Dance Music: talented vocals, quality production...so why isn't it on the air?

Originally posted by TheLoony

Originally posted by Skyfloating
It only proves that people dont KNOW what real uplifting, brain-expanding, consciousness-raising electronica/dance can sound like.

Not trying to derail or start an argument but I have no desire to listen to anything electronica/dance. I am a musician and I need to have real musicians playing, not just some tracks thrown together that were created by someone else or a computer. To me, it's not music. Therefore my ears have no desire to listen to it. I don't mind using electronics to enhance things but to create it is a whole other world, at least IMO.

See, this is where the mis-conception lies. That all dance music is created soley on computers by talentless individuals who are not 'real' musicians. That is extremely untrue and shows a lack of understanding or the electronic equipment that can be used.

How is a synthesizer any less of an instrument than a guitar? It's not, it's simply played differently. It's an electronic piano. I use hardware like synthesisers, drum machines, effects processors, analogue modulation, vocoders, things that people who play the guitar look at and go 'WFT! What the hell do all those knobs do!'. Equipment that takes a college course to learn how to use properly. I can finalise the production on the PC, if I want. Hey, I can even play live and sing and everything, just lie a live band eh?

True, there are people that work only on sampled riffs and just stick them together and claim it's their own song. But i see this in hip-hop more than dance music. This is also less common and is found in more 'commercial' dance. Commercial dance gives all dance music a bad name!

When i play in the clubs it brings together folk that like any type of music, rock, heavy metal, techno, acid house, even classical. Hell, I can even take my parents out to my nights and they dig it.

And anyway, using the term 'dance music' to descibe the whole genre is a dramatic generalisation in my book. It's like labelling anything with guitars in it 'guitar music' and tarring rock, heavy metal, folk, country etc all with the same brush.

Dance music incorporates electro, techno, house, breaks, italo-disco, drum n bass, breakbeat, commercial, rave etc and each of them can be broken down even further into technical subgroups. It's actually much more varied than rock could ever be once you understand it!

Its true for some reason the US does really get into the dance music from my experiences, it seems club Hiphop/R&B is more favored in your clubs. In Oz EVERY club plays dance music same in the UK, then again Hiphop is just becoming more popular in our clubs. I think dance music is a UK/Euro thing and just really gaining mainstream attention in the current years. Do you guys in the US have many raves ?

Originally posted by skyshow
reply to post by Oldtimer2

 

Dog...it's 2008, dance has evolved...I mean you still have your 4/4 beat... but people are always so quick to dismiss dance... you guys, have your girl's take you out to your nearest really hot gay bar, and after a few drinks...(minds out of the gutter) you might loosten up and forget about the one two three four two two three four, three two three four, four two three four... that's ok, your body is now moving to the beat and you have forgot all about the redundancy there and are now flowing to the rhythm dancing with your baby, drink in hand, disco ball flashing, and completely relaxed enjoying yourself and your night out on the dance floor...the last thing on your mind is wanting to fight because you realise you are in love with your girl, you suddenly realise it's ok to dance to dance music, and Kylie minogue starts sounding really freakin' hot after your fourth rum and coke...

...and a few extacys too.

By the sounds of it.

I love IDM and reckon they should play it on the radio more.

Thing is, commercial radio is there to make money. Majority listen to crap, so we get crap on the radio. I personally find a good internet radio station to listen to.

My personal favourite radio station to listen to while doing house work in the afternoon is KLIF and listen to conservative talk about blowing up Muslims and invading Iran. Michael Savage is the DJ I think, he's funny. I think he really believes the stuff he is saying too.

Talented vocals? Lol.... no, not really mate, you ever heard of Ella Fitzgerald? Now she could sing.

Good production? Anything that is made by a computer.... ah just forget it, it's horrible stuff really.

Give me some good ol Jazz any day of the week, now there's some music that will get your feet moving and your own creative juices flowing.

reply to post by skyshow


I was wondering something along the same lines as your post. However, I was wondering why it is that the variety of music played for the "masses" is very, very limited.

There is a lot of music out there which defy any label, which can help expand your intelligence and may also produce enlightenment.

We'll never hear such music played on the radio, MTV. You'll be hard pressed to find it for sale anywhere.

Why does such music meet with such resistance?

