On Tue, 25 Nov 1997, Paul McFadyen wrote:
quoted 13 lines Is Plastikman IDM? Sure. Lots of people have said so. Plastikman while> >Is Plastikman IDM? Sure. Lots of people have said so. Plastikman while
> >minimalist maintains an enormous amount of subtlety and undeniable
> >intelligence.
>
> >What about Hardfloor? Before you spring to your toes and try to lynch
> me,
> >consider their careful buildups, their exquisite use of the 303, their
> >crashing climaxes, the twists and turns they take, and tell me that
> isn't
> >subtle. Tell me that isn't intelligent.
>
> Right firstly you say that IDM isn't dance music, then you say that
> Plastikman and Hardfloor are IDM.
Just to clarify, I never said it wasn't dance music.
What I said was that "dance music" wasn't a useful phrase in defining IDM,
because a lot of it _isn't_ dance music. It wasn't meant to be an
exclusive statement. There's IDM that isn't dance music, IDM that is dance
music, and, much to the chagrin and disgust of most list members, dance
music that is IDM.
quoted 4 lines Have you ever seen the effect that a Hardfloor track has on a> Have you ever seen the effect that a Hardfloor track has on a
> dancefloor? I would say that a high percentage of IDM doesn't exactly
> set a dancefloor alight, but certain artists can be intelligent with
> their music without losing the dance edge (Hardfloor for one)
Exactly. Cool to see someone agrees.
quoted 3 lines I totally agree with you about the Prodigy though.> I totally agree with you about the Prodigy though.
> I'll get a thousand abusive e-mails for this, but I would describe the
> Prodigy as IDM.
And that's the whole problem, that one can _expect_ to be flamed to hell
and back for suggesting certain records are IDM, killing any intelligent
conversation on the topic.
quoted 5 lines Given that a lot of their stuff is crap, but listen to "Narayan" and> Given that a lot of their stuff is crap, but listen to "Narayan" and
> take away the vocals and you're left with a very intelligent atmospheric
> piece of music - listen to Claustrophobic Sting. It's a shame that the
> MTV generation have picked up on Liam's work, but at least he still
> keeps the edge despite commercial pressures.
Who cares if the 'MTV generation' picks up on it, as long as they don't
sell out?
My hope is that some of the kids who see Keith-The-Clown on MTV will get
into the music itself, and branch into more of the truly incredible, less
known stuff out there. I will never villify an act for making excellent
music known - after all, if nobody knows about it, what good is it?
grey
-- -
greyrose@nervosa.sf.ca.us