Talk:Intelligent dance music

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Contents

[edit] Etymology

Before seriously considering deletion of this article, the etymology of the term should be studied. It is not meant to be pejorative! The term "intelligent dance music" doesn't mean that other dance music is "dumb". IDM is an offshoot of 'EBM', or "electronic body music". While EBM is meant to "make your body dance", IDM is meant to "make your mind dance". It has always been used this way to describe the music, and has never had a pejorative meaning among artists and fans alike, in fact many fans also enjoy many other forms of dance music. The music is classified by typically non-danceable beats, but complicated structures, hence the term. 74.70.171.36 04:28, 12 January 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Removed user comments from article

I removed this from "Criticisms of IDM", because it obviously belongs here and not in the article:

62.17.145.2 00:37, 25 November 2006 (UTC)Rebelion - I love all genres and I do believe in IDM as it's taking you further and makes you look deeper in to yourself than moast of other dance music. I do hate names as well but often they are very,very usefull. aren't they?

[edit] More about the name

Tried to write more about the name into the criticism (because that wasn't detailed enough, and a bit vague). My writing aint perfect, so please go easy on harsh replies, and feel free to edit or change any little mistakes. But I think its a fresh start from the old part, so I hope someone here can edit my version and change it more to a taste that everyone accepts rather than delete my version that took 1 hour to write . Im sure 1 or 2 thinsg at least is correct and beyond argument and everyone will agree, but a couple things maybe are controversial, so no problem if you want to edit that part of it. We ca Thanks Joyrex

I reverted it, and while I said why in the comment, I'll expand here. What you wrote was essentially taking a longer and less encyclopedic route to saying the same thing as was written previously. Further, pretty much the whole lot is opinion, and often blatantly so:
Because of the hype and press reports that painted Aphex Twin, Autechre, and others as geniuses, a few internet geeks and some music journalists artifically created the term "intelligent dance music" to group the various, and otherwise uncategorizable work of these artists.
The one early article of Aphex Twin I remember paints him as a genius equal to Joe Meek. Other interviews say things like Aphex Twin being a genius and highly intelligent and having "Asperger's syndrome". I think those articles were a big influence on the I in IDM standing for "intelligent". I hope something of that idea can be put into this article.
"intelligent dance music" as a phrase is pejorative as it clumsily asserts that all other music is unintelligent, therefore detractors of the phrase have occasionally used the term "dolphin music" as a disparaging alternative to "intelligent".
"intelligent dance music" as a phrase is pejorative as it clumsily asserts that all other music is unintelligent
I don't think this is opinion. It's what "intelligent dance music" as a phrase really is. It does clumsily assert that other music is unintelligent, and that gives the phrase a negative aura.
I think, in regards to this subject, you would do well to recall your own ending to the section:
IDM as a description of music is often useless for specifically describing records, as there is often a more specific genre name available, such as drill and bass, ambient, micro house, glitch, illbient, grime, acid house, etc.
Again, this is opinion, as IDM works quite well for broadly classifying a number of genres of music, and this is what the article is about. It isn't about all those types of music that are included under the IDM banner, it's about IDM itself, and what you think about IDM's usefulness as a descriptor is not really relevant to the article. Of course, it could be that I'm simply asserting my own opinion, so I'd like to hear what others have to say on this.
IDM is useful to group other genres with. I agree with this. I think IDM is just a grouping of the listed genres and more, rather than some specific style in itself. Am I wrong? When talking about Aphex Twin's Richard D. James album, you call it drill and bass rather than IDM, right? (Because that's the musical genre of that album.)
If they are opinions, is it possible to condense and keep the better opinions, ensure there are equally placed positive and negative opinions about the term by arranging them into the "criticisms of the name" part? Criticisms are opinions, right?

On a related note, why you chose to remove Boards of Canada from the list of musicians, I can't imagine. Junjk 15:42, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

They're Ambient Hiphop/Electronica! Ok, that's definitely 100% my silly opinion. I won't delete that again. :-)