Did you know that the Catholic Church was responsible for our current "Western" system of harmony? As dictated by the church hundreds of years ago, all we get are 12 notes, and the scales/modes that they chose for us.

(There are actually many more modes/scales and notes available, but thanks to the very limited system imposed on the masses, over hundreds of years, if you decided to play any of those forgotten modes/scales it would not "sound correct" to anyone, including yourself.

Whereas, In Eastern music there are many more notes than just the 12 we use over and over again, in the same patterns.

When 99% of the people in any "western" society listens to anything that includes scales/modes or notes that go beyond what we have become accustomed to hearing, it sounds "wrong" or out of tune to us.

Since we've been born, all we have ever heard is music (a harmonic system) which uses only 12 notes. This includes classical music, jazz, pop, rock, blues, country, rap, dance, etc. All of the music we have ever heard only uses 12 notes which were decided upon by the church hundreds of years ago as being "the correct" notes, the only notes that should be heard and played by western civilization.

Unless you have heard "microtonal" music or authentic eastern music. You've never heard more than 12 notes in anything you've ever heard.
(You'll also hear more than 12 notes briefly when a guitarist "bends" a note, however the "bending of that note always begins and ends on one of the 12 notes.

When bending a note on a guitar there are actually tones in between the start and stop notes that comprise the "bend". You might also hear notes beyond the 12 imposed on us when listening to any non-fretted "western" instrument, (also woodwind, brass) but those notes too, which go outside the 12 are extremely brief and not part of the main musical structure or harmony.

Since this is the only thing we've ever heard since birth anything beyond the 12 note western harmonic system does not sound "right" to us.









[edit on 4-5-2008 by Electro38]

[edit on 4-5-2008 by Electro38]

What follows, is a list of people without any talent too, LOL, i swear:

Karlheinz Stockhausen
Carl Cox
Dave Clarke
Laurent Garnier
Jeff Mills
Carl Craig
Derrick May
Dj Sneak
Charles Siegling (Technasia)
Cristian Varella
Alexander Kowalski
Olav Basoski
Darren Emerson
Moby
Aphex Twin
Alec Empire
Atari Teenage Riot
The Prodigy
Junkie XL
Crystal Method
Hyper
PropellerHeads
Future Sound of London
Chris Liberator
Dave The Drummer
Keoki
Akai1200
Squarepusher
Juno Reactor
Orbital
Lunatic Calm
Empirion
Meat Beat Manifesto
LFO
Altern8
Hardfloor
Project909
Doc Scott
Q-Bert
Kid Koala
Kentaro
Akakabe
Fumiya Tanaka
Surgeon
The Advent
Photek
Prototype 909
LTJ Bukem
Bill Laswell
Pete Namlook
Kruder & Dorfmeister

Yeah i know the intention was "dance music" but i just couldn't hold myself. LOL!

The conspiracy here goes beyond a particular genre of music.

Here's how the music industry works. Or did - things are changing a great deal. I predicted the end of the music industry as we know it, and I see it happening now.

A music label owns distribution. Therefore, no matter how good you are, you MUST have a 'deal' with the label in order to get your recordings out to the masses.

Well, unless you're REM, who is about the only band that bucked the system and worked the college radio and forced the labels to come to them, but that's another story.

So the control begins there. They decide what is 'good' and worth listening to from point blank. They choose a band, put their records in all the stores so that it's available. But still, this isn't enough. There's 1000s of such bands, how do we know what's good?

Why radio that's how. Radio Programing, in every sense of the word. So then, the ominous 'they' pick what songs are going to be played on the radio. And they play them, over and over and over, until, some of them stick with the public.

I gave up listening to radio years ago because of this very thing. Oh sure, I tune in occasionally, and mostly to college radio if I can or I search for other fringe programing. Alot of us did in the early 90s. I find it amusing that the labels turned that all into mainstream too, from Punk, to Grunge to well, Alternative these days, is just another name for mainstream. All that 80s music that everyone seems to worship these days, was edgy and cutting at the time, but now, has become the 'old standards' of our generations.

You think you have a choice in what you enjoy to listen to. But you don't. Not if you buy into the system. Then you only have a choice of THEIR choices. And trust me, it's a small portion of what truly talented artists are out there.

