As I am writing this, I realize I might come off as ignorant or disrespectful, but I am just genuinely curios.
Among other genres, I like techno and listen to it often. Although I am am more into melodic, dubby techno, or sometimes techno-house.
Also, I am very fresh to the music creation, this is a new hobby for me (and I seem to be sticking to it, btw!). So I am definitely ignorant about many aspects of it. And I am willing to be corrected, and to learn.
A couple of days ago, I saw a post on Instagram from a very big techno scene account. They have a series where they introduce music producers, tell a bit about them, etc. And share their music.
I went and listened to the linked track. Itās leaning into the minimal techno from 00ās territory.
What struck me was that it was quite simpleā¦ Not in the āgenius simplicityā way - just simple and somehow boring even. I saw people make similar techno in Youtube tutorials in half an hour to teach general concepts.
I donāt want to be mean to that person (and so I am not going to share the track here), and donāt mean to downplay their talent. I seriously donāt.
I am just confused, because they seem to be relatively famous (play in big clubs across Europe, have 25k monthly listeners on Spotify etc), and the comment section on that Instagram post was full of excited comments. Hundreds of them.
thereās a certain degree of āevery cigar tastes the sameā vs ācigar aficionadoā that you have to account for in any long-lived scene where heritage is important.
a lot of it sounds the same to my ears, in all honesty. no hate though.
What sounds quite simple on headphones or at home can sound perfect and just right in the club. Any change in the arrangement is magnified when listening on a club system. Also, tracks that are on the simpler side are easier / more conducive to DJs mixing them with other tracks. You might not be missing anything necessarily but it also might not be the right environment to listen to that kind of a track.
And yes, social media numbers donāt really mean anything. What is much more telling is how long they have actually been doing it for and how many times fans have seen them DJ or perform. That is much more indicative of a career than 25k social media fans.
Popularity and talent donāt always intersect. Personal taste doesnāt always intersect with either. Sample size that forms an opinion may also not be proportionate to any of the above.
There are DJs that pack festival stages with thousands and thousands of very enthusiastic people. Then you hear things from other DJs that theyāre really not that great a DJ. Some level of jealousy there may be part of it, others just arm-chair critics, but the fact is, people still flock to see some of them.
Could also be the circumstances while listening, contributing to the whole experience.
There are too many variables here to count.
Maybe it really isnāt all that great. Maybe you just donāt like it. Maybe other people are crazy to like it, or maybe thereās more to it than that. Weāll never really know.
Luckily there are metric tons of variations on the genres out there, tons of different people making and playing the music, and one is completely free to like and dislike what they do, as itās art, and art is subjective.
I wouldnāt worry too much about it, and enjoy what you enjoy.
This is always one of my examples of genius minimalism, maybe it will make you feel better.
Iāve noticed something similar with reaction videos. A few months back, I started watching youtubers react to tracks and live videos of acts that Iām familiar with. At first it was fun to see todayās kids enjoy stuff that I enjoyed back in the '90s. After a few more videos, I noticed a pattern where the host would make comments about how much energy and passion artists put into the show, how it must have been a once-in-a-lifetime-experience. But what I see is a fairly average live show (for a big/popular group) that was selected because the lighting and camera work were particularly good. Most of the shows I went to in the '90s were much ācrazier,ā and I missed most of the truly cool shows in my day.
My working hypothesis is that it is a combination of tastes evolving and the ongoing plague killing off real partying.
I kept losing my files, to be honest, and I didnāt think anyone would like it. Everyone in my area was doing hard techno or super stripped music. And the guys are still fighting here. Do you think this is good advice so that this thread is not totally pointless. I didnāt know that at the time it just happend. In Retrsopect.
My honest take is that the magic of techno is with the DJ not the producers. A great techno set is unlike anything else. But the ingredients that go into the soup are pretty basic.
Itās called marketing. Money gets you far in the industry. You can astroturf a career in techno if you got the $$$. Damn capitalism ruins everything.
