Why Did The New Electronic Forums Fail?

[~Daft Monk]

So it looks like all the new extended forums on the beats section of EGN have been swept up. I understand that EGN is going through some belt tightening now, which is understandable since current economic realities mean that I'm doing a bit of that myself, but I'm interested in finding out why the forums failed since the admin post in the community section said that no one was posting. This is mostly true, since there aren't too many discussion that go beyond the initial post here on the beats section. So why is no one posting here? Is it because no one cares about "electronica"? Is it because the last year or so has seen the rise of the synthpop influenced electroclash? Is this because no one who visits EGN cares about techno? Could the extended forums have failed because they were too specific? Did they fail because they came along as the holiday season hit and the people had less time to devote to web use? So many questions, and I don't really have the answers. Are there any thoughts?

[test]

I am going to speak from personal experience here. I don't know much about Techno, Down Tempo, Trip Hop, etc, which all had forums. I am just now venturing beyond the synthpop and EBM genres. I think a lot of people don't go beyond what they know. I know that's true of myself. It is a shame that the new forums are gone. I wish that they could have been condensed, if that is possible. I wanted to look at some of the new forums today but I can't. I guess people just stay with what they know. It's comfortable that way. I hope I answered some of your questions. :)

[~Ekstasis]

Just look at the ammount of views topics get in this froum. A rondom topic, in the synthpop forum will get 50+ views. Even if no one has ever heard of it. A popular topic here in the beats forum is lucy if it get 20 views. People werent even bothering coming into these forums for a look around.

It sucks that they are gone, but I understand. Its a waste of money when only 5 of us were even looking in the forums.

[~verhaeghen]

I think it shows how happy people are to keep it safe and be a good lemming. This really pisses me off. Here was an OPPORTUNITY to people outside of these styles to be shown what was good and what was not, but why am I not suprised. Why does nothing about this even vaguely shock me?

Mediocrity rules, let that be a lesson to us all. Those who wish to keep up a discussion about dnb/techno/trance/ and anything OUTSIDE of the dead styles of synthpop and EBM let me know. I am so sick of the haze of nostalgia which now is virulent in even the so-called "underground" because to me nostalgia is a whimsical style of life which is only a few steps removed from being totally and completely flatlined. People would rather pass by inspiring music and impress that chick/fellow in the club with their knowledge of 4/4 bands. Blind blind little FOOLS.

v.

[~technosapien]

verhaeghen rules!

i believe these forums died because i asked the admin to delete my old username (stargazer)

i felt much like verhaeghen stated and i felt the admin of this site was as described by verhaeghen above.. so i asked to not be part of it and i think the forums went with me

if anyone on electrogarden ever has the desire to talk about good music, you can email me privately and we can talk until the end of time about great music, whether it be synthpop or not...

[~incognito]

Geeze guys, that's some brilliant insight you have there. Maybe when you pull your stubborn heads out of your butts you'll see the bigger picture. It's hard enough for people to separate EBM from Futurepop from Electroclash from Synthpop from Electropop, etc. as it is. One person may post updates about Covenant in the Synthpop category while another person thinks it should be in the EBM or Futurepop categories instead. When you start throwing in Techno, Trance, Trip Hop, Down Tempo and every other so-called subgenre that still all sound the same, no one is even going to know *where* to post or read after a while. It would be an online traffic jam that confuses & frustrates more people than it helps. And when 95% of EG's members would rather harp on about what VNV Nation, Depeche Mode, Mesh, Covenant and whoever else are doing everyday, it makes no sense to launch new forums of genres they couldn't separate from what they already know or have never heard of. And what, you're calling these people blind fools because they would rather talk about 4/4 repetetive EBM & Electro instead of 4/4 repetetive Trance & Techno? Good arguement.

[~technosapien]

trip hop and trance sound nothing alike.. in fact, those categories that were in that forum were pretty diverse.. with the exception of "progressive"...

trip hop/downtempo
trance
house
drum'n'bass/jungle
breaks/electro
techno

sorry, those arent similiar at all... yeah, they are all electronic.. but they arent similiar... maybe you can have some crossover between jungle and breaks... but trance and house and trip hop are completely different...

ebm and synthpop at least have some crossover

and the point of those forums was to provide a place for those of us who do know what those style are to have a place to talk about them instead of just having Synthpop and then "Beats".. what the ¤¤¤¤ is Beats.. if there can be a Synthpop and an Industrial forum.. then we can have Techno, Breaks, Jungle, and the others as well.. because they are just as prevelant as Synthpop and Industrial

and for the record, there was no Futurepop or Electroclash forum.. those would be pointless as those are just made up names, not established genres like the others

[~Ekstasis]

We are calling people blind fools because they refuse to even look in these forums. I bet only 30% of the people who come to this site even bother clicking on the beats forum when they see something new has been posted in there. And 50% of the people who do come into the beats forum just do it to tell us that we listen to repetetive music.

