From a techno blog some may already be familiar with:
http://testindustries.typepad.com/test/2007/07/past-mastered.html Past mastered This topic has been discussed in some of the forums recently, and it was something that I wanted to post about before I went away. The fact that I'm only getting around to it now says more about my poor time-management skills than anything else. Anyway, enough excuses, here goes; has anyone noticed the way that the same limited set of releases are getting played and charted all the time? I'm not trying to diss the legal digital download sites - hey, I even work for one - but it seems like the opposite is now happening to what the gatekeepers of the digital revolution had originally predicted. Remember a few years back, all the talk about the unlimited choice that the availability of electronic music in digital formats promised, the way we'd be able to buy the most obscure release or that the staggering range that these groundbreaking services offered would make it easier for even an aspiring DJ to differentiate him/herself from the pack. Unfortunately, it hasn't quite turned out that way, yet the sites can't be blamed: even a cursory look at Beatport reveals an exhaustive catalogue of music, but the problem is that nearly all of the users seem unwilling to delve deeper than the current top 10 or recommendations from their favourite DJs. Ironically, although it has never been easier to access electronic music, the range of what is being consumed, bought and played is getting narrower and narrower. Why is the reverse happening of what was predicted? Some of it can be explained by laziness: broadband connections, combined with the proliferation of Beatport, Juno, Kompakt et al means that it has never been easier to quickly acquire the same collection/Top 10 as the Hawtins, Mayers and Clarkes (or insert your own idol here) of this world. Once you have achieved that goal and own all the same tracks in your hero's top 10, why bother with anything else? With the use of Ableton, you can even replicate your chosen hero's recent super-smooth set, track by track. Another factor is that we live in a time-poor world, and having dealt with work, commuting and all the other menial chores that life demands, most people have a limited amount of time to source new (or old) music. The final factor though is the most important, and I'm sure many people who read the site will disagree with me, but it seems like in the constant search for the newest, most upfront music, a sense of history has gone out the window. It never fails to amaze me that charts or sets only consist of brand new music, that there is no attempt to link or connect to the past, from where this music came. By its nature, electronic music evolves at a fast pace, but it's still necessary to have an understanding of what happened in the past to fully appreciate what's going on now. One of this year's most original albums, 'Restaurant of Assassins', by Neil Landstrum is heavily inspired by old school rave and 90s bleep bass techno as well as dubstep and it sounds brilliant, a breath of fresh air in what I feel is an increasingly conservative, risk-averse techno landscape. No one wants to deal with snotty record store assistants, but one thing that shopping in real-life stores instills is a sense of a curiosity, to look beyond any given week's new arrivals and to explore the creaking shelves and dusty crates. Ten years ago, it was much harder to find great new music: it meant that people looked harder, went to their local record store a few times a week, often pre-ordered release, religiously read magazines for any shred of information about their favourite producer's future activity and generally behaved like proper trainspotters rather than sheep with broadband connections. I'm not suggesting that we return to those bad old days, but the way things were made people hungry to find new music. Nowadays,that sense of hunger seems to be largely absent, both in DJ sets and shopping habits - but I still hope that in 20 year's time, people will be listening to Ron Trent's 'Altered States' rather than this week's Juno top 10.