Techno Tirade

The first album I actually paid money for was Hello Nasty by the Beastie Boys. The second album was You’ve Come A Long Way Baby by Fatboy Slim. Okay, make fun of me all you want but it was 1999 and I was in junior high. Give me a break!

My point being, those two albums opened me up to the vastly undervalued world of electronic music. It also served to socially isolate me further because absolutely no one listens to techno in Idaho. So the other day, while posting more blog links to my Facebook page, I noticed a friend of mine trashing this band called Owl City. I looked into it because I immediately confused it with this guys from The Owls in this New York Times article I happened to be reading at the same time. But I’ll have to save a tirade about Hipsters for another day.

First of all, if you’re an Owl City virgin like I was, take a whiff of this:

Now either you loved that or (like me) hated it. Me, being the consummate curmudgeon that I am find offense with Owl City because it dehumanizes techno. It’s like the white bread of electronic music, it leaves you hungry and diabetic. It’s a zero-sum game, in other words. “Aw, that’s way too harsh Hillatrick!” Really? Let’s analyze this one, shall we?

Let’s break out the bullet points here.

• The lyrics could have been written by a sixth grader. Sorry, this wouldn’t have gotten above a B in my middle school English class. (keep in mind I went to public school in Idaho)
• I lived in Seattle for five years. Don’t let the mountains, ocean, lakes, rivers, overall natural beauty fool you. Seattle sucks but we have to deal it with because Microsoft’s there. Unless you have bags of money, you’re going to be stuck in traffic and have transients peeing on your bedroom window like any schmuck in Denver, Houston, or anywhere USA. By the way, the ocean’s filled with carcinogens and PCBs (I know, I volunteered on environmental clean-up projects), while riding the ferry I often saw raw sewage discharged from yachts, Seattle has the world’s highest rates of Multiple Sclerosis for some unknown reason, it also has alarmingly high rates of Polybrominated diphenylethers (PBDEs) in women’s breast milk. That’s right, all the mommas in Seattle have toxic fire retardants in their hoohahs. Finally, if you’re poor and live amongst a bunch of other poor people it takes away some of the psychological stress of being poor but if the world’s richest man lives across the lake, it stinks.
• The “mountaineers” around Seattle, clear-cut the forest.
• If you fall asleep in hospital parking lots, I don’t want you waking up in my house.
• Manta rays (not “manteray”) don’t live in the Puget Sound. They’re mostly found in warmer ocean waters. The giant octopus does and he’ll beat your ass.
• “Disguise myself as a sleeping pill and descend inside you,” that’s creeping me out. Please go away!
• The user who posted the video says “just found out adam young is a christian inspired musician which is amazing.” My misanthrope flags are waving! Let’s investigate.

Having studied the history of techno, I’ve never known or thought about (or wanted to think about) marrying Christianity to techno. Since most modern dance music falls into the modern techno category, I always thought of it being a uniting medium. Everybody likes to dance! Why throw religion and politics into it?

Let’s go back to the beginning. In the 1960s, somewhere in a Germany laboratory Karlheinz Stockhausen applied the cold precision of brutalism to music.

I like to think of him as the Klaus Kinski of music. Yet he inspired the ultra-strange Kraftwerk.

Many beloved rock and pop hits of the 1960s had elements of electronic sound engineering fused in their fabric. Think about Jimi Hendrix’s famous distorted guitar solos,Peter Frampton, and even the Beatles.

Some breakthroughs came through early sci-fi television series such as the BBC’s Dr. Who:

Elements of electronic music quickly popped up in the 1970s with various samples fueling the rise of funk and disco which depended on the newly-found backbone of synthesizers. However, the 1980s was the prime decade of electro-experimentation. I wasn’t alive at the time but the ancient techno scrolls tell me that it all started with the Human League.

Shortly thereafter came the genius of Gary Numan:

Followed up the incredible coolness and Gods of Nerd Rock (and one-hit-wonders), Flock of Seagulls.

Then came the mighty Devo with their weird plastic hats and sexual innuendo. By the way, lead singer Mark Mothersbaugh went on to compose the oddball music for the cartoon Rugrats.

How about Laurie Anderson? Incredibly beautiful and incredibly talented.

Remember Art of Noise?

Don’t forget David Bowie!

Admit it, you liked something about Tears for Fears. And if you weren’t as cool as me and didn’t know about them in preschool, then you certainly became aware of them after the movie Donnie Darko.

Rock me Amadeus!