Joyrex

Your comment about Boards of Canada is useful in illustrating my point. I agree with your classification of them as Ambient Electronic with hip-hop influences, although I guess you haven't heard the new album yet, because they're on some whole other thing with it. Anyway, despite this classification, they're still IDM, and here is why: Their music (there's the "M") is influenced by various styles of dance music (the D), but rather than adhering to dance music standards, they expand upon that foundation in a more creative or intelligent ("I") way. Is the term IDM pejorative? If you understand it to mean that all other music is stupid, and you understand stupid music as bad, and bad music as bad, for that matter, then sure, it's pejorative. That's not what IDM means to me, however. To me, it implies that it's music that goes out of its way to do something different, something I'm sure you'll agree most dance music doesn't do. Certainly, though, my opinion is not the only one, and this stuff could and should be (and is, somewhat) addressed in the article. However, as the article explains, IDM is the memetic term which has stuck for this particular approach to music. It's a very broad category, and I think the article does a good job of making it clear that IDM is no longer any one style in particular, but rather an umbrella term for a variety of styles of which the main unifying aspect is a desire to make music derived from any of those many genres which deviates from the standard template for that genre in an interesting way. I guess I'm rambling a bit here, but I suspect you see my point. I'm pretty sure we can come to some sort of compromise on how to word all of this, because I don't know that our opinions are that much different. It seems to me that we're just expressing them differently. Anyway, whatever this music is, it's clear that we both love it, and I'm confident that through continued discussion and collaboration, we can make substantial improvements to this article. Junjk 16:16, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Great reply. Rewrite it into the article! Joyrex Oh, maybe without the "meme" bit. That is a bit pretentious imo. Everything else is top! :-) Joyrex


[edit] On the wrong track?

I would like to (gently) suggest that the editors above are on the wrong track. While your arguments are interesting and coherent, they are not relevant to an encyclopedia. Whether the term 'IDM' is perjorative, and whether it is an accurate label of this (or any music) is irrelevant. What is relevant is: do many people in the real world use this term to categorize a group of bands / type of music? If so, then the term is probably encyclopedic. We document actual usage of the term; if you feel the term is perjorative or innaccurate, the article can say so. But the main point is: how is the term actually used? Eaglizard 12:16, 8 October 2005 (UTC) They nuked the Braindance article and pointed Braindance here at the IDM one. IDM is used by fans ad fan music makers. Probably need a Braindance article, because there is a different aesthetic going on there. I agree though, this article should be more about the term, because there are others words like electronica and braindance which are far more appropriate sometimes. At least we have how the artists themselves feel about the terms in the article, because that is relevant. taa

[edit] Insulting terms

To me, the words "intelligent dance music" are inherently insulting to people who like whatever "non-intelligent dance music" is. In fact, often the term "dance music" is used as a pejorative, indirect reference to gays.

I like all "dance". I prefer to term it "beat" music -- as opposed to non-rhythmic ambient, noise, whatever.

I reject the idea that when I'm making or listening to house or DnB I'm in a non-intelligent mode. I reject the idea that you have to be "intelligent" in some way to enjoy more experimental beat music.

If someone manages to actually dance to the Boards' "Geogaddi", or Autechre's "Confield", I'd like to see it. They must be very good interpretive dancers.

IDM is a stupid, meaningless, non-descriptive, insulting label. — 14:08, 18 May 2003 206.124.131.61

I like the Rephlex pisstake; Braindance (already redirected here, it seems).

Notwithstanding the previous poster's comment, IDM is a genre of music, regardless of how stupid the name is. As for the current definition, I find the following highly confusing:

The main characteristics of so called "intelligent dance music" are high resolution of sound, and precise control by the composer in arranging the units that compose this resolution.

I write music which might be classified as IDM, but this high density sound idea is either too academic or just too obtuse to easily understand in my opinion. I know what the author is trying to say, but I think it is needlessly complicated and should be simplified. — 22:56, 20 August 2003 Tlotoxl

If you have any suggestions of characteristics that more fittingly summarize "intelligent dance music" than what I suggested (high control over units of a high resolution) then I'd like to hear them. I was thinking of a definition that suits compositions that are probably unanimously agreed to be in the genre, such as "ep7" by autechre, "Come to Daddy" by aphex twin, and "8000 bc" by Otto Von Schirach. In my current opinion at least, my definition is fitting. — 20:58, 21 August 2003 216.165.244.84

I guess the thing is that I feel the genre is too diverse to be easily explained, and I'm not convinced that your definition accomplishes too much by trying. It's an interesting (if, imo, non-intuitive) definition, but how do black dog and early autechre fit in with it? IDM has a label that has been used since the mid-90s, if not before, (ie, back when you might actually be able to dance to the music ;) ), but IMO your definition leaves a lot of those artists out in the cold. Black Dog (and now Plaid) had songs that might be considered to have 'high resolution of sound', but not at all in the same sense that we might use for albums like 'ep7', 'come to daddy' (dunno about 8000 bc, haven't heard it), yet it is that sort of music that originally came to define the genre.
I guess my feeling is that your definition is heavily biased towards the laptop experimental music that emerged in the late-90s and doesn't address a lot of the music that came before that. — 23:51, 21 August 2003 Tlotoxl

