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I was curious about the Belleville Three (who have no relationship to the Triplets of Belleville) because I wasn't really aware of them. the wikipedia article

I was curious about the Belleville Three (who have no relationship to the Triplets of Belleville) because I wasn't really aware of them. the wikipedia article on the Belleville Three says the "first wave of Detroit techno" was some of the future members meeting and forming Cybotron, releasing Alleys of Your Mind in 1981 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMHNhJJnve4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMHNhJJnve4 to me this is quite clearly Kraftwerk inspired, and Kraftwerk had been going for about 10 years at that point. 1981 puts them after Devo had been around awhile, and Talking Heads and B-52s, which were more pop but featured many of these sounds, and contemporaneous with Depeche Mode, Eurythmics, and Yaz/Yazoo. Two years later Cybotron released Clear which is Kraftwerk blended with more of a funk sound https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3QHj7lai9I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3QHj7lai9I I'm not trying to assign/give/take credit, just saying here's what they sounded like and who else sounded similar to me. Zappa and P Funk are generally noted as having explored these sounds early on, but I don't enjoy their stuff so much so I don't listen to it much. This comment is a bit of "you might try listening to this" if you're interested. I don't remember when we all started saying techno, it was definitely in full swing in the 90's, I think it was the 80's but gotta admit, I dunno.