This is why I celebrate the end of the labels. Why I don't see a problem with MP3 downloading. Artists today don't need the Labels, they have other means for distribution. The artists don't suffer for it, no matter what Metallica tells you. (When they only get what, a dollar out of every CD sale and the rest goes to the record company? Bands make their money on concert tickets, folks, not Album sales). It's a new world out there, that requires rethinking of the old world, re-evaluating our ideas of IP.

I heard the other day from someone in the know, that radio stations can't lure enough advertising these days because no one listens to the radio anymore.

What's to come? I'm not sure. But change IS coming, I guarantee that.

reply to post by Jadette


I would love to see the major labels get beat up by a more free music market too, that would be awesome.

Let's pray it happens soon.

Are they still not selling as many CD's as they used to?

I guess that really doesn't matter, they'll just monopolize the downloaded music market and we'll have essentially the same thing, (sigh).



[edit on 4-5-2008 by Electro38]

reply to post by Electro38


I have some friends in a band that I doubt any of you have heard of, and yet, they made over 100k last year in download sales online.

They aren't signed. They aren't 'famous'. I mean, clearly they have talent and have a following. But this just goes to show you what anyone can do without the Labels.

reply to post by Jadette



That's awesome...
What is the band's name?

Yeah, the internet really helped things. I hope it stays that way. I get nervous thinking that eventually they're going to ruin the internet, ("they", meaning politicians, etc. who are looking to line their pockets with tax money).

Originally posted by morthn1waytoskinacat
reply to post by Skyfloating

 

Wow! Hours or even days to produce, eh? That's amazing. Wonder what all these silly talentless bands like say, oh, I don't know, Dream Theatre, or Tool are doing, taking a year or more to write and produce an album. They must not have a clue.
I guess that's why they sell out arena's and have platinum or higher selling albums with absolutley no radio play, not to mention actually having their credibilty attacked in music publications, if they are even mentioned at all.
I wished I could say, that I hate saying it, but "music" is played by musicians, i.e., people who actually play an instrument of some sort. Not some jackass with a turntable stealing someone elses work and remixing it to some electronic crap that a 7 year old could program into a sequencer after spending a half hour reading the manual.
In case you were wondering I am a musician, have been for 22 years, went to music college, and have played in every kind of band imaginable (glam rock, jazz, blues, heavy metal, speed metal, rockabilly, country, and even folk). And yes, I learned how to program a sequencer and a synth in less time than it took me to read the manual. Within 3 hours I created some god awful # that some of my electronica loving coworkers thought was the best thing they had ever heard 'till they found out I made it. So, whatever Trevor.

As i said earier-there is a lot of snobbery about dance music from pseudo muso's in failed bands (you've been playing in bands for 22 years -if you had made it i guess you would have told us the name of your band,eh?) who don't understand they are listening to "pop dance" and tar it all with the same brush.
You also seem to have ignored the excellent point by dervishmadwhirler that all music produced in a studio is electronically digitised,edited,quanizised, cleaned up,filterd, re-jigged and generally messed around with to make it sound good.
If you don't like electronic music go and throw all your metal albums away because every good guitar sound is the result of studio processing and overdrive/superfuzz/phasing/flanging effects!
I realise you are probably old and stuck in your ways, so let me put it into a language you can relate too-progressive rock(which, by the way, no-one except die hards like yes and (ahem!)dream theater have been making scince about 1977!).
Once upon a time there was a band called Rush.
They were all very,very talented musicians who played bluesy rock influenced by cream,led zep,jeff beck etc.
one day in the early 70's they decided they were going to make their music more progressive than the hundreds of bands out there who were all playing the same sort of music by adding SYNTHESISERS to their sounds!
There was outrage,hostility and fear from some of their (tiny minded,luddite) fans!
"This band have sold out. Any idiot can play a keyboard"- they said. (Which was news to all the concert pianists out there!)
The band decided that blues rock was old,played to death and ignored the idiots. People liked the new music so much that a new category of music had to be named to lump together all the bands who were now using synths to make this new music-they called it "progressive rock" or synth rock and it was critically acclaimed and sold well for a while until, it too became old,stodgy,overblown pretentious and pompous.
About 7 years after it had all finished another group of very talented musicians called dream theater decided that actually making a new sound was too hard and they would look back to the prog music of old. They played cover versions of albums like "darkside of the moon" by pink floyd and "made in japan" by deep purple-the new generation of luddites (people who were afraid of change or anything new) loved it!
I am glad you mentioned tool, because,sadly, you are one!

