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A recent search for sources led me back to this article which was once hosted on the Twilo website. Great article IMO, just had to share.
By Twiloboss
Electronica (and it?s many offspring) has been on the turntables in clubs all over the world since the late 80?s, which, by dance music standards, makes it ready to be out of fashion. But not only is it not out of fashion, it is even not widely in fashion yet and by all estimates will probably never be, at least not as that phrase is ordinarily used. It is ?cool?; it is played in every dance club in every major metropolitan area on earth but still cannot crack the glass barrier surrounding the pop charts. Here?s why?
No. 1
No recognizable performer
The popular music industry in (America) is driven by the cult of personality. Only in America could a producer create a pop group like the Backstreet Boys or N?Sync from an ad in the paper and make that group a household word; group members with nothing in common either as to background, talent or anything else other than a craving for fame and bucks. Don?t even get me started on ?American Idol?. Electronica dj?s do not ?perform?; they create either by manufacturing their own music and/or taking the electronic music of others and mixing it into something new and different. DJs such as Moby or the Chemical Brothers, in an effort to become ?personalities?, have given in to the music industry establishment and have attempted to turn their craft into an act. So every time we see Moby, for example, he is compelled for reasons either foolish or unknown, to be photographed mid-leap. Why? No one knows. Moby, an electronic musician, is now a jumping circus act. Howard Stern, the pundit of all things goofy and great on radio, made the intelligent observation that when he attended a Fatboy Slim ?concert? on Long Island, he was ?amazed to see everyone standing around watching some guy spin records.? Not exactly like watching the now faded Michael Jackson doing the ?moon walk?.
No 2.
No way to do a tour
For obvious reasons, without a recognizable performer no record company can organize a tour. Tours drive record sales by presenting the performer as a personality. Believe me, if no one knew what KISS looked like they would have sold fewer records than the Tulsa Tuba Band. Americans love visuals. They love the melodrama of the rock concert whether it?s Madonna with cone-shaped tit covers or the idiotic pyrotechnics of Aerosmith. The music is never enough by itself it seems. Everyone can remember either stupid concert productions or even more stupid music videos, the bastard child of concert tours. I am not proud to say I actually paid money to see Milli Vanilli once upon a time?
No. 3
A media generated connection to drug culture
60 Minutes II, did a pience on the usage of ecstasy and its connection to raves and therefore its connection to electronica. They stated with considerable fear and panic that ?40 people have died from E overdoses in the past 5 years.? I would venture to say that more people OD on aspirin or alcohol than on ecstasy. All drug use is bad and unhealthy and certainly dangerous. I?m certainly not advocating or making light of drug use. But to single out ecstasy as if it is some new communist plot is absurd. Ever hear of anyone killing a family while driving under the influence of E? Or breaking and entering to support an E habit? Alcohol ruins more lives in a single weekend than ecstasy did in its whole five-year 60 Minutes run. And if you want to see some real drug/alcohol abuse, check out any rock or rap concert. The media periodically go through their file cabinets to stir up some old story that they can dress up in new clothes. Remember saccharine and how the media had everyone dying from cancer by drinking Tab? Guess what? It was all pretend. The unfortunate by-product of the perceived connection between the drugs and the music is the fear that the thought-police will be monitoring every electronica event, enough of a wet blanket to dowse any firestorm of interest that popular music might develop. Raves do not help matters either. Greedy promoters invite 14 year olds to attend events notorious for drug use. Now children are dragged into the media net. Recent developments in New Orleans where rave promoters were indicted under federal ?crackhouse? laws are a natural and expected result whenever children enter the scene. The RAVE act is another manifestation of this reactionary attitude toward electronic music.
No 4.
Songs are too musically complex.
Anyone who actually LISTENS to electronica and has any musical savvy recognizes how complex the music actually is. This music is much more akin to classical chamber music and its layering of rhythms and tempo than any other pop antecedent. While electronica may be dance music, it owes only a little to disco or dance rock. In fact, its roots lie in the electronic ?classical? music of the 1960?s. This complexity (like that of chamber music) unfortunately works against its popularity. Complexity tends to mystify and turn off the masses, not intrigue them. Analyze the lyrics of country music, virtually all of which focuses on lost loves and/or lost fortunes; or examine rap lyrics which mysteriously mirror country and focus on gaining ?love? (booty) and gaining or flaunting fortunes. These mundane, unoriginal and repetitive lyrics echo unoriginal and simplistic chord structures within the music. Popular music, most of which is remarkably derivative only of itself, is the lowest common denominator of musical taste, craftily structured to appeal to the most likely record-buying people. It is business disguised as art. Electronica swims against the current of long established record industry rules and by doing so condemns itself to be forever out of the mainstream.
No 5.
The songs are too long.
For the reasons stated above, the complexity of electronica requires time for the musical themes to be adequately developed. Long ago, record companies made the determination that the American public?s attention span cannot exceed three minutes. (Similarly, movies tread on thin ice if they exceed 2 hours in length, sitcoms, 30 minutes.) Thus all popular music (with some very few exceptions) is encumbered with this unwritten but nonetheless ironclad boundary. Electronica simply does not lend itself to this sort of artificial compression any more than a Mozart concerto would. In short, any of the great classicists like Beethoven, Brahms, or Bach writing and composing today would be selling about as many records as Deep Dish, a lot for electronica but a drop compared to the ocean of Justin Timberlake or Christina Aguilera?
Electronica will always be a fringe musical phenomenon until the public becomes educated in its qualities and enlightened as to the facts surrounding it. And educating the public has never been any easy task.
