New Age? what the crackerjack is that?

[RiderX]

When I turn on my WMP radio, one station genre is listed as "New Age" and so im wondering what the hell that is because i like techno and i cant find a techno station btw, what artists ermmmmm "make" techno music? cuz i just foudn out how "beautiful" techno music is from "smack my bitch up" by prodigy (what a great DBZ AMV have to find out who made it)

[nailz]

Techno? Paul Oakenfold, DJ Tiestio, VNV Nation.. others.

[Otohiko]

New age is a very vague definition. But it's not techno. Generally, my understanding of new age (based on my father's own 'new age' projects) is creating a sound which uses a combination of electronic instruments and techniques with a lot of various world music influences. It's vague, really.

It's certainly not techno though. My own impression of New Age has always been something like 'electronic tribal music', though I know it extends to more than just that.

[Harlock7876]

Enya and Yanni are considered "new age"

[Qyot27]

To quote www.allmusic.com, a-hem:

"Born from an aesthetic that aims to induce a sense of inner calm, new age music emerged from the meditational and holistic fields. Generally, these are harmonious and nonthreatening albums that are allied with new age philosophies encouraging spiritual transcendence and physical healing. Some of these albums are artistically satisfying as well as therapeutic. Lesser musicians, however, often make ridiculous claims in the liner notes as to their ability to catapult listeners into advanced spiritual states through specially designed sonic vibrations and "immaculately conceived" musical ideas."

-Basically, in my own experience, it's been little more than Celtic music with some layered orchestra-esque instrumentals and tribal chants and/or ethereal female singing put over it. Enya, Delerium, and Enigma sum it up perfectly. Anyone remember those Pure Moods CD compilations they always used to hawk over in TV commercials? That's practically it in a nutshell. It is relaxing to listen to though, and often techno artists or DJs will sample or remix the songs for clubs to play. I know that the song 'Silence' that Sarah McLachlan did with Delerium was remixed a few time, and it got a fair amount of radio play on its own a couple years ago.

But if you're looking for "Beautiful Techno"-type songs, try searching for 'ambient techno' or possibly even 'radio techno' on google or some other search engine. Calling up the local Top 40 station and asking them might yield a high amount of results. But Prodigy, definitely not beautiful in terms of graceful music. If you're talking about Electronic Rock, however, Prodigy's music could be called beautiful because of all the requirements met to make it sound like that. If you're just looking for out-and-out techno or electronic music (there's a big difference between the two) then checking out AMG All Music Guide will give you plenty of artists to look for.

The big difference between techno and electronic music, however, is that techno is usually free-form or ambient in nature. A lot of artists in the early days looked to the band Kraftwerk to provide the example on how to use the synthesizers, but eventually it grew far away from Kraftwerk's influence and into the realm of clubs or concept albums, mostly. Electronic music, while it can be ambient or free-form, and was still influenced by Kraftwerk in the beginning, is a lot harsher to listen to, and is what techno grew out of. The biggest three divisions of Electronic music are Industrial, Electronic Rock/Alternative Dance, and Experimental. Industrial is the harshest, and is also considered a form of rock because of the structure and the way the music is played. It's been around since the 70s, but its only been in the last 15-17 years that metal and standard rock have been incorporated into it (and you've probably heard of those bands-Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, Stabbing Westward, Rammstein, Orgy, KMFDM). It's the more abrasive or synth-based, or Industrial Dance (also called EBM) artists that people aren't as familiar with (Throbbing Gristle, Skinny Puppy, Front 242, VNV Nation, Nitzer Ebb). Electronic Rock is a step down from Industrial, and incorporates a lot more of the rock influences, but never gets extremely hard. Econoline Crush on their 'The Devil You Know' album is about the hardest Electronic Rock gets (note: allmusic.com does classify EC under Industrial, but their lyrics aren't really that typical of Industrial music, they lean closer to Electronic Rock as far as that goes). Alternative Dance was the first true form of Electronic Rock, and was performed by artists like Depeche Mode, New Order, and The The (on the albums 'Soul Mining' and 'Infected'), and is performed today by artists as varied as Lords of Acid and Garbage. Alternative Dance and Electronic Rock are pretty much as influenced by what is known as post-punk as it was by Kraftwerk. Experimental is pretty much the stuff that Kraftwerk performed, but can also be highly dissonant. Techno started branching off around this time, but grew lighter to listen to as time went on. Industrial's beginnings were also while Electronic music as a whole was still 'Experimental', but it retained a great deal of the dissonance the music contained while amplifying the grit level. Electronic Rock and Alternative Dance were born later on, after post-punk emerged and gave birth to New Wave, both of which heavily influenced the bands that started performing Alt. Dance. Also as a side note, Electronic music tends to classified under Rock, whereas Techno has earned its own seperate genre, which shows how much difference there is between the two.

