Were the Euros its Godfathers (Kraftwerk etc.) as is often claimed? Or was it Yellow Magic Orchestra? (after all where you think them drum machines came from lol)

Is it the logical stepchild of 80's funk that was already heavy on synthesizer and electronic drums?

Did the east co-opt it first with Planet Rock? Did this original spark later give away to groups like Mantronix, Newcleus, the Aleems, Captain Rock etc.?

There are several Detroit entries in the electro annals, Cybotron was probably the earliest, and I always liked Drexciya cause of the conceptual premise of their music (their music was created by slaves who fell / escaped from ships during the middle passage and fell to the depths of the sea, eventually growing lungs and becoming inhabitants of the deep) though they were much later. Detroit and for lack of better words 'urban' electronic music to me always seemed to go hand in hand.

But when electro settled in the West Coast, Cali seemed the most at home with it. Whole styles of dance were based off electro. LA was late to breaking and graffiti so the same way New York will always have sentimental attachment to 'the breaks', maybe LA will always have similar attachments to 80's funk and electro?



The wiki entry for electro gives these groups

Afrika Bambaataa
Aux 88
Anthony Rother
Arabian Prince
Arthur Baker
Cybotron
Cylob
Davy DMX
DMX Krew
Dopplereffekt
Drexciya
Dynamix II
Egyptian Lover
Freeez
Hashim
Imatran Voima
I-F
Jackal & Hyde
Jonzun Crew
Kraftwerk
LA Dream Team
Maggotron
Man Parrish
Mantronix
Michael Jonzun
Midnight Star
Model 500
Mr Velcro Fastener
Music Instructor
Newcleus
Warp 9
Planet Patrol
Ryuichi Sakamoto
Scape One
Tyrone Brunson
Volsoc
World Class Wreckin' Cru
Yellow Magic Orchestra

I'll be back later.

Cosmic Blast - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRy8Z5iZJgs
The Return of Captain Rock - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvXfpYINcwc
Cosmic Glide - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3dv3Le1ano&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8wokfoyHf4

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Big PEMFin H & z's
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"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am one thing, a musician." © Miles Davis

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

Andreaen Sand Dunes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btOstAZFJTI

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=drexciya&oq=drexciya&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_nf=1&gs_l=youtube-reduced.12...0.0.0.30610.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0.

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Big PEMFin H & z's
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"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am one thing, a musician." © Miles Davis

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

Was disco (the type Mr. Peabody reissues heavily) -> house in Chicago the equivalent of electro -> techno in Detroit?

'george clinton and moroder and kraftwerk in an elevator' line that the belleville three used to say (im paraphrasing though, i cant remember it exactly).

moroder is v important in detroit techno terms.

though oddly moroder and i feel love at least is/was funkier than anything kraftwerk did until the mid 80s at least. maybe moroder was too 'gay' for the zulu nation to talk about them compared to kraftwerk lol.

Hmmmmmmmm......
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Big PEMFin H & z's
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"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am one thing, a musician." © Miles Davis

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

Basically, the classic electro-sound may have been dead but in some areas, it was more influential than others and continued to have influence and Miami Bass always struck me as an example of that. I'm far from an expert though on this subject but I always interpreted Miami Bass as the Hip-Hop (?) subgenre where the electro-ideas continued to thrive whereas they were on their way out in other parts of the scene...

Some Miami bass is rap but some Miami bass influenced R&B sounds more like Set It Off
i.e.

My Boo

Shorty Swing My Way

the US stays recycling / reinventing foreign electronic music though, as you can see with the dance revolution in R&B that's maybe soon to be phased out and definitely dubstep

>Basically, the classic electro-sound may have been dead but
>in some areas, it was more influential than others and
>continued to have influence and Miami Bass always struck me as
> an example of that. I'm far from an expert though on this
>subject but I always interpreted Miami Bass as the Hip-Hop (?)
>subgenre where the electro-ideas continued to thrive whereas
>they were on their way out in other parts of the scene...

