review of nominations and VOTING for (very nebulously defined) ELECTRONIC DANCE TRACKS of the 00s

Are we supposed to copy and paste from the spreadsheet onto our ballot?

at least midweek extension would be good

ballot sent. let me know if it needs reformatting.

you don't have to copy and paste but feel free to if you want

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7212/7319678780_5c19f5c68f_m.jpg

I've voted. By the way I hope the Cosmos tune I voted for is the original long version and not the hastily cobbled together vocal atrocity.

i think that goes without saying. i hope it does as i threw it a vote too, more for the memories than anything.

ok, I forgot one of my fav tracks, mathew dear's dseserter

missing from the ballot: Delinquent Feat. KCAT – My Destiny

We have until Sunday to vote?

i am heavy into the Bs of the spotify list. Only the majority of the alphabet to listen to :) Will try and get a new jack list in tomorrow.

GAH how did voigt & voigt not get nominated!

sheesh i thought the kompakt crew were doing their job.

also thank you to gukbe, pillbox and mattdcruz for ballots :-)

should i vote in this, i kind of totally lost interest after it was expanded past '09 for some reason

vote! there's no reason you can't just vote for 00-09 stuff

I saw a voigt&voigt in there somewhere I'm sure.

one of the most interesting things about this poll for me is (my perceived) notion that EDM tracks are probably among the least "timeless" of genre tunes because it's so given to quick trends and that ceaseless thirst for The Next Big Thing. could be my relative lack of knowledge of 'the scene' though.

I would say that if anything the opposite is the case, in particular the format of the DJ mix allows for a constant reintegration of "the classics" into contemporary contexts.

But doesn't that imply that those "classics" have fallen away a bit? Like there needs to be some time away for certain styles to come back and then you recontextualize the classics? Idk I think I view things kind of askew. I was reading an interview with Abrantee where talks about how UK Funky was the thing but then everyone was looking for something fresh and now people are moving to Afrobeats. To what extent does the rise of Afrobeats require the demise of UK Funky?

I'll cop to not really knowing what I'm talking about though. I spent a lot of time at indie discos (lol) and Optimo (which was always engaging with the past and the present) so it felt like a lot of other clubs were very much centred on The Now music-wise in comparison.

Like there needs to be some time away for certain styles to come back and then you recontextualize the classics?

This is true of everything everywhere though - it's not like Optimo played lots of songs from 5 years ago.

To the extent that indie discos are/were any different I think this is only because so few songs each year made it into the indie disco canon; my experience of going out to indie discos was that you heard the same songs every week forever because the DJs had so few options. OTOH that was circa 2000 and pre the New Rock Revolution so maybe things changed.

Certainly there are some dance scenes that are more current-focused and ignore the past more than others, but I think if we're going to paint in broad brushstrokes then I would say that dance music pays more attention rather than less to the canonisation of old classics.

To what extent does the rise of Afrobeats require the demise of UK Funky?

Broadly speaking this is correct but of course the very "demise" of UK Funky also has the effect of hardening perception of what its anthems were. By virtue of how they operate clubbing-based scenes have a more collectivist notion of what characterises the sound of a particular era than you might find in, say, rock scenes.

That was, I suppose, what I was getting at. As I scrolled through the 1,000+ noms here, I could only pick a handful that I might consider to be canonised, which is why I'm really interested to see what people have landed on and to what extent there's a consensus.

the demise of funky = the moment when i put ill blu & dj traxman on my list

To the extent that indie discos are/were any different I think this is only because so few songs each year made it into the indie disco canon; my experience of going out to indie discos was that you heard the same songs every week forever because the DJs had so few options. OTOH that was circa 2000 and pre the New Rock Revolution so maybe things changed.

ime it was always "try out new band early on" but then the last hour or two would always be "Another Girl, Another Planet" or x Smiths song etc. There seemed to be a real trepidation when everyone's on the floor to try out something too new. Club DJs, otoh, are always reaching for the newest thing, and you might "Ragysh" or whatever (haven't been dancing in a while as you can probably tell) a lot over the course of a few months and then it disappears.

I guess it has to do with audience as well as the style. Indie discos are about "i want to dance to this song/I don't want to dance to this song" so people get up and sit down a lot more than at a club where they just want to dance and the more the DJ can wow them the better, but it tends to be less about "I want to dance to Ragysh" and more "oh wow I love this track" as they're already dancing.

one of the most interesting things about this poll for me is (my perceived) notion that EDM tracks are probably among the least "timeless" of genre tunes because it's so given to quick trends and that ceaseless thirst for The Next Big Thing. could be my relative lack of knowledge of 'the scene' though.

