Talk:Intelligent dance music

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Merge

This should be placed somewhere in the Electronica article, because I think this is some silly term again. All the music this genre is is plain dance music. So I would like to take a moment to propose to merge to electronica. Special Cases ^{Spit out your comments} 07:39, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

The term is silly, but regardless it is a notable distinct genre. And you say that all the music in this genre is dance music?!?... I would really like to see you dance to some Autechre music. :) That's why the genre name is silly, most music is quite undanceable.

Do you actually have any strong sources that support your argument? -- intgr [talk] 12:46, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Have to agree with intgr. Although I've seen "electronica" used in a record shop to categorize IDM and other experimental, hard-to-classify modern electronic music, in North America and especially in citable sources, "electronica" is synonymous with (as the electronica article says) the late '90s marketing push by major labels of acts like Fatboy Slim, Daft Punk, The Chemical Brothers, The Crystal Method, Moby, Underworld and Faithless. These are not IDM groups and IDM is not a subcategory of their brand of music. Meanwhile, we've got numerous sources for IDM as a genre unto itself. If you want to add something to the article to show a relationship with electronica, that's one thing, but to pretend IDM doesn't exist or is just an arbitrary synonym is another. —mjb (talk) 13:44, 23 October 2010 (MST)

Hip-hop acts have also been classed as "electronica," in Music Week magazine and USA industry charts. It's just a useful way of identifying music that is based on synths and samples, rather than guitars, pianos, horns etc. So any electronic (pop, not academic) music can be considered as "electronica."

I have to agree that IDM is a distinct genre, despite the fact that it may have somewhat ambiguous definitions. The use of "electronica" on the other hand is much more controversial, as can be seen in the talk section for the page. To delete IDM in favor of the term electronica, when the two are not synonymous by any definition and especially when Electronica is being considered for a merge with EDM is a bit illogical. All electronic music seems to be difficult to pin down, considering how quickly it is evolving, but throwing IDM into Electronica seems a bit short-sighted. Ninjawailer (talk) 09:35, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

In light of the above discussion, I have reverted Special Cases' attempts to merge this to Electronica. I would agree with the above arguments that whatever the controversy about the naming and scope of IDM, it is a distinct and notable genre worthy of an autonomous article. Skomorokh 16:53, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

FWIW, in the past 3 days, Special Cases got himself temporarily blocked, then indefinitely blocked, for continued disruptive edits and sock puppetry. —mjb (talk) 20:44, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

The sock puppetry resumes... In the past couple of days, I reverted two unsupported attempts to redirect the article to Electronica. The IP addresses used are similar to past suspected sock puppets of Special Cases. —mjb (talk) 20:59, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Not all Autechre is undanceable, or even extremely abstract. Tri Repetae, Amber, and even a good chunk of Quaristice are basically techno albums, and only get called "IDM" by association. Incunabula has a strong hip hop element, and most of their other stuff would better be termed experimental. The term IDM is offensive and useless.~~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 143.81.18.138 (talk) 01:06, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

At this point it's mainly just an acronym that's not even particularly tied to the words that the letters represent (as happens with all acronyms); everyone who recognizes the term says "IDM", not "intelligent dance music". So I don't see why it's so upsetting. Anyway, if you have constructive criticism for the article, let's hear it. "I don't like this name for the genre" and "some of these bands make dumb dance music" aren't helpful. —mjb (talk) 09:05, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

It's not just that some of the music is "not IDM." None of it is, because there's no such thing. It's so broad a term as to be utterly worthless. What do Aphex Twin and Squarepusher have in common, for example? Not much. One makes electronic ambient music and acidic techno, the other is a drum & bass specialist. Saying it's "smarter" than other electronic music isn't really saying anything useful about it at all, and is really unfair and pathetic. Basically it comes down to "what I like is IDM and what I don't like isn't." I mean, people can do better than that, right? 143.81.18.138 (talk) 23:03, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Ambient techno vs. IDM?

