All of these key elements are totally absent. Clearly this is an inferior musical form.

Now I realize the oxymoron in that post, just look at my signature.

Um... none? I'm pretty sure all styles of music have something good within them (though I can't necassarily defend genres with certain examples, but I've been proven wrong time and time again at my announcements of "Holy shit does mainstream country suck!" and then "HOW DU YA LIKE ME NOW?" by my favorite artist Mr. Toby fuckin Keith comes on and I'm dancing in my spurs and chaps and Barney bikini briefs like I'm a 4-year-old creepy cowboy with my hand around a very-much-matured 21-year-old dick and wanting to cum on every boot-scootin'-boogying bitch I see).

Don't understand the hatred of "electronic" music at all though (though I guess you guys seem to be mainly insulting bullshit like electroclash and not my beloved IDM). No matter..

I can find something good in everything.

...except magik markers.

In general I agree with that statement, however, it's the sub-genres where often I find that a whole purpose of music is one I can't stomach. Sometimes there may even be an artist I like, say the Carpenters, who is wedged into a genre I hate - adult contemporary. It's all about the reason the genres exist, which is often crass marketing bullshit.

1) Young Country
2) Nu Metal
3) Commercial Alternative
4) AAA (this is the lameass modern "folk" adult contemporary shit that so many awful public stations play these days.)
5) Adult Contemporary/New Age (tie)

In an ideal world, the term IDM would only be allowed to be used by 14 year old kids who spend too much time playing video games, and still have to rely on mum and dad for pocket money to buy records or going to gigs. It is possibly one of the most silly names to describe music I have ever heard, which seems to be used only across the pond. You'd never get electronic music tagged like that in any European countries, where people are generally much more relaxed about listening to this and that music, therefore they have less-to-none guilt about doing so.

The hatred for electronic music only comes across on a few posts. Dead Air said it better about the sub-genres.

Emo

And that shit you hear on the radio that are bands trying to sound all trendy and retro with their keyboards and shit but really they are just horrible (Killers, for instance)

Most truthful statement in this thread.

Okay, well, don't call it IDM, call it "complex electronic music". I don't care what you call it -- it's amazing. It'd better than "braindance" as a term.

And yeah, Magik Markers are bullshit. Their new album, the more I listen to it, I realize it's barely adequate and would QUICKLY be forgotten if it was any other band, but "ohh, it's magik shitheads playing REAL music!" The only reason it sounds good -- and the only talented playing on the album -- is thanks to good ol' Lee Ranaldo being behind the boards.

K-Krack:

I happen to like Tegan and Sara.

You, apparently, don't.

I'm going to continue listening to them, but nobody's forcing you to.

End of story.

(PS You can make fun of me for liking The Kinks if you want. Or Simon and Garfunkel. You can pick. Hell, I make fun of myself for liking S&G. Except for that god-fucking-awful "Bridge Over Troubled Water" song, I've loathed that song since I was six years old.)

hey, don't worry about stuck up fucks

Just to let you know, if you want to last here, you gotta learn to roll with the punches, cause there's a lot of them.

I don't know what genre would specifically descibe some bands, but bands like Nickelback, Chevelle, Crossfade, etc... all I know is I have to listen to it everytime I get in my brother's car...

Again... it was not meant to be taken overly serious.

Why in hell would I make fun of you for liking The Kinks?! And Simon + Garfunkel?!?!?!?! Both are fucking awesome.

Yeh, breau.

"Electro-clash" is, in fact, karaoke. Who buys records by those bands that absolutly no one likes, like Korn, or Nickleback? I love The Kinks, but what is that "English Musichall" CRAP that so infects their later output? The Beatles couldent seem to stay away from it either.
But really, the worst kind of music is'nt any genre, it's the bands that come in after the genre is defined by the innovators. For example, Metalica rules,(ok, mostly just the first 3 LPs) but Megadeath sucks. Joy Divison is great, but Bauhouse sucks. Sonic Youth is Godhead, and Pavement sucks. Suicide was awsome, and A.R.E. Weapons suck. You may or may not agree with my examples, but see what I'm getting at?

How would you make fun of someone for liking the Kinks?

"Hey asshole, way to like an awesome band ya jerk".

hahaha

Zydeco.
Yes, I had to say it again.
Zydeco.

Crawdad Crawdad Gumbo Gumbo Accordion Solo

I have never heard any of this "Zydeco," nor had I heard OF it until I read about it yesterday or the day before... weird... sounds... sketchy...

Zydeco is awesome, you are confused.

Wow, I didn't know you were a baby boomer with a membership to National Public Radio.
You learn something new every day!

More like somebody that doesn't judge music by the type of people that listen to it and vice versa but good try. You're so much more "authentic" by expounding weak generalities.

EDIT: I thought about explaining how I got to learn of zydeco (not through NPR, in fact I wasn't aware that NPR plays zydeco) but I realize that I don't need to explain myself. I like zydeco. It's honest, fun music.

