(((These seem to be dark times and getting darker, so I think it's time to check the pulse of popular culture by surfing the pop-music blogs... Oh my God in Heaven, what have we here?)))
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/feature/142152-the-month-in-techno
Link: Techno | Pitchfork.
(...)
"The environment, the economy, war, terrorism, an unraveling Constitution, obesity, reality shows, the coming 2012 apocalypse meme– it's hard to be optimistic about much these days.
"The music industry in general is widely considered to be one big bum-out, of course, from gripes about shrinking sales to corporate consolidation, from RIAA brainlessness and Mac avarice to the high price of gasoline making it harder for underground bands to tour. A glut of offerings has resulted in unprecedented declines in festival ticket sales and even a few high-profile cancellations. Even the things we thought positive, like the internet, are showing hidden costs. The Long Tail is coming back to bite us in the ass, claim some critics, who argue that an explosion of musical options has translated into a narrowing of tastes.
"Even electronic dance music, which once spun blithely under a yellow smiley face, seems uncommonly sober these days– self-critical, nail-biting, a buzzkill to the extreme. Minimal, of course, was the straw that overflowed the glass of Red Bull. Scapegoat or no, in the last 18 months, the ubiquitous and yet strangely ephemeral genre has become a lightning rod for every conceivable critique. It's too soulless. It all sounds the same. It's lost touch with the roots of "real" dance music. It might not be surprising to hear a DJ like Diplo tell Pitchfork, "I go to a club in Berlin and I want to kill myself." But even within the scene, everyone complains about minimal, leveling complaints that often seem indicative of a much wider unease.
"Griping seems to be endemic to the times. Disco fans complain about the proliferation of disco edits. Dubstep fans bemoan the genre's calcification into a turgid parody of dread. For a critique of the blog-house scene (aka electroclash 2.0), look no further than its loyal (and hilarious) opposition, Hipster Runoff. Maybe it's just the internet that makes people irritable. ... (((In a word, pal, no. The Internet's something like 40 years old, and it isn't TCP/IP that's got shudders of dread running down the world's spine this season.)))