The article appears to make the case the ambient techno is one of a few terms that seem to coalesced into what we call IDM today. Am I reading that wrong? If so, why is it listed as a subgenre and why do we have e.g. Category:Ambient techno albums which points to Ambient techno (which redirects to this page)? I've only ever heard "ambient techno" used to talk bout ambient electronic music that isn't minimal (more or less), but that's just anecdotal. --— Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 21:59, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Someone changed the ambient techno redirect to point to ambient house, which is no less contentious, despite the uncited claim in the ambient house genre infobox that ambient techno is a "derivative form" of ambient house. I undid the redirect change today and pointed to this talk page. At best, ambient techno is the equivalent in techno to what happened in house, not a derivative of it.

One might ask why is anything listed as a "subgenre" or "derivative form" in any genre infobox? The answer is that these infoboxes are constantly being edited without any justifications given and no citations...they're nigh on useless. I'm in the habit of ignoring them and their anonymous edit wars entirely. (This is a problem throughout the music genre articles, not just electronic ones.)

Is "ambient techno" a genre? Yes, one that partially overlaps IDM. I think it deserves its own article. The problem is finding someone interested enough to write about it. Or finding much that has been said about it. I think AllMusic got it wrong when they said the term was replaced by intelligent techno; "ambient techno" is the most popular (in Google Books' archive) among the three terms ambient techno, intelligent techno, and intelligent dance music, and its use actually peaked in the second half of the '90s..

Anyway, I don't think we should be trying to cram these terms into "derivative" and "sub"-genre tree structures. They're all just what I would say is a natural progression (or regression, in Simon Reynolds' view) away from the hedonistic, aggressive, "mindless" dance music associated strictly with dancing. Ambient house was first to get a name, but that doesn't make ambient techno its offspring. Similarly, this article isn't trying to say that ambient techno, as a genre, always is or became IDM, per se. I made some edits today to try to make that more clear and to talk more about ambient & intelligent techno. See if it helps. The affected content is the History section, from the beginning up to and including the first paragraph in the IDM List section. —mjb (talk) 10:09, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

IDM is a discussion list NOT a music genre

IDM was a massive fraud perpetuated on the public by an American gang at the Hyper Real website and IDM list. There are American websites that have graffiti scribbled their American garbage ideology onto British electronic music. IDM was denigrated and attacked by Aphex Twin, Mike P, and Luke Vibert. But some trolls have gone through the main article removing references and quotes from famous musicians friends regarding this false genre name. Clearly, the trolls have used Wikipedia in order to promote this fan created genre name. It is associated with websites such as WATMM and XLTRONIC nowadays. Anyone with the slightest bit of decency should do the right thing and keep IDM out of the entirety of Wikipedia article. What a fraud on the public! This article is the property of someone who worked for the Hyper Real Music List. Screw that fake ass shit. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MoideredByDaUkGuv (talk • contribs)

There are reliable sources saying that it's a genre, both WP:V and WP:N are satisfied, so there is no basis for deleting this article.

Contrary to what you claim, the article does mention that several artists don't like the term. But if you believe the coverage isn't fair, you're welcome to improve it as long as you abide by WP:POV -- intgr [talk] 13:01, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

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Proposed merge of Ambient techno into Intelligent dance music

subject duplication, unnecessary fork when Intelligent Dance Music, Intelligent techno & ambient techno are categorically the same. Acousmana 11:12, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