I was just joking around.
Personal taste is personal taste.
No serious insult intended. I like plenty of stuff that would be very easy to make fun of.

This seems to be where our cookie cutter tastes begin to crumble. I can't say that I love Zydeco, but some of the rawer stuff strikes me as a pretty cool blues based dance music. I'm more into what a post punk take on it like Doo Rag can do, but can't deny that Professor Longhair is one of the founders of rock'n roll either.

I get the contempt for NPR yuppies embracing zydeco, but really these days that demographic is more likely to embrace Radiohead as, gulp, we're all getting a bit older. Seriously, when I heard an NPR profile on Wire during All Things Considered I was like, damn, here I am listening to NPR on my drive home from work, and they figured out a band I worship to talk about. Guess I better go get a bottle of Evian to drown my sorrows in...

i can't stand zydeco. it makes me want to rip my eardrums out with an icepick.
did i say that already?

i also can't stand any of the mainstream shit coming out these days or smooth jazz (ie elevator music/"please hold" music) but that's probably seconded by everyone on this board.

damn, that's what I'm doing :) .

I guess I'm out of luck.

Modern country makes me gag...I've heard the same song structure in dozens of songs, but only with different lyrics...

Yes, I hate Michael Bublé and Jamie Cullum.

It's ok, it's ok. Survival of the fittest also means that he/she who survives the longest also gets to be the proud owner of the sharpest ears. That's not you, I'm afraid.

That's what I do (even though I use also more 'traditional' instruments) but I think that I am not out of luck at all.

unless you can do it as well as fursaxa or alexander tucker. i'm just sick of seeing it done shitily by everyone else. the difference being that i don't think fursaxa or tucker improvise (i'm talking about live shows), where as i think all those other people tend to improvise, effectively trying to compose something on the spot, which is nigh on impossible if you aren't some kind of genius, the structure of the music becomes really obvious, first one bit comes in, then another bit comes in, then another bit comes in, then one bit stops, then another bit stops, then they stop playing all together. it all sounds the same and is transparent in the fact that these people all are using a loop station to make up for the fact that they can't do anything interesting with any of the 20 instruments that they brought on stage to sample.

To an extent you are pretty right, and it is true that there is way too much predictable pap doing the rounds both live and on record. The names you have mentioned are pretty spot on, but there are also people like Marclay or Jeck (to mention a couple of those deserving respect), who obvioulsy practice their craft before they go onstage or put records out. The problem with using all these loop machines, software etc is that there are countless people who simply start thinking that they got the job done WAY TOO QUICKLY, when they simply haven't learnt to master the recording process, let alone thinking of themselves as artists deserving to unleash music onto the world in general. This has lead to saturation point on the market for electronic music, as the tools got cheaper and cheaper and they get into the wrong hands on a daily basis. That caused the prolification of (horror) 'amateur sound people'
instead of 'musicians who use electronic means in order to create/compose'. A couple of weeks ago I went to this installation that had this guy pushing buttons on his laptop in a dark room, while what came out of the speakers was something that your La Monte Youngs or Tony Conrads have been pioneering with success for years. What struck me as being totally crap about it was the fact that the music was so synthetic and heartless that it completely missed aural qualities that a 'real' music instrument would have been able to produce in all its 'imperfect' glory. What I'm trying to say, to conclude, is that unless more and more musicians start bending electronics to their creative vision, if they really have any, this predictability of music created electronically (and non) will continue for years to come. Either you start seriously thinking of yourself as an artist, or all you will end putting out is countless amounts of tapes, cds, vinyl that have a few sound experiments that should heve been left to sleep on your hard drive. This is also a response to a post by atsonicpark that made my blood boil a few days ago.

ok, but i wasn't really talking about electronic music or people like marclay and jeck, i was specificly refering to the weird/psych folk bands who on record sound ok but then live just reveal themselves to be amateurs. fonal records type bands etc that all use loopstation pedals.
another good loopstation person is pamelia kurstin.

I've never seen any of those bands on fonal records live, but I like what I've heard so far on record. The only qualm that I have with a couple of them is that they sound too much like they recorded their records in a tin of buiscuits.

well if you like them then don't see them live as it will spoil the illusion for you

I own a Loopstation and make pretty shitty music on it. But, eh, it's fun.

I can't say I'm interested in seeing other people use them, though. Even Fursaxa I find kind of bleh. In fact I can't think of anyone working in this area that I find particularly interesting.
I think the results of stuff like Pelt where real instruments are played in real time by real talented musicians are much more satisfying, both on purely musical level and as live entertainment.

Edit: I have no idea what I meant by 'real instruments'. Guess I'm just really into the word 'real'. Come to think of it, I think Pelt used a lot of homemade instruments (which I also find quite invigorating).

plus, your example of Pelt as a real band seems kind of arbitrary, not that any other band would make for a less arbitrary example.