h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

A good article, I must say, though you use far too many technical temrs, e.g spliced, edgy, gritty and of course a(a glossary of terms may be a good idea) I understood them, as you you know, but not many people would



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Thank you for your comments, I will be updating the article shortly. By the way, those characters wouldn't happen to be GermaN, would they? You know, the letter G and the number 6.

nope, pretty much all english

Hi, I don't want to be the bearer of bad news, but this article seems a bit confused and misled.

You use the term techno as an umbrella, so as to encompass all forms of electronic dance music. This is a common mistake, but also a serious one. The term Techno does not mean simply dance music, otherwise the Spice Girls would have been techno pioneers!!

I nearly choked when I saw you catalogue Chicane as techno. It is a perfect example of commercial trance. As for Dane Bowers, I don't even understand where you got that idea from! What part of his record even sounds remotely like techno?? When you say that trance isn't so different to techno, again this is competely wrong. Though they are both forms of electronic music, trance is built around harmonies and melodies, using catchy riffs and uplifting tunes, often with female vocals. Techno is very much built around percussion, and often has no recognisable melody or harmony, instead opting to create a bass driven percussive sound. As for vocals in techno, they are generally seen as unecessary and not included. As a general rule of thumb, techno is a much more mechanical, harder, rougher sound than trance. Trance is not itself a form of techno. It is a type of electronic dance music yes, but definitely not techno.

You seemed to have got the idea with Drum & Bass, with it being underground, and having very little commercial value until you mentioned a couple of artists. Kosheen I will grant you. They do fall under the category of D&B. However, Mr Reds and Stanton Warriors are not D&B. They are breakbeat (often shortened to "breaks") They produce the same sounds as peope like Freq Nasty and Koma and Bones, who are breaks artists. Hence why they have mixed albums such as "Y4K - Next level breaks" Breaks is a similar rhythm pattern to D&B, but slower, and chunkier, and often without the heavy rolling basslines of D&B.

If you disagree with these definitions, then please pick up a copy of any "dance" music magazine. You will find the record reviews are split up into techno, trance, house, D&B, breaks etc. Take a look at the artists in each section. You won't find the Stantons on the D&B page!

I'm not attacking you, nor trying to cause trouble. I just think you have misunderstood the situation. The general media classify anything electronic as techno, so I think a lot of people think that if a track has a 4/4 beat that means it is techno. This is really not the case, more just what people read in ill-informed publications like The Sun, usually in articles about how it is the Devil's music, and every single person in the club is out of their minds on drugs etc etc etc. Misled, misinformed, and simply wrong. But unfortunately, a lot of people don't realise they are being fed wrong information, and so the confusion arises.

I definitely agree with one thing you said though. Techno is a very fragmented music, and it seems that every year there is another style emerging. With a range of styles including glitch, minimal, schranz, acid and wonky techno it can be pretty hard to keep track of it all!!

I think you need to look into it a bit more, and research a bit wider, to make sure your info is accurate. But I definitely appreciate that you decided to write something about techno music, and try to educate people about it.

Keep it up!!

Rich.

Oh and add definitions to "edgy" and "spliced"

The trouble with music is that different people have different ideas of what's comes under what.

the Spice Girls for example there main stuff was Chart Pop.

Michael Jackson, I would have said as Chart Pop too, but no he's R&B?