While I certainly would welcome more critical and detailed
reviews, as well as more efforts to place the music in a larger
social/political context, I think it's easy to understand why such efforts
are rare.
Techno/IDM (or the blanket label of your choice) is essentially
silly music. The emotional range and complexity of ideas expressed is
pathetic compared to most other genres of music. Even at its best, I
consider this stuff to be sort of a guilty pleasure and nothing more than
pleasant ear candy. Raves began as an essentially anti-intellectual
hedonistic experience, and the music still reflects this origin. I expect
that the music will gradually evolve into something a bit more challenging
and thought provoking, but its most serious practioners right now just
come off as cyber-stupid keyboard nerds. The trend to watch is the
abandonment of that clumsy crutch of a dance beat. The essence of the
music is rhythm and the important innovations will be rhythmic and tonal.
The next person to use synthesized strings ought to be punched.
On the other hand, the last thing I want is to encourage another
generation of arrogant, pseudo-intellectual, parasitic academic music
critics. All art critics are essentially parasites, and their only value
lies in their ability to help a consumer make somewhat informed decisions
about their purchases. The pretentiousness of critics who think that
their work has some intrinsic intellectual value is nauseating.
And again, I can't imagine any way that this music could acquire
any kind of political content without some pompous bellowing Bono or
Johnny Rotten lumped over the beats. I am extremely suspicious of the
idea that music and politics make effective partners, and I think the most
prominent examples of politically charged music are completely
unconvincing (60's protest rock, punk, Bono and Midnight Oil). Music is
a language of emotion and is political to the extent that the emotions it
expresses are shared by any group. Isn't this enough?