Music in International Relations: Essay

Résumé du document

According to Jeff Mills, one of the pioneer of the techno music, «Stravinsky and Stockhausen spent their life trying to create a musical revolution. Techno music achieved it in less than ten years». This was not the first time that the word «revolution» was used in order to describe the techno music. Born in Detroit in the 1980's, this musical genre stay unknown and really underground during one decade, before becoming the soundtrack of the famous European raves of the 1990's. Nowadays, the techno music is experiencing a relative success, which generates a huge business. As the hip-hop scene moved away from its original principles when it became a business, the techno movement from today is totally different from the original form. Why the techno movement has lost its ideology and identity, like most other musical movements?

First, the techno music has its precise influences and origins that came from a particular environment. Then, this movement has known success and transformations, due to its exportation. Finally, the techno of today is very different from its previous form, due to its large success.

Extraits

[...] The presence of technology in this music is also due to the social status of its creators. Indeed, techno music is composed with the cheapest rhythm boxes and synthesizers of the period like the Roland TR 909 and TB 303. Those instruments had a great impact on the music itself, especially on the repetitive form, because of the structure of the drum-machines like the TR 909. The technology of this time allowed working class artists to make their own music without the support of the powerful musical industry. [...]

[...] Basically, the creation of techno music is based on three factors. Firstly, the will to break some codes and to make music without restrictions, like the jazz did it in its time. Besides, this music was created by some black Americans from the working class of Detroit with, of course, the help of new technologies. Techno music sounds like nothing else, most of the time it's impossible to guess from which device or instrument the sounds are coming from. With the use of technology, the early techno composers have made songs that were really different from the commercial ones, sometimes without any melody good example is Spastik from Plastikman), without chorus or lasting more than ten minutes. [...]

[...] Music in International Relations: Essay According to Jeff Mills, one of the pioneer of the techno music, Stravinsky and Stockhausen spent their life trying to create a musical revolution. Techno music achieved it in less than ten years This was not the first time that the word revolution was used in order to describe the techno music. Born in Detroit in the 1980's, this musical genre stay unknown and really underground during one decade, before becoming the soundtrack of the famous European raves of the 1990's. [...]

[...] This surprising success is due to some passionate European DJs and to the big rave movement coming from the United Kingdom. This exportation has really transformed the ideology that was behind this music, and also the genre itself. In the United Kingdom, the success of House and Acid-House music enable some DJs to play some American techno music, because the BPMs of those two genres are often close. Plus, with the end of the UK's textile industry in the northwest, suddenly large mills and warehouses became empty and unauthorized parties were held in them. [...]

[...] The ideas behind techno music were still opposed to the dominant system. For instance, the first rave-parties' organizers in France were highly influenced by anarchists authors like Proudhon. However, the ideology was not precise anymore, and really different from the Detroit producers' point of view. Other, techno music was slowly becoming a business. Club-owners are making a lot of money in the 1990's, and techno music is less and less alternative. In Germany, the rave movement became a mainstream music phenomenon. [...]