In a message dated 12/07/00 13:47:28 GMT Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
> I loved "Energy Flash" by Simon Reynolds (a guy from The Wire) - his thesis > on the link between drug consumption and techno is debatable, but he really > covers the whole spectrum of electronic music, which puts Detroit in > perspective ; the discog is extensive and interesting, though much messier > than the one in Techno Rebels. I've read Energy Flash as well, and while it did cover near enough all of the electronic music explosion, I thought it had quite a few negative points to go with it. For one thing, as it attempts to incorporate just about everything, there is lots of stuff missing, although I suppose thats gonna be obvious. I thought it was a bit unfortunate though that he covered it from such a "rave" standpoint, and attempts to explain the twists and turns of just about every genre through patterns (real or not) in drug use amongst the supporters of the music. And I guess my main problem was the fact that Reynolds is obviously pretty biased in terms of what he thinks is good and what he thinks isn't. Obviously he is going to have his likes and dislikes, but I thought they were just a little to evident. The guy is obviously a hardcore nut, which is fair enough, but he went a bit far at times. Detroit got a bit of a slagging in fact, as did the whole ambient thing, basically anything that was bordering on art as opposed to just good ol hands in the air rave music had some sticks poked at it. I would still reccomend it, but only if you want to know a little bit about everything, rather than alot about any one thing in particular. If its just Detroit techno you are interested in, approach with caution, as there are only a few chapters devoted solely to Detroit. The initial few cover the start of the whole thing (May, Saunderson, Atkins, etc...), and midway through there is a fairly small chapter about all the newer stuff (UR, Mills, Hawtin, etc...) but thats about it really. Nonetheless though, its a decent read. Aaron
