♥☮☯♫ PC MUSIC ♫☯☮♥ ☺☺☺ ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°✌

Time for a new display name.

EC was fun and dumb and problematic-in-hindsight but was also just a bunch of stupid kids who made some tracks I still love and play out. When we say "nobody cares about PC Music in 2016" it's like yeah probably no nobody cared about Jeans Team in 2004 neither

mm i was thinking about that comparison and was electroclash actually that problematic? tbh you're right - all the fifth-tier electroclash acts evaporated from memory as soon as they existed, pretty much - and a lot of them everyone saw through instantly - and i guess electroclash as an era is looked on more favourably now because of a couple of key genuinely talented artists (felix da housecat obv, but miss kittin was a bit of a plot twist) and anthems like "emerge" that still hold up

The aesthetic focus on body-positivity, and generally equal footing for female and queer voices divested EC itself in my view, but it was still garbagey music made by garbage kids with garbage ideas and not a small amount of genre-appropriation. At least an afternoon of classic tracks though

What was the genre appropriation in electroclash? I'm not familiar with the term.

electroclash got a huge amount of backlash for being 'fake', 'disingenuous', 'a flash-in-the-pan fad' at the time and yet somehow it left a much deeper impression on the decade that followed, long after people stopped using it as a term.

i guess it was taking the futurism from electro and leaving the afro- behind?

garbagey music made by garbage kids with garbage ideas and not a small amount of genre-appropriation

all pop music from the beginning of time IIRC

For what it's worth - electroclash was coined by Larry Tee and associated with those NYC parties initially, but was also a convergence of a bunch of broader trends and styles from indie/queer/feminist stuff like Le Tigre and Peaches, italo/electro revival from I-F or International DJ Gigolos and a turn to "80s" pop in general dance scenes, and had a big influence almost immediately.

PC Music feels really small by comparison; if anything, I see it as capitalizing (belatedly) on vaporwave styles or James Ferraro/Oneohtrix Point Never by adding some vocals and 90s Swedish pop influences.

I wouldn't even care about it not being groundbreaking, if it was at least exciting or interesting. Or in any way appealing. The collective persona of PC Music strikes me as pretty contemptuous.

I wouldn't even care about it not being groundbreaking, if it was at least exciting or interesting. Or in any way appealing.

Yeah this is how I feel really. Wasn't aware of the background to electroclash, I haven't thought about electroclash in a long time even though I liked/like a lot of the music!

Electroclash was gleefully shallow though, it was art-school as hell but it never made any claims for any artistic depth and as far as I remember it didn't have any of PC Music's ludicrous self-invented 'theory' surrounding it.

I've not read anything about PC Music that has convinced me that there's anything more nuanced or intelligent going on around it than, say, a particularly hamfisted and unsubtle Banksy.

i thought a part of PC Music's image/stance is that it's quite deliberately reveling in plasticity/superficiality to an obnoxious degree?
i guess that's what electroclash was also about to an extent. But electroclash had this detached numbness, that chilly Euro android-gynous thing that Miss Kittin did so well which gets supplanted by PC Music's sugary lucre. Despite the ostensibly varied personae on offer, all the PC Music singers seem to have the same Shampoo-esque posh-Brit tone; an uncanny-valley clone effect - cute, creepy, disposable - much like the Innocent Smoothies aesthetic where a product tries desperately to be your friend. It's egregiously bouncy music too - like a radio ad produced by the Bonkers crew.

It's been said a lot now, but this is in itself a comment on a particular strain of post-hipster media-centric London culture that only really manifested around the time of the Olympics; and these guys are very aware how much of a hall-of-mirrors they're creating by holding up that mirror to themselves and the world they grew up and worked in. it's self-fellating, self-flagellating music, for and about media burnouts, and this follows in a very British tradition found in things like Nathan Barley and the Mighty Boosh, both of which held hipster culture in a love/hate deadlock.

What repels many about this music is exactly what attracts others - the OTT gaudiness, the vacuous messages, the uneasy, seasick feeling that lurches between moments of pure indulgence and utter cringiness. You can find this push/pull effect in all sorts of music, from punk rock to ratchet hip hop - the paradox of 'We're horrible, but you love us'.