― Fas Ro Duh (Gukbe), Sunday, June 3, 2012

for me - i think this is true of UK-focused scenes but not of house music in general

Yeah, I should have said that, along with all of the other limitations on my perspective, it is certainly UK-centric.

Club DJs, otoh, are always reaching for the newest thing, and you might "Ragysh" or whatever (haven't been dancing in a while as you can probably tell) a lot over the course of a few months and then it disappears.

― Fas Ro Duh (Gukbe), Sunday, June 3, 2012 3:12 AM

for bigger tune yes they are likely to get a big peak in it being played and then falls away, but a lot of great DJs (arpiar, zip, panorama bar residents, cdv residents etc ) will play stuff from all kinds of different periods, you just won't necessarily know that

^ ie forgotten records from 1998 or whenever thrown in, records that probably cost $1 on discogs but....only because no one knows what it is

it tends to be less about "I want to dance to Ragysh" and more "oh wow I love this track" as they're already dancing.

partly but more i think its about a set, as in how a bunch of things hang together

That was sort of my point, though admittedly poorly made. You're up dancing, and it's up to the DJ to make it really exciting, and it's those standout tracks that get people really excited (this is opposed to indie disco where you get up to dance to a song or two, and when you don't like one, you just sit down again - it's about individual selection rather than the whole piece).

overall i see where you are coming from re:timeless but one of the things i love about dance music (or at least non UK-focused dance music) is actually a weird sense of true timelessness, records from the past aren't necessarily "oh here's this thing from the past that sounds like its from the past" its more "this record is going to work right now and it could have been made at any time who even knows". i actually like house music's non-changing nature, house music is always house music...is a dan bell record from the 90s dated?

of course there are still a lot of the records on this nomination list that are definitely dated (all that eulberg and ananda type stuff....and anyone voting for mouth to mouth is living in some kind of nostalgia zone) , but in a way its only bigger hits that get 'dated', and most records aren't actually like that

Definitely voted for Mouth to Mouth out of nostalgia, good times were had.

xpost

that's why I'm interested! I want to see what records have come through being passing phases or big hits for a time and are now deemed truly 'timeless'. I'm definitely not a House purist though, and that's gonna come into this poll a lot I reckon. House remains the same maybe but minimal (MNML?) was a thing and then it wasn't, dubstep was a thing and then it morphed, UK Funky etc etc etc.

all I was really getting at is that this poll, in my mind, is more interesting than, say, a best albums of the 00s where Kid A is gonna sweep into a top 10 spot or whatever because I think there's a more agreed-upon canon in other genres than there is in EDM, and a lot of that has to do with trends (if I go to an indie disco every week in 2004, skip 2005 and 2006 completely, and go every week in 2007, I will probably be able to catch up fairly quickly on whatever I missed, whereas doing the same thing in EDM clubs would mean i would have completely missed out on a lot of stuff).

You could just as easily argue that it's not the timeless qualities of dance music that lead to the 20 year cycle of reappropriation, its the music that is quintessentially of its time. No one likes Italo disco because it sounds like it was made yesterday, it got dug up again because of its influence on house and its novelty factor as kitsch. I voted for music that reminded me of the last 12 years, not the music I think I'll still like in a decade.

I've had a latin freestyle song stuck in my head for three days so its possible I suffer from an unique viewpoint on the subject, fortunately for me there are a lot of people with better taste than mine on this board.

I want to see what records have come through being passing phases or big hits for a time and are now deemed truly 'timeless'.

i think 'big hits' (of any genre) sort of become 'out of time'...almost the opposite of timeless, in that regardless of actual sound (dated or no) their ubiquity takes them outside of normal time.

You could just as easily argue that it's not the timeless qualities of dance music that lead to the 20 year cycle of reappropriation, its the music that is quintessentially of its time.

i think yes - music quintessentially of its time (italo disco, 90s drum'n'bass, electroclash or whatever) is what falls out of time and gets reapproriated - but lots of music isn't quite so of a particular time (gemini, daniel bell) and doesn't really fall out of time as such and therefore doesn't have faddish reappropriation in the same way

I voted for music that reminded me of the last 12 years, not the music I think I'll still like in a decade.

