KVR Audio

AstralExistence · Post by **AstralExistence** » Mon Jan 12, 2015 5:22 am

modern edm is obnoxiously similar. i have no idea why its so popular. and when i say similar, im not talking the very small percentage of always original in every new release producers but rather most of the youtube and sound cloud scene that is flooded with repetitiveness and absolute lack of originality. makes me cringe. you can tell these guys are ripping off ideas in rapid succession from the originators.

i have a theory. the only thing that keeps the edm scene going IS the originators. who in turn, inspire the the producers with some originality, and a lot of talent, who then create the robotic copycats with zero originality, and a strong talent for mimicry.

sure you could say that this apply s to any genre of music, but i think this is most prevalent in the edm scene.

discuss.

audientronic · Post by **audientronic** » Mon Jan 12, 2015 5:51 am

I think the topic is a tautology.

jancivil · Post by **jancivil** » Mon Jan 12, 2015 5:51 am

I don't think being formulaic is, in itself, a guarantee of lameness or a bad result. You could say what you said about original establishers of a 'genre' or style, early innovation but later that dies out, about anything, anything in the world in any art that you could label, probably.

I think music is good when the musicians care a lot about craft and are personally inspired and there is a synergy, more than a sum of parts going on, regardless of the _form_.
I don't see 'EDM' in whatever manifestation a result of musicianship primarily. I wouldn't say it's impossible but it's not a form for 'playing' and live spontaneity afaict.
So it's going to fade from an original level of energy and wind up a kind of deadly exercise in form more than some things which went on in music, I guess.

I'm not fascinate by say 12-bar blues as a form, but there are people that can astound in it anyway, and it's mutated organically more times than anyone can count over the years. That's because of the intimacy with an instrument. EDM is 'Producahs' largely and this whole involvement is missing.

If this be a spinoff from 'Country' formula thread, I could rustle up some fantastic exponents of quite traditional old-timely music which is fresh because of the spirit and the accomplishment of musicianship.

robotmonkey · Post by **robotmonkey** » Mon Jan 12, 2015 10:19 am

Of course it is. There is a very important qualitative difference between the traditional styles like blues or country and modern dance music like EDM. Even though every style has its own rules what differs is the part of the musician or interpreter. In traditional styles like 12 bar blues there is a huge variation that comes down to musician interpreting the rules. But in EDM there is absolutely no human element at all as there is hardly any instrument playing. Most of that stuff is entered by mouse into computer. Also the production and compositional techniques tend to be exactly the same because they are tutorials from Computer Music.

mandolarian · Post by **mandolarian** » Mon Jan 12, 2015 10:30 am

jancivil wrote:If this be a spinoff from 'Country' formula thread, I could rustle up some fantastic exponents of quite traditional old-timely music which is fresh because of the spirit and the accomplishment of musicianship.

This is KVR, it's not fair to bring up the topic of musicianship. We're here for the mousemanship.

penguinfromdeep · Post by **penguinfromdeep** » Mon Jan 12, 2015 10:35 am

What about future house that's the new thing like combining deep house with edm or something shit like that

Josmoker · Post by **Josmoker** » Mon Jan 12, 2015 10:58 am

Yeah, like the countless young guitarists badly playing the same old rock riffs all the time are not obnoxious?
There's plenty of good stuff in all sorts of EDM genres - any genre is formulaic in a way (otherwise it wouldn't be a genre), doesn't mean that the music can't be well made or enjoyable.

do_androids_dream · Post by **do_androids_dream** » Mon Jan 12, 2015 11:49 am

A potentially massive subject area... To get to the root of it you would probably have to get deep into the psychology of how your brain responds to music and also into how capitalist systems capitalise on the most common factors to ensure popularity (which, in turn, ensures that a healthy profit is made which, in turn, ensures the continuation of whatever it is making the money). EDM concentrates solely on the 'excitement zone' - the very places that the disco smile eq curve accentuates - which is a proven formula for dancefloor orientated music. EDM is made to superficially excite the listener and, you could argue that, originality has no place here. In fact, the only thing originality is going to get you is a lack of popularity. If you want to be popular you MUST sound like everyone else - familiarity is the key to popularity. If your music sounds very familiar to a listener 15 seconds into hearing it for the first time it's going to prick up the ears of the many. If your music sounds completely alien and unfamiliar then you will have an uphill battle to even get folks to listen past the intro.

vurt · Post by **vurt** » Mon Jan 12, 2015 12:03 pm

if people enjoy it i personally cant see any problem with it. its not my thing for the most part but im not offended by it.
at least its not coldplay.

thecontrolcentre · Post by **thecontrolcentre** » Mon Jan 12, 2015 12:21 pm

It's no more formulaic than any other genre of music ... rock, reggae, country, folk, etc. Certain styles require certain content or they no longer fit into that genre, and there will always be stand-out artists, whatever the genre. Some people are just more talented than others
(not Coldplay, obviously).

ATS · Post by **ATS** » Mon Jan 12, 2015 12:49 pm

AstralExistence wrote:modern edm is obnoxiously similar. i have no idea why its so popular. and when i say similar, im not talking the very small percentage of always original in every new release producers but rather most of the youtube and sound cloud scene that is flooded with repetitiveness and absolute lack of originality. makes me cringe. you can tell these guys are ripping off ideas in rapid succession from the originators.

i have a theory. the only thing that keeps the edm scene going IS the originators. who in turn, inspire the the producers with some originality, and a lot of talent, who then create the robotic copycats with zero originality, and a strong talent for mimicry.

sure you could say that this apply s to any genre of music, but i think this is most prevalent in the edm scene.

discuss.

I pretty much agree with some of the EDM. But there is a lot I think you are ignoring. There are so many artists out there doing really interesting and different things. They just might not be in the top 40.

todd_r · Post by **todd_r** » Mon Jan 12, 2015 12:54 pm

This is amazing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FY8SwIvxj8o

GeckoYamori · Post by **GeckoYamori** » Mon Jan 12, 2015 1:16 pm

Some types of music are inherently more formulaic than others. That's just the way it is, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that in spite of formulaic being a very negatively charged word.

I think it's largely because genres are not universally defined in the same way. What defines, say, jazz seems many times more arbitrary than what you'd need to put on a checkbox to define something as electronic dance music. Likewise, country is pretty rigid when it comes to fundamental stuff like instrumentation and harmonies/chord progressions. If a country artist/band starts deviating too much with those then people aren't really going to regard it as country any more. Just as you're not really "allowed" to make house/techno/trance in something other than 4/4. But other genres like jazz and rock are much more flexible in all these aspects.

medienhexer · Post by **medienhexer** » Mon Jan 12, 2015 9:29 pm

That's a great edit and they sure got great drummers

Now I don't feel so bad about using the obvious chord progressions in my own music.

Sendy · Post by **Sendy** » Mon Jan 12, 2015 9:48 pm

EDM isn't too formulaic, it's just shit.

is edm too formulaic?