[~pop]

I HATE HARDCORE DM AND MESH FANS.....
THEY MUST LOVE EATING HOT DOGS AND HAMBURGERS ALL THE TIME.

[~cliffwalk]

i dunno, i don't hate anything tonight... i actually just saw a genre argument actually progress one step further than the 5 million before...

OK .... so, joel, there's this huge difference when you start venturing into styles such as trance, jungle, and techno... (vs. "synthpop")

and?

so?

I'm listening...


dave

[~technosapien]

what are you on about cliffwalk?

there is no and.. i stated my point..

the synthpop and industrial forums are great.. but i think if you are going to have a synthpop forum then you should have the other forums as well and not just bunch them all up into one

and to be honest, i dont really care because its just the same 5 people talking on all the forums... i only asked admin to create the expanded forums because a few people whom i invited to the forum left and when they did they said they didnt want to post in the Beats forum because they were all grouped together.. they thought that was pretty lame... they just assumed (correctly) that this site is just for Synthpop fans.. and thats exactly what it is... 99% of you dont give a ???? about anything other than 80s music.. so why bother trying to expand the site at all.

and the flipside to this is that once the forums were created... all the people i invited did come and register.. but none of them talked.. so while some of the current egn people talked, i think only one new person talked the whole time.. and the admin seemed impatient, so it doesnt really matter that they are gone... hence why we have 5000+ registered and only 10 people who actually talk... forums on the internet are lame anyway... they always turn into social discussion.. they never are very informative for very long and when they are informative its only informative for those "in the know"..

[~cliffwalk]

my "and??" was...

ok, you just introduced us neophite synthpop fans very quickly to your opinions on a few different styles of electronica that we are ignorant about...

i guess in my eyes i was looking for an education in music that i'm NOT familiar with.. frankly, i don't go to clubs, i guess i'm lacking in exposure to trance, jungle, etc...

when are we going to start actually discussing this stuff Socratically instead of constantly inserting bitter diatribes about how a particular forum is structured???

i'm disappointed that people from other points of view bailed so quickly and didn't help diversify the landscape on here, maybe that's just an online community sort of thing, but i personally am interested as all hell to understand new music... please be aware, UNDERSTAND... i'm pretty sure i can go and find my own copies of said music and listen to it and form my own opinions on it i'm not being a very educated listener...

for instance, what's the artistic motivation behind <introduce me to one of the above forms of music>? the music obviously has different intentions because the structure is so wildly different.

for the record, i'm serious, this isn't meant as criticism, i'm just telling you what i'm looking for when a discussion about a style of music gets opened up...

it doesn't have to be some sort of egotistical battle of penis size or musical knowledge but if you want a concession i'll concede that i don't know jack about any of the styles you listed... i know synthpop and some variations of it and that's really where it ends.

so obviously there's a lot i can learn.

where's the intelligent discussions that aren't alienating people like myself who would like to understand?

why does this have to constantly be some sort of over dramatized territorial battle? that seems rather juvenile, don't you think?

dave

[~DJfuligin]

While I didn't go to them, I had no problems with the now defunct forums. But just because people weren't going there dosen't mean their blind or stupid or whatever. This site attracted mainly synthpop\ebm\futurepop people, and their aren't that many other places for us to go. There are other sites for some of those other genres, so don't blame the people here. As for people not expanding their horizons, c'mon. Most of the genres here you have to dig around for. These aren't regular music listners.

As for the attitude here, we have a local guy on our scene who has a similar attitude: people don't want to hear new stuff, they're all stuck in the past, etc. While I see some of his points(I don't think people do as much as they could to hear new stuff) but he's just a complete **** when he says stuff, so his opinion gets lost in his ranting. All he's done is probably stopped his DJ career and made most people hate him, although he is a jerk about more than just his musical opinion. My point in this is that just saying how bad everyone else is usually dosen't help to get people interested. And I don't think that will change.

