Electronica vs. Electronic Music

[mikemc]

agreed, no artist wants the label, but this is more about the consumer, and the culture of the consumption.

yes. "Electronica" is a swipe at a label that fits it in the radio-esque 'format' categories of music: "all that stuff that is more purely electronic sounding as opposed to primarily pop, rock, jazz or country".

It is an imprecise "umbrella label" of the sort that musicians loathe but that people outside of music can use to refer to all electronic music out there since it was first used in the 1990s.

[friend_kami]

Forgive my naivete. Are these terms essentially one in the same, or do you consider Electronica to be a sub-genre of Electronic Music, or something else?

i consider electronica to be a sub genre of electronic music.
electronic music can be anything really.

i would say that electronica was the start of electronic music (ok, thats a lie and i know it, but it was the main label for electronic music at some point), afaik, and now when the electronic scene exploded into what it is now, its no longer a main label for electronic musuc, but a sub label to describe a certain electronic musical style.

i would like to pose another question: where do you draw the line between melodic IDM and electronica? not to steal your thread but just to keep the discussion going

edit: just thought id say that i read the above reply and i agree with that.

it is a good question though, useless since genres doesnt mean anything, but an interesting debate to say the least.

[andrewbrewer]

Forgive my naivete. Are these terms essentially one in the same, or do you consider Electronica to be a sub-genre of Electronic Music, or something else?

i consider electronica to be a sub genre of electronic music.
electronic music can be anything really.

i would say that electronica was the start of electronic music (ok, thats a lie and i know it, but it was the main genre for electronic music at some point), afaik, and now when the electronic scene exploded into what it is now, its no longer a main genre for electronic musuc, but a sub music to describe a certain electronic musical style.

i would like to pose another question: where do you draw the line between melodic IDM and electronica? not to steal your thread but just to keep the discussion going

edit: just thought id say that i read the above reply and i agree with that.

it is a good question though, useless since genres doesnt mean anything, but an interesting debate to say the least.

in the mid 90's, when electronica was a word, if the melodic idm had hard enough beats, i would call it electronica, otherwise "ambient" ... there was alot of "beaty" stuff back then that people simply called "ambient".

i must shamefully admit, i was a little excited when "idm" started to become a more widely used term. in my neck of the woods this would have been '97-98. it was exciting to call autechre idm -- made it sound new compared to the stale old electronica! oh god what a nonsese time...

[leisuremuffin]

dear god.


i'd be happier if we just said electronica than a shitload of pointless little genres. Yeah, it's a bullshit term, but at least it sweeps over the whole thing instead of disecting into a million little disposable parts.



.lm.

[Moody]

I suddenly feel like a dinosaur.

[rasputin]

I can't emphasize enough how blurry all these distinctions are. Except for snapping your fingers, slapping your thigh, etc., all music is made with machines. The machine may be as simple as a stick hitting a rock, but it's still a machine. (Frankly from an engineering point of view, a grand piano and an acoustic guitar are really phenomenal devices.)

The point is that tape recorders, oscillators, synths, and then computers all resulted in new ways to manipulate sounds.

The big huge distinction I can think of is that there seems to be a dividing line between musical instruments that require electricity for their operation (synths, computers) and those that don't. Many of these, in turn derive from acoustic instruments: i.e., there were organs, pianos, guitars and violins before there were the electric and electronic versions of them. But an electric organ is not just an organ that can run on electricity, it is a distinct instrument that REQUIRES electricity.
An electric violin CAN be played without electricity, but it's sort of besides the point, like playing a synth by hitting it with a drumstick. It makes a noise, but it's not the way it was intended to be played.

In terms of genres and labels, you still have that problem of blurring. Arguing about whether a particular composition is, say, electroclash, dubstep or drill-and-bass only approximately positions it in a cloud of similar works. To me the utility of it is like what Pandora does: if I like A and it is generally agreed that A1 is in the style of S, then I will probably be interested in A2 that is generally agreed to be in the style of S. This actually happened to me when some years ago a friend gave me a CD he made of his favorite EBM tunes. I like them so much I sought out the acts and found out a lot of things I like.

But that's only one of a dozen style that I have found interesting over the years. One thing that Pandora does that can be cool is throw in something sort of from left field (no pun intended) that is not ambient, or chillout, or lieder, or country and western. Sometimes it leads to fascinating investigations.

Stylistic terms sometimes help people discuss music, but outside of that it seems more interesting to academics and people who need to make a particular audience (or their record label?) happy.

I don't know why I went on like this, I think I'm avoinding what I am supposed to be doing. I think I'll go and brush my teeth now...

r.

[nuperspective]

dear god.


i'd be happier if we just said electronica than a shitload of pointless little genres. Yeah, it's a bullshit term, but at least it sweeps over the whole thing instead of disecting into a million little disposable parts.



.lm.

i would agree with that.

[friend_kami]

dear god.


i'd be happier if we just said electronica than a shitload of pointless little genres. Yeah, it's a bullshit term, but at least it sweeps over the whole thing instead of disecting into a million little disposable parts.



.lm.

i would agree with that.

i dont.
for example: if i go to a record store and look thorugh the electronica shelfes, i might have everything from ambient to crappy psychedelic trance listed, while im looking for some hard idm.

now, i dont like trance. instead of going through the billions and billions of trance records to find me an album i like, i could simply go to the idm shelf (if we had one in our hypothetical record store, that is), and look there instad, thus increasing my chances to find what im looking for pretty damn much.

i agree that labeling music is silly, but from a customers point of view i can totally understand it.

the only thing i find hard in this case is (as the topic is about), where to draw the line between electro and electronica.

i think that andrewbrewer has a good point about that "no artist wanted to be called electronica", what he speaks of about electroclash (electro/electroclash, more or less the same, although electroclash is less hard and more poppy IMO).

i disagree with him about throwing traditional song structure out the window though: look at Jean-Michelle Jarré for example (spelling?), which to me is a typical "electronica" artist as opposed to electro. Laserdance is another one, both pretty standard when it comes to traditional songmaking (true, they may ditch out the vocals, but the production and arrangement still follows the same set of rules, sadly heh). Both were big in the 90´s, both to me sounds very typically electronica.

id say that early boards of canada is electronica, although somewhat in a newer way, comparing with laserdance and JMJ heh.

to me, ambient doesnt fit with electronica at all, maybe because im a romanticer, wanting ambient to be all noise-drones and soundart at its purest, but thats just me

Twine, anyone?

also, i agree with melodic IDM and electronica, its just a newer and natural progression from the "true" electronica. if theres such a thing. i bet kraftwerk fans goes off the roof now, so sorry for that then.

what i would like to know though (really really really like to know) is why so many people define french house by daft punk.
..,and french electro with dat politics.

oh, and why the hell they call it french house and/or electro, when its just house and/or electro.

genres i can understand to some point, but to me the difference between french house and house is the extra heavy use of a sidechain compresor, and the lack of a jazzy bassline.

electro with shuffle, then.

ofcourse im just ranting, because im bored. flame on, or something.

interesting discussion though.