The broad definition you might be arriving at though is "any music that pleased the creators of The Idm Mailing List enough to appear on that list" ... That could be the single definition, or it could be one of several definitions (including mine... or not). Instead of being descriptive of the genre's characteristics, this definition would describe the neurological process of aesthetics in the minds of some arbitrary group of people. It seems to me at least that high resolution and control are at the heart of what IDM is, but it just took some evolution of computers and memetic music ideas to get there. Black dog probably couldn't suddenly release a more intricate album like "not for threes" because computers, software and ideas weren't sophisticated enough yet. Instead they released "bytes" which seems like a bit more "primitive" an attempt to have high control over high resolution. Or maybe I don't know enough about the history of IDM to contribute writing the wikipedia entry. I havn't really followed the history (I didn't even know there was an "idm mailing list" until I read what the previous person/people wrote) but I have been listening passioniately. — 16:12, 23 August 2003 216.165.244.84

I have to agree that the high density sound concept is a bit over the top, but it's really not a totally bad approach. It's very difficult to describe music, especially when trying to differentiate between styles. I can see what this is trying to say, I just don't know that it pulls in the whole idea. I'm not sure what to change it to either.

I did change the "It's necessary to use a computer..." to write IDM - to it's "common" - while it's very common now - it wasn't necessarily in the early 90's. Unless you consider hardware sequencers as computers - which they are - but when compared to a computer they usually aren't considered the same. Do the tools make the music? There's always exceptions, but IDM is mostly in drum machine/computer/sequencer/etc realm. But that doesn't define IDM - that also fits synthpop from the 80's and a ton of other genres. The IDM List and Warp are both good descriptions of where the idea came to be most known. -- John Koch-Northrup 21:11, 7 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I was thinking, if somebody could create an example of the "sonic decimator" effect, which is mentioned - just a short clip or two to demonstrate the effect? I am thinking something like the audio clips over at 2Step? -- Ulrik Kold 14:23, 28 May 2005 (CET)

Has anyone ever tried to listen to drukqs playing both cds at the same time? I believe Richard had thought about this, note similiar melodies in tracks :-) User:Raddicks 07:25, 23 July 2005 (GMT)

[edit] Lull and iloveidm

Some people (or one person with different IP's) keep vandalizing the page. The IP's are:

  • 217.42.113.54 / 81.153.181.86 / 213.48.240.135 / 213.48.244.24

They keep adding "iloveidm.com" and "Global Goon" to the page. They also add to the section about IDM experiencing a lull in the mid-90's, claiming that it didn't and writing in a very childish/incoherent manner. Milk 15:20, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

Not too sure how to resolve this 'lull' dispute. Can evidence be given either way? If there was a lull, we can leave the text in, if there wasn't, we can delete it. Can't accommodate both viewpoints, unless we resort to '...while some believe there was a lull in the mid-1990s, others say...' which it would be nice to avoid.
The iloveidm.com advertising is entirely unnecessary though. If that's kept up I guess the user should be blocked, though I'm not too sure about the protocols involved. --Chopchopwhitey 01:25, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)
The iloveidm.com advertising is uncalled for, but frankly I agree with the vandal that it's ridiculous to suggest that idm experienced a lull in the mid 90s. From where I'm standing, the first wave of IDM peaked from around 1992 to around 1996. If there was a lull, it was in the late 90s, but I'm not even convinced of that. IMO, it's better to remove the bit about the supposed "lull" entirely. -- Tlotoxl 02:41, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Who put the "lull" part in the first place? ok, maybe there wasn't a lull but instead an increase since the mid-90's as realted to the part about the "resurgence". Maybe we should just say IDM "took off" in the late 90's, because it seems like it was fairly stable since the early 90's until recently. Throughout the 90's it seemed most IDM was limited to Warp, and in the late 90's (at least in North America) many labels began and IDM artists increased such as the ones mentioned in the "resurgence" section. Milk 02:59, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

OK, I've had a bit of a rewrite, hopefully clearing things up a bit. See what you think. I think I could be quite inaccurate in saying that during the early 90s it was mainly British-based (I'm just going off a hunch), so anyone who knows better could maybe sort that out, and any other wrongdoings. --Chopchopwhitey 08:13, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Good re-write. It's fair to say that since IDM's creation and until the late 90's it's was mostly Warp/UK based. Although "... IDM took a leap away from its till then largely British base ..." could be re-worded. Maybe ".. IDM greatly expanded/increased in the US". Because it's largely British base is mentioned in the overview section. Also, the first mention of Miami is unecessary since it starts the next sentence: "... most notably across the United States and in Miami, Florida. Miami, Florida was prominent ..." . It kind of an overkill. Other than that, it's much better. Hopefully everyone agrees. Milk 18:33, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Please, go ahead and make the changes! The double Florida thing was just some bleary-eyed mistake. --Chopchopwhitey 00:16, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Ken Ishii, Jazz

I removed Ken Ishii from the list of artists until it can be shown that the majority of his repertoire is IDM. A random sampling of his records is more likely to return his unique, sort of pretty brand of driving techno, IMHO. I admit I'm not familiar with everything he's done, though.

