4 ms·

Now their music is kind of obvious but when you think about the scene back then it’s pretty amazing what they did.

OzzyB 6y ago
Nothing obvious about it. That's like saying Roland's shitty bass accompaniment gizmo, the TB-303, was obviously built for Acid House.
- csours 6y ago
  Obvious in hindsight is very different from obvious at the time. Lots of things are obvious in hindsight, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a lot of hard work behind them.
- hinkley 6y ago
  I recall in college having several conversations with people who gave up on reading Lord of the Rings because 'it felt derivative'. Trying to politely explain to them that the fiction they had already read was the derivative work, while on the inside I was screaming: Look here, you little shit. I know we bristled at this in school, but I think there is in fact something to the idea of presenting a discipline to people in a Cliff's Notes version of chronological order. Otherwise you may never see the value in the foundational works in that area (or as the case here, artistic medium).
  - emmelaich 6y ago
    Well it was derivative :-) of Norse legends.
- tomphoolery 6y ago
  I mean, of course it's made for acid house! Surely Roland wouldn't have made a bass accompaniment synthesizer sound that unrealistic! /s
  - TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
    Roland did that a lot. They produced these generic "bad" synthesizers and drum machines that turned out to be unbelievably funky when abused by the right people. It was a real next-level engineering super-talent. It doesn't even matter if it was deliberate. The fact that it happened so reliably is enough.
    - PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
      That's not next-level engineering. It's next-level marketing. The key thing about the [3-digits-here] series was that they were priced right. Not for Detroit ... priced right enough to sell enough of them, so that by the time Detroit (and Chicago) were ready, there were lots of them available second hand for very little money. And thus: techno (and house) and their progeny. OK, more precisely, that's not entirely fair. Early electro-funk (say, NYC 1978-1983) and even early hip hop did use these devices. But they were generally in studios and not widely used by everybody and their friend that just wanted to make a jam. By the time the 90s hit, the used market for 303/909 etc was primed and ready to burst.
      - TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
        There were a lot - a lot - of competing units that were also priced right, or even righter than the Roland gear which was never bargain basement. Rattly cheap drum machines were all over the scene in the late 70s and 80s. None of them had the lasting impact of the 808 and 909. There's a reason for that - the same reason that explains why the Jupiter-8 and Juno series synths are legends, while competing synths from Kawai and Korg are mostly forgotten.
_jal 6y ago
Only in the same way that Led Zeppelin sounds "obvious". The context from which you're listening to it is partly defined by it. (I really don't want to get in to a "who is better/more important/whatever" argument. If choosing Led Zeppelin as a comparison bothers you, please substitute for taste.)
- Ididntdothis 6y ago
  I didn’t mean the exact music as obvious but the style and tools they used. Same for electric guitars and the effects being used. Now totally normal but there was a time when people had to come up with that idea.
  - nine_k 6y ago
    OK, not LZ but Jimi Hendrix maybe? Someone who defined new sound which is "obvious" and widespread now?
    - Lio 6y ago
      Personally I think you’d have to go back further to find an equivalent. Maybe Bo Diddily? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo_Diddley https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo_Diddley
- pstuart 6y ago
  I'm not sure about that. Zep looted a lot of blues songs and just made 'em harder, and "hard rock" was a thing by that time. I was a huge fan and they were my first "real" concert in 1977, at the infamous Day on the Green where Bonham and Grant were arrested for beating up a BGP employee. Get off my lawn! :-)
- shawnz 6y ago
  See: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SeinfeldIsUnfunny https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SeinfeldIsUnfunn...
Lio 6y ago
I totally agree with this. I think it’s a sign of their brilliance. Their music is like an algorithm or scientific theory. Being more complex would not make it better. For example (and IMHO) if you’re trying to make a techno track you’re not going to make anything better than Numbers. Numbers isn’t techno. Techno as genre didn’t exist before some guys in Detroit heard that track. Numbers is what techno wants to be. You can’t remake Citizen Kane and improve it. You can only do something different.
- encom 6y ago
  >some guys in Detroit Which guys? I'd like to go digging in music history.
  - Lio 6y ago
    Ah, the people you are looking for are known as The Belleville Three[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Belleville_Three https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Belleville_Three
bogomipz 6y ago
Interestingly enough the "scene" back then for them had elements that would have influenced and/or encouraged their direction. The Federal Republic of Germany actively tried to promote a musical identity that was a contrast to the GDR's populist music policy. The culmination of this was the electronic music studios known as WDR(Westdeutscher Rundfunk) and their radio broadcasts. Hutter has acknowledged listening to those WDR broadcasts out of Cologne. Just to connect the dots Conny Plank, Kraftwerk's producer on Autobahn was an engineer at GDR. Karlheinz Stockhausen who was a Kraftwerek influence and hugely important figure in his own right ran the WDR. The WDR history and its importance to electronic music is pretty fascinating. You can read about it here: http://120years.net/wdr-electronic-music-studio-germany-1951/ http://120years.net/wdr-electronic-music-studio-germany-1951... and https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2017/08/stockhausen-photo-essay https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2017/08/stockhausen-ph... Dusseldorf also had the Kunstacademie which was run by Fluxus artist Joseph Beuys who regularly held "art happening." These art happenings were also some of Kraftwerk's first gigs. Beyond that the whole German prog rock scene that sprang up around Dusseldorf and Cologne at that time with bands like Can, Neu! and Faust was all about experimentation.

