The Beat Generation: How Do You Like Your Dance Music: Smart Or Stupid?

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“Intelligent Dance Music” or “IDM” is one of those loaded phrases that seems to commonly populate music discussion despite the fact that most people who take time to talk about music”nerds, all of them”will openly state their disapproval for stuff like that. In fact, Allmusic defines the term as, “electronic music… that’s  equally comfortable on the dance floor as in the living room” that, “acquired a good deal of negative publicity” due to the term’s intellectual implication. Every genre has a couple of crappily named sub-genres: rock has post-hardcore and post-rock, rap has horrorcore and electronic’s got IDM (along with the term “liquid funk”, but that’s just a personal thing). That said, IDM is singular in it’s exclusionary nature. IDM has to be smart, by definition. So at what point do you draw the line in the sand and state that anything on one side is stupid and the other intelligent? That’s certainly not a distinction one could straddle” something can’t be a little bit smart and a little bit stupid, right?

Many great producers work within a context of sounds that certainly aim for the cheap seats. Think of Parisians producers like Daft Punk or SebastiAn whose compositions always aim for a balance between melody and feel good vibes. Or producers like Deadmau5 and Skrillex who both mine a number of populist dance styles but come off a little nerdy. These are the kinds of electronic music you’d hear at any rowdy frat party you’ve ever attended in the past five years and would fit in right at home with most Top 40 and hip hop fare. It doesn’t come off as pretentious or sophisticated and it’s not meant to; it’s fun and it makes you feel good. Nothing wrong with that, right?

Young up-and-comer Mord Fustang has made a big splash in the past couple months, coming out of nowhere to top the Beatport Electro House chart. The quick rise for the young Romanian producer portends a lot of good things, and while his early success is commendable some might grumble about the genre that he chooses to work in, “electro house”. The trendy genre certainly doesn’t scream avant-garde but for a kid so young to come out of nowhere with the tunes that he is cranking out is certainly impressive. Fustrang’s genre synthesis, bits of house, trance and plenty of wobbles, is rather clever if not pretentious. Check out epic banger “Lick The Rainbow” below.

Now let’s flip the script. Think of true artistés like digital terrorist Aphex Twin or the spooky and experimental Autechre. These are the kind of groups that would be bestowed the honorific “IDM” tag. It’s the kind of music that the kids at the smart but nonetheless bizarre  lunch table would listen to. A greater dynamic range”more subtlety and nuance but with greater distortion, more crunch and more at stake, emotionally speaking. Sonic manipulator Bibio should be on anyone’s list of contemporary “IDM” artists. Currently signed to audio brainshakers Warp Records and established over a six record career as a purveyor of brainy, fractured electronica, one would think that he would have an acquired taste. After all, just watch the video for “Excuses”, the first single released from his most recent record Mind Bokeh. I’ll wait for you to finish up.

Alright, now that you’ve checked that out, you think you have a pretty good sense of his style right? Pretty weird, pretty out there, you know what I mean? So how could the guy responsible for that video above also produce a song like this (both songs, I might add, appeared on the same record).

Yeah, how about them apples. Bibio might be known for his introspective productions, his sometimes warped take on folktronica, mixing some rock and synthetic sounds to create a unique amalgamation. That doesn’t mean that the guy doesn’t like to have a little fun with some cowbell every now and then. Rockin’.

The point that I’m trying to make here is that no one likes to be put into a box, especially people who tend to be as tempestuous as your average musician. People will always rebel against constraints and there might be nothing more limiting to an artist then a tag like IDM, no matter which side of that designation they might fall under. Aphex Twin, aka Richard D James, himself addressed the issue in an interview with online magazine Perfect Sound Forever when he said, “I just think it’s really funny to have terms like that. It’s basically saying ‘this is intelligent and everything else is STUPID.’ It’s really nasty to everyone else’s music. (laughs) It makes me laugh, things like that. I don’t use names. I just say that I like something or I don’t.” In Richard’s case, his varied body of work can attest to his willingness to try something new and different. It just goes to show that you can’t put baby in the corner.