Techno music

Techno is a form of electronic music that emerged in the mid-1980s and primarily refers to a particular style developed in and around Detroit and subsequently adopted by European producers. "Techno" is also a informal and misleading term often used in North America, and perhaps elsewhere, to describe all forms of electronic dance music.

History

Techno was primarily developed in basement studios by "The Belleville Three", a cadre of African-American men who were attending college, at the time, near Detroit, Michigan.

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The budding musicians – former high school friends and mixtape traders Juan Atkins, Derrick May, and Kevin Saunderson – found inspiration in Midnight Funk Association, an eclectic, 5-hour, late-night radio program hosted on various Detroit radio stations including WCHB, WGPR, and WJLB-FM from 1977 through the mid-1980s by DJ Charles "The Electrifying Mojo" Johnson. Mojo's show featured heavy doses of electronic sounds from the likes of George Clinton, Kraftwerk, and Tangerine Dream, among others.

Related Topics:
Juan Atkins - Derrick May - Kevin Saunderson - Midnight Funk Association - WJLB-FM - 1977 - 1980s - The Electrifying Mojo - George Clinton - Kraftwerk - Tangerine Dream

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Though initially conceived as party music that was played on daily mixed radio programs and played at parties given by cliquish, Detroit high school clubs, it has grown to be a global phenomenon. High school clubs such as Snobbs, Hardwear, Brats, Comrades, Weekends, Rumours, and Shari Vari created the incubator in which Techno was grown. These young promoters developed and nurtured the local dance music scene by both catering to the tastes of the local audience of young people and by marketing parties with innovative DJs and eclectic new music. As these local clubs grew in popularity, groups of DJs began to band together and market their mixing skills and sound systems to the clubs under names like Direct Drive and Audio Mix in order to cater to the growing audiences of listeners. Locations like local church activity centers, vacant warehouses, offices and YMCA auditoriums were the early locations where the underage crowds gathered, and where the musical form was nurtured and defined.

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The music soon attracted enough attention to garner its own club, the Music Institute. It was founded by Chez Damier, Derrick May and a few other investors. Though short-lived, this club was known internationally, for its all night sets, its sparse white rooms, and its juice bar (the Institute never served liquor). Relatively quickly, techno began to be seen by many of its originators and up-and-coming producers as an expression of Future Shock post-industrial angst. It also took on increasingly high tech and science-fiction oriented themes.

Related Topics:
Music Institute - Future Shock

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The music's producers were using the word "techno" in a general sense as early as 1984 (as in Cybotron's seminal classic "Techno City"), and sporadic references to an ill-defined "techno-pop" could be found in the music press in the mid-1980s. However, it was not until Neil Rushton assembled the compilation Techno! The New Dance Sound Of Detroit for Virgin Records (UK) in 1988 that the word came to formally describe a genre of music.

Related Topics:
Virgin Records - 1988

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Techno has since been retroactively defined to encompass, among others, works dating back to "Shari Vari" (1981) by A Number Of Names, the earliest compositions by Cybotron (1981), Donna Summer and Giorgio Moroder's "I Feel Love" (1977), and the more danceable selections from Kraftwerk's repertoire between 1977 and 1983.

Related Topics:
1981 - A Number Of Names - Cybotron - Donna Summer - Giorgio Moroder's - 1977 - Kraftwerk - 1983

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In the years immediately following the first techno compilation's release, techno was referenced in the dance music press as Detroit's relatively high-tech, mechanical brand of house music, because on the whole, it retained the same basic structure as the soulful, minimal, post-disco style that was emanating from Chicago, Illinois and New York City, New York at the time. The music's producers, especially May and Saunderson, admit to having been fascinated by the Chicago club scene and being influenced by house in particular. This influence is especially evident in the tracks on the first compilation, as well as in many of the other compositions and remixes they released between 1988 and 1992. May's 1987–88 hit "Strings Of Life" (released under the nom de plume Rhythim Is Rhythim), for example, is considered a classic in both the house and techno genres. At the same time, there is evidence that the Chicago sound was influenced by the Detroit Three — allegedly, May loaned Chicago-based house musician Keith "Jack Master Funk" Farley the equipment to make the classic track "House Nation"; early Detroit techno records reportedly sold well in Chicago; and Atkins believes that the first acid house producers, seeking to distance house music from disco, emulated the techno sound. http://www.timlawrence.info/linernotes/pdfs/Acid-final-web.pdf

Related Topics:
House music - Disco - Chicago, Illinois - New York City, New York - 1992 - Keith "Jack Master Funk" Farley - Acid house

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A spate of techno-influenced releases by new producers in 1991–92 resulted in a rapid fragmentation and divergence of techno from the house genre. Many of these producers were based in the UK and the Netherlands, places where techno had gained a huge following and taken a crucial role in the development of the club and rave scenes. Many of these new tracks in the fledgling IDM, trance and hardcore/jungle genres took the music in more experimental and drug-influenced directions than techno's originators intended. Detroit and "pure" techno remained as a subgenre, however, championed by a new crop of Detroit-area producers like Carl Craig, Kenny Larkin, Richie Hawtin, Jeff Mills, Drexciya and Robert Hood, plus certain musicians in the UK, Belgium and Germany.

Related Topics:
1991 - IDM - Trance - Hardcore/jungle

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Derrick May is often quoted as comparing techno to "George Clinton and Kraftwerk stuck in an elevator", even though very little, if any, techno ever bore a stylistic resemblance to Clinton's repertoire.

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For various reasons, techno is seen by the American mainstream, even among African-Americans, as "white" music, even though its originators and many of its producers are Black. The historical similarities between techno, jazz, and rock and roll, from a racial standpoint, are a point of contention among fans and musicians alike. Derrick May, in particular, has been outspoken in his criticism of the co-opting of the genre and of the misconceptions held by people of all races with regard to techno.

Related Topics:
Jazz - Rock and roll

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In recent years, however, the publication of relatively accurate histories by authors Simon Reynolds (Generation Ecstasy aka Energy Flash) and Dan Sicko (Techno Rebels), plus mainstream press coverage of the Detroit Electronic Music Festival, have helped to diffuse the genre's more dubious mythology. The genre has further expanded as more recent pioneers of the scene such as Moby, Orbital, and the Future Sound of London have made the style break through to the mainstream pop culture.

Related Topics:
Detroit Electronic Music Festival - Moby - Orbital - Future Sound of London

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