Nothing obvious about it. That's like saying Roland's shitty bass accompaniment gizmo, the TB-303, was obviously built for Acid House.

csours 6y ago
Obvious in hindsight is very different from obvious at the time. Lots of things are obvious in hindsight, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a lot of hard work behind them.
hinkley 6y ago
I recall in college having several conversations with people who gave up on reading Lord of the Rings because 'it felt derivative'. Trying to politely explain to them that the fiction they had already read was the derivative work, while on the inside I was screaming: Look here, you little shit. I know we bristled at this in school, but I think there is in fact something to the idea of presenting a discipline to people in a Cliff's Notes version of chronological order. Otherwise you may never see the value in the foundational works in that area (or as the case here, artistic medium).
- emmelaich 6y ago
  Well it was derivative :-) of Norse legends.
tomphoolery 6y ago
I mean, of course it's made for acid house! Surely Roland wouldn't have made a bass accompaniment synthesizer sound that unrealistic! /s
- TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
  Roland did that a lot. They produced these generic "bad" synthesizers and drum machines that turned out to be unbelievably funky when abused by the right people. It was a real next-level engineering super-talent. It doesn't even matter if it was deliberate. The fact that it happened so reliably is enough.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
    That's not next-level engineering. It's next-level marketing. The key thing about the [3-digits-here] series was that they were priced right. Not for Detroit ... priced right enough to sell enough of them, so that by the time Detroit (and Chicago) were ready, there were lots of them available second hand for very little money. And thus: techno (and house) and their progeny. OK, more precisely, that's not entirely fair. Early electro-funk (say, NYC 1978-1983) and even early hip hop did use these devices. But they were generally in studios and not widely used by everybody and their friend that just wanted to make a jam. By the time the 90s hit, the used market for 303/909 etc was primed and ready to burst.
    - TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
      There were a lot - a lot - of competing units that were also priced right, or even righter than the Roland gear which was never bargain basement. Rattly cheap drum machines were all over the scene in the late 70s and 80s. None of them had the lasting impact of the 808 and 909. There's a reason for that - the same reason that explains why the Jupiter-8 and Juno series synths are legends, while competing synths from Kawai and Korg are mostly forgotten.

_jal 6y ago

Only in the same way that Led Zeppelin sounds "obvious". The context from which you're listening to it is partly defined by it. (I really don't want to get in to a "who is better/more important/whatever" argument. If choosing Led Zeppelin as a comparison bothers you, please substitute for taste.)

Ididntdothis 6y ago
I didn’t mean the exact music as obvious but the style and tools they used. Same for electric guitars and the effects being used. Now totally normal but there was a time when people had to come up with that idea.
- nine_k 6y ago
  OK, not LZ but Jimi Hendrix maybe? Someone who defined new sound which is "obvious" and widespread now?
  - Lio 6y ago
    Personally I think you’d have to go back further to find an equivalent. Maybe Bo Diddily? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo_Diddley https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo_Diddley
pstuart 6y ago
I'm not sure about that. Zep looted a lot of blues songs and just made 'em harder, and "hard rock" was a thing by that time. I was a huge fan and they were my first "real" concert in 1977, at the infamous Day on the Green where Bonham and Grant were arrested for beating up a BGP employee. Get off my lawn! :-)
shawnz 6y ago
See: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SeinfeldIsUnfunny https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SeinfeldIsUnfunn...

Lio 6y ago

I totally agree with this. I think it’s a sign of their brilliance. Their music is like an algorithm or scientific theory. Being more complex would not make it better. For example (and IMHO) if you’re trying to make a techno track you’re not going to make anything better than Numbers. Numbers isn’t techno. Techno as genre didn’t exist before some guys in Detroit heard that track. Numbers is what techno wants to be. You can’t remake Citizen Kane and improve it. You can only do something different.

encom 6y ago
>some guys in Detroit Which guys? I'd like to go digging in music history.
- Lio 6y ago
  Ah, the people you are looking for are known as The Belleville Three[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Belleville_Three https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Belleville_Three

bogomipz 6y ago

Interestingly enough the "scene" back then for them had elements that would have influenced and/or encouraged their direction. The Federal Republic of Germany actively tried to promote a musical identity that was a contrast to the GDR's populist music policy. The culmination of this was the electronic music studios known as WDR(Westdeutscher Rundfunk) and their radio broadcasts. Hutter has acknowledged listening to those WDR broadcasts out of Cologne. Just to connect the dots Conny Plank, Kraftwerk's producer on Autobahn was an engineer at GDR. Karlheinz Stockhausen who was a Kraftwerek influence and hugely important figure in his own right ran the WDR. The WDR history and its importance to electronic music is pretty fascinating. You can read about it here: http://120years.net/wdr-electronic-music-studio-germany-1951/ http://120years.net/wdr-electronic-music-studio-germany-1951... and https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2017/08/stockhausen-photo-essay https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2017/08/stockhausen-ph... Dusseldorf also had the Kunstacademie which was run by Fluxus artist Joseph Beuys who regularly held "art happening." These art happenings were also some of Kraftwerk's first gigs. Beyond that the whole German prog rock scene that sprang up around Dusseldorf and Cologne at that time with bands like Can, Neu! and Faust was all about experimentation.