FWIW, all the complaints currently being thrown at PC Music (other than the recent racist incident) were also made about electroclash in its day.

The discourse around dance music has become so much more theory-driven over the past decade though. When electroclash happened it was more like, "Oh, the vibe is bored, ironic jetsetters doing coke in VIP rooms. Got it." PC Music come with so much more baggage. Look at the P4k review - I don't remember reviews like that of Miss Kittin or Felix Da Housecat.

is there an argument to say that electroclash was the first 'high-concept'/post-modern dance music? other than futurism things like Drexciya etc..

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actually drexciya was pretty high-concept but not in any way the same way. not a good example.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit_techno

that may have had some influence on what followed - though not many people have heard of those guys

what are you doing?

afaict detroit techno is conceptual, but not in the same post-modern / self-referential / ironic way as electroclash and PC Music.

i'm not even going to bother because i have a life

LOL

is there an argument to say that electroclash was the first 'high-concept'/post-modern dance music?

...kraftwerk, afrika bambaataa...

is there an argument to say that electroclash was the first 'high-concept'/post-modern dance music?

smh.

i don't know enough about the history of disco and hi-nrg to suggest pertinent examples from those genres, but if you just want to restrict it to white art-school dorks, malcolm mclaren springs to mind

also aphex twin?

Things like Kraftwerk strike are obv highly conceptual, but modernist rather than post-modernist. Even though there's a commentary and conversation surrounding all these earlier techno and electro acts, there's a self-belief and sincerity to most of them that seems different from the postured 'dance music about dance music' thing people like Fischerspooner did, and which PC Music seem to want to take to an extreme. Maybe electronic dance music hadn't quite been around long enough to be able to reflect upon and satirise itself and its past, i dunno. Malcolm Mclaren is maybe the godhead of this - turning rebellion into money, then turning money into rebellion.

Xp

Although I'm not saying there weren't loads of examples of this happening before EC but it was one of the first times I was aware of a whole scene or genre in electronic music that hinged almost entirely on retro, on satire, on the fact it knew in itself that it was a fad and embraced this.

there speaks a man who didn't live through romo

dunno if sigue sigue sputnik were part of a larger scene but they seem to be v close to what you're talking about

yeah i wasn't around for those guys.

romo was an indie thing wasn't it? i was chattign with someone who was in a romo band a little while ago. prob loads of parallels in rock music - Steely Dan, The Darkness etc...

Great swathes of 90s commercial dance pop (including Aqua) was satirical, self-aware, engaged with the concepts of 'product' and 'disposability', etc.

I'd also argue that a lot of electroclash was very, very serious even if it wasn't always perceived that way. There was a big crossover with coldwave.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQUIsgrlp10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAR8cq5Bl94

I'd also argue that a lot of electroclash was very, very serious even if it wasn't always perceived that way.

i agree. all of dl's points are just regurgitated stereotypes. electroclash was extremely serious, in a kind of rock and roll way, but it bordered a lot of other fairly serious house/techno scenes.

i don't think there's any music i've ever heard that i would describe as "ironic". i don't know what ironic means when connected to music - though it's only ever done at some distance by people who do not know a lot about that music.

hinged almost entirely on retro, on satire, on the fact it knew in itself that it was a fad and embraced this

what a load of shit. it wasn't a fad and it didn't "know that" itself. it had a massive influence on the ensuing years and it didn't come out of nothing either, the people making it were around beforehand - many of the people involved moved on to do other things.

as for "hinged almost entirely on retro" - how about 90% of house and techno music p much ever made?

the postured 'dance music about dance music' thing people like Fischerspooner did

electroclash was basically just a revival of electro pop with the added knowledge of 20 years of techno/electro/house. there was no posturing. it was some music people liked for a while and it was connected to fashion, just like the big crossover genre in dance music always is.