Hold on buckaroo! You Can’t forget the theme music from Beverley Hills Cop.

However, my favorite 80s techno group would without a doubt be the bizarre duo of millionaire Swiss golfer Dieter Meier and Boris Blank. These guys basically created their own genre of music (and over 100,000 original sounds), one of the most successful implementations of an original sound I’ve ever heard. Plus, they were in Ferris Bueller’s Day Offdude! Remember this song in the last scene where the disgraced principal has to get on the school bus? Ha, ha, ha-larity.

Of course, I can’t leave out the electronic roots of hip hop, like Africa Bambaataa!

Or Herbie Hancock

In fact the electronic or synthetic background composes the majority of hip-hop, rap, and R & B songs. Pay attention to what I mean.

See? Totally artificial. But I guess when you can throw Benjamins around da club, you probably don’t care.

The 80s ended on a down note with a bunch of cookie-cutter R & B-pop-electro-dance garbage like Millie Vanilli and C & C Music Factory. I’ll just skip over that part. By the way, the only notable electro-pop song of the early nineties was this:

And thus ended a mini-era of electro progress, bludgeoned into a coma by the boot-stompin’, mood swingin’ scourge of Grunge (Although I still hold Pearl Jam and Nirvana in a really high regard) and the boot scootin’ of Billy Ray Cyrus. That was until the Summer of ’99 when I bought that Fatboy Slim CD. All of a sudden, techno was cool again…somehow.

Actually, I bought the album for this song which I contend is much better.

“I have to praise you.”

I remember trying to watch that video on the Astralwerks website with dial-up; took about 20 minutes to load. Memories. Well, shortly after FBS came a much cooler, creepier, scarier duo out of Vegas that more or less invented the genre of trip-hop: The Crystal Method.

Just when I got goosebumps from the Method, a friend managed to scare the hell out of me with the surreal creepiness of Aphex Twin.

Still not creeped out? Try some Massive Attack.

Remember that Mitsubishi commercial that introduced everyone to Dirty Vegas? What a one-hit wonder.

Who could forget the cross-techno dance and trip-hop talents of Daft Punk? I’d thought I’d never say it but…thank you France.

The only redeeming factor of the 2000s was the fact it inadvertently became a golden age of electro-experimentation. We didn’t notice it too much in the U.S. aside from certain dance clubs but in Europe and Asia, techno exploded in popularity almost to the point of ad nauseum.

The activist spirit of Faithless (plus the egotism of Maxi Jazz contrasted by the hotness of Dido’s sister).

The experimental mystery of Timo Maas’ original sound.

The boundless creativity of the Brothers Chemical.

The cool Norwegian hipness of Röyksopp

The hip dance anthems of Cassius [and Narcotic Thrust], thank you again France [and England].

The eccentric disco-funk Francophone remixers known as Dax Riders

Sweden’s Steve Angello

The kinkiness of Armand van Helden

Plus a great example of how electronic music can inspire other art, in this case incredible dance moves instead of just quiet brooding in your room with your hoodie on.

Techno formed a ’dark’ side too, demonstrated by these selected examples from Europe.

To combat plastic pop came the Excalibur of progressive dance/house/electronica: Basement Jaxx.

Potential music video to sum up the “Bush Doctrine” don’t you think?

I aspire to come close to the creativity they possess!

Anyway, after a brief dissolution of the techno scene during the early Bush Jr. years, I remain hopeful again that a new generation has taken the genre beyond repetitive drum loops and recurrent lyrics. Take a gander:

So there you have it, Owl City, I hope I enlightened you a little bit. I just want to help you expand your musical horizons a little and not seem like a total regurgitation of the Postal Service. Unless, of course, that’s what you want to be. Also, I’m willing to accept the Christian influence of your muzak only if you keep it ecumenical. I’m still having trouble trying to conceptualize ‘Christian techno’ because I always saw techno as a genre of music geared toward everyone. In other words…dance music can’t discriminate.

Furthermore, the videos I’ve highlighted are only a smattering of what truly compromises “electronic music” however one wishes to define it. I just want to show that there are so many possibilities to this genre, so many chances to create something groundbreaking, something that actually furthers the evolution of humanity. We are so lucky to live in a time when almost anyone with some basic talent can drop under $500 on some computer software, a mixer, and turntable, and create sounds, rhythms, and harmonies, beyond the grasp of every other generation in history. Explore not imitate!!!

I’m keeping my eye on you, Owl City.