At last week’s DV247 event, I got into a conversation with my buddy Paul Dakeyne (check out his awesome 80s Electro Pop radio show here) about this and that, and EDM blipped on the conversation radar too. He mentioned to me that he’d recently discovered that while EDM is a relatively recently coined term, it was actually mentioned on a record sleeve over 30 years ago.
And he’s quite right, as I happen to have the record in my collection. Landscape are more well-known for “Einstein a Go Go“, but also did the track shown above called “European Man” all the way back in 1981. And if you flip it over, there’s a multi-language inscription that specifically talks about EDM i.e. electronic dance music.
So is this the first specifically coined use of EDM? Obviously electronic dance music as a phrase has been around since the dawn of… well electronic dance music. But can Landscape, and specifically Richard James Burgess lay claim to coining the name?
It seems you’ll be able to ask him yourself as he’s a guest speaker at an upcoming DV247 event on July 29th. Entitled “Survive, Grow, and Prosper in the Real Music Industry”, Richard will be taking part in the keynote event. Full details are right here.
YOUR SAY
I know I have to be careful using the term EDM around these parts, but is this the first appearance of this acronym? Is it right to attribute it to Landscape? Or do you know of an earlier appearance?
This is actually a very good album.
Whoa!!! Pre MIDI… at the time this album was put out MIDI protocol was just being coded. As far as I know, it wasn’t released to the public until 1982.
As for the term EDM, I can’t say that I have much love for the generic classification used to lump together all electronic music… it’s like saying that Death Metal, Black Metal, Classic Rock and Soft Rock are all the same thing. They all use guitars, vocals and drums. Doesn’t that make them all the same? After all it’s all just Rock Music.
The term Dance Music has been used for a very long time to explain the general genre of music, without any negative connotations. The problem with EDM is more the commercialism and generic sound that comes with it. The fact that both these tracks are called Dance Music is awesome:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_j-Tji1DueU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lS1u9z9vNGQ
im so glad the 90s are over when it comes to dance music..too many euro dance songs that had no soul and was all about gimmicks for teenagers. this clip reminds me of a terrible decade.
interesting to see it was computer programmed even in 81, is when the tr-808 was launched as well..was a transition year from mostly disco beats with live drummers to electronic and drummachines.
ill look at that record to see whats it worth on discogs
Yeah, but think of ALL the good music too. Shy FX, Roni Size, Goldie, Underworld, Prodigy, Plastikman, Johnny Acquaviva, Josh Wink, Lemon D, Noodles and Wonder… the list goes on. I guess it is as it always was, you have to dig for the good stuff. It never seems to come soft served.
sorry but those are not my cup of tea, the only good thing about the prodigy was them sampling Ultra Magnetic MCS, for the rest they had no soul no funk whatsoever.
It’s pointless getting into arguments about types of music but sorry, you’re just plain wrong about The Prodigy ;-P (for what it’s worth I find the vast majority of soul and funk even more formulaic and pedestrian than the so-called “Eurotrash” of the 90s)
The Prodigy sounded too industrial, if you look what was happenening pre-Prodigy like Silver Bullet, Hijack, Blade, Son of Noise, Gunshot and what-not then you can hear that they took that kind of music and House influences, took the funk out of it and made it mainstream.
But we agree that nothing as bad as Eurotrash, Belgium producers hiring wack rappers and singers to make hits.
“Eurotrash, Belgium producers hiring wack rappers and singers to make hits”
That made me laugh….
2-Ulimited, arrrgh what a joke that was
You say that, but it was a huge hit all over the globe and is one of those tracks that you can drop and still get a crowd going nuts. It might not be your taste, and definitely does not have underground credentials, or any kind of artistic brilliance. But it fills floors all over the world, which is rather the point of its existence.
Thats why i mentioned it because it was popular no matter if Ray and Anita actually had talent.
Very easy on the eye though. Probably a big part of the success. And the same for Barbie Girl too.
I wonder if someone could take all this pop-dance stuff and actually make a really cool mix? Since the recent Venga Room skit, I’ve been wondering if it was possible for someone to slip in a Venga Boys loop into an underground techno set and get away with it?
Lmao
Underground schmunderground. It’s such bollocks around “fashion”. Underground seemingly means nobody much likes it or is prepared to pay for it. Popular and liked by millions = “cheesy” or other insults invented by those with vested interests. And when an underground record crosses over (“House every weekend” anybody?) it’s suddenly no longer underground. How does that work?
Genre labels are mostly just bollocks invented by people to “sell” something – manipulation for mindless idiots who can’t decide which music is good and which is bad and prefer the politicising and marketing of different genre labels to make their choices :-P
Hard to disagree with any of that Ian.
im not really into underground music, the music i listen to were pretty big hits back then, Atomic Dog by George Clinton is a good example, or Rockit by Herbie Hancock.
