On 3/28/07, Damian Stewart <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
techno's not really about 'songwriting'. it's a lot more akin to what the minimalists were doing back in New York in the 70s. There's a great book called Repeating Ourselves by Robert Fink that looks at parallels between minimalism and disco, both of which evolved in the same environment at the same time.
there are certainly similarities in terms of repitition and trance inducing ability, but techno was definitely less about that and more about songs when it was birthed. it eventually evolved in some areas to include music that is more related to the minimal composition kind of thing, but thats not all encompassing.
a lot of what I love about techno - the kinds of techno that i like, anyway - is that it sounds like some dude arsing around with gear they don't fully understand, arriving somewhere and going, 'holy crap that sounds awesome,' hitting record and letting it run for a bit, and then scratching the recording on to vinyl.
some tracks like that are fine, make a cool noise and drop that into a set and it can sound good. but when that becomes the only thing going on, its just not going to stay interesting to many people for very long. this is why the banging techno has died out in popularity (except amongst the hardcore heads) and has been replaced by mnml, which will of course die out and be replaced by something else when people grow tired of its tricks. and this is also why detroit music has been played through all these trends: it relies more on good songs and as such, never grows old. tom
