by moritzwarhier | 2025-07-06 11:47:04+00:00
Yes, that's the point of musique concrete and why this page that recycles the original list gives really bad context and the renaming is inappropriate, IMO.

There is plenty of electronic music from before 2001 but this list is extremely focused on a handful of composers of academic electroacoustic recordings.

While it has plenty of interesting entries, I think that linking site with the renaming is really bad at giving context, even where they try:

> Also, there’s clearly much more to electronic music than either celebrity DJs or obscure avant-garde composers. Many hundreds of popular electronic composers and musicians—like Brian Eno, Kraftwerk, Bruce Haack, or Clara Rockmore—fall somewhere in-between the worlds of pop/dance/performance and serious composition, and their contributions deserve representation alongside more experimental or classical artists.

Even where they try to give context, the cambrian explosion of what most people now consider electronic music from the 70s, but mostly 80s and 90s is completely ignored, and that's not just techno and dance music.

The original name "electroacoustic" seems much better, but even then, I don't feel this to be a very meaningful curation with e.g. all the Stockhausen recordings just dumped in with each of their parts counted as one "track" each (this terminology clearly alludes to the electronic music more usually listened to).

To be honest, find this type of music interesting, but calling the blog post misnamed is almost too charitable, given it links the other list, changes the title and even hints at how limited its perspective is.

In the 20th century, there were musicologists who insisted on the difference between "E-Musik" (Ernste Musik, "serious music") and "U-Musik (Unterhaltungsmusik, "Entertainment music").

The problem was that this distinction was indeed meant to be snobby and completely ignored how interesting new music, including experimental music, was created before and then came to real fruition in the 20th century.

Stockhausen et al are interesting, but this seems like a "selection of 476 pieces of E-Musik / electroacoustic music / musique concrete" more than a "history of electronic music".

https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-_und_U-Musik

This distinction apparently only existed in Germany, so no English Wilipedia article.

Most of the "music" made by these people originates in publicly funded institutions and academia. Fine, but it's really the "black square on black canvas" type art academia in a way.

It is interesting and was certainly influential, but there is a level of unfounded snobbery to many of these artists and their listeners when it comes to other electronic music.

The main critique is repetition (obviously, in all dance-adjacent genres), and lack of radical departure from harmonics and rhythm. Also regarding electronic music that is not only dance-oriented.

There seems to be very little overlap of people who even know less commercial -more experimental- "regular" electronic music and come from this electroacoustic movement.

Although there are some artists who cite this movement and musique concrete as inspirations, especially Noise and Ambient artists.

It's like making a "history of 20th-century" music that is half twelve-tone music and half experimental organ music with no Western scale or harmonics, all by obscure academic artists.

Still interesting, but also kind of... meh. Limited.