alisonatwork 4y ago
I always figure what makes house and techno different from earlier electronic music and contemporaneous synthpop is more contextual than musical. House and techno tended to be made by individuals, not by bands. It was put together by people who started with synthesizers, and then stopped with synthesizers. There was no attempt to even fake that there was some live drummer or live keyboard player as part of the "performance". In the case of house (perhaps less so with techno), the goal was to get your tracks played by DJs who were mixing them up with other tracks played at local nightclubs, it was not to end up on Top of the Pops. I think this difference in motivation matters, because it explains better how house and techno evolved into what they are today. Of course, all genres are arbitrary and there continues to be lots of cross-pollination between electronic music that is mainstream/popular and the stuff people are just throwing together in their bedrooms for their mates online or for the local party scene.
- whstl 4y ago
  If we go by this, then part of Detroit Techno is also out. Or at least Juan Atkins, one of the Belleville three: Cybotron was a rock band with guitars. They only started doing electronic-only music later.
  - rumori 4y ago
    There are two Cybotrons. One is an Australian rock band from the 70s and the other is Juan Atkins and Richard Davis from Detroit. While the latter had some rock influence as well, they predominantly did “Detroit electro” driven by drum machines like the 808, prime example being Clear.
    - whstl 4y ago
      Nope. I’m talking about the same Cybotron. Jon-5 was an early member and he was a guitar player. Eventually he quit since the direction changed. But there's still some guitars in some tracks in the Enter album. And Juan Atkins later left because Richard Davis wanted to focus on rock again.
  - projectazorian 4y ago
    Atkins’ contributions to techno go well beyond Cybotron. When Atkins left the group, he started recording solo under the aliases Model 500 and (later) Infiniti. The early Model 500 releases like “No UFOs”, in addition to being absolute classics, demonstrate the progression from electro to what we would now call Detroit techno. He also collaborated with many of the Berlin techno pioneers in the 90s, forming a key link between the two cities. Not to mention that Atkins mentored May, Saunderson, and many of the other techno originators. (ps. Cybotron is not really techno, IMO. It is better categorized as electro with a few prog-rock and post-punk flourishes, a sort of proto-techno. But pointing this out makes you kind of a pedantic bore, so most are happy to go along with calling Cybotron techno.)
JPKab 4y ago
Yep. Nothing worse than when journalists try to turn the genesis of musical genres into a defined, definite thing and play the game of accusing some of "stealing" from others. It's absurd, and defies everything about art.
- PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
  It's not (just) journalists doing this. There's a serious rift in the world between those who view (Detroit) techno as "Kraftwerk, but a bit different" and "yes, inspired in part by Kraftwerk but actually its own genre". There's an important racial/cultural subtext to those two origin stories as well. I've seen this argument play out on various blogs, podcasts and even a couple of college level courses over the past 10 years.
- jjulius 4y ago
  Massive amount of ignorance demonstrated here by blaming journalists. This has been a heavy debate within the dance music scene as far back as the earliest days of the Belleville Three. Nearly every fan/everyone involved in the scene has an opinion as to where the genesis was.
whstl 4y ago
It's a super complicated history. Kraftwerk started being called "Techno-pop" around 1978 by a Japanese critic, and the term caught on in Europe. "Techno" alone was a term being thrown around in 1982, perhaps earlier, by German press (and even Billboard seems to have used it) to talk about electronic music in general, from Kraftwerk to New Order to Front-242. However: those European acts that were called "Techno" in the early 80s are now retroactively called "Electro" or "Synth Pop". Interestingly, the early-80s Bellevue Three music, by the way, is much closer to the "Electro" camp, as the popular tunes often lacks the four-to-the-floor associated with today's techno (which the article itself talks about), and feature a breakbeat instead (check out Afrikaa Bambaata for comparison). The four-on-the-floor itself was already a feature on electronic club music like Trans Europe Express by Kraftwerk and I Feel Love by Donna Summer, both 1977. Italo Disco (early 80s) also mainly featured that drum beat. The term "Detroit Techno" and the style itself, featuring the four-on-the-floor, only appeared in the late 1980s. Some people say 1987/1988. And to make matters more complicated: by the time Detroit Techno was flourishing, there was already some music from the Frankfurt Tape Scene that was starting to sound like modern Techno (EDIT: some examples: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wT_K28uMxNY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wT_K28uMxNY). It wasn't something that happened overnight, in Europe it mostly evolved from Acid House (which also used the four-to-the-floor as a rule), while in Detroit it evolved from Electro. To me, the confusion happens because of some disagreements about terminology. First, groups that Europeans called "Techno" are now being called "Synth Pop" or "Electro" because they sound different from modern dancefloor Techno, or because they made more diverse music (Bigod 20 and Nitzer Ebb are called EBM). Second, the misconception that early-80s Detroit music was "the real Techno", when in reality it wasn't exactly modern techno, it was closer to Kraftwerk and Afrika Bambaata. In reality there was a lot of music being called Techno and a very rich heritage, but some people want to say theirs was "the real first", while in reality it's not that simple.
- PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
  > The four-on-the-floor itself was already a feature on electronic club music like Trans Europe Express by Kraftwerk TEE by Kraftwerk is not four-on-the-floor. See "Analyzing Kraftwerk's Beats" for a full explanation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qhcp6iVWbw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qhcp6iVWbw
PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
> Zappa and P Funk Zappa? Do you mean Zapp as in Zapp & Roger ? I've never heard anyone credit Frank Zappa with any exploratory forays into what became known as "techno".
- fsckboy 4y ago
  I was referring to stuff like this that I've read over the years where Zappa's name gets dropped, I'm no expert myself https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/experimental-german-music/ https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/experimental-german-m...
  - PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
    Yeah, Zappa's name is dropped but he really had absolutely nothing to do with this. In the link you gave, it merely happened to be the case that Zappa was at a festival at which Amon Düül, Tangerine Dream and Guru Guru performed. That's a bit like pointing to some particular at Coachella or Glastonbury and finding that both Beyonce and Chvrches performed (i.e. the only connection is being in the same place). Zappa's own explorations are amazing (watch parts of Live at the Roxy to get an idea of his ensemble at its best, and there's oodles of other incredible rock-infused-with-jazz-and-classical-understandings in his output), but they really have essentially nothing at all to do with the evolution of techno.
jjulius 4y ago
Just to further highlight how muddied the origin waters are, there absolutely was a connection to Depeche Mode. At one point, the band stopped by The Music Institute, one of the clubs considered a "birthplace" of Detroit Techno. Interestingly, Kai Alce (aside: highly recommend checking out his work if you're unfamiliar) from the quote below recently shared this New Yorker piece in support of Detroit being the origin of Techno. >The Music Institute’s juice bar – in tandem with its membership scheme – helped the owners keep a “grip on the tone” of the club, according to Miller. Only Depeche Mode seemed to object to the no alcohol policy. John McCready, reporting on Detroit techno for The Face in 1989, escorted the band to the bar. “Then they got there and realized there was no liquor, and it was too late to get them any,” said Kai Alcé, who had been hired to work the coat check. “Waters all round,” was Martin Gore’s rueful response. https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2017/05/music-institute-nightclubbing https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2017/05/music-institut...
pmoriarty 4y ago
Also see The History of Tape Looping[1], which starts in the 1940s, though you can definitely take the roots of electronic music back much further. While only briefly mentioned in the above history, here's Steve Reich, in a piece he made in a 1966 piece called Come Out[2][3], which definitely has the seeds of repetitive electronic music like techno (it's pretty long, I recommend starting about 9'27" in if you don't want to listen to the whole thing). Though it couldn't be mistaken for a full techno track, I would not be at all surprised to hear something like a portion of that in a lot of electronic music today, almost 60 years later. It sounds a lot more modern than Kraftwerk, anyway. And here[4] is Delia Derbyshire's[5] Dr Who rendition from 1963... a fully realized electronic dance track, also long, long before Kraftwerk. [1] - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=v4Y8t10LMuk https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=v4Y8t10LMuk [2] - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=g0WVh1D0N50 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=g0WVh1D0N50 [3] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Come_Out_(Reich) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Come_Out_(Reich) [4] - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CM8uBGANASc https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CM8uBGANASc [5] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delia_Derbyshire https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delia_Derbyshire
- yencabulator 4y ago
  Love the references, but describing a Dr Who theme as "dance" sounds like a stretch.