― Josiah Alan, Sunday, June 3, 2012

this poll is kind of a composite of those two views. if i'm voting in 2012 about records from 2002 then i'm kind of voting on music that i DID end up liking a decade later, no? unless you are taking self into past and voting on nostalgia alone

House remains the same maybe but minimal (MNML?) was a thing and then it wasn't,

yeah but a lot of that thing about minimal being in and then out was really just about labelling or defining rather than actual music, stuff gets tagged as minimal then the term falls out of fashion and then "oh look these particular records were never minimal after all" - i mean is a villalobos set from today drastically different from one in 2005? i'd say there's a lot of continuity there! could be totally different records from different periods but could easily take stuff from one set and put it in the othea lot of those records are 'timeless' in that they could be from any particular time, if he plays a record from 1999 next to one from 2008 its not necessarily obvious at all...

...guess this kind of comes back to that argument about retromania (which i think makes a certain sense in a UK context, with the turnover of genres and reappropriations but not so much on a wider scale with house music where there is more continuity

Villalobos sets may not be drastically different but I suppose that a Villalobos set in 2016 may not necessarily be the same draw it was in 2006, that generation's clubbers may just see his entire approach as old hat, and the older ones aren't going out as much. Actually Villalobos is kind of a bad example here because he pretty much ploughs his own furrow but you get the point I'm making. But that's the same for all genres really, dance or otherwise.

Really big ubiquitous-on-dancefloors records like Ragysh or, before that, something like Rej, kind of fall in and out of fashion in the way that most pop music trends tend to. They'll be huge for a while, then just put away for a bit as they seem too obvious and people are maybe a little bit tired of them, then they start coming back and just never go out of fashion. A lot of the sounds that appear in this poll will maybe sound a bit anachronistic on current dancefloors but the records themselves that appear will be the ones with staying power. The records that really do blow up and then disappear without trace by and large are the ones that weren't really that great in the first place.

Debate's a bit muddied as well because some of the genres we're talking about, most obviously filter disco and electroclash but also increasingly 2-step and subsequent genres are re-emerging as basic building blocks of current chart pop. But that's what you get when you have a generation young enough to have had rave music around their entire lives.

just using villalobos as an example he himself may not be the same draw in 2016 (esp as he'll prob quit DJing in the next year or two) but the records played fit into a theme of continuity and many can be from any time - same thing as with the get perlonized nights or arpiar..

A lot of the sounds that appear in this poll will maybe sound a bit anachronistic on current dancefloors but the records themselves that appear will be the ones with staying power. The records that really do blow up and then disappear without trace by and large are the ones that weren't really that great in the first place.

they'll also be the ones that get most votes (mouth to mouth, orbitalife) - records that really blow up and then disappear, it isn't because they're no good its because they tend to dominate, and then disrupt the flow of a set once they get heard a lot (In My System is anything but a bad record but could only really be played pretty sparingly now, even tho in no way does it sound dated)

this In My System btw, lotsa records w that title

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpE9v4q32O8

some drop away because they sound dated, some drop away because they become overplayed (especially anything bombastic or anthemic or whatever), yeah they may be reappropriated at a later time but they still drop out

whereas like idk tribue by moodymann say - this record would fit perfectly not only when it came out and today, but at any point inbetween - its not a record that would have sounded anachronistic at any point

sorry what the email address?

i tried to do this but i actually started to feel panicky and anxious when i looked at the list.

ah come on, take the plunge. would like to see your ballot as much as anyone's.

i found it easier when i stopped sweating stuff that didn't make the list.

i don't think "mouth to mouth" sounds anachronistic at all and in fact i just used "mund zu mund" in a set ... i hate to poo poo on long discussions but i think a lot of what gukbe and coal are talking about come down to the specific listener rather than the scene or country or genre.

(if I go to an indie disco every week in 2004, skip 2005 and 2006 completely, and go every week in 2007, I will probably be able to catch up fairly quickly on whatever I missed, whereas doing the same thing in EDM clubs would mean i would have completely missed out on a lot of stuff)

like this just strikes me as off-the-top-of-my-head idea making rather than anything rooted in reality

fwiw i dont think mouth to mouth SOUNDS anachronistic (which is why i separate it from things like nathan fake or eulberg), more just that it was such a big and bombastic record that it seemed difficult to play once its immediate time had passed - your experience may be different but i've never heard a DJ play it since when it was played the whole time