Techno Music in Detroit - Essay Example

How did techno music spread beyond Detroit How did this popularity affect the growth and development of the music in its original context Origins and History Techno, although seen as the voiceless, computerized machine-music of the 1990s, actually originated in the mid-1980s in Detroit and Chicago where avant garde disco DJs were experimenting with minimalist 'industrial' sounds (Reynolds 1998: 2), influenced in parts by disco, Philly soul, and European synth-pop (Hoffmann), Few people associate techno with its African American origins yet the three individuals most closely associated with the birth of Detroit techno as a genre are the "Belleville Three", Juan Atkins, Kevin Saunderson and Derrick May. These three African American high school friends from Detroit learned and mastered the art of 'mixing' electronic music (Reynolds 1998: 2). They soon found to their surprise that their basement music was in dance floor demand, thanks in part to a Detroit radio personality known as The Electrifying Mojo (Reynolds 1998: 2). Mojo not only played their early home grown techno tracks, but also influenced the new sound by playing electronic music from pioneers like Kraftwerk who were based in Dsseldorf, Germany. The band Kraftwerk was masterminded by Ralf Htter and Florian Schneider, and have been widely accredited as the major influence on Detroit techno. In particular, their albums Autobahn from 1975, Transeuropa Express from 1977 and Die Mensch-Maschine from 1978, contributed to their reputation as the 'Godfathers of Techno' (Reynolds 1998: 2). Kraftwerk were the first to create sounds and rhythms that were purely electronic using the analogue synthesizer, vocoder and beat box. Kraftwerk were famous for their motoric sound, 'a metronomic, regular-as carburettor rhythm that was at once post-rock and proto-techno' (Reynolds 1998: 2). Their sound expressed their relationship to technology; their new minimalist music shunned melody in favour of rhythms and textures. Influences also came from Chicago's early style of house music." In the 80s Chicago has already established itself as a popular party arena and being just a four hour drive away from Detroit everyone including DJs such as Derrick May would drive down for the weekends. Most popular were places such as the "Wherehouse'' where house music originated and was recognised as an independent genre of music (Hoffmann). Though, Detroit had a larger African American population, the chcago area, which had segregated black neighbourhoods, produced DJs who had their own individualistic styles. Party holders took advantage of these styles and organised their down town gatherings by inviting the best DJs from both the Westside and the Southside neighbourhoods. These events usually housed up to 5000 young people from both Chicago and Detroit. This meant that the Chicago DJs had more structure and were cutting more than the Detroit DJs (Hoffmann). Eventually Detroit DJs started working on their own tracks and giving it to Chicago's 'Hot Mix people' who started playing it in the various clubs and on radio stations, calling it "the 'house' sound of Detroit". By linking this new sound to Chicago, its DJs controlled how much influence was given to Detroit owing to intense competition and a need to keep the music culture strong in Chicago alone (Hoffmann). However, there were many DJs who were happy to help DJs Juans and Derricks by playing their tracks tracks which were created by mixing and blending music, creating a smoother music compared to the Chicago DJs who had a different beat and a different vocal every eight bars. Although producers in both cities used the same hardware and even collaborated on projects and remixes together, Detroiters traded the choir-friendly vocals of House with metallic clicks, robotic voices and repetitive hooks reminiscent of an automotive assembly line. It is this characteristic of the genre that provides the argument by authors such as Williams (2001: 158) who suggests that Detroit techno was a soundtrack for the evisceration of Detroit by the auto industry, which replaced the factory workforce - largely black - with machines (or by relocating offshore). Williams (2001: 158) reads techno as a commentary on black workers becoming robots/being replaced by robots, which is something techno artists simultaneously mourn and romanticize. Yet it is widely accepted and believed that techno and its culture is not based on any political presuppositions and like wise carries no ideology as it has nothing to say and it speaks no words or any language unlike other music genres such rock and roll. (Van Veen :8) Socially and geographically, it is important to note that on a local level, Detroit Techno as a genre created a newfound, integrated club scene in Detroit that had not been felt in a general sense after the Motown label moved to Los Angeles. One of the most positive benefits from techno is that the music was able to break through all class and racial boundaries and was heard by