The music corporations definitely decide what the masses will listen to. They push the hell out of whatever they think will make them the most money at the time. I'm not sure if their choices are based on how the music will make the listener feel, though, due to the subjectivity of that kind of thing. A piece of music will make some folks happy, while making others feel angry or depressed. That all depends on the listener's frame of mind. I know a lot (and I do mean a lot) of the music that makes me smile really seems to annoy most other people.

In reference to dance music, while I haven't had a whole lot of exposure to it, most of what I have heard, like "Darude", hasn't impressed me much. I generally find it dull and repetitive. That being said, I do know a couple of fellas who create electronica/dance type music that can just melt your mind. Very impressive. So I certainly can't just write off the whole genre. I guess it depends on the creativity, skills, and available equipment of the performers.

I don't listen to radio at all if I can help it. What radio music I am exposed to generally sucks, in my opinion, regardless of the genre. So, as a general rule of thumb, if it's on the radio, I don't listen to it. I find the talent levels of most music today to be depressingly low. Not to say all new music sucks, but one definitely has to search out the few good bands that are out there. Of course, as I said earlier, what I like seems to rub most people the wrong way, so what do I know?

Of what I do listen to, 99% consists of live concert recordings, often recorded by audience members. Sites like Archives.org make lots of good live recordings available for free, legal download. I think bands play better, with more energy and soul, in front of an audience. (I've been playing in bands for some 30-odd years, so I can attest to the extra "energy" of playing live as opposed to in a studio-type situation.) Live recordings of this type avoid the whole "over produced" aspect of studio music, and show what the band really has. If I have to "sacrifice" a little sound quality to hear the better music, that's alright by me, although with today's technology, on-the-fly live recording is getting better and better. One of my current favorite bands, Umphrey's McGee, sells CDs of the concert they just played at the end of the show, and they sound great. Check out one of their free podcasts as an example.

With the internet, the public can get access to more and more music that never gets radio play, much of which is much better then that which does get airtime. Obviously, this is weakening the hold of the major music corporations on what we all listen to, and I think that is a very good thing. Good musicians who refuse to play by the corporations rules can get exposure to lots of people who never would have heard them otherwise.

reply to post by battlestargalactica


mostly some pretty good posts on here, you obviously didn't get my point...in fact has anyone? While the reading about the music subjective taste differences is interesting, the conspiracy has yet to even be commented on, and I'm actually quite surprised with this being ATS and all...It's actually part of a pretty big conspiracy theory, but then I guess you might say I was "cherry picking" from the jelly bean of theories bowl...

If you still don't know what I'm talking about, go back and take a look at all of my posts on this thread and you will see why this does not belong on BTS.

"deny ignorance" yo.

reply to post by the way


For one thing who says you have to play in a "successful" band to play music for 22 years, jack ass?
Ever heard of a session musician?, Oh, guess not. That must be because electronica doesn't use musicians.
I've played in bands for fun. The real cake is in session work. Get a clue before you shoot your mouth off about pseudo- musos, what ever language that is. I've forgot more about music than you'll ever know. Maybe spit out the ecstasy and listen to something with an instrument in it, preferably one with strings or breath that takes several "years" of practice to master, played by someone who has mastered it. Otherwise shut it, you are unqualified to speak on the subject.

[edit on 5-5-2008 by morthn1waytoskinacat]

reply to post by the way


Oh and by the way, someone can play for 22 years without being old. It requires an early start, but I guess I can forgive you since you are obviously handicapped (or a teenager...same thing really).
Just a suggestion though:
If you are surrounded by idiots, I suggest you get out of that hall of mirrors you are standing in, stupid and ugly is a hard thing to live with..........

Originally posted by CoNsPiRaCy PhReAk
Dance music is boring and is all computerized and because its computerized it is all mathimatically produced because you have to get the correct BPM and everything has to be perfect otherwise it will go out of time further into the song,also it doesn't take alot of talent to crate a dance track! I am a singer / songwriter and i made a dance track within 10mins all sounding perfect with vocals!. Where as Rock! there has to be talent in order to make good music and be sucessfull! Which is why there are hardly any dance tracks being played! Because anyone can do it!

if you knew how wrong you are,you'd shoot yourself in the head. Any fool can program and computer to make squeeky noises,but that's not a good dance track. A decent track has layers,and depth,much more than you can do with a couple of guitars and a set of drums. But that's going to boil down to a matter of opinion. Mine is quite obviously diffferent to yours.