No. Despite obvious connections—the ambient techno scene led to the wider experimentation of later IDM—a variety of cited sources (including retrospective ones that might have conflated the two) describe/define ambient techno in distinctive terms from IDM. Also, the characteristics described in the ambient techno article do not all clearly overlap with the broader "experimental" sensibilities found in literature describing IDM, with emphasis on specific "ambient" or "chill out" aims distinct from the eclectic experimentation of IDM, including IDM's movement away from techno altogether into jungle etc. The overlapping term "intelligent techno"—which you're using to justify the conflation—is rarely used anymore, and could be understood as a holdover from that mid-90s period when IDM wasn't yet acknowledged as distinctive, partly because it was still morphing into a sound distinct from techno altogether. Nonetheless, the term "intelligent techno" was commonly used at the time, so still deserves a mention in the AKAs IMO. At best, you might be able to argue that ambient techno could retrospectively be considered a "subgenre" of a retconned IDM umbrella genre, but it would still be a distinct subgenre requiring its own treatment, and this would problematically divorce it from a techno parent genre too, which contradicts the name itself. Kkollaps (talk) 14:51, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

No. You most likely must be completely new to these genres to suggest merging. Solidest (talk) 17:35, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

eh? yeah right, completely new, silly me. Acousmana

• Comment pretty sure we've been over this previously, main issue is over-dependence on Allmusic - a tertiary source - and the misapprehension of editors working on this article. A single encyclopedic entry that thoroughly deals with this subject matter is preferable to multiple confused articles. Reality is, in the early 90s, in the UK, where the scene emerged, the terms ambient techno, intelligent techno, electronica, were used interchangeably, for the same music. This is indisputable.
• Reynolds sums this up. music for the home: album-oriented ambient techno and atmospheric electronica that appeals both to people who've grown tired of the rave lifestyle and to many who've never been into dance culture at all...Artificial Intelligence's cover tableau of domestic bliss-out heralds the birth of a new post-rave genre, which Warp Records christened "electronic listening music." Other names followed - armchair techno, ambient techno, intelligent techno, electronica - but all described the same phenomenon: dance music for the sedentary and stay-at-home...Warp's baldly descriptive term "electronic listening music" was rapidly displaced by a more loaded epithet, "intelligent techno."...Many shared the attitude of Mixmaster Morris, who defined "intelligent techno" as "the opposite of stupid hardcore" and declared that "techno got boring when hardcore took all the weirdness and creativity and innovation out of Acid House." Morris's slogan "I ThinkTherefore I Ambient" recast progressive rock's Cartesian split between head and body as the struggle between atmospheric mind food (ambient) and thoughtless rhythmic compulsion (hardcore). By 1993, with "progressive house" and "trance" set in place as dance floor-oriented adjuncts to electronic listening music, a firm line had been drawn. On one side, still raving after all these sneers, was the moronic inferno of hardcore; on the other, the post-rave cognoscenti, with their intimate clubs and chill-out zones. Acousmana 16:36, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

Nope, already addressed these arguments about "intelligent techno" above. Reynolds doesn't even use the term "intelligent dance music," he's talking specifically about early 90s chilled-out techno-oriented stuff as distinct from hardcore rave. The term IDM came into its own later on, and plenty of it wasn't chilled or ambient. Kkollaps (talk) 07:06, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

No. While there is some overlap between IDM and Ambient Techno, they are distinct. Ambient techno is just like the name sounds, techno with influence from ambient music, but is still generally meant to be danceable and played in clubs. IDM is music that is influenced by EDM but eschews many of the genre's conventions, including the requirement that the music be dance-floor ready. It doesn't necessarily have to be influenced by techno. Some of it is more akin to house or drum 'n bass (i.e. drill & bass). While some ambient techno could also be described as IDM, not all of it can, so I would say they're just closely related genres. Even if we consider ambient techno to be a child of IDM, which probably isn't accurate, that still doesn't mean that the page would need to be merged. MoeHartman (talk) 00:17, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

No. I get people don't like the term IDM but that doesn't mean we need to start merging these in-depth and focused articles in an attempt to give the term less credibility. Not like these are stub pages that you can just copy and paste into each other anyways. 51isnotprime (talk) 12:32, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

No. Both genres are clearly different stylistically, even though one lead into the other. Comparable to merging latin and english, or guitars and ukuleles. Would just make browsing wiki more difficult. Skynnyrr (talk) 03:36, 17 September 2022 (UTC)