page_title: Techno
section_title: Detroit sound
hierarchical_section_title: Techno / Detroit techno / Detroit sound
caption_attribution_description: English: The Belleville Three performing at the Detroit Masonic Temple on May 27th 2017
context_page_description: Techno is a genre of electronic dance music that is characterized by a repetitive four on the floor beat which is generally produced for use in a continuous DJ set. The central rhythm is often in common time, while the tempo typically varies between 120 and 150 beats per minute. Artists may use electronic instruments such as drum machines, sequencers, and synthesizers, as well as digital audio workstations. Drum machines from the 1980s such as Roland's TR-808 and TR-909 are highly prized, and software emulations of such retro instruments are popular.
  The term "techno" originated in Germany in the early 1980s, but it was established as a name for a specific genre of electronic dance music produced in Detroit following the UK release of the 1988 compilation Techno! The New Dance Sound of Detroit. Detroit techno resulted from the melding of synthpop by artists such as Kraftwerk, Giorgio Moroder and Yellow Magic Orchestra with African American styles such as house, electro, and funk. Added to this is the influence of futuristic and science-fiction themes relevant to life in American late capitalist society, with Alvin Toffler's book The Third Wave a notable point of reference.
context_section_description: The early producers, enabled by the increasing affordability of sequencers and synthesizers, merged a European synthpop aesthetic with aspects of soul, funk, disco, and electro, pushing electronic dance music into uncharted terrain. They deliberately rejected the Motown legacy and traditional formulas of R&B and soul, and instead embraced technological experimentation.
  Within the last 5 years or so, the Detroit underground has been experimenting with technology, stretching it rather than simply using it. As the price of sequencers and synthesizers has dropped, so the experimentation has become more intense. Basically, we're tired of hearing about being in love or falling out, tired of the R&B system, so a new progressive sound has emerged. We call it techno!
  — Juan Atkins, 1988
  The resulting Detroit sound was interpreted by Derrick May and one journalist in 1988 as a "post-soul" sound with no debt to Motown, but by another journalist a decade later as "soulful grooves" melding the beat-centric styles of Motown with the music technology of the time. May famously described the sound of techno as something that is "...like Detroit...a complete mistake. It's like George Clinton and Kraftwerk are stuck in an elevator with only a sequencer to keep them company." Juan Atkins has stated that it is "music that sounds like technology, and not technology that sounds like music, meaning that most of the music you listen to is made with technology, whether you know it or not. But with techno music, you know it."
  One of the first Detroit productions to receive wider attention was Derrick May's "Strings of Life" (1987), which, together with May's previous release, "Nude Photo" (1987), helped raise techno's profile in Europe, especially the UK and Germany, during the 1987–1988 house music boom (see Second Summer of Love). It became May's best known track, which, according to Frankie Knuckles, "just exploded. It was like something you can't imagine, the kind of power and energy people got off that record when it was first heard. Mike Dunn says he has no idea how people can accept a record that doesn't have a bassline."
  The Detroit sound exerted an influence on widely differing styles of electronic music, yet it also maintained an identity as a genre in its own right, one now commonly referred to as "Detroit techno".
caption: The Belleville Three performing at the Detroit Masonic Temple in 2017. From left to right: Juan Atkins, Kevin Saunderson, and Derrick May
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