All of that is really helpful, and thanks for that, but there's one thing I disagree with.
Barnyard dancing is very different from square dancing. Square dancing has a caller over country beats/violin, calling out moves, whereas barnyard dancing is a mixture of house and country. (the song I put down is the best example of this, and the only one to ever become popular).
Square dancing also has that whole swing your partner do-see-so type stuff, whereas barnyard dancing doesn't.
Thanks for the suggestions for that section - country was definitely the weakest section - I know very little about it. I listen to less country than any other genre (none), and don't like the genre very much (I have less respect of it than almost any of the others). However, many people do like it, and since musical taste is just an opinion, I did some research on it (even though I don't like it at all myself). Anyway, your posts really help it out. Thanks :)
Except that Atkins, Kraftwerk, and Cybotron are all actual Techno groups. Ambient had never been called techno, neither had breakbeat in the eighties (called chillout, and hip-hop, respectively). House was called disco, or Italo-dance in the eighties. Synthpop was called simply pop. However, some of what you say is right - detroit techno and electro were both called techno in the eighties. However, I know from an article I read on the 3 original detroit techno people (Saunderson, Atkins, May), that it was invented by them. I looked some of this up - it was actually the early eighties techno was invented, not the late, and it was pretty much the same as electro anyway (electro is more of a retro-word, but they DID use it in the eighties - it was either all caled electro, or all called techno). So calling electro techno is understandable (or vice versa), but any other genre has NO SIMILARITY in sound, and should therefore never be called techno. Besides, Kraftwerk used to do Ambient in the late 60's - 70's. They knew the difference.
(BTW cybotron has one of the detroit techno three in it)
That's a VERY popular belief, but the first electronica was in fact ambient/minimalism (as well as experimental), which came from the late 60's and early 70's. The word Techno was literally invented by Juan Atkins, Derrick May, and Kevin Saunderson in the mid-eighties for their new style of music - now called detroit techno, rather than just techno. Disco was the first style to gain any mainstream popularity - overplayed in the late 70's (did anyone call disco "techno"? Because it falls under the very general category of electronica). No, Techno was first used(wrongly) as a catch-all in the late 80's to early 90's by the mainstream press looking for a cool name. Maybe some people did it before (bleed-through effect), but that name hit mainstream at that point.
The reason for it is likely that whenever a single style gets insanely poular in the underground, songs in other styles start being called by the name of that style, in hopes that they will be played at raves more. A sort-of bleed-through occurs, wrongly. It's happening again with trance, the most popular underground electronic style nowadays. (However, house is there to fight this effect, so now house/trance is called by some clubbers and mainstream radio deejays and listeners simply "dance", which is completely fine, and makes sense, since those are the two most danceable and digestable modern styles of electronica, and also since nothing has really taken just "dance" yet) In fact, calling all electronica "techno" is falling out of practice, thankfully, since the mainstream resurgence of electronic music, this time with trance and house rather than housedance/eurodance.
Tiesto: (check this one out definitely)
In Search of Sunrise (BEST MIX EVER!!!!!!)
In Search of Sunrise 2
In Search of Sunrise 3
Magik 3
Magik 5
Magik 6
Nyana (CD2 - CD1 really sucks - but CD2 is awesome)
(These can be found on Kazaa Lite or Soulseek. Any other artist is hard to find on Kazaa Lite, except maybe Ferry and Oakenfold)
Ferry Corsten:
Trance Nation 2001
Live @ Dance Valley 2001
Paul Oakenfold:
Tranceport (only get this one by him - the rest of the series isn't that great, and Paul Oakenfold sucks on everything else he does)
Sasha and Digweed:
Northern Exposure (a genre mishmash, but is oldskool trance-ish (it has a lot of oldskool trance). I like it, but you might not as much. Doesn't really represent trance per-se.
A few artist recomendations (most are on that list): (get any song on that list BTW)
DJ Tiesto (don't get traffic though)
Ferry Corsten/System F
Gouryella
Solar Stone
Paul Van Dyk
Chicane
BT
Push
York
Armin Van Buuren
Mauro Picotto
ATB
Cosmic Gate (harder stuff this one is)
Gabriel and Dresden/Motorcycle/Andain
(Most of those artist are on the list anway)
Avoid Paul Oakenfold. He sucks - only good thing he ever did was tranceport.