Electronica (and it?s many offspring) has been on the turntables in clubs all over the world since the late 80?s, which, by dance music standards, makes it ready to be out of fashion. But not only is it not out of fashion, it is even not widely in fashion yet and by all estimates will probably never be, at least not as that phrase is ordinarily used. It is ?cool?; it is played in every dance club in every major metropolitan area on earth but still cannot crack the glass barrier surrounding the pop charts. Here?s why?
No. 1
No recognizable performer
The popular music industry in (America) is driven by the cult of personality. Only in America could a producer create a pop group like the Backstreet Boys or N?Sync from an ad in the paper and make that group a household word; group members with nothing in common either as to background, talent or anything else other than a craving for fame and bucks. Don?t even get me started on ?American Idol?. Electronica dj?s do not ?perform?; they create either by manufacturing their own music and/or taking the electronic music of others and mixing it into something new and different. DJs such as Moby or the Chemical Brothers, in an effort to become ?personalities?, have given in to the music industry establishment and have attempted to turn their craft into an act. So every time we see Moby, for example, he is compelled for reasons either foolish or unknown, to be photographed mid-leap. Why? No one knows. Moby, an electronic musician, is now a jumping circus act. Howard Stern, the pundit of all things goofy and great on radio, made the intelligent observation that when he attended a Fatboy Slim ?concert? on Long Island, he was ?amazed to see everyone standing around watching some guy spin records.? Not exactly like watching the now faded Michael Jackson doing the ?moon walk?.
No 2.
No way to do a tour
For obvious reasons, without a recognizable performer no record company can organize a tour. Tours drive record sales by presenting the performer as a personality. Believe me, if no one knew what KISS looked like they would have sold fewer records than the Tulsa Tuba Band. Americans love visuals. They love the melodrama of the rock concert whether it?s Madonna with cone-shaped tit covers or the idiotic pyrotechnics of Aerosmith. The music is never enough by itself it seems. Everyone can remember either stupid concert productions or even more stupid music videos, the bastard child of concert tours. I am not proud to say I actually paid money to see Milli Vanilli once upon a time?
No. 3
A media generated connection to drug culture
60 Minutes II, did a pience on the usage of ecstasy and its connection to raves and therefore its connection to electronica. They stated with considerable fear and panic that ?40 people have died from E overdoses in the past 5 years.? I would venture to say that more people OD on aspirin or alcohol than on ecstasy. All drug use is bad and unhealthy and certainly dangerous. I?m certainly not advocating or making light of drug use. But to single out ecstasy as if it is some new communist plot is absurd. Ever hear of anyone killing a family while driving under the influence of E? Or breaking and entering to support an E habit? Alcohol ruins more lives in a single weekend than ecstasy did in its whole five-year 60 Minutes run. And if you want to see some real drug/alcohol abuse, check out any rock or rap concert. The media periodically go through their file cabinets to stir up some old story that they can dress up in new clothes. Remember saccharine and how the media had everyone dying from cancer by drinking Tab? Guess what? It was all pretend. The unfortunate by-product of the perceived connection between the drugs and the music is the fear that the thought-police will be monitoring every electronica event, enough of a wet blanket to dowse any firestorm of interest that popular music might develop. Raves do not help matters either. Greedy promoters invite 14 year olds to attend events notorious for drug use. Now children are dragged into the media net. Recent developments in New Orleans where rave promoters were indicted under federal ?crackhouse? laws are a natural and expected result whenever children enter the scene. The RAVE act is another manifestation of this reactionary attitude toward electronic music.
No 4.
Songs are too musically complex.
Anyone who actually LISTENS to electronica and has any musical savvy recognizes how complex the music actually is. This music is much more akin to classical chamber music and its layering of rhythms and tempo than any other pop antecedent. While electronica may be dance music, it owes only a little to disco or dance rock. In fact, its roots lie in the electronic ?classical? music of the 1960?s. This complexity (like that of chamber music) unfortunately works against its popularity. Complexity tends to mystify and turn off the masses, not intrigue them. Analyze the lyrics of country music, virtually all of which focuses on lost loves and/or lost fortunes; or examine rap lyrics which mysteriously mirror country and focus on gaining ?love? (booty) and gaining or flaunting fortunes. These mundane, unoriginal and repetitive lyrics echo unoriginal and simplistic chord structures within the music. Popular music, most of which is remarkably derivative only of itself, is the lowest common denominator of musical taste, craftily structured to appeal to the most likely record-buying people. It is business disguised as art. Electronica swims against the current of long established record industry rules and by doing so condemns itself to be forever out of the mainstream.
No 5.
The songs are too long.
For the reasons stated above, the complexity of electronica requires time for the musical themes to be adequately developed. Long ago, record companies made the determination that the American public?s attention span cannot exceed three minutes. (Similarly, movies tread on thin ice if they exceed 2 hours in length, sitcoms, 30 minutes.) Thus all popular music (with some very few exceptions) is encumbered with this unwritten but nonetheless ironclad boundary. Electronica simply does not lend itself to this sort of artificial compression any more than a Mozart concerto would. In short, any of the great classicists like Beethoven, Brahms, or Bach writing and composing today would be selling about as many records as Deep Dish, a lot for electronica but a drop compared to the ocean of Justin Timberlake or Christina Aguilera?
Electronica will always be a fringe musical phenomenon until the public becomes educated in its qualities and enlightened as to the facts surrounding it. And educating the public has never been any easy task.
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