all parts of society and eventually paved the way for its movement. (Van Veen :8 ) This was achieved through television programs such as the "The Scene" which featured a racially and ethnically very mixed selection of dancers every weekday at prime time viewing. Although the preferred choice of music was the R&B and Funk hits of the day, like Prince or the Gap Band, some tracks like Juan Atkins "Technicolor" under his 'Model 500 moniker' eventually found their way onto "The Scene", and helped popularise local techno. By 1987, things turned a new direction. A string of successful records including DJ Derricks "Nude Photo" got more people interested in Detroit. Distributors started sending the records overseas and a sudden interest in London paved the way for the release of the album Techno! The New Dance Sound of Detroit in 1988. Detroit techno was sold to the world (Hoffmann). The first wave of Detroit techno had peaked in 1988-89, around this time the European rave scene embraced the Detroit sound, thanks to Kool Kat Records's release of a number of Detroit records. From "industrial boomtown to post-Fordist wasteland", the decline of the auto industry brought in Detroit's economic downfall and with it came the degentrification of the middle-class black areas. The wide-spread popularity of techno across socio-economic and racial lines also led to a mixing between West Side and elite high school youths with ghetto and gangster jitterbugs. Unfortunately, the economic problems of Detriot and the prevalent social apathy and desolation led to a proliferation of gun violence within clubs and by 1986, the techno club scenes were wrought with gun shootings, fights, and acts of violence further compounding the sociological and economic recovery of Detroit (Robb 2002: 135). By this time however, Detroit Techno became a full-fledged musical genre, a second generation of regional artists developed into techno icons themselves. In the mid-to-late 1990s, Detroit Techno producers experimented with extended aural sound scapes featuring sparse, ambient underscores punctuated with sporadic, cyclical periods of percussion. The Global and the Local By the 90s a large global network was created by television, the internet and internationally acclaimed DJs. Although many artists shun the idea of dividing the genre into various national styles, arguing that it is a global music and a youth culture that transcends all boundaries, Techno took on its own form in various parts of the world, both culturally and musically, shaped by particular aesthetic tastes and socio-historical conditions and its own indigenous characteristics. Today, techno has evolved into a plethora of subgenres, such as "acid," "ambient" and "industrial" (Robb 2002: 133). While there are globally shared factors in techno's success, it is here that one sees an important local difference between the respective nations and their techno music. For example, Reynolds (1998: 110) argues that in Britain the excesses of rave had emerged, as a liberating reaction to straight jacketing social pressures of right-wing Thatcherism in the late 80s, while in Germany techno celebrated the liberation from ideology in general - in the West from the hegemonic liberal values of the parental 1968 generation, and in the East, from the ideological utopias of the SED. This historical circumstance undoubtedly abetted the meteoric rise and subsequent cultural institutionalization of techno in the newly united country (Robb 2002: 134). Detroit techno successfully migrated to Europe, where it evolved and then migrated back to the U.S. It was as at this stage that the Americans became involved in it for the first time resulting in its African American identity becoming invisible. Despite the national and global influence of techno and the role of African Americans in its development, the genre has been excluded from the collection development activities of music libraries and archives. References: Hoffmann, Heiko. From The Autobahn To I-94: The Origins Of Detroit Techno And Chicago House. http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/feature/10251-from-the-autobahn-to-i-94 Retrieved on 2007-11-13. Transcript of an interview with all the famous DJs from Detroit and Chicago Reynolds, Simon (1998) Energy Flash: A Journey through Rave Music and Dance Culture. London: Picador Reynolds, Simon (1998) Generation Ecstasy: Into the World of Techno and Rave Culture. New York: Routledge. p 219 Robb, David (2002) Techno in Germany: Its Musical Origins and Cultural Relevance http://www.gfl-journal.de/2-2002/robb.pdf. Retrieved on 2007-11-13. p.130 - 149 Van Veen, Tobias. "It's Not A Rave, Officer, It's Performance Art: Art as Defense from the Law and as Offense to Society in the Break-In Era of Rave Culture." Conference Manuscript. U of Calgary: University Art Association of Canada, 10.31.02. Williams, Ben (2001) Black Secret Technology: Detroit Techno and the Information Age. In Technicolor: Race, Technology, and Everyday Life. NYU Press, p. 154-176 Read More