Also, download soulseek. There's TONS of trance on there. (more clubbers, ravers, and europeans use soulseek, and since trance is popular in Europe, raves, and in clubs, theres lots of trance there). Actually most trance songs can't be downloaded on Kazaa, but soulseek will have them, and often lots of them. However, make sure you click TONS of sources when downloading a file. Otherwise, it will take forever. And wait a while anyway. Also, check the sizes - when downloading you will want radio edits, and original mixes mostly (radio edits are better, but not always possible if it was only a club hit - the original mixes will usually have massive "mixing heads" with just beats, to make it easier to mix). Click the size tab to arrange by size, and once enough files to download appear, download everything under the size you want - either the original mix, or the radio edit. (Unless you want a mix by a certain artist - sometimes the originals suck, and the mixes by good DJs and artists are awesome - ie Skin - Unfaithfulness (Tiesto mix) is great, where the original isn't that good.) I know - it's complex compared to any other genre, but the quality of music is excellent, so it's worth it.
Also, the dance, underground, and electronic sections of Best Buy, HMV, or Future Shop have trance - the mixes I reccomended are probably there (you can also download any mix off of SOulseek - any tiesto mixes can be found on Kazaa Lite)
Also, use www.discogs.com. Almost every electronic song ever made is filed there (not downloadable, but gives TONS of info) - it has literally millions and millions of songs. I've never not found I song I was looking for there. www.allmusic.com is good too for reccomendations.
www.di.fm has different electronic music stations, including their most popular - trance. (in fact that station is one of the most popular on the whole internet) but not all the trance they play is all that good. Check it out anyway - it's pretty good.
I completely agree with you on this (the techno thing), however, there is one very easy to fall into trap that is the major cause of dislike for electronic music. Calling it "techno". True techno, like it says on the list, is one genre of "electronica" or "electronic music". However, this true techno, in the real meaning of the word, is one of the worst genres. The songs are, besides being ultra-repetitive, are almost always either uncreative, or creative to the point that it almost stops being music (there is very little middle ground). The only good genre of true techno is the old detroit techno genre, that started the rave movement.
The reason calling it techno generates hate for it is a)because techno in the true meaning is not very good, and b)because it makes everybody assume that all electronic music falls into one genre.
The "calling all electronica techno" thing came from the press in the 90's, who decided to call the - then unnamed - house dance (popular at the time - remember Snap? The Real McCoy? C&C Music Factory?) "techno" simply because it was a catchy name, and because it was taken off the rave movement. When house dance stopped being popular, and everybody hated it (the backlash that happens to every "yesterday's fad" music - ie do you still like the Spice Girls, if you ever did?), people assumed all electronic music was "techno" (in the completely wrong meaning of the word), and therefore sucked.
(then again, some trance (ie Alice Deejay - Back in my Life, TelepopMusik - Breathe (see my trance 2003 file for more details on the genre) ) is given radioplay nowadays though (albeit not usually the best)...of course, they call it techno, as always)
The much better electronic genres are trance, breakbeat, ambient, house, jungle, rap (yes it's an electronic genre, believe it or not - basically lyrics-focused house/hardcore, that has it's own special culture), and even hardcore. I'll admit some new techno is good, but it's very rare in comparison to the other electronic genres.
Anyway I totally agree with you on the soul and invention thing. Trance is considered the most emotional genre of music, ambient is considered the most inventive, and house is the most soulful (besides jazz). In fact, all mainstream music is ripped off of different genres of electronica (and since rap is popular, so is electronica, since rap=electronica) - I often hear the background of mainstream songs long before the mainstream song is released, in one genre or another. (example: listen to GEOS and Coyote - You Gotta move, then listen to Dr. Dre ft Eminem - Forgot about Dre).
One of the reasons the mainstream doesn't want you to know how good underground electronic music is, is because then they would lose money, when people converted to underground genres, and stopped buying so much top 40 music. This is already happening naturally, however, since Napster, and Kazaa, and Audiogalaxy are scr3wing them over.
Sorry - my response was a little long - lol.
Thanks to everybody for the suggestions - really helpful stuff. Also, it helps somewhat (if possible), if you now the major genre the new subgenres fit under.
It's there - I just called it DnB, under jungle.
It's a short form.
Also, the difference between the two (Jungle and DnB) is that Jungle has rougher edges, and more creativity. DnB is the more commercialized version (like Epic trance vs. Progressive Trance)
Also, with the sadcore thing, it fits under one of the styles of emo (unless we're thinking of different meanings of sadcore???)
All of that is really helpful, and thanks for that, but there's one thing I disagree with.