The enduring thing about electroclash was its ability to reach out to both the coldwave AND warmwave scenes, both of which were too small in themselves to really last, this really gave electroclash a year round appeal where it could be played in different temperatures. The fact that it was so aware of this was definitely part of this, you could see it in the wardrobe, retro skiwear with a modern twist, but also lyrca shots, it was music equally at home in St Tropez or Banff, it soundtracked everything from aegean orgies to bobsled highlights. I just think its something of a push to suggest PC Music has any of the above, I have a hard time believing that it can even be heard outdoors

what a load of shit. it wasn't a fad and it didn't "know that" itself. it had a massive influence on the ensuing years and it didn't come out of nothing either, the people making it were around beforehand - many of the people involved moved on to do other things.

if you even bothered to read my posts properly, LG, you'd see i made this exact point only about a page above. but a big part of electroclash AT THE TIME was about toying with ideas of disposability, plasticity, the ethereal, faddiness - which all went towards the dance music press (Jockey Slut, Mixmag) taking the bait and deriding it as being a style-over-substance passing trend. of course it didn't turn out that way because electro, 80s-retro and a lot of the latter themes went on to permeate so much of the coming years.

as for "hinged almost entirely on retro" - how about 90% of house and techno music p much ever made?

how about no?

great rebuttal. "no".

but a big part of electroclash AT THE TIME was about toying with ideas of disposability, plasticity, the ethereal, faddiness

it was fashionable and talked about fashion. this is not the same as "ironic" or "knows that it's a fad".

dance music has always been conscious of itself and referred to itself. there are probably thousands of records which include the words "house music" or "techno music" or whatever. see the two youtubes i posted - two p fundamental basic classics.

"a lot of questions have been raised, about this new dance craze, called acid."

great rebuttal. "no".great rebuttal. "no".great rebuttal. "no".great rebuttal. "no".great rebuttal. "no".great rebuttal. "no".great rebuttal. "no".great rebuttal. "no".great rebuttal. "no".great rebuttal. "no".great rebuttal. "no".great rebuttal. "no".great rebuttal. "no".great rebuttal. "no".great rebuttal. "no".great rebuttal. "no".great rebuttal. "no".great rebuttal. "no".great rebuttal. "no".great rebuttal. "no".great rebuttal. "no".great rebuttal. "no".great rebuttal. "no".great rebuttal. "no".

also i read jockey slut at the time, just fyi as someone who actually knows about this music - and they praised electroclash and had a feature on its enduring influence a few years afterwards.

i would say the derisory comments were more from clueless outsiders.

Skimmed 20 pages of searching the ILx archives for mentions of electroclash in date order and I'm only as far as Oct '02; I mean, N1tsuh/Tim F/Andy K/Tom/Jess/(LG!)/etc (& uh Momus + Ott if that's to yr taste) were talking about this stuff in an intelligent fashion that gainsay yr received stereotypes, DL.

dance music has always been conscious of itself and referred to itself. there are probably thousands of records which include the words "house music" or "techno music" or whatever. see the two youtubes i posted - two p fundamental basic classics.

"a lot of questions have been raised, about this new dance craze, called acid."

that's so far removed from anything we're talking about here though. it's not the same thing at all. the whole point of acid house at the time was that it was futuristic, decidedly non-retro, non-referential, non-ironic, because those 303 acid sounds had never been conceived before, nor had any equivalent precursor come before it. similarly, a huge part of early house and techno (Juan Atkins, Drexciya) was future-facing, sci-fi-centric. electroclash used the past as its main jumping-off point; continually referencing the past, and deliberately making a deal out of its own retro-futurist outlook.

2 men look at the same hat one says thats alpine and the other says its too big

feel like there's tons of self-referencing in nearly all of the umbrella genres, if you like

ie you could easily fill a whole 24 hours listening to dance tracks about dance music, ditto metal songs about metal etc

also i read jockey slut at the time, just fyi as someone who actually knows about this music - and they praised electroclash and had a feature on its enduring influence a few years afterwards.

i would say the derisory comments were more from clueless outsiders.

― bureau belfast model (LocalGarda), Wednesday, June 10, 2015 2:24 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

In that case, we obviously read different articles by different people in different editions of the same magazine at the time. There was definitely a backlash against electroclash, same as there was praise. And it's the same as PC Music. My point is, they're both being hailed/denigrated in much the same way as each other and for very similar reasons.

Most of the electroclash people I spoke to back then seemed pretty sincere, if provocative. I don't recognise your description of it dog latin. The backlash iirc mainly focussed on Fischerspooner's absurdly large record deal and accompanying hype.