From: laural@cbnewsl.cb.att.com (laura.l.la gassa)
Subject: various interesting questions
Organization: UNIX System Laboratories
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 14:45:36 GMT

I'm terribly sorry I didn't get the attribution for this, but I swept the
following out of the discussion of alt.techno going on in alt.config (note:  
the person who posted this to alt.config is pro alt.techno and said he/she 
didn't feel like he/she could discuss these topics in alt.rave):

>   1) Does techno music preclude the idea of ballads? Does the synthetic
>nature of the music mean that we'll never have anything like (say)
>Coltrane's "Naima"?

It all depends on how one defines techno.  If you define it as "ear bleeding 
stuff that runs at about 135 bpm or so" then the answer is no.  But that is an 
extremely narrow definition of techno.  In fact, I'd say that that's the 
defintion of hardcore techno.  So much tribal/trancy/ambient music falls 
outside of that definition, yet we still call it techno because, as near as I 
can tell, it was created electronically/digitally in the early 1990's.  Vocals 
don't figure much in techno right now, but that doesn't mean that they can't.  
Imagine taking some pretty wistful ambient tune and adding suitable vocals.  Oh 
my god I've just described This Mortal Coil.  Except that was done back in the 
early/mid 80's.  Jam & Spoon's "Stella" is sort of a step toward ballad-y 
techno.  Instead of repeating "love me / hold me" over and over "real" lyrics 
could be used, and voila', we have a techno ballad.  I unfortunately know 
nothing about Jazz, so I can't answer the question about Coltrane's "Naima."

>   2) I bet I have the world's largest unwanted collection of Moby's
>"Go." (Though I think Moby's excellent).  I want to gripe in this forum
>about the proliferation of identical mixes on different compilations.

This sort of thing has annoyed me for YEARS.  Like the 47,000 remixes of all 
those Depeche Mode singles.  Errrgh.  My (sarcastic) favorites are some of the 
Pet Shop Boys remixes -- who needs another remix of an 8 minute song?  But 
every so often a real genius of a remix comes along that makes the whole 
concept worth while.  

I think it's annoying that the same remix turns up on different compilations,
but I guess that's more the fault of the music biz than much else.  It's
probably safer to get the rights to version X of a song, the version that
everyone knows and will like and be happy with.  A sort of least common
denominator sort of thing.  The best thing to do is to not buy compilations
that are merely rehashses of other compilations.  Fortunately several people
in this group regularly review the compilations out there so we have some
decent buying advice before we head to the stores.

>   3) What other performing arts (besides raves :<)   ) use techno? I
>guarantee it's coming to the movies.  And -- get ready for this -- I
>belong to a group of jugglers who use techno for some of our routines.
>More than any other music, techno ......

Well, it's already in the movies (see the "Cool World" soundtrack, but avoid
the film itself).  And I'm sure on some variety / awards show soon we'll see 
some previous fly-girl type dancers doing it to some techno piece.  Juggling 
to techno sounds groovy -- techno has such a tight regular sound that I could 
see it really helping the groups' timing, and the flying objects would 
accentuate the music.

Laura