You are not a "techno" fan. Shut up.
Submitted by AlacritMusic on Tue, 08/22/2006 - 11:36
Tags:
- So I’m kinda sick of people trying to impress me by stating that they’re "techno" fans. No you’re not. You don’t even know what the word "techno" means because you just used it in that context to impress me. Douche.
- Here’s the huge-ass catch. To prove to me they like this imaginary genre they think they know, they play a song for me out of the 25 categories I have listed below.
- “Blood Rave” from the first Blade movie. The ten minute long version. The one you can easily find by searching “techno” on a free download browser.
- Darude’s “Sandstorm.” Usually, on more than one occasion, it’s the version ranging from 9 to 23 minutes.
- Benny Benassi’s “Satisfaction.” Damn you, Burger King.
- “Heaven” by DJ Sammy, Yanou and Do. Most people wouldn't even know any of the artists past DJ Sammy. If even that.
- Enigma’s “Sadeness.”
- Zombie Nation’s “Kernkraft 400.” Also referred to as Kernkraft 400's "Zombie Nation" by a "techno" fan. Riiiiight.
- Crazy Frog’s “Axel F.”
- Vengaboy’s “We Like to Party.” …I substitute that with anything by the Vengaboys, for that matter.
- Eiffel 65’s “Blue (Da Ba Dee).”
- The Immortals "Techno Syndrome." Ya know, that famous repetitive stadium house cheer song from the (oh god no!) Mortal Kombat movie series.
- Cascada’s “Every Time we Touch.”
- Amber’s “This is Your Night”
- One minute versions of DDR sound tracks. A lot of the songs listed on this top catastrophe are included in single minute edits.
- Daft Punk’s “One More Time.” People mainly love this song due to the music video anyway. So the anime fans are now included on this epidemic of idiocy.
- Disco remixes. No. “YMCA” and “I Will Survive” are made for classic disco fever. The first step into birthing house. Hello goodbye.
- The Bloodhound Gang’s “The Bad Touch.”
- Fatboy Slim’s “The Rockafeller Skank.”
- The Mad Dog Remix of the Baha Men’s “Who Let the Dog's Out?" Let me seizure, please...
- Prodigy’s “Smack my Bitch Up.”
- D.H.T. feat. Edmee's "Listen to Your Heart (Furious F. Ez Remix)
- The Mario Pop Remix. Whoever made that should be shot for deluding half of the high school kids’ minds.
- Robert Miles's "Children." Dream trance is quite alluring... but its about as far off from techno as *Nsync's "Pop" song. More than half of the time this song is cheaply mashed up with other "techno" songs. The most common one is "Children of the Sandstorm:" the Umteen minute long version switching from "Sandstorm" to "Children" to "Sandstorm" to... God I rest my fucking case.
- Faithless's "Insomnia." Why did I add this song? For the birth of "Sandstorming Insomnia." Or was it "Insomnian Sandstorm?" Read the "Children" section for more details.
- Pop Remixes. Some artists have made it most of their career to make remixes of pop songs. Soul Solution. David Morales. Valentin. Peter Rauhofer. Deep Dish (until recently- he's now pulling an "Eric Prydz" on the airplay world- overstepping EPIC HOUSE boundaries.) This is NOT, nor will it ever be, a form of techno. Hello goodfuckinbye.
- And lest we not forget... "GREATEST HOUSE TRANCE TECHNO RAVER FUNKY FINAL REMIX TECHNOFEST!!!!" Sadly... this title hooks some viewers... and they more than often get a ten minute long minimal Scouse House beat that sears through their naive mind... transforming perfectly good brain cells into brick-beaten gruel. With dirt. Lots of dirt. And no. Tiesto did not make that track. Nor did Paul Van Dyk, Sir Oakenfold, or Mister Van Buuren. It was probably your dumbass 14 year old neighbor- the other "techno" fan. Or it could also be Scooter...
- Don’t get me wrong, a few of those songs I adore. A few of them are CLASSICS even. But they wouldn't know that. So don’t ever come up to me with your stupid I-Pod and be all OMG I LOVE THIS SONG…….
- I’ll bite you.
- That’s all.
lol. Agreed. I WAY beyond agree. That's really hilarious.
I like to make these people feel really stupid by naming all kinds of real techno artists they clearly aren't going to know as soon as they mention they are techno fans.
Ie:
Idiot:Oh, you like techno too, Darktremor?
Darktremor: Yeah, it's one of my favorite genres. Plastikman, Ricardo Villalobos, Luciano, Dominik Eulberg, Basic Channel, Monolake, Chain Reaction, Sutekh, Kompakt, Perlon, Magda. All great stuff.