Barnyard dancing is very different from square dancing. Square dancing has a caller over country beats/violin, calling out moves, whereas barnyard dancing is a mixture of house and country. (the song I put down is the best example of this, and the only one to ever become popular).
Square dancing also has that whole swing your partner do-see-so type stuff, whereas barnyard dancing doesn't.
I'm more of an electronic music guy, and a rock guy. (and a rap guy too)
Thanks for the suggestions for that section - country was definitely the weakest section - I know very little about it. I listen to less country than any other genre (none), and don't like the genre very much (I have less respect of it than almost any of the others). However, many people do like it, and since musical taste is just an opinion, I did some research on it (even though I don't like it at all myself). Anyway, your posts really help it out. Thanks :)
Quoting Roger and Ebert: Two Thumbs Up!
Except that Atkins, Kraftwerk, and Cybotron are all actual Techno groups. Ambient had never been called techno, neither had breakbeat in the eighties (called chillout, and hip-hop, respectively). House was called disco, or Italo-dance in the eighties. Synthpop was called simply pop. However, some of what you say is right - detroit techno and electro were both called techno in the eighties. However, I know from an article I read on the 3 original detroit techno people (Saunderson, Atkins, May), that it was invented by them. I looked some of this up - it was actually the early eighties techno was invented, not the late, and it was pretty much the same as electro anyway (electro is more of a retro-word, but they DID use it in the eighties - it was either all caled electro, or all called techno). So calling electro techno is understandable (or vice versa), but any other genre has NO SIMILARITY in sound, and should therefore never be called techno. Besides, Kraftwerk used to do Ambient in the late 60's - 70's. They knew the difference.
(BTW cybotron has one of the detroit techno three in it)
That's a VERY popular belief, but the first electronica was in fact ambient/minimalism (as well as experimental), which came from the late 60's and early 70's. The word Techno was literally invented by Juan Atkins, Derrick May, and Kevin Saunderson in the mid-eighties for their new style of music - now called detroit techno, rather than just techno. Disco was the first style to gain any mainstream popularity - overplayed in the late 70's (did anyone call disco "techno"? Because it falls under the very general category of electronica). No, Techno was first used(wrongly) as a catch-all in the late 80's to early 90's by the mainstream press looking for a cool name. Maybe some people did it before (bleed-through effect), but that name hit mainstream at that point.
The reason for it is likely that whenever a single style gets insanely poular in the underground, songs in other styles start being called by the name of that style, in hopes that they will be played at raves more. A sort-of bleed-through occurs, wrongly. It's happening again with trance, the most popular underground electronic style nowadays. (However, house is there to fight this effect, so now house/trance is called by some clubbers and mainstream radio deejays and listeners simply "dance", which is completely fine, and makes sense, since those are the two most danceable and digestable modern styles of electronica, and also since nothing has really taken just "dance" yet) In fact, calling all electronica "techno" is falling out of practice, thankfully, since the mainstream resurgence of electronic music, this time with trance and house rather than housedance/eurodance.
Here's some fantastic albums/mixes:
Tiesto: (check this one out definitely)
In Search of Sunrise (BEST MIX EVER!!!!!!)
In Search of Sunrise 2
In Search of Sunrise 3
Magik 3
Magik 5
Magik 6
Nyana (CD2 - CD1 really sucks - but CD2 is awesome)
(These can be found on Kazaa Lite or Soulseek. Any other artist is hard to find on Kazaa Lite, except maybe Ferry and Oakenfold)
Ferry Corsten:
Trance Nation 2001
Live @ Dance Valley 2001
Paul Oakenfold:
Tranceport (only get this one by him - the rest of the series isn't that great, and Paul Oakenfold sucks on everything else he does)
Sasha and Digweed:
Northern Exposure (a genre mishmash, but is oldskool trance-ish (it has a lot of oldskool trance). I like it, but you might not as much. Doesn't really represent trance per-se.
A few artist recomendations (most are on that list): (get any song on that list BTW)
DJ Tiesto (don't get traffic though)
Ferry Corsten/System F
Gouryella
Solar Stone
Paul Van Dyk
Chicane
BT
Push
York
Armin Van Buuren
Mauro Picotto
ATB
Cosmic Gate (harder stuff this one is)
Gabriel and Dresden/Motorcycle/Andain
(Most of those artist are on the list anway)
Avoid Paul Oakenfold. He sucks - only good thing he ever did was tranceport.
