From 'salon' (
http://www.salon1999.com):
quoted 25 lines Whenever this sort of marketing frenzy boils up around an
>
>
> Whenever this sort of marketing frenzy boils up around an
> insular, underground music scene (and, in America at least, that's
> what techno has been), the only real question left on the boards is
> whether to order lilies or dahlias for the memorial service. It's
> not vanguardism to say that success ruins underground music:
> It's a matter of pure statistics. Whenever any artist -- or any
> group of artists -- makes the jump from cult status into the
> mainstream, there are heavy compromises to be made if one is to
> be a "success." Indeed, the very nature of success changes
> drastically when big money enters the picture. Up until now,
> techno acts have been content to be cult icons, selling, say, 25,000
> copies of CDs. In the underground, an artist's intentions or
> integrity matter far more than the number of records sold; it's the
> doing that's the thing -- not the fame that comes from it. In the
> mass market, of course, it's the other way around.
>
> Nobody at the present time, for instance, would dispute that a
> high school kid from Minneapolis who works on remix tapes in
> his basement is a part of the techno scene. But when the labels
> start swooping down onto Minneapolis (and they will, if there's
> any reason to), if the kid can't climb on board with them, he'll turn
> from a techno scenester into a has-been -- suddenly finding
> himself a spectator in a scene he helped to build.
signifier over signified signing off