Techno isn't dead...

... it just moved out of its parents house, started wearing less makeup, stopped getting with any one who made eye contact with it, got a real job, and changed its name to electronic. Although the excessive levels of ecstasy may still be lingering around, the artist who wishes to use infectious drum machine beats and layers of synths and nonsense now has a much more respectable medium in which to express themselves. Maybe i have jumped the gun with this post though. Sure techno is only dead to the same extent that hip hop is, just with less black people. Techno or dance or what ever you'd like to call it will always have its place on the dance floors around the world just as it will always be enjoyed in more or less ironic ways in more or less inappropriate situations. However, as far as a genre to actually listen to on your off time it is generally reserved for people you wander whether or not you actually have friends or just chose to live your fictional club life through the comfort of headphones with maxed out volume while others give them uncomfortable stares. Also to be fair, electronica has had plenty of time to exist as a genre and as much as I'd like to believe so, did not surface the moment I chose to give attention to it.

Again, for the most part techno and electronic music share the same elements; a beat driven nonsensical sound, with such subtle distinctions as whether or not the music sucks. I must say that my previous description of electronic music may not quite be fair given that electronic music can range from much moodier spectrums such as artists like Fujiya and Miyagi to again the crazier, dancier Daft Punks. It is the expandability beyond the dance floors of our drug addled youths that allows electronic music to be much more then just a toxic stew of generic beats and choruses generally containing some usage of the word "dance".

Yet there seems to be something so oddly alluring about the word techno itself. For example when trying to introduce a friend to oh lets say Dan Deacon and you chose to use the word electronic instead of techno, but are only greeted by the same sort of befuddled stare you usually receive after berating said friend for his/her musical incompetence (which I can only assume you did briefly before trying to introduce him/her to Dan Deacon, probably as a response to him/her telling you about this awesome and "way trippy" techno band Infirmed Mushroom). Is one supposed to resort to saying Dan Deacon is a mere "techno" artist? Wouldn't it just be so much easier to describe his twelve minute Wham City as some sort of "techno" ballad? With all of his beats, samples, and chipmunk voices, isn't "techno" just such a convenient term to use? Yet after listening to his albums, his music is clearly not techno. One will surely find that behind the barrage of highly danceable music and electronically manipulated sounds there is a man with various degrees in music, depth and playability, and an actual artist.