Convince me that electronic music isn't a total dud

Ulrich Schnauss, Far Away Trains Passing By

http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/experimental/reviews/schnaussulrich_farawaytrains.shtml

I'd stay away from Come To Daddy, not very accessible

Why'd you go and say a thing like that? It was the bit about liking Primal Scream, wasn't it?

also, portishead's s/t album.

Any Aphex Twin stuff, but since you're a rockist, start with COME TO DADDY and then get RICHARD D. JAMES or I CARE BECAUSE YOU DO

An excellent starting point would also be a compilation called THE COSMIC FORCES OF MU, which has a lot of great stuff, very varied.

Other stuff to try that *isn't* guitar based but is adventurous and interesting:

Squarepusher GO PLASTIC
Autechre CONFIELD, CHIASTIC SLIDE
mu-ziq (can't make the Greek mu, sorry) ROYAL ASTRONOMY, LUNATIC HARNESS
Leafcutter John MICROCONTACT, CONCOURSE E.E.P.
Jega GEOMETRY
Matmos A CHANCE TO CUT IS A CHANCE TO CURE, THE WEST (which has guitars)

That should be enough for now.

anyway, these are terrible choices by and large, but i understand they're "rockist" standbys. i agree with music has a right to children (and maybe partially i care because you do but that era of idm has aged so badly for me.)

"electronic" albums that have moved me, maaaaan, in the last year or so:

herbert - secondhand sounds (k7 were supposed to reissue around the house and if your store has it, go for that first)
recloose - cardiology
m mayer - immer
mri - all that glitters
farben - texstar
adult. - the singles comp i forget the name of right now
kevin drumm - sheer hellish miasma (ha ha if you liked "mbv arkestra", try this)

me! ... except chicks on speed and tracy and the plastics

Add N to X = win!

the books - thought for food

Problem is, it seems that the only electronic music that gets any distribution is the stuff with (usually WAY-cheezy) lyrics. You gotta go to the DJ shop to get the good stuff.

Personally, I find the "trying to break out of the box" side of electro quite soulful these days. It's like wether you consider a lot of extreme jazz stuff to be soulful or not. You either do, or it takes a bit of a leap of faith, or you just ignore it.

Recommendations
For a mellow introduction - Bomb the Bass's Clearcut EP, Mum, Rei Harakami
For a funky / hip hop style introduction - DJ Food, Kid Loco, Thievery Corporation, Q-Bert
For a jazzy introduction - the Breakbeat Era EP, Amon Tobin, Squarepushers "Feed Me Wierd Things". I think Go Plastic is a bit much for an introduction!

re: one of the earlier posts--is there any way that the term IDM could be banned from use ever again? is has to be the stupidest term ever...

Um, yes, I do. I really love DRUKQS, and I hope he continues putting out more piano stuff. The creepier, the better, says I.

I'm a rockist who actually *plays* "electronica" (I really, REALLY hate that term, as well as IDM), but the stuff I really love is not beat-oriented stuff, but rather the stuff that is not neatly slotted into any one genre. It all depends on how you're exposed to it - if you don't like to dance, chances are the records that are made for clubs will not do it for you.

I also am a big fan of downtempo stuff--Fila Brazilia's 'Power Clown' and 'A Touch of Cloth' are pretty good.
Plus, Blue States--Nothing New Under the Sun
Tosca--Suzuki
(these may all be too loungey/coctail party for you)

Dislikes: "Hey Matt! What do you think of Max Martin's production and songs?" "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!"

nitsuh, i am not interested in appeasing the touchy feely tendencies of rockists! throw the baby in the deep end!

matt, if you're drawn to dronerock and/or improvisational structures, i would recommend everything on the smalltown supersound label, especially alog. very interesting fusion of electronics and live instrumentation, all boiled down into a dense, groggy mass. i'm doing a shit job of explaining it but just trust me on this one.

Listen before you buy.

Many of my rockist friends find this very counterintuitive, and even the ones interested in electronic music are uncomfortable grabbing a stack of records and listening to them. But I find it essential.

This is why any store that has any pretenses to selling electronic music (which most decent indie stores nowadays do) should have a turntable/cd player and headphones available. I advise you to listen listen listen.

Also, if you want to hear some house/breaks, I've posted a segmented mix to my Yahoo briefcase:
http://briefcase.yahoo.com/schwantzter/

You'll need to download Stuffit expander to join the files together, but it's a free program, so...

And if this post is considered spam, I'm sorry - I'll never do it again.

In reply to the original poster: 'MDMA' by 'Ecstasy' might be the answer!!!

