Electroclash

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Electroclash is a genre of music that combines both electronic and rock elements of punk and new wave (especially the Neue Deutsche Welle ) of the late 1970s and early 1980s with modern production methods in the field of electronic dance music . The genre emerged in the late 1990s and reached its preliminary peak around the turn of the millennium.

Disambiguation

DJ Hell is considered to be the inventor and namesake of the genre, while DJ and promoter Larry Tee later made the term known in the USA by naming the Electroclash 2001 Festival in New York after it. In France and the Netherlands, the term Euroclash has partly become established, since the largest directory of artists in this genre has been stored on the website of the same name, euroclash.com, since 2001.

history

precursor

The precursor to electroclash music was the nu electro or neo electro wave in the late 1990s, which was carried forward by artists such as Komputer , Anthony Rother , IF and the electro pioneers Dopplereffekt .

Role of International Deejay Gigolos

Electroclash originated in the late 1990s. The music label International DeeJay Gigolo Records , which was then based in Munich and founded by DJ Hell , is considered to be the nucleus and home of the electroclash music genre in the late 1990s. Gigolo brought out many of the early electroclash hits, including Christopher Just's I'm a Disco Dancer from 1997 or Chris Korda's Save the Planet, Kill Yourself , a song that had already been released in 1993. Then in 1998 Gigolo released the songs 1982 and Frank Sinatra by the French duo Miss Kittin & The Hacker , which were among the most successful early hits of the new genre. This was followed in 2001 by the hit Emerge by the New York duo Fischerspooner , published on gigolo , and in the same year by the song Sunglasses At Night by the Canadian duo Tiga & Zyntherius , a cover version of a song by the Canadian pop singer Corey Hart . DJ Hell brought the artists of the new genre together on the label and acted primarily as their mentor. But Hell's own publications such as the 1998 album Munich Machine are seen as groundbreaking for the electroclash genre. In the documentation Welcome to the club! 25 years of electronic dance music by the Franco-German broadcaster Arte , Miss Kittin describes the genre of the first songs of the new musical style in collaboration with DJ Hell and names him as the inventor of the electroclash genre. Since DJ Hell brought the international artists of the new genre to gigolo in Munich and many of them made their first appearances in the city's clubs, Munich is considered the city in which electroclash "was significantly, if not even invented". Soon the new style of music spread to other cities such as Berlin, London and New York.

More artists

Space Invaders are Smoking Grass , published by IF on Disko B in 1998 , is also counted among the early examples of electroclash. Other artists of the new genre were Chicks on Speed (Munich), ADULT. (Detroit) and Peaches (Berlin), who developed a similar style, sometimes with a little more punk influence. Also Toktok vs. Soffy O landed a successful electroclash hit with Missy Queen's Gonna Die . The Munich-based Tomcraft landed the first Electroclash number 1 hit in Great Britain with Loneliness .

Stuart Price also composed an influential album under the pseudonym Les Rhythmes Digitales . The English formation Ladytron was also referred to as Electroclash by hits like Seventeen , but rejected this assignment. Other variants of the genre are stylistically closer to rock music . This includes the music of bands like Phoenix and Zoot Woman , as well as music with New Wave influence like The Faint , BIS and The Rapture

The style has had numerous chart successes in Europe and the USA. Ten years before the emergence of Electroclash there were hits such as "Exterminate" by SNAP! from 1992 , which can be assigned to this style. The formation Goldfrapp is also commercially successful there , who only entered this area with their second album Black Cherry and the songs Train and Strict Machine contained on it. In Germany, Kid Alex achieved chart successes with Young Love (Topless) and Fame . After all, the Proper Filthy Naughty project is largely responsible for the spread of the electroclash sound to South America, where their Track Fascination achieved an overwhelming success.

criticism

In the early 2000s, some of the protagonists of the new style of music distanced themselves from the label "Electroclash" and the hype that was being made around it. For example, IF and other artists signed an “Anti-Electroclash Manifesto” in which they complained about the sell-out of the new genre by those who are loudest in the media, and that the term only old wine in new Hoses would be sold.

description

Electroclash is often equated with synth pop or electro punk. It's a combination between punk aesthetics and electronic dance music. Since there is no uniform definition for the term and both the press and artists have largely distanced themselves from it, the spectrum is very wide and ranges from electronic pop music with only a few rock influences to the trashy punk sound with guitar and synthesizers .