[~pop]

Let people listen to what they want.
I will NOT give a single penny to clubs that have shi* DJs who haven't bought an album in ten years or say even the kindest letter to musicians who don't deserve it. I don't care they found
the cure to all the sickness in the world. If their choices of music
sucks, it sucks. I am not going to say, someone's music sounds nice, because they are in the same scene.
Also if some people keep on constantly say they like certain bands
for 12 times a day, other people have right to say they don't like the band if they don't like the band. I don't think kissing each others as* is requirement in this forum. I think most of us do that in our day jobs. Some people in this forum aren't truly honest to others. I wonder when they are planning to be.

I am saying to this again for 8 times.....
"I know what I like and hate. I hope you do the same."

[~cliffwalk]

I guess my best description of myself is that I know what I like..

I've been a diehard music listener as long as I can remember..

BUT, I've also ACQUIRED a love for music I used to hate..

Opera, hated it once, love it now.

Jazz... still hate some of it because early jazz annoys me but I grew into loving all sorts of jazz and jazz-influenced styles..

I guess one of my personal goals is to "GROW INTO" forms of electronic that I may not understand enough to appreciate. I don't particularly accept that if I don't like something the first time I listen to that I may not grow to love it.

Part of enjoying some music is a matter of understanding the volcabulary its speaking and getting your ears to accept it. That's why people don't like Atonal music globally... Certain type of dissonance is SOOOOOOOOOO unlike what people are use to that it literally takes hours of listening to it to hear the beauty.

Thats why lots of "ROCK" sounds like "NOISE" to older folks... too much dissonance and harsher timbres... we're used to it and can hear the beauty in the harshness..

Sorry I'm really babbling at this point but I just want to point out that we'll get further in sharing our love for music if we DON'T constantly criticize each other's tastes and learn why we love what we love.

Dave

[~Eyuva]

electrogarden bit off more than it can chew... simply put one website can not cater to every audiance in every way, there has to be some focus if you want to do a good job. Honestly if I want to read about trance, I'm more likely to go to tranceaddict.com or psynews, or the Israeli trance website... For/ eurodance, eurodancehits.com... etc. These sites have people who are more knowledgable in those scenes, just like this site has people more knowledgable in synthpop, ebm, industrial, etc.

One site simply can not cover the broad range of electronic music, it's to much, there are literally thousands of artists.

[~verhaeghen]

Allllrightee once MORE here are some labels which have some excellent work out right now. Some of these sites will have audio samples and some will not. Please please please don't ¤¤¤¤¤ about the ones who do not have samples up. The fact that they are up at all is inspiration enough. Be brave, kiddies.

http://www.subtitlesmusic.com
http://www.certificate18.com
http://www.kluteproductions.com
http://www.hard-edged.de
http://www.grooveattack.com
http://www.formandfunction.com
http://www.poetsclubrec.com
http://www.techitch.com
http://www.breakbeatscience.com

And for some rather interesting forums to discuss odd styles:

http://www.slsk.org

As always...

http://www.brainwashed.com/coil

Now get the ¤¤¤¤ out there and expand your bloody horizons.

v.

[~devapor]

electrogarden should get rid of the artist forums (mesh red flag dm all that crap) and bring back the music genre forums man that was a great way to find new stuff-almost everyone already knows all of the bands that have there own forums

either that or change the name to synthpopgarden
is it me or does electrogarden seem to be losing alot?

[~technosapien]

Originally posted by devapor
electrogarden should get rid of the artist forums (mesh red flag dm all that crap) and bring back the music genre forums man that was a great way

now that is an idea right there!

i agree 120% with that one

off with the artist forums! on with the genre forums!

[~cliffwalk]

how about trying this:

nuke all of the forums except one... we have no more than 100 people posting in the various forums... max

i'm serious. one forum.

one.

watch them for a month or so and determine what subject matter needs it own forum.

instead of a bunch of place holders for coversations, create the coversations first, then the forums.

dave

Originally posted by verhaeghen
Allllrightee once MORE here are some labels which have some excellent work out right now. Some of these sites will have audio samples and some will not. Please please please don't ¤¤¤¤¤ about the ones who do not have samples up. The fact that they are up at all is inspiration enough. Be brave, kiddies.

http://www.subtitlesmusic.com
http://www.certificate18.com
http://www.kluteproductions.com
http://www.hard-edged.de
http://www.grooveattack.com
http://www.formandfunction.com
http://www.poetsclubrec.com
http://www.techitch.com
http://www.breakbeatscience.com

And for some rather interesting forums to discuss odd styles:

http://www.slsk.org

As always...

http://www.brainwashed.com/coil

Now get the ¤¤¤¤ out there and expand your bloody horizons.

v.

Sah-weet... thank you... some very cool stuff... that's all I wanted... go back to ¤¤¤¤¤ing at each other :)

peace
dave