alisonatwork 4y ago

I always figure what makes house and techno different from earlier electronic music and contemporaneous synthpop is more contextual than musical. House and techno tended to be made by individuals, not by bands. It was put together by people who started with synthesizers, and then stopped with synthesizers. There was no attempt to even fake that there was some live drummer or live keyboard player as part of the "performance". In the case of house (perhaps less so with techno), the goal was to get your tracks played by DJs who were mixing them up with other tracks played at local nightclubs, it was not to end up on Top of the Pops. I think this difference in motivation matters, because it explains better how house and techno evolved into what they are today. Of course, all genres are arbitrary and there continues to be lots of cross-pollination between electronic music that is mainstream/popular and the stuff people are just throwing together in their bedrooms for their mates online or for the local party scene.

whstl 4y ago
If we go by this, then part of Detroit Techno is also out. Or at least Juan Atkins, one of the Belleville three: Cybotron was a rock band with guitars. They only started doing electronic-only music later.
- rumori 4y ago
  There are two Cybotrons. One is an Australian rock band from the 70s and the other is Juan Atkins and Richard Davis from Detroit. While the latter had some rock influence as well, they predominantly did “Detroit electro” driven by drum machines like the 808, prime example being Clear.
  - whstl 4y ago
    Nope. I’m talking about the same Cybotron. Jon-5 was an early member and he was a guitar player. Eventually he quit since the direction changed. But there's still some guitars in some tracks in the Enter album. And Juan Atkins later left because Richard Davis wanted to focus on rock again.
- projectazorian 4y ago
  Atkins’ contributions to techno go well beyond Cybotron. When Atkins left the group, he started recording solo under the aliases Model 500 and (later) Infiniti. The early Model 500 releases like “No UFOs”, in addition to being absolute classics, demonstrate the progression from electro to what we would now call Detroit techno. He also collaborated with many of the Berlin techno pioneers in the 90s, forming a key link between the two cities. Not to mention that Atkins mentored May, Saunderson, and many of the other techno originators. (ps. Cybotron is not really techno, IMO. It is better categorized as electro with a few prog-rock and post-punk flourishes, a sort of proto-techno. But pointing this out makes you kind of a pedantic bore, so most are happy to go along with calling Cybotron techno.)

JPKab 4y ago

Yep. Nothing worse than when journalists try to turn the genesis of musical genres into a defined, definite thing and play the game of accusing some of "stealing" from others. It's absurd, and defies everything about art.

PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
It's not (just) journalists doing this. There's a serious rift in the world between those who view (Detroit) techno as "Kraftwerk, but a bit different" and "yes, inspired in part by Kraftwerk but actually its own genre". There's an important racial/cultural subtext to those two origin stories as well. I've seen this argument play out on various blogs, podcasts and even a couple of college level courses over the past 10 years.
jjulius 4y ago
Massive amount of ignorance demonstrated here by blaming journalists. This has been a heavy debate within the dance music scene as far back as the earliest days of the Belleville Three. Nearly every fan/everyone involved in the scene has an opinion as to where the genesis was.

