Gee wiz, isn't everyone getting into such a fuss over this Orbital thing. I
say who cares if Orbital plays wherever. Let them have a spot on MTV
Unplugged for all I care. They make money, right? And then our whole techno
scene gets credibility. Just think, if Orbital's accessible yet somewhat
good brand of electronica gets even one of those idiotic alterno-pop-head
kids to seriously consider the possibility that "music" is not something
that can only be made by a guitar, bass, trap kit, and lousy singer, more
power to them! It's not like kids seeing, liking, and (gasp) buying Orbital
will make our sacred RDJ or Muziq any less esoteric. There is a big gulf
between orbital and, say, Kid Spatula when it comes to "sound"- not to
knock Orbital at all, but, well, you know... not every kid who gets into
Green Day goes out and buys a King Crimson album, even though the two are,
in essence, rock.
You know what is wierd though, that someone mentioned... a whole bunch of
those mainstream shit magazines seem to have a member on their staff who is
just SO into AphexTwin. Spin, Alternative Press, Rolling Stone, and Pulse
to name a few. Seems like Alternative Press always has a review of the new
AFX stuff (most recently AutoBulb), and tend to profile idm artists in
their techno section, rather than dance shit like Labouche and such (most
recently they did a thing on Jonah). Also, I recall some other writer for
AP dissing Richard James' music on more than one occasion, in an almost
joking fashion (maybe to piss off that obsessed staff writer?). Anyway,
it's good to know, at least some people in positions of cultural influence
have their heads on straight. So maybe we could just count Mr. Farrell as
one of them eh?