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Country and Techno and EDM, Oh My!

Anderton

By Anderton
in Sound, Stage, and Studio

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blue2blue Newbie

blue2blue

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I couldn't get that link to load for the life of me so I went to the site's home page and searched...

 

Has EDM 'gone country'?

 

I listened to a bunch of those tracks, you're really never know those were supposed to be 'country' artists -- that said, 'country' artists being tuned into robo-chipmunks is nothing new. wink.png

 

 

 

Here's an effort of mine from 1999 that's sort of downtempo goes trailer park... go for the HD, makes a diff in the audio.

 

[video=youtube;8prdXWpbcxI]

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blue2blue Newbie

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OK that is NOT country (then again, Country hasn't been country for a long time anyway)

 

 

That's great!

 

Very much in keeping with this outlaw classic, in spirit if not style.

 

I have to watch myself because I've been kvetching about Nashville selling out country since the late 60s -- some of the people I was complaining about then even I now consider truly classic artists, particularly the countrypolitan guys. I didn't go for them so much then, the strings, the clothes. But, you know what they say about madams, buildings, and country singers...

 

[video=youtube;TNpLSaCirj8]

 

 

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blue2blue Newbie

blue2blue

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there's got to be worse than that

I think this is worse, canadian synth duo Kon Kan abused a sample from Rose Garden from Lynn Anderson

in 1988

 

[video=youtube;Se-QYEgAU8E]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Se-QYEgAU8E

 

I'm not sure I caught the Lynn Anderson sample at all... but I think I'd make a case that New Order abuse took the front seat... then again, as an unreconstructed Joy Division fan who gave up trying to like New Order... well... I need to let it go. :D

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bieke Rising Star

bieke

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I'm not sure I caught the Lynn Anderson sample at all... but I think I'd make a case that New Order abuse took the front seat... then again, as an unreconstructed Joy Division fan who gave up trying to like New Order... well... I need to let it go. :D

 

the samples are at 1'43" and 3'01"

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Vito Corleone Grand Master

Vito Corleone

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I like classic country as much as the next cowboy, but I really can't get behind the "that ain't country" comments. It really isn't reasonable to expect country music to still sound like Merle Haggard in 1965.

 

 

What genre has survived by never changing or modernizing? Classic country is great and thankfully we have recordings of all that stuff. But I don't need the new stuff to sound like the old stuff. (I really don't need most of the new stuff to sound like the new stuff either, but that's a different topic...)

 

And I love it when people mash genres together. Never really understood why so many people actually seem offended by such things.

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blue2blue Newbie

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I like classic country as much as the next cowboy, but I really can't get behind the "that ain't country" comments. It really isn't reasonable to expect country music to still sound like Merle Haggard in 1965.

 

 

What genre has survived by never changing or modernizing? Classic country is great and thankfully we have recordings of all that stuff. But I don't need the new stuff to sound like the old stuff. (I really don't need most of the new stuff to sound like the new stuff either, but that's a different topic...)

 

And I love it when people mash genres together. Never really understood why so many people actually seem offended by such things.

 

I dunno... it's not so much the simple act of hybridizing or mashing genres (I'm making a distinction there, though impertinent to my point), but my [mental] ear is 'offended' when it's offended.

 

I can't seem to tell it what to like. wink.png

 

I can guide myself to an intellectual interest and/or a 'rabbinical' interest in, even fascination with, detailing elements of a given style, even if I don't like the style (left over from my professional days), but while I find the intellectual exercise interesting, I'm at the point in my life where I want to enjoy what I listen to and what I play, for the most part.

 

And, I gotta tell you, NOTHING I've ever been able to do has been able to convince myself that there was anything at all in the sound of vocal tuning that didn't make me want to kick in the speaker.

 

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MrKnobs Rookie

MrKnobs

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I guess I was too late in inventing country and techno...seems the world beat me to it.

 

This had to happen.

 

As someone who has been running live sound for county cover bands for decades, I can tell you that the two kinds of music they play aren't "country AND western" (as in Blues Brothers) but "country and DANCE." Additionally, their instrumentation has long been modern compared to rock bands which stagnated and even went retro (acoustic drums, tube amplified guitars, etc). Even back in the 80's successful country cover bands were using sampled / triggered drums and synths. They were among the first adopters using early devices such as the Alesis D4 so they could get the big, fat drum sounds of dance music AND the traditional sounds of country drums all in the same drum set and show.

 

Why? Because the idea was to keep people on the dance floor. It was all about dancing, and the "big halls in small towns" (where the real money could be made) were cross generational - three generations of people with three generations of preferred music. The goal was to keep it country until grandpa headed for the house without losing the kids and then "thumping" them relentlessly with sampled beats and elaborate light / fog / hazer / laser shows until the cops came and shut it down.

 

The difference back then was no one I worked for was experimenting with combining the two forms into new, original songs. If anyone was, they weren't making money and therefore I never met them because only successful bands have big PA and lights and hire expensive sound people. In the 80s and 90's trying something like this would likely have driven out all three generations from the big halls where the money was to be made.

 

Terry D.

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Vito Corleone Grand Master

Vito Corleone

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I think my ear has always been tuned more towards the similarities in music, which I find to be at the core of their essence most times, rather than the differences, which I usually find to be superficial.

 

Most of the 20th century forms of popular music --- rock, R&B, jazz and country --- all derive from the basic blues. So many popular songs are such slight variations on I -IV - V in 4/4 time that most of the time you can't recognize the genre by looking at the sheet music. Whether they are sang with a twang or the guitars are distorted or there are a lot of "run" embellishments in the vocal and similar performance choices are often what distinguishes whether a song is "rock" or "R&B" or "country" but are superficialities.

 

I've certainly understood when lay people are so tied to the superficialities that they only like music with loud, crunchy guitars, but have always been a bit more perplexed to find how many musicians are so rigid in their understanding of music.

 

I've always liked the song "Rose Garden", not because it has a bit of a country twang to it, but because it's got a great melody. And a great melody is just as important to synth pop as it is to country.

 

 

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