Also, download soulseek. There's TONS of trance on there. (more clubbers, ravers, and europeans use soulseek, and since trance is popular in Europe, raves, and in clubs, theres lots of trance there). Actually most trance songs can't be downloaded on Kazaa, but soulseek will have them, and often lots of them. However, make sure you click TONS of sources when downloading a file. Otherwise, it will take forever. And wait a while anyway. Also, check the sizes - when downloading you will want radio edits, and original mixes mostly (radio edits are better, but not always possible if it was only a club hit - the original mixes will usually have massive "mixing heads" with just beats, to make it easier to mix). Click the size tab to arrange by size, and once enough files to download appear, download everything under the size you want - either the original mix, or the radio edit. (Unless you want a mix by a certain artist - sometimes the originals suck, and the mixes by good DJs and artists are awesome - ie Skin - Unfaithfulness (Tiesto mix) is great, where the original isn't that good.) I know - it's complex compared to any other genre, but the quality of music is excellent, so it's worth it.
Also, the dance, underground, and electronic sections of Best Buy, HMV, or Future Shop have trance - the mixes I reccomended are probably there (you can also download any mix off of SOulseek - any tiesto mixes can be found on Kazaa Lite)
Location:
http://www.slsknet.org/download.html
Also, use www.discogs.com. Almost every electronic song ever made is filed there (not downloadable, but gives TONS of info) - it has literally millions and millions of songs. I've never not found I song I was looking for there. www.allmusic.com is good too for reccomendations.
www.di.fm has different electronic music stations, including their most popular - trance. (in fact that station is one of the most popular on the whole internet) but not all the trance they play is all that good. Check it out anyway - it's pretty good.
I completely agree with you on this (the techno thing), however, there is one very easy to fall into trap that is the major cause of dislike for electronic music. Calling it "techno". True techno, like it says on the list, is one genre of "electronica" or "electronic music". However, this true techno, in the real meaning of the word, is one of the worst genres. The songs are, besides being ultra-repetitive, are almost always either uncreative, or creative to the point that it almost stops being music (there is very little middle ground). The only good genre of true techno is the old detroit techno genre, that started the rave movement.
The reason calling it techno generates hate for it is a)because techno in the true meaning is not very good, and b)because it makes everybody assume that all electronic music falls into one genre.
The "calling all electronica techno" thing came from the press in the 90's, who decided to call the - then unnamed - house dance (popular at the time - remember Snap? The Real McCoy? C&C Music Factory?) "techno" simply because it was a catchy name, and because it was taken off the rave movement. When house dance stopped being popular, and everybody hated it (the backlash that happens to every "yesterday's fad" music - ie do you still like the Spice Girls, if you ever did?), people assumed all electronic music was "techno" (in the completely wrong meaning of the word), and therefore sucked.
(then again, some trance (ie Alice Deejay - Back in my Life, TelepopMusik - Breathe (see my trance 2003 file for more details on the genre) ) is given radioplay nowadays though (albeit not usually the best)...of course, they call it techno, as always)
The much better electronic genres are trance, breakbeat, ambient, house, jungle, rap (yes it's an electronic genre, believe it or not - basically lyrics-focused house/hardcore, that has it's own special culture), and even hardcore. I'll admit some new techno is good, but it's very rare in comparison to the other electronic genres.
Anyway I totally agree with you on the soul and invention thing. Trance is considered the most emotional genre of music, ambient is considered the most inventive, and house is the most soulful (besides jazz). In fact, all mainstream music is ripped off of different genres of electronica (and since rap is popular, so is electronica, since rap=electronica) - I often hear the background of mainstream songs long before the mainstream song is released, in one genre or another. (example: listen to GEOS and Coyote - You Gotta move, then listen to Dr. Dre ft Eminem - Forgot about Dre).
One of the reasons the mainstream doesn't want you to know how good underground electronic music is, is because then they would lose money, when people converted to underground genres, and stopped buying so much top 40 music. This is already happening naturally, however, since Napster, and Kazaa, and Audiogalaxy are scr3wing them over.
Sorry - my response was a little long - lol.
Thanks to everybody for the suggestions - really helpful stuff. Also, it helps somewhat (if possible), if you now the major genre the new subgenres fit under.
I'll add all the suggestions to the list.
It's there - I just called it DnB, under jungle.
It's a short form.
Also, the difference between the two (Jungle and DnB) is that Jungle has rougher edges, and more creativity. DnB is the more commercialized version (like Epic trance vs. Progressive Trance)
Also, with the sadcore thing, it fits under one of the styles of emo (unless we're thinking of different meanings of sadcore???)
Good list but you forgot a major one.
U2 - Sunday Bloody Sunday