-Seefeel "Quique" or "Ch:Vox" !!!!!
-Aphex Twin "Selected Ambient Works II"
-Mark Van Hoen "Playing With Time"
-Sun Electric "Kitchen"
-Black Dog "Bytes"
-Gas "Pop"
-Biosphere "Patashnik"
-Future Sound of London "Lifeforms"
-Sabres of Paradise "Sabresonic"
-Ultramarine "User's Guide" (for some reason more than anything else by them...)
-Underworld "Dubnobasswithmyheadman"
-VA: Speicher 2 (strange one... but all my "rockist" friends think this comp is amazing but, not the first one.)
-Sanso Xtro "Sentamentalist"
-a majority of the Profan titles, seemed to be a turning point for rockists that became latent electronic fanatics in the 90's...

There are also a lot of early bands that friends of mine who are rockists have liked certain records by... but, that is for a different discussion I would think. Kraftwerk, first two of OMD, bits of DM, Fad Gadget, Cabaret Voltaire, etc...

gofigure indeed. souvlaki is also great.

After all, what's "electronic music" anyway? All the music you listen to is sound, and it's all recorded sound, and it's all electronically recorded sound, and most of it now is probably digitally recorded or reproduced sound.

That said, you might find that there is something about the sound product of "actual instruments" you like better than the sound product of most computer music. But in the right hands electronic sounds can be as subtle and textured as acoustic instruments, even if they can't replicate the exact same kinds of textures.

That said, I recommend maybe starting with DJ Shadow, because he uses so many samples that involve "real instruments." But the things he does with them might subtly make you question the line between what is and isn't "electronic music".

But Tangerine et al, especially, because I wonder if part of the barrier to "getting into electronic music" in 2005 is perhaps some kind of analouge nostalgia/mistaken belief in it's superiority over digital? Anything that helps ease people into realising the gap isn't actually as distinct as it seems could be useful. And that instruments are just instruments, whether it's guitar/drums/bass or 303/808/sampler. It's all capable of emotional expression in different ways.

I have certain friends who still can't get 'into it'. It's frustrating not being able to get them to make the leap. Especially because it's not that I hate rock/guitar music, or am totally biased towards 'Dance" just that SO MUCH of it... sucks balls, has close to zero imagination/interesting production/original melodies or thematic inspiration by comparison to the majority of electronic music (dance, or otherwise) I stumble across these days personally. And these are BOOM TIMES for guitar rock!

But they aren't even hearing it. It's like holding out watching only black and white television because it "expresses feelings better, and has more soul". Not a direct quote but AAArrrgh!!

I think everything else explained itself from then onwards. That could possibly be the most enlightening, useful piece of advice I've been given in my whole life.

essence of rockism right here. electronic sounds can be as textured? i would say electronic sounds always ARE as textured. does a formica table have less texture than sandpaper? just because your hand slides smoothly over it, does that mean your fingers feel less? do your nerves do less work? does your eardrum transmit fewer signals along the nerves to your brain when it hears an 8-bit drum sample than when it hears someone in a room pluck an acoustic guitar?

from what i've heard, yes.

xpost i don't see what that has to do with this

you are arguing that "textural interest" is somehow related to the complexity of the waveform??

i guess i'm using texturally "interesting" as a synonym for "complex". in general, people prefer complex sounds like a guitar pluck to that of a radar ping. you though are free to dig whatever sounds you choose to, baby.

the pop charts disagree

xpost don't think so. name me one hit song that consisted of pure tones.

in general, people prefer complex sounds like a guitar pluck to that of a radar ping.

ok i dunno about that. sometimes i want a chocolate cake and sometimes i just want a small, perfect piece of chocolate.

exactly.

well, there you have it. easy assumptions about music based on status quo of rock instruments (although i question how easy and natural is it to substituting "interesting" for "complex", esp in the garage rock revival era?) quickly becoming normative statements (also suspect: given the popularity of lil jon and the neptunes, you've got to really wonder what people prefer in general). that's your rockism right there, baby.

Fair point!

it's both! some simple sounds are very pleasing, some sounds with very rich textures are not. more of my music is made of sine waves than recorded instruments, but yeah, a guitar string has a richer texture than a pure tone.

marble, by the way, is a very rich texture: it's translucent, each piece has unique strands of color (hence the word "marbled") etc.

dude, kieth, my apologies.

For me, Endtroducing just happened to be the bridge, because the music all sounded "organic" or whatever, and that allowed me to get past my prejudice and really dig it. But the more I listened, I realized he was making the samples do things that "real instruments" couldn't do -- like taking real drum sounds but playing them in rapid succession and making them decay immediately. Hence my barriers to electronic music started to lower.