack Bastard]

I posted this in the Green Day thread but this is probably a better place to post it -

It's the same story that's been repeated many times over the last 60 years or so.

Underground scene in US starts something -> Gets completely ignored by the vast majority of the population of the US -> Gets picked up by the Brits/Euros -> Gets sold back in some horribly diluted form back to the US mainstream who lap it up.

Fortunately this is not a problem in the UK generally.

[BradCee]

But in the meantime he completely destroyed our scene... Wouldn't you feel displaced after something like that?? He doesn't even pay DJs to spin and expects them to do all the promoting.

for all thoses reasons; fuck.him

[ToOntown]

yup, i also remember brown paper bag by roni size being played all the time along with aphex twin late at night on mtv. crazy days.

AMP was the reason I got into electronic music. Aphex Twin's "Come to Daddy" changed my life.

[ToOntown]

Underground scene in US starts something -> Gets completely ignored by the vast majority of the population of the US -> Gets picked up by the Brits/Euros -> Gets sold back in some horribly diluted form back to the US mainstream who lap it up.

It's true. Look at the mullet as an example. For a long time only backwoods rednecks had mullets. Before you know it, David Beckham is sporting a mullet. Footballers and punters everywhere take to it. Now mullets are everywhere.

[Jack Bastard]

It's true. Look at the mullet as an example. For a long time only backwoods rednecks had mullets. Before you know it, David Beckham is sporting a mullet. Footballers and punters everywhere take to it. Now mullets are everywhere.

I was thinking more along the lines of rock and roll, punk, house and techno, but mullets work too.

[souldancer]

Since house came along, the genres with in it have shifted. And this will go on. in 1986 all the punk and new wavers told me house would die a quick death. It's still here. In 1989 Gabber techno etcetera started to take their place, and i had dj friends that had the same worries like you. Gabber took a flight and became hardcore. But look in 2012 house is still here.

If you want to stay into your genre find a new place or adapt and work and educate the crowd that you have by integrating some of the stuff that you like. And win them back.

[Bl4ck3n3D]

Since house came along, the genres with in it have shifted. And this will go on. in 1986 all the punk and new wavers told me house would die a quick death. It's still here. In 1989 Gabber techno etcetera started to take their place, and i had dj friends that had the same worries like you. Gabber took a flight and became hardcore. But look in 2012 house is still here.

If you want to stay into your genre find a new place or adapt and work and educate the crowd that you have by integrating some of the stuff that you like. And win them back.

This is a very helpful insight, to adapt and work the crowd into the underground. Perhaps adapting to the changing house landscape by including modern hits and implementing my own style of Techno, maybe, just maybe I could slowly ween the kids into the underground music. The main thing is that I want to play out, but since there's no stable venue at the moment, the scene is in a stasis at the moment.

I want to breath new life into the scene, I know there's people out there that love Techno/House, there's just no stability with the venue situation and the current promoters are more keen on dragging in the cash rather than promoting the scene (atleast from what I have gathered). So I guess that means that those of us who are passionate about this music, have to step up to the plate and get things done ourselves.