These weren't necessarily mainstream movements and pretty much everyone involved stateside will attest to the fact that they were put on by an adventurous radio DJ who was playing european stuff, Kraftwerk being essential. These radio DJ's were also in the clubs and helping establish the local nights where the music could cross pollinate which is how the genres and subgenres start to happen.
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"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am one thing, a musician." © Miles Davis

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

Kraftwerk is often referred to as krautrock or synthpop. Planet Rock is considered a seminal electro record which samples Kraftwerk. Yes it is (sic) different from the source but at the same time its clear that Planet Rock is taking the Kraftwerk (and YMO) sound. Kraftwerk is the sound of electro in more ways than one, but are they not electro?
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"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am one thing, a musician." © Miles Davis

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

constitutes a separate genre

How American no?

It's almost like the 'attitude' behind the re-usage warrants a new labeling

>How American no?

I've read and heard Bam speak to it and to say he overstates would be an understatement. But at the same time they did create something new. Planet Rock is not a Kraftwerk song.

>It's almost like the 'attitude' behind the re-usage warrants a
>new labeling

The interesting thing to me is that I never associate Kraftwerk with krautrock or synthpop. Well maybe synthpop a little but ehhhh. Electro really captures what they were doing, but it took being sampled to arrive at the term?

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Big PEMFin H & z's
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"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am one thing, a musician." © Miles Davis

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

sometimes only takes a moment in time

understanding Kraftwerk as merely reworking already existing genres (which really might be true) in an experimental way kind of trivializes them in a historical sense, but when they became sampled by Bam in conjunction with him revolutionizing New York City socially and consciously, it became a different thing

how many tinkering, progressive potential subgenres has electronic music seen just in the last decade that did not become watermarks?


>I've read and heard Bam speak to it and to say he overstates
>would be an understatement. But at the same time they did
>create something new. Planet Rock is not a Kraftwerk song.
>
>>It's almost like the 'attitude' behind the re-usage warrants
>a
>>new labeling
>
>The interesting thing to me is that I never associate
>Kraftwerk with krautrock or synthpop. Well maybe synthpop a
>little but ehhhh. Electro really captures what they were
>doing, but it took being sampled to arrive at the term?

They were not easy to come by on vinyl back in the day but I was lucky to find the ertigo 2-LP comp of their first two albums cheap back in the day and those records are *definitely* Kraut-rock by most ''objective'' standards. The objective standards here are the stylistic simularities to Neu! and Faust and if those two bands aren't kraut-rock, then who is? Shit, Neu! in particular pretty much defined the term with their music and Faust gave it a name-via John Peel/british music press- with this one which was actually meant as a parody of german prog-cliches:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwCnjS20c3E.

Anyway, the synth-pop aspect of Kraftwerk's sound didn't start to come until the third album "Ralf und florian" and even then, they were pretty "krauty". Actually, much of "Autobahn" and even "Radioactivity" is pretty Kraut as well. Shit, I can hear "Kraut" on the "Trans-europe express album"!

I'd say the major change in their music came with the "Man Mchine" when they had funk/disco engineer Leonard Jackson engineering their album to help it sound contemporary. As GumDrops correctly pointed out, "Computer World" was when they REALLY took the step to synthy dance-pop but it's worth mentioning that at that point, they were not unique or alone anymore; the whole New Romantic/synth movement was in full swing and while Kraftwerk were still on the absolute edge in terms of sounding futuristic and edgy, you still had Depeche Mode, isage ("Fade to grey" came out in '80 and was just as edgy as Kraftwerk), Cabaret oltaire etc. not to mention a shitload of early synthetic italo-disco around at the same time...

Basically, I'm not trying to say that Kraftwerk is overrated or anything but I find their general status similar to Slayer's in relation to extreme metal:They might have been the most single-handedly influential-and best-bands for their respective genres but they were not the be-all, end-all and it is a gross oversimplification to just focus on them...

that's like the only big album from the big 4 of thrash that I never listened to

(actually, "Hell awaits" might be better) However, reviews like the one on allmusic where they claim the album was almost singlehandedly responsible for the entire death metal movement is the type of hyperbole that's just flat-out wrong.

