Techno Hypocrisy

For the last twenty years techno music has been a means to an end. 808s, 909s, synths and all the other familiar sounds have sold everything from action films to educational kiddie toys. You can't go to a professional sports arena without hearing a techno song. So why is it when I ask people their thoughts on techno music they say either that they don't like it, or that nobody listens to it? I think it's because they're grossly ignorant, but let's look at some examples

When I was young and in college, I would go to the bar and look through the Touch Tunes jukebox. After about always walk away disappointed at the lack of current techno, if they had any at all, or bad and old techno from good artists. If I could find something current and good, and played it, the deebies and sorostitutes with them would be all 'What the fuck's this gay shit?' Now when I go to the bar, I can't so much as spit without hearing 'I Gotta Feeling' or fucking Lady Gaga or David Guetta being a turncoat sell-out bastard, and what's worse, they're actively shitting on proper electro

Speaking of college and douchebags, if techno was a religion and DJs could be patron saints, Saint Bob Sinclar (or Christopher whatever the hell his last name is) would be the patron saint of douchbaggery, asshattery, Abercrombie and fraternities.

Compilation CDs are a total cop out. Dance Nation commercials have been on TV for God knows how long, to say nothing of the Ultra Dance series. I would include NOW, but since they have always been about bubblegum pop with those few 'acceptable' songs (Rockerfella Skank, South Side etc) they actually get the free pass because their bullshit is nothing new. Either way, if you're going to do a techno album, compilation or otherwise, at least have the front to call it what it is.

And speaking of front, what pisses me off above all is the front 'rap culture' has. I say 'rap culture' because apparently it's cool for allegedly hard white people to act like they were actively discriminated against, but that's for another topic. For the late 90s and early 2000s rap consistently rejected techno out of hand, insisting on making their own beats as they had since the 80s, which I can't blame them for. They even went so far to say that techno isn't real music, and then there was that ridiculous beef between Eminem and Moby, pre-sell out days. Then Kanye West drops 'Stronger' and I needed to find a weapon

For those who don' t already know, 'Stronger' is little more than Kanye rapping over a rearrangement of the main hook and chorus from Daft Punk's 'Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger', which dropped six years prior. This practice is called sampling, it's been around forever, and as longs as you give credit to the artists, and you respect the track by not fucking it up, I'm fine. Kanye won the Grammy, and did the right thing by Daft Punk, bringing them to the show to make the beat live. Great move by Kanye, but unfortunately, he flashed the Batsignal for the new trend of putting techno hooks in your track.

Pitbull is the most flagrant example. He took Nicola Fasano vs. Pat Rich's "75, Brazil Street" made NO changes to it, and just rapped over the top, messing up the title of the track as he covers himself. Ne-Yo and Usher songs by definition are house songs. I don't give a fuck what you kiddies screaming "It's R&B" at the top of your lungs say or scream, you're wrong, do your musical homework starting with the blues section.

If music were a religion, I'd have a fatwa on T.I. It's one thing to shamelessly rip Crystal Waters' "Gypsy Woman". That track, while still the tip, as evidenced by the host of recent clones and imitators, is twenty years old. I can understand it being sampled to death, but not in the way T.I. did it. Musically it worked, but the purpose he use it for was ludicrous. Song is diametrically opposed to the life T.I was talking about, let alone the actual beat, but I can live with that. What I can't live with is his taking O-zone's "Dragostea Din Tei" (the motherfucking Numa Numa song) with Riahanna on the half yodels, putting a beat on it and calling himself hard. First, any use of the Numa Numa song outsideof techno makes you lame and second, fuck you T.I. for even having the idea. Besides, what happened to techno not being music, or being fake or lame?

I'm musically equivalent to or ahead of the curve. Sounds grandiose, I know, but I don't claim to be consciously aware of it most of the time, but it's not as if I didn't know or see this coming. If you look at it, Two Door Cinema Club and other similar bands have artistic roots as far back as 1998 with bands like Capitol K (their hit song 'Pillow' was the background music for the first generation of 'priceless' MasterCard commercials, specifically the one where they college boy goes to Europe), which I picked up on in 2001-2002. I kind of sort of called the play on electro back in '05 when I went on a pretty large Late Night Alumni/Annie/Daybehavior bender, the former two I jumped on when they dropped, thank you Kaskade. Electro as fuck, evoking thoughts of New Order, Depeche Mode and OMD.

Here's a fun fact: I've never really sat down and took the time to listen to Depeche Mode, though I've heard of them most of my life.