Idiot: Oh, I've never heard of any of that.
Darktremor: I see, you're a hard techno, schranz, and detroit techno fan, not minimal and deep techno. Still pretty good music: Umek, Dave Clarke, Richie Hawtin, Surgeon, Adam Beyer, Jeff Mills, Kevin Saunderson, Takkyo Ishino, Ken Ishii, Carl Craig, Valentino Kanzyani, Carl Cox. Also really good too.
Idiot: Who?
Darktremor: You've never heard of them? Wow, you must really listen to some obscure underground tracks! Those artists are like the staples of techno, I can't find a DJ set in the techno genre anywhere without running into at least one of them. How did you do it?
Idiot: Well, mostly through playing DDR, but I heard a bit on the radio too, a a little from typing techno on kazaa.
Darktremor: I see. So...you listen to pop music then?
Idiot: What's a DJ set?
When they show me their tracks, I usually smash their egos and annoy the hell out of them by relabelling then on the spot with their real titles and genres (but subtly, as if they knew all along that was the title and style of the track. ie: Idiot: "Check this track out!" iPod shows: RAVE TECHNO DANCE - DDR. Me:"Oh, you like Smile.Dk's Butterfly! Yeah, eurobeat tracks are awesome on DDR."). After they show me all their tracks, I say to them, "alright, now that we've seen your epic trance and eurodance, could I hear some of your techno now?" Sometimes they get really angry at me at this point, other times they just go, oh well, I guess I like eurodance and epic trance then, but then they always go home and try to download some actual techno music, or get really into epic trance and eurodance and never call it techno again. Very few of them will ever like real techno, though.
There's are a couple of categories you missed:
A badly mislabeled "Tiesto" track, usually one by Fire & Ice, Rui Da Silva, or some artist that Tiesto would never play in a thousand years.
A song with a "title" like: TECHNO - BEST TECHNO TRANCE RAVE CLUB HOUSE EVER, that was clearly downloaded from kazaa or limewire by typing "techno" into the search window. it is usually either a bad generic track, put up by someone posting their own track in the hopes that morons trying to impress real electronic fans will download it, or a really badly mislabelled electronic track that is often one of the categories you posted.
Robert Miles - Children. Yes, I can see why they called this track techno; that piano and violin really make me feel like a robot.
Pop remixes.
Extremely well stated. I have a similar problem at my school.
ME: (Is trying to hammer Xapnder in peace)
MORON: Ohhh! Oh, dat techno track, I like that techno track!
ME: (decides to humour them) "Yeah, isn't it great?" You like the Super Techno People too, eh?"
THEM: "Ohhhhh yeah, I got part 5 of that sh!t!"
ME: "Oh, do you? That's gotta be the best part of the whole 9 part series!"
THEM: "I'll burn it to a disc for you for $5!"
ME: (Trying REALLY REALLY HARD not to laugh) "Great! Lemme lsten to the disc, and I'll buy it!"
THEM: "Oh, but you'll have to buy it first, cuz if you dont like it I have this disc for nothing"
ME....OHMYGOD YOU CANNOT BE THIS FUCKING STUPID!
I must iterate that this is an actual conversation. There's so much more in the Gangsta World that is my school, but I'll have to save it. Great topic, Alacrit. *endorses*
You're right on alot of your suggestions. I'm sorry I waited so long to take note of them.
Ha. Your pretentiousness compares to mine and I giggle. ¡Viva a fanáticos verdaderos de música!
Christ- you and I are like neighbors...
C'mon people, be less hateful... what's the point in key-outing somebody that he's stupid and inferior?
You'd run up to me with your i-pod, wouldn't you...
*growls*
Ok, I thought I liked electronic music, but I've only heard of like two people on that list darktremor. So you're saying that people who like those tracks aren't a fan of that kind of music and are only trying to impress you? *sigh*...
Come on, how often does this really happen? I mean, I like Underworld, the Orb, Aphex Twin, Kraftwerk, YMO, Orbital, and so on, so I'm not a fan because I can't name a bunch of underground house DJs??
This is exactly the type of music elitism that drives so many people away from this type of music...
Um...this isn't my list. What list did you mean to comment on? Or is it in response to this list and you thought it was me?
How have I ever been elite? I make lists to introduce newbies to obscure genres. How is that elite? Elitists hate introducing newbies.
Or are you talking about my 50 house favorites list? If you thought my starting rant was elitist, you missed the point. All I was trying to say was that electronic dance music tends to be anchored by a mechanically precise 4/4 beat, which house/disco music introduced to the world, and therefore, all that came after was simply a variant of house. Actually, a lot of people have noticed that, I'm not the first to make a post like that (I know Ishkur also pointed it out, and a few others online.). I wasn't suggesting that people should be able to name 1000 obscure house DJs. I just like those tracks, I'm not even sure if they're obscure or not.