I feel the same way about Kraftwerk, it's like there's a tendency to forget the influence of stuff like the harder italo-disco or synth-pop etc. and just focus on Kraftwerk and say they pretty much invented everything.

I love Kraftwerk (and Slayer!) but this type of myth-building is not really my thing; same about the Beatles where people 45 years after the fact think they pioneered everything sice other acts have been pushed out of the picture which of course wasn't the case...

obscure have more to do with the electro movement?

or are you just speaking of general influence in modern music?

I think that Kraftwerk gets recognition pretty much based on the Bambaataa sample

Planet Rock was THAT pivotal

I guess it sucks that the accolades are circumstantial and not deserved

That feels very Kraftwerk-derived even if I think stuff like Gary Numan had impact as well. It was more in relation to electronic music in general. I just wanted to write about my feelings regarding Kraftwerk in relation to kraut-rock and then got sidetracked by something Gumdrops wrote about and the post became about something else...

Trans Europe Express

So the hear the krautrock categorization is kinda surprising

I dig some krautrock too

Maybe i'll get to digging through their catalog a lil more closely one of these days

>That feels very Kraftwerk-derived even if I think stuff like
>Gary Numan had impact as well. It was more in relation to
>electronic music in general. I just wanted to write about my
>feelings regarding Kraftwerk in relation to kraut-rock and
>then got sidetracked by something Gumdrops wrote about and the
>post became about something else...

quick note Numan was definitely in Bam's crate.
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"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am one thing, a musician." © Miles Davis

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

things like cars by gary numan werent exactly hard to find. they were big hits.

kraftwerk are important in the history side of things, and obv as bam sampled them for planet rock, BUT at that time in the early 80s, everyone was excited about technology. but synth pop got rid of a lot of the 'stiffness' and robotic-ness.

KW are important in history terms and cos they were replayed for planet rock but you can trace the lineage from things like stockhausen and john cage to kraftwerk then to cars and then to planet rock more smoothly than just from KW to planet rock.

imo the main reason kraftwerk always come up in these discussions more than italo is cos they were a 'band' and its easier to talk about one band over a whole scene/sub genre.

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"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am one thing, a musician." © Miles Davis

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

electro had 'bounce'

kraftwerk didnt

at least not until the 80s

cars had more 'bounce' than kraftwerk

which is why kool g rap could sample it more or less straight and it was still funky

but planet rock just took a few melody lines from KW, not the whole body of those songs

it boils down to who had what records. who had the italo disco records. how many of them. there's oral accounts of the first time kraftwerk was played on detroit radio and how that fucked up the heads of what would become pioneers on the scene. Were there italo disco tracks in that set? I'm not sure, but did if so did they get the same reaction. In hindsight we can draw all of these sonic lines, but at the time in the moment those lines may not have *actually* been the influence.
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"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am one thing, a musician." © Miles Davis

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

Any old school cat you talk to will talk about how diverse DJ's crates HAD to be back then

there wasn't as much of a uniform regimented top 40 playlist format idea back then at the club OR on the radio

that being I think it's true that it usually was influential single pieces of music rather than strings of obscure records that really changed the course of modern music

like you could have larry levan or walter gibbons playing portions of a led zep song, or some honky tonk rock tune, but only if they felt it fit their aesthetic overall. i cant imagine if you were playing to a new york disco crowd that you could play led zeps communication breakdown for example. or that rock crowds just loved them some philly international lol.

Ralf Hütter on the term "krautrock" (4.16.12): "Nobody says this. Kraut is a vegetable. Vegetables didn't make this music."
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"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am one thing, a musician." © Miles Davis

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

It was imposed upon them by outsiders and I know many of those bands didn't even feel they had much in common with eachother beyond making "progressive" or "experimental" rock. As I said, Faust used that title for their song for ironic reasons but still, if they used that title for a song that sounds like *that*, it proves that even the bands themselves had some awareness of how the british people who put hat tag on them viewed the music.