As for the post in question,I dunno why dance music doesn't get a play on your radio stations. We get dance music on the radio in England. Albeit the cheesey crap stuff. But then,you won't get the good rock on the stations either,just the commercial stuff.

reply to post by Acidtastic


That's why "good" guitar albums aren't three or four tracks, they are 48 plus. Then there are multiple tracks of drums, and multiple tracks of vocals. You not only do not need to do that with computer generated dance music, (or electronica more correctly), it is a pointless waste of resources to do so, that's why it's done on a computer in the first place. No one sits in a studio with 14 keyboards to do anything anymore, when you can use a sequencer and all the required synth software hosted through your recording program (be it pro tools, cubase, or any other professional grade recording software), so that's not really a valid argument. Unfortunately, there are many fans of music who have no real clue what is undertook in an average recording session, they just assume they know how it's done because they've seen a video of some star doing their thing in a studio, with fancy lighting, and people sitting around like it's a show or something. Couldn't be farther from the truth.
I don't listen to the radio because it's #, so I frankly could care less if they played dance music. If they did that would be great, because since I don't listen to the radio, I'd never have to hear that garbage.
I doubt it's a conspiracy though.
Bunch of rich guys own the radio station. They want to get richer so, they play music that the largest target group want to hear. This in turn draws advertisers (the guys that make a radio station viable by buying airtime for commercials) that want to sell products for their clients to that listener base.
Therefore music played on the radio is just one huge soundtrack for a group of commercials, hence the term "commercial music".
I see no conspiracy, since this has always been the case, is not hidden, and anyone who has ever been involved even fleetingly in the industry, from the lowliest roadie, to the highest exec knows this.

Originally posted by morthn1waytoskinacat
reply to post by the way

 

For one thing who says you have to play in a "successful" band to play music for 22 years, jack ass?
Ever heard of a session musician?, Oh, guess not. That must be because electronica doesn't use musicians.
I've played in bands for fun. The real cake is in session work. Get a clue before you shoot your mouth off about pseudo- musos, what ever language that is. I've forgot more about music than you'll ever know. Maybe spit out the ecstasy and listen to something with an instrument in it, preferably one with strings or breath that takes several "years" of practice to master, played by someone who has mastered it. Otherwise shut it, you are unqualified to speak on the subject.

It is a pitty that this discussions in going down the tube by something that i call "taste"
There are many types of music and many different tastes for it.
A discussion about taste can last forever and is not the point of this thread i believe.

Side note:
To be able to make good electronic music you need to build up your skill and that can take years and years.
Easely compared with learning any other instrument.

There is a lot of crappy electronic music comming out, but the same you can say of any kind of music.
If you listen to the mainstream charts you find that there is a lot of crappy music there to that oalmost anyone can learn to make over a weekend.
So this does not only count for electronic music.
True gems are hard to find in any type of music.

So why is it than than certain music is played mainstream an others are not.
Was that not the question ?

To me it seems there is an invisible hand at work to influence the music industry in some parts.
Take for example what happened to hip-hop music.
It used to be quite political minded and raps used to be a lot about what happened on the streets in the lives of normal people.

Now it seems only about money, tits, cars and power.
No space any more for political minded rap in the main stream media.
And i believe the same counts for punk and rock.

Music can, like all art, reach your hart in seconds and invissible hand does not seem like it wants us to have that power.
They have seen what it can do with examples like john lennon and his fight for peace.

I am not sure where electronic music fits in here but i do know that mainstream music is influenced by much more than just tallent.
It seems that the mainstream monopolists have a hard time to catch the electronic music scene into its web.

Originally posted by greeneyedleo

1: The music is not about drugs. Have you ever been to a rock concert? LMAO


2: or how about a Jimmy Buffet concert

3: The lack of it on the air has nothing to do with the drugs.

1: Yes and it was turd - everyone was too high to get up to mischief.

2: Nope.

3: I think it might have a lot to do with drugs, but i suppose that's only one way of looking at it, sweetie.

[edit on 5-5-2008 by Anti-Tyrant]

reply to post by morthn1waytoskinacat


Oh dear! Looks like i've touched a nerve here?