Frequent, but by no means always encountered, style elements are:

  • a continuous 4/4 time, on the quarters there is usually a bass drum, while on the second and fourth beat there is an - often alienated - snare drum, alternatively the funky rhythm that is typical of the electro style is sometimes used .
  • electronic and mostly "hard" sounding, very simple synth basslines, often with simple waveforms like sawtooth or rectangle, which are either used purely or electronically alienated. It is particularly typical to repeat the bass note in alternating octaves.
  • simply structured vocals without great complexity, often by a female singer, e.g. Sometimes as chant or breathed. An impression of unprofessionalism is allowed, since many performers do not want to be taken too seriously.
  • Use of the German or French language by English-speaking singers, either to underline soft vocals with the French language, or to create a hard "military" sound of the lyrics with the German language. Or memories of the New Wave should be awakened, where that was already common.

literature

  • Brent Luvaas: Re-producing pop: The aesthetics of ambivalence in a contemporary dance music in: International Journal of Cultural Studies , 2006, vol. 9 (2).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The gentleman of electronic music. In: Pure FM . June 11, 2014, accessed May 2, 2020 .
  2. ↑ DJ Hell - Electronic Music Megastar. In: Faze magazine . Retrieved May 2, 2020 .
  3. ↑ a b Pailhe, Dimitri (Director) Marx, Jean-Claude Alary, Romain, Sève, Thibault. (2014).  [Movie]. Arte , Bellota Films.
  4. ^ Electroclash 2001 Festival: Bringing Innovative Music to NYC. In: FREEwilliamsburg, issue 19, 2001 October 2001, accessed August 26, 2016 .
  5. ^ Nü-Electro Sound Emerges . In: Billboard . tape 30 , no. 114 , July 27, 2002, ISSN  0006-2510 .
  6. ↑ Ulf Lippitz: DJ Hell: Vokuhila, Koks und Schampus. In: Der Spiegel . November 18, 2003, accessed May 2, 2020 .
  7. ^ A b c Joe Muggs: Save the Planet, Kill Yourself: remembering Electroclash. In: FACT magazine. March 7, 2014, accessed May 2, 2020 .
  8. ↑ a b Josh Baines: A Bullshitter's Guide to Electroclash. In: Vice magazine . February 10, 2016, accessed on May 2, 2020 .
  9. ↑ a b Tony Naylor: DJ Hell creates dance music heaven at last. In: The Guardian . March 2, 2009, accessed May 2, 2020 .
  10. ↑ a b c Benno Kraehahn and Christoph Dallach: Warmed cold. In: Der Spiegel . March 31, 2003, accessed May 2, 2020 .
  11. ↑ Chris Korda - Save The Planet, Kill Yourself. In: Discogs . Retrieved May 2, 2020 .
  12. ^ Justin gagne: Velle - Couture Soundtracks - Winter 2010. In: Velle. 2011, accessed May 2, 2020 .
  13. ↑ Miss Kittin And The Hacker * - Champagne! EP In: Discogs . Retrieved May 2, 2020 .
  14. ↑ Fischerspooner - Emerge. In: Discogs . Retrieved May 2, 2020 .
  15. ↑ Tiga & Zyntherius - Sunglasses EP. In: Discogs . Retrieved May 2, 2020 .
  16. ^ Mirko Hecktor, Moritz von Uslar, Patti Smith, Andreas Neumeister: Mjunik Disco - from 1949 until today . Blumenbar Verlag, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-936738-47-6 .
  17. ^ A b Andreas Hartmann: The Great Gigolo Swindle. In: The daily newspaper . January 17, 2003, accessed May 2, 2020 .