Just read Side-Line 41 and its time to vent

[~Scar Chemik]

Why do they ask every artist in there about their opinion of how sad the current state of electronic music is? They rip on futurepop repeatedly whilst lauding groups like VNV and Apop.

What does it say when a specialist mag rips its own scene in every interview? Really disgusted me.

The current state of synth music is so varied that you can find something for everyone from In the Nursery/Diorama slow beautiful ballads to fast paced DnB.

There is nothing wrong with the current scene!!! If you don't like it, find another band, or go listen to guitar music where nothing original has happened since the Beatles started copying pop riffs from the blues and rock artists that proceeded them!

Everyone...stop ripping on the scene.

Vent over

[~epsilon minus]

Don't fault the magazine for what's said, fault the interviewed parties. Or better yet, fault "The Scene" for being so hilarious.

[~Todd Durrant]

I agree. There's a little something for everybody in the electronic pop (synthpop) scene. If Futurepop isn't your thing, there's a lot of other great music to listen to. If futurepop IS your thing, then there's plenty of that around too. Frankly, I don't think the synthpop scene has been this healthy for years. So many styles, so many bands, so many new release, relatively great quality in production, and pretty good support from a lot of different kinds of clubs. If you feel that only one particular approach is "worthy" then maybe you could complain, but that's no the way I see it.

Unfortunately, when it comes to certain magazines in the scene, it is hard not to a see a trend of favoritism toward the particular style that the reviewer likes. I'm very accustomed to seeing certain synthpop bands consistently slammed by the same publications over and over, while they'll praise other bands to the skies who all play one particular style. That is something that's hard to avoid because well-rounded reviewers are very hard to come by (simply because everybody has their own opinion on what's good and what's not).

No need to get upset if you don't agree with the interviewer, reviewer, or band being interviewed. Just take it with a grain of salt, knowning that not everybody is going to feel the same way about the state of the scene.

-Todd

[Avil]

I think our scene has only grown bigger the past few years. We don´t need millions and millions of people listening to our music to be able to survive. I´m satisfied with the situation today, I´m happy to be one of not that many who listens to all this great music. In this way, it feels more personal!

I love the scene.

and let sideline say whatever they want....we still got our opinion, don´t we?

Christina

[~side-line]

First of all, thanks for the input, it's something we like getting as long as it is constructive like this critic is.

Being one of the main editors at Side-Line, I just have to give my opinion as well... every journalist working for Side-Line has the right to express his/her own point of view through an interview. Plus, you'll quickly see that these kind of questions are often appearing when interviewing bands that don't like futurepop as such as Bogart indicated above.

Having said that not every journalist at Side-Line is going to kick Futurepop bands... the fact that so many futurepop bands are indeed featured in the magazine clearly show that we support all kind of tendencies. For example, we have Empire State Human added for an interview, pure synthpop, we have De/vision added, ... but also industrial acts for who often consider it to be 'logical' to call every futurepop band a rip-off or just slam them.

Comes also the fact that we continuesly try to offer a broad specter of musical tendencies, wheter it be from the goa trance scene, to the even more guitar orientated britpop such as Johnny Marr for example.

All the best from Brussels,

[~Scar Chemik]

side-line -

Thanks for your response. My frustration was based on the frequency of question. I read the issue cover to cover and really appreciated the interviews, especially with Marc Verhaegen. But, it seemed that in every article there was some negative vibe about the state of the music that these very same artists contribute to.

For just once, I would love to see an artist say "We really love what's going on out there, we hear a lot of great music in the clubs" or more importantly, when asked what they bring to the scene, for them to say "nothing really, just our own songs which we worked hard to create." Instead we get "we are not like anything out there we do blah, blah, blah". Then you listen to them and they sound exactly like everybody else! :)

[~side-line]

Bands sell themselves as well, noone likes to be called a clone... it is in that context you have to read this. Nevertheless, I've added your remarks to our next meeting, so "improvement" is (possibly) due... :))