Not really underground right?
SNAP – Rhythm is a Dancer is the greatest Dance record of all time.
You’re being incredibly naïve if you think other forms of music aren’t produced exactly the same way. Even Motown was just a production line music “factory”.
Many of the producers behind that “Eurotrash” you loathe are just as passionate and have equally strong feelings for their genre as you do for yours.
Like ALL genres there’s good music and bad music and it’s always a shame when people just diss a whole genre because they are so narrow in their tastes they personally don’t “get” it, adopting an “All of this genre I support is better” like that made any sense at all.
When I worked in the industry and pointed out how bogus it was with the dance music industry hiring attractive people to pretend they’d sung songs actually recorded by older, overweight housewives it was pointed out to me that (a) most singles are bought by teenagers, and teenagers buy music from people they aspire to be
(b) the music is no different no matter who’s miming to it in a video or TV appearance, and it’s the music that people are actually buying not the video or TV appearance
(c) it’s ridiculous to assume that most other music isn’t produced a similar way.
Most producers use session musicians after the band have left the studio and the band most often aren’t even told and don’t even know it’s not them on the records. Look at the history of where some of the great rock musicians like Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton came from (clue: it was playing as session musicians on records credited to other musicians)
i never liked the sound of motown, im more into the harder p-funk stuff with a lot of improvisation and more freedom, songs were like 9 mins long back then, listen to the Brides of Funkenstein “Never buy Texas from a cowboy” freaking 15 mins long!!! lol i bought that record last week..now the average song is like 3 to 4 mins very structured as most ppl are scared like lil puppies to be different now.
my point was that im glad the 90s is over, not just the euro dance, also the drum and bass and the hardhouse etc..
I don’t have a lot to add to this, but god I wish I didn’t have to hear Prodigy at my industrial clubs. With the sole exception of minefields, which is an amazing song.
But can Smack My Bitch Up just go away already?
No worse than Closer killing The Downward Spiral, completely stopped listening to Trent after that, but fell into Experimental Techno and Rotterdam at the time. Terror core wasn’t that far of a stretch from Skinny Puppy, Download, Frontline Assembly, Ultra Violence…
Closer killed Closer for me. Closer to God is a GREAT song, and nothing can take away from the genius of The Fragile (minus that terrible song with Marilyn Manson that has no place on that album).
But at least Trent made something that resembled industrial music.
To be honest, I enjoyed Further Down the Spiral as well and Trent has some real talent, but The Downward Spiral had a lot of tracks that didn’t get the love they should have. Like A Warm Place and Reptile.
I’ll admit, the man has actual talent and I was on board with Pretty Hate Machine. I got to see him in concert with Ministry, back in the day, in ’91 and was waiting in line the day Broken was released. But that was in the boom of North American Industrial. There are other very talented people that got together for side projects like Kevin cKeys, Ogre, Jello and Al Jougensen to mention a few.
Oh yeah, the 90s were great. Chemlab, Skinny Puppy, 16volt, KMFDM, Ministry, Thrill Kill Kult, 5th Column Records, Wax Trax, Front Line, etc.
What’s nice, though, is that there are some great new industrial acts that are out now, and the genre is seeing a resurgence in a great way. The it isn’t taking from dubstep or bro-step in large quantities, but instead getting darker with more post-punk and witch house influences, and more guitars because guitars are awesome. :)
lol… I have no problems with guitars. All instruments sound great when played well. My daughter is more of a guitar person than I am these days, that was my pre teens till my 20’s. She has a little Fender Squire, but I’m refinishing an old ESP LTD HD-300 for her and got her a Guitar Rig Kontrol 3 a few years back. She heard Rammstein and she thought the sound was pretty cool, so I thought I’d save her a bunch of cash in hardware pedals to get her started.
Cool insignificant facts about a few unrated albums that crossed over from the 90’s… The second release of Plug’s Drum and Bass for Papa was on nothing records. The old drummer for Napalm Death, Mick Harris did a really (and I mean REALLY) good DnB album called Overload Lady and Danzig produced one of the best dark, atmospheric ambient albums I’ve ever heard called Black Aria.
Oh man, yeah. And Consolidated, Meat Beat Manifesto, Front Line, and so much more. I’m seeing Godflesh twice in September (Chicago and Boston), and seeing FLA for the second time, and Acumen Nation is playing all of Transmissions from Eville in Chicago. Gonna be badass.
I generally feel out of place at industry trade shows because I’m so deep in the scene and don’t really follow mainstream anything. But hey, it’s always good to find another person who likes their stuff dark. If your daughter wants any recommendations for guitar heavy dance music let me know. That’s, like, my bread and butter.
Ear Ache Label, Monster Magnet, Mr Bungle, Malhavok, Butthole Surfers, Infectious Grooves, Einstürzende Neubauten … Hehehe… this thread has been a nice walk down memory lane. It’s made me go through a lot of the music I have tucked away on my storage drive.
