The death of minimal, over and over again

The strange, lingering death of minimal techno Guardian, October 7 2008

“People are bored. There is plainly a desire for change […] DJs, producers, bloggers and journalists are moving on […] But, if minimal’s over, what’s next? Well, more of the same. Only different. Subtle shifts, suitably enough […] Logically, this should be boom time for maximal dance music, a la Crookers and Hervé. And it might be, in Britain. But, the German scene and media isn’t prey to the same vicious swings, the same boom-bust, hype-kill cycles. “Evolution not revolution” is Germany’s style and, with Berlin unlikely to cede its position as electronic music’s global centre, that is where the most exciting innovations are still going to come from […] If minimal brought avant-garde electronica to the dancefloor, it’s only natural that it’s more cerebral exponents may now travel the other way.”

Ronan Fitzgerald’s response Octomber 09 2008

“Minimal has declined since a peak of popularity 2 years or so ago but it certainly hasn’t died. I don’t say that as a partisan supporter of the sound either. I say it as someone who noticed a fatigue in the music which the letters “mnml” came to represent grew from around January 2007 but has actually receded a lot since about June 2008. The reason mnml’s “death” is “strange and lingering” is because it isn’t a death at all! Minimal continues to exist. Only in a genre as ephemeral and illogical as dance music in 2008 could I seriously be saying “hold on there Tony, minimal isn’t dead, it’s coming back!

[…] What we’re left with now post-mnml and (sorry Tony) post-deephouserevivalandeverythingelse is just a loose template, a nameless scene where no one word dominates. Maybe the article should have been called “The strange lingering death of dance music’s direction”. Not because the genre is finished or over, but because it doesn’t seem to be travelling forward in time with any coherency. People are looking to every moment and era of the past all at once […] The only question is: where the hell do things go from here?”

Posted in de-dans, dezbateri on October 13th, 2008 by de-dans | 8 Comments