whstl 4y ago

It's a super complicated history. Kraftwerk started being called "Techno-pop" around 1978 by a Japanese critic, and the term caught on in Europe. "Techno" alone was a term being thrown around in 1982, perhaps earlier, by German press (and even Billboard seems to have used it) to talk about electronic music in general, from Kraftwerk to New Order to Front-242. However: those European acts that were called "Techno" in the early 80s are now retroactively called "Electro" or "Synth Pop". Interestingly, the early-80s Bellevue Three music, by the way, is much closer to the "Electro" camp, as the popular tunes often lacks the four-to-the-floor associated with today's techno (which the article itself talks about), and feature a breakbeat instead (check out Afrikaa Bambaata for comparison). The four-on-the-floor itself was already a feature on electronic club music like Trans Europe Express by Kraftwerk and I Feel Love by Donna Summer, both 1977. Italo Disco (early 80s) also mainly featured that drum beat. The term "Detroit Techno" and the style itself, featuring the four-on-the-floor, only appeared in the late 1980s. Some people say 1987/1988. And to make matters more complicated: by the time Detroit Techno was flourishing, there was already some music from the Frankfurt Tape Scene that was starting to sound like modern Techno (EDIT: some examples: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wT_K28uMxNY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wT_K28uMxNY). It wasn't something that happened overnight, in Europe it mostly evolved from Acid House (which also used the four-to-the-floor as a rule), while in Detroit it evolved from Electro. To me, the confusion happens because of some disagreements about terminology. First, groups that Europeans called "Techno" are now being called "Synth Pop" or "Electro" because they sound different from modern dancefloor Techno, or because they made more diverse music (Bigod 20 and Nitzer Ebb are called EBM). Second, the misconception that early-80s Detroit music was "the real Techno", when in reality it wasn't exactly modern techno, it was closer to Kraftwerk and Afrika Bambaata. In reality there was a lot of music being called Techno and a very rich heritage, but some people want to say theirs was "the real first", while in reality it's not that simple.

PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
> The four-on-the-floor itself was already a feature on electronic club music like Trans Europe Express by Kraftwerk TEE by Kraftwerk is not four-on-the-floor. See "Analyzing Kraftwerk's Beats" for a full explanation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qhcp6iVWbw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qhcp6iVWbw

PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago

> Zappa and P Funk Zappa? Do you mean Zapp as in Zapp & Roger ? I've never heard anyone credit Frank Zappa with any exploratory forays into what became known as "techno".

fsckboy 4y ago
I was referring to stuff like this that I've read over the years where Zappa's name gets dropped, I'm no expert myself https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/experimental-german-music/ https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/experimental-german-m...
- PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
  Yeah, Zappa's name is dropped but he really had absolutely nothing to do with this. In the link you gave, it merely happened to be the case that Zappa was at a festival at which Amon Düül, Tangerine Dream and Guru Guru performed. That's a bit like pointing to some particular at Coachella or Glastonbury and finding that both Beyonce and Chvrches performed (i.e. the only connection is being in the same place). Zappa's own explorations are amazing (watch parts of Live at the Roxy to get an idea of his ensemble at its best, and there's oodles of other incredible rock-infused-with-jazz-and-classical-understandings in his output), but they really have essentially nothing at all to do with the evolution of techno.

jjulius 4y ago

Just to further highlight how muddied the origin waters are, there absolutely was a connection to Depeche Mode. At one point, the band stopped by The Music Institute, one of the clubs considered a "birthplace" of Detroit Techno. Interestingly, Kai Alce (aside: highly recommend checking out his work if you're unfamiliar) from the quote below recently shared this New Yorker piece in support of Detroit being the origin of Techno. >The Music Institute’s juice bar – in tandem with its membership scheme – helped the owners keep a “grip on the tone” of the club, according to Miller. Only Depeche Mode seemed to object to the no alcohol policy. John McCready, reporting on Detroit techno for The Face in 1989, escorted the band to the bar. “Then they got there and realized there was no liquor, and it was too late to get them any,” said Kai Alcé, who had been hired to work the coat check. “Waters all round,” was Martin Gore’s rueful response. https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2017/05/music-institute-nightclubbing https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2017/05/music-institut...

pmoriarty 4y ago

Also see The History of Tape Looping[1], which starts in the 1940s, though you can definitely take the roots of electronic music back much further. While only briefly mentioned in the above history, here's Steve Reich, in a piece he made in a 1966 piece called Come Out[2][3], which definitely has the seeds of repetitive electronic music like techno (it's pretty long, I recommend starting about 9'27" in if you don't want to listen to the whole thing). Though it couldn't be mistaken for a full techno track, I would not be at all surprised to hear something like a portion of that in a lot of electronic music today, almost 60 years later. It sounds a lot more modern than Kraftwerk, anyway. And here[4] is Delia Derbyshire's[5] Dr Who rendition from 1963... a fully realized electronic dance track, also long, long before Kraftwerk. [1] - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=v4Y8t10LMuk https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=v4Y8t10LMuk [2] - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=g0WVh1D0N50 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=g0WVh1D0N50 [3] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Come_Out_(Reich) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Come_Out_(Reich) [4] - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CM8uBGANASc https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CM8uBGANASc [5] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delia_Derbyshire https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delia_Derbyshire

yencabulator 4y ago
Love the references, but describing a Dr Who theme as "dance" sounds like a stretch.