That about does it for my little essay on Electronic music, I think. *Sits back and puts on Depeche Mode's 'Never Let Me Down Again.'*

[Qyot27]

Also to add another band, there are some that skirt the line between Techno and Electronic Rock, since the synthesizers aren't really played appropriately to be either one. These artists do tend to lean more towards the Electronic Rock side, and E Nomine is probably the best example of this type of hybrid. They're also pretty unconventional about the actual 'singing' in the songs, considering much of it is in either German or Latin. In fact, E Nomine is the only band that performs music like what they perform. It's awesome, just plain awesome. And there are some excellent AMVs made from their music as well.

[Lyrs]

wow, i learn something old everyday!

/carlin reference

[DDramone]

Alternative Dance and Electronic Rock are pretty much as influenced by what is known as post-punk as it was by Kraftwerk

... you mean like new york dolls? i heard billy idol went electro, too.

[ithaqua]

Post-punk as in "moving on from punk music".

Think less Billy Idol, more Throbbing Gristle.

Now, this is being followed by "post-industrial", with bands like Trigger10d and Beautiful Assasins.

I'm sure someone will throw a link to Ishkur's Guide to Electronica soon.

[Qyot27]

Alternative Dance and Electronic Rock are pretty much as influenced by what is known as post-punk as it was by Kraftwerk

... you mean like new york dolls? i heard billy idol went electro, too.

Actually, New York Dolls are what they call Proto-Punk. Meaning, that they influenced the artists that performed punk rock originally (basically, The Ramones and the British Wave that came around 1975-1977). Billy Idol didn't really go electronic. He just added some synthesizers. He went about as Electronic Rock as Van Halen did when they added synths to do Jump.

Post-punk is bands like Comsat Angels, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bauhaus, The Cure, Psychedelic Furs, Public Image Ltd., Echo and the Bunnymen, Joy Division, and the like. They used synths and experimented a lot more, so it doesn't usually sound anything like punk rock (mostly it was the projects that former members of punk bands formed after their punk bands broke up, and those that were inspired by punk rock, but didn't want to duplicate the sound of it; or in the case of the Banshees, a punk band that changed its style completely and became much more well known for their new stuff). General Alternative Rock (like The Replacements or The Pixies, and later, Soul Asylum) is what the core of post-punk eventually grew into, after branching off into Goth rock, New Wave, and literally dozens of other styles that would take too long to name.

Think less Billy Idol, more Throbbing Gristle

Throbbing Gristle predates post-punk by about 4 or 5 years. Industrial and British Punk matured along pretty much seperate but parallel lines until post-punk happened, and post-punk veered away on a different path. To be honest, having looked at Ishkur's Guide, I think the Industrial section shouldn't have been divided up like that. IMO, Industrial Rock/Metal, Industrial Dance/EBM, and Goth-Industrial are the only three that really exist, just at what time and level of progression was it at being the question. Once again IMO, Industrial Dance/EBM has really only had a couple stages so far, Skinny Puppy-type, and then Front 242-type (which VNV Nation would be like).

Now, this is being followed by "post-industrial", with bands like Trigger10d and Beautiful Assasins.

Listening to the samples from Trigger10d and Beautiful Assassins, it sounds like Industrial Dance, just more like a third type, but IMO not really enough to say "post-" (or were you joking around when you said that? ). Post-punk was radically different from Punk, so it had the prefix. British punk was turned into American Hardcore Punk when it was re-exported, but since it was still basically the same, just played harder and faster, it remained Punk but had a location descriptor put in front of it.