And it can't be denied that there were several common traits in the music (most notable the influences from various forms of 20th century classical music and an emphasize on minimalism and exploration of sound above technical flash) that made it different from other "cutting edge"-rock around at the time. Of course, you can find bands in other countries at the same time that shared those concepts (check out the debut from Swedish band Älgarnas Trädgård and another swedish band, International Harvester/Träd, gräs och stenar used those "drone" ideas just as early as Can or Amon Duul II did). However, germany had a VERY high concentration of bands like that and add a creative producer (=Conny Plank) who worked with a lot of those bands and it's easy to think of it as a "movement" even if it's revisionist...

not until the computer world album maybe.

you cant even credit KW alone though - yeah they were obviously way ahead of the game but electro would have come along anyway cos of the technology that was being introduced around the time.

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"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am one thing, a musician." © Miles Davis

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

mainly.

(btw, who used 808s first??)

and the drum programming overall. its the sounds really. the rhythm counts for a lot but theres just somethin funky about the actual sonics, the sounds they were using. the parts replayed from kraftwerk are what make it more memorable, cos its just a great melody, but it would still be electro without it. when you compare planet rock to other electro theres def something diff about it.

the other thing is apart from KW being stiffer, colder and rhythmically not that interesting compared to electro, electro was just funkier, more american, harder, more 'urban' sounding, etc etc. techno is more like KW than electro obviously, cos in detroit, while they did get funky too, they also wanted to sound more 'european' and all that implied, so stiffer, colder, not so funky, etc etc.

KW are super-important of course, but i think a lot of why they seem to get so much dues for damn near everything electronic is just cos they were first. but other people ran with what they did and did something totally diff with it. bam prob overstates it cos the media love the racial dynamics of the story. and it makes him look eclectic and smart and so on. but people never seem to get tired of the 'whoa! black kids listening to white germans!' angle lol.

is Yellow Magic Orchestra
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Big PEMFin H & z's
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"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am one thing, a musician." © Miles Davis

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

bam is gay, and arthur "caucasian" baker masterminded "planet rock"



i'll leave

>bam "is" "gay", and arthur "caucasian" baker "masterminded" "planet
>rock"
>
>
>
>i'll leave

tehehehehehehe

on the masterminded though - age old debate. bam had ideas, baker helped realize them with *his* own touches.

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Big PEMFin H & z's
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"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am one thing, a musician." © Miles Davis

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

World Famous Supreme Team?
Do You Like Scratchin?

Beat Box?
Moments In Love?

I can see how you'd get there, but Ionno. I think he experimented with too many sounds to put him in any category.
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"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am one thing, a musician." © Miles Davis

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

i know where the music came from b/c i remember it. but i don't remember it being labeled 'Electro' when i originally heard it. granted, i was a kid then.

i heard the 'Electro' tag about 10 yrs ago or so, of course. and i feel like that was the 1st time i'd heard it.

fuck you.

but I feel like Bam coined it in an interview shortly after planet rock. But more as a descriptor, like "this is that future electro funk" or something like that.
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"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am one thing, a musician." © Miles Davis

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

(c) Funkadelic

not that that was the 1st usage, it just popped up when i read that reply.

i wonder of 'Electro' is like 'Boogie'. a retroactive label that it seems hipste..i mean, music fans have applied to make it easier to identify a particular sound/feel.

no shade, of course. i'm just curious.

fuck you.

At least in europe, I clearly remember the term being used in the late 80's but it might have been revisionist even then since the music was a couple of years old. However, when techno and house broke through in europe in the late 80's, when they were talking about influences and precursors an so on, the term "electro" was frequently tossed around to describe that early-mid-80's funky and electronic Hip-Hop sound...

Of course, it's europe and we love our subgenres...

there were all those streetsounds compilations in the early/mid 80s for electro which were massive, in the UK at least. i dont know if it was a label bam came up with or if it was a media thing, but it def isnt a hipster/retrospective genre label.