-The Sad Old Seven-

An good example of this is the soundtrack to the film Solaris by cliff Martinez which, now deleted is fetching silly money especially in the states only because it's caught the ear of people who are unaware of this type of music and don't realize that there's been a whole range of artist doing this kind of music for many years.
Don't get me wrong Solaris a very good soundtrack album but compared to artists like Steve Roach, Namlook, Rich ect it kinda falls in its place so to speak.

But therein lies the problem. Madge has jumped from one genre to another. Any progression from what may or may not be considered as "Real EM" (and as many others have said) will end up with the EM cogniscenti jumping up and down and complaining that it's not "real EM".

This is, of course, bollocks. TD, the band we all love to hate, because they don't make "real EM", are making some great records at the moment (The 5 Atomic Seasons looks set to be a cracking set of disks). I would suggest that whether their artistic integrity is intact or not (and that is also a matter of opinion) they sell a lot of CDs because their music makes a lot of people happy and happy enough to want to own the music. And they sell more than say Syn or (burn me for being a heretic) RMI or FSP or whoever you'd care to hold up as the standard bearer for "Real EM" which would suggest their music means more to more people and must be just as valid etc.......

To use Madonna as way of example, if you looked at say her album "Music", it's dance music as was her first album. But if the same principles were applied to her as they seem do to EM, people would denounce it as not being dance music because it is a million miles away from the "4 to the floor" played on 80s digital keyboards.

Basically. Stop navel gazing. Accept that music made electronically or with electronic elements is now going to cover a wide variety of styles. Evolution means going places we don't all like, Vangelis has gone somewhere else, as has Carlos, Edgar, Tomita et al.

Get over it, it's not 1974 any more and Moogs are not the only way to make electronic music.


Nice thought provoking article by the way Artemi. Got any more on the way?

I was interested in the Madonna comment. I'm not a huge fan of hers, but I do admire her abilities to keep evolving. One the chief ways in which artists like Madonna keep evolving is that they are not afraid to seek out new, upcoming, and innovative producers. I doubt that happens in EM. The results are often the same old same-old. A good producer can inspire.