I let my daughter know, but she’s a typical teen… knows it all at the age of 16. LOL… I’m just waiting for that bubble to pop.
I don’t generally play anything “mainstream” either, the closest I get is a bit of Daniel Steinberg. Considering I live north of you, up in Ontario it’s not the normal feel that other DJs in my area are pumping out… I’ve boycotted Zimmerman since day 1. Nothing like a producer shooting off his mouth about having a lack of respect for a DJs “talent” to turn me off of supporting them. I’d pirate the music, if I respected him enough to put it out there for others to gain interest. Although I have been know to run Pheeks’ Mutek set from this year during my show when the station at the U of Guelph has SoCan audits, to help JP fund raise a little.
Yeah, all good stuff. I’m really wrapped up in the scene right, and have been for a while, but dabbling in some heavy techno has been kind of fun. I’m in Boston and it’s not the average scene around here either, but we’ve been able to get a good support, and there have been long legacies we can kind of capitalize on while still doing something new.
But it’s not the normal feel anywhere. And I don’t want it to be. Once it’s normal everyone likes it and they don’t know why. I’m happy being an angry rivet head. :)
I figure no one will be reading this thread this far down and I figure that you probably have the same love of gear porn that I do. Here’s a few shots of the home studio that my daughter and I share. It’s not much, but it does the job.
Yeah, well, this is our thread now.
That all looks great. Lots of computers, that’s for sure. I’m assuming each is dedicated to a task? I’m trying to consolidate my stuff and only have out what I’m using at the moment. No pictures yet since I haven’t finished the last bit of organization, but soon.
SOOOOOOOOOOON.
The desktop beside the SMD solder station is for looking up service manuals and circuit schems when I’m doing repairs, but it has a secondary function of running Maschine, Guitar Rig and K9U for my daughter.
The laptop attached to the Z2 is my backup, but I’ve given my daughter the run of it to learn Traktor so she can start putting in bids to do school functions. This way I can teach her a little of what I’ve learned over the years about putting together events and the basics of small business. She can also get her volunteering hours in on the show that I do at The U of G, just for playing a few tracks.
The laptop on the coffin case is my main, it’s hooked up as a single workstation with dual seating. I have the monitor mirrored to the 23″ with a USB 2.0 hub on the desk for a second keyboard and mouse, making it so that I don’t have to tear down and set up over and over again just to move a couple feet.
The hub for the studio is the A&H ZED10FX, XLR Main Mix Out to my Yorkville YSS10 and from the cross over on that to a pair of Yorkville YSM10’s. My daughter can’t believe the difference in sound from the little Marshal cabinet that she used to have.
That’s really awesome. You’re daughter’s lucky to have such a diverse range of knowledge and tech to pull from. Hopefully, even as a teenager, she recognizes that :)
Seriously badass.
I’m just thinking back to the 90’s with the generic heading of Electronica. In that area of the local record shop you’d find Electronic Dance Music (at the time “dance club music”), House, Techno, Drum and Bass, Breaks, Electro, Rotterdam (it even had it’s own shelf)… Personally, I’m of the mind that if you see a dog, you call it a dog. If you see a cat, you call it a cat. If you see a +8 vinyl that’s red and white with Plastikman on it, you call it techno. dubnobasswithmyheadman was filed as Electronica back then, but it was House to my ears.
When people asked me back then if I played “Dance Music”, I’d tell them “No, I play Techno”. I’d soon be asked if it was anything like Ace of Bass or C&C Music Factory. My response to that was “No” that’s dance club music”.
I guess my problem is that all our underground, non-mainstream music has been forced into the club scene and the manglers at the clubs seem to be setting the trends (as those with money seem to have the greater voice) “watering down” a lot of the essence of electronic music.
As to the “generic sound” that seems to be prevailing, I blame a lot of it on piracy of software. A few $$$ on some controllers and pirated software create the opportunity for untalented people, with mediocre understanding of production to pump out mediocre generic beats. This being different from the norm in the past of having to spend thousands on hardware. Very seldom is it that you get to walk into a private studio with $10 000 worth of gear anymore and those used to be small studios 10-20 years ago.
Landscape……. Tried so hard to be worthy. Yet failed. Japan kept the fretless bass, but were so much better!!
It’s a shame that EDM is no longer a catchall, and instead stands for what should be called bro-step. It worked so much better than techno.
I see that Rane 57MKII lurking in the background! When’s the review coming?
Just had a discussion with two members of Landscape on Twitter, and it’s actually 1980. My version is the 1981 reissue, and they tell me of a limited 12″ release for DJs that I’m obviously going to have to track down now.
http://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=119390&ev=mb
o woow i wonder how this record sounds like :)