Well the fact you labeled the person you're having the conversation with as "idiot" seems a little elitist to me. I think you're taking the wrong approach. If someone is un-introduced to the genre, the worst way to initiate them is give them a laundry list of names to check out, as if to say, "if you buy all these CDs then maybe you'll 'get' it". And if they've never heard those names, to say "wow, the music you like must be really obscure"? It just seems like a really silly conversation where your only goal is to look like a music snob who is just trying to make somebody look bad. It's as bad as me saying, "well, all the music is good, but it's very clearly a decendant of Cluster, Harmonia, Schulze, and (insert 100 Germans here), oh you've never heard of them??" If you're trying to get someone into the genre try giving them something that's good, accessible, and a nice gateway that's not too far off from what they know (like Dig Your Own Hole) and go from there.
Well, that wasn't really the point. I'm not saying that a respectful newbie trying to get into these genres should be cast away with elitism (otherwise I wouldn't have made my electronic music lists to begin with). The people I'm referring to are the ones who act like they already know everything about electronic music because they have Smile.dk - Butterfly on their iPod. And that's really ignorant. Even I don't think I know everything about electronic music, or any kind of music for that matter. No one does. And no one really has the right to be a snob, but least of all, the people who actually have no knowledge on the subject. Maybe I didn't express that very well in my post. I was a little bit annoyed when I posted it, about something like that (from talking to an elitist newbie).
I probably wouldn't really say that, and I've actually gotten a number of people into electronic music by making them CDs that are the exact opposite of whatever their stereotype of "techno" is. Ie: someone once said that they didn't like "techno" because it was all "Oontz oontz oontz" and almost nothing else, and there was no variety in anything electronic. So I her a CD with these tracks:
Ulrich Schnauss - Kneuddelmaus
Bjork - Bachelorette
The Notwist - One With the Freaks
Underworld - Dirty Epic
m83 - Run Into Flowers
The Orb - Little Fluffy Clouds
Akufen - Deck the House
Infected Mushroom - Mush Mushi
Bonobo - Gypsy
The Future Sound of London - Lifeforms
Supermoves - Overseer
Ellen Alien - Trashscapes
Boards of Canada - Roygbiv
Roisin Murphy - Dear Diary
Vladislav Delay - Holiday
Holden & Thompson - Nothing (93 Returning mix)
Massive Attack - Unfinished Sympathy
[all edited with the parts where not much
happens (at the beginning or end) taken out]. She was converted, and now likes electronic music. So no, I'm not actually an elitist.
I don't even use the word "techno." For some reason I think of heppy things when I think of techno. Also, "electronica" is too complex a genre, with all its subgenres, to be blanketed by the term "techno."
Now, to be honest some "DDR" music is actually good. To FULLY APPRECIATE this music, however, you have to trace most of it back to Beatmania II DX, and then find the longer versions on the Konami produced soundtracks, or the full versions on the individual artists' CDs. In fact, Dj TAKA's music is very good.
Also, you have to appreciate a lot of videogame electronica. Metroid, Half-Life 2, and some other dark videogame music is always fun.
If want good Darude music, he's got a lot that's much better than Sandstorm. Sandstorm, although okay IMHO, has been beaten down and overplayed.
However, your list is almost completely mainstream electronica. I would agree with you that if all you played was the above tracks, then yes you would be a hypocritical electronica fan, however that is not to say an electronica listener would NOT listen to the above tracks (and I understand you didn't say they didn't, I just feel I should bring it up.) I have over 5,000 tracks of electronica on my PC, and interestingly, they include all of the tracks listed above (sans a lot of the DDR stuff!!! Some of it really is not very good, although a lot of it can be).
If I had to explain to someone who did not listen to electronic music what it was, I would probably use sandstorm as an example, unfortunately, because that's what they would be familiar with!!! From there they might download music off the internet, and of course they would find these most common mainstream songs! They might download 20 or so common tracks, find they like them, and call themself a "fan." At that point you have to bear with them. They fit your stereotype at that point. However, if they are TRULY fans, they will crave for more, and search deeper, and find more than just techno, but also Drum and Bass, Acid, Trance, Techno Hardcore, Happy Hardcore, Jungle, Breakbeat, Rave, Epic Techno, Dance, Noise, Fusion, Ambient, and other subgenres!!!
for fucks sake. i can't believe how many times i've seen the word electronica in this list. put down some hours in a warehouse and earn your stripes like the rest of us.
I didn't use the word "electronica" even once in the list, thanks.