I made a few other small edits today, the most significant of which reinstate my original assertion that other genres such as jazz can be found in some IDM, a point which some ignorant soul took issue with at one point, perhaps because s/he thought the phrasing of the original text was too broad, but I think more likely because s/he is one of those fans who likes to exalt IDM as being 'pure' and entirely unique -- a position I'm sure some of his/her favorite IDM artists would find contentious.

Also, don't forget to sign your discussion page posts with four tildes so it'll insert your name and the date automagically. - mjb 04:13, 14 May 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Faithless

Could Faithless be considered Intelligent Dance Music? — 12:17, 14 August 2004 24.124.101.70

Maybe it could, but it's definitely not IDM :) — 11:42, 20 September 2004 80.202.210.168
For me it is! -andy 80.129.118.15 06:54, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Me too. I think Faithless is IDM.

[edit] here comes controversy???

i think that IDM should be a subset or parallel subject to Intellectual electronica as per the genre of late not really being focused around dancing. granted, i've heard the term IDM, but never really heard of IDM or the mailing list. nor have i ever used the term IDM to describe the likes of Autechre, Aphex Twin, and certain Orb albums. Rather, i feel it more appropriate that these artist be described as Intellectual electronica due to, for the most part, the inablity to dance to vast majorities of their music. my suggestion for dealing with this rift, that seems apperent to me, in the genre between the early mid ninties and now is to keep the IDM page as more of a historical reference and separate off most of the later more recent information found in the IDM file to a page called (you guessed it) Intellectual Electronica.

Whether anyone likes it or not IDM is the name that was created somehow, somewhere in the past, and it stuck. True you can not dance to most "IDM" but it's just a name. What does hip-hop mean anyway? Do people hop around when listening to it? Nope. For anyone still griping over the name look up info on Memes. It'll help explain the situation. And I hate the word Electronica, I hate the "a" at the end. Just call it, electronic. Milk 05:49, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Questionably Notable?

How might we go about reaching some sort of consensus as to which IDM artists are notable and which aren't? As one who has been deeply immersed in the genre for its entire lifespan, I find it surprising that there are groups listed as notable that I've never heard of. Whether this is because, say, Rogue Project is too underground or because nobody has heard of them is unclear to me. (P.S., Rogue Project, it's okay - nobody has heard of me either.) Anyway, notable is a tricky term. I for one would propose not linking to any artist who doesn't have a wiki entry. This seems like the best way to determine whether or not an artist is particularly notable. If nobody objects, I'm going to do it. I just thought I might bring it up here prior to doing so. Junjk 02:10, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This is an issue that affects all music pages. See WP:MUSIC and its discussion page for attempts to hash out some notability guidelines. — mjb 17:15, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
This article needs attention about this notability matter. I've been seeing a lot of artists added lately. --ДрakюлaTalk 01:01, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
Two possible solutions: 1. Notable artists in chronological order according to their earliest release. This is what we did in the techno music article. 2. Don't list the notable artists at all; rather, put all IDM musicians in a category, and link to the category. This is what some other genres do when they have too many notable artists. — mjb 08:36, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The word 'artistic'

a user is removing the word artistic from the contrast between "dancefloor techno" and "IDM" on the basis of POV. are there any opinions on this, to my mind the statement that the musical styles covered by the article has more artistic a) merit and b) intention is a fact - dancefloor techno has no artistic pretenstions - the orb is a dr. of music and aphex performs with symphony orchestras etc. any views? Leonig Mig 5 July 2005 16:06 (UTC)

To describe one form of music as being "more artistic" than another is PoV. How can it not be? How is the "artistic value" of a music genre measured? Andy Mabbett 5 July 2005 16:24 (UTC)
I'm not sure if you are familiar with "dancefloor techno". it's music for ravers to jump up and down to. some would argue that dancefloor has artistic merit, however nobody would argue that dancefloor techno has more artistic merit than aphex or the orb. I can illustrate it is follows- is the following statement POV? - "the work of gustav mahler is more artistic than the sound of a baby farting.". QED. Leonig Mig 5 July 2005 16:33 (UTC)
That was my sense of humour by the way. The issue at stake is that you are reading artistic with a positive connotation. the fact is that IDM music has a claim to be "art", for better or worse - love it or hate it - regardless of POV - however, dancefloor techno has never been claimed by anyone to be art - that is an objective difference, so please revert. Leonig Mig 5 July 2005 16:35 (UTC)
Artistic is probably just a poor word choice, as artistry is certainly subjective. Would you disagree, Pigsonthewing, that IDM is more experimental than dancefloor techno? I suspect this is what artistic is meant to imply in this context. Maybe we can all agree on a different phrasing. Any suggestions? Junjk 5 July 2005 16:36 (UTC)
It does tend to draw on more cultural references too tho - there is more meaning and the music tend to draw on a much wider range of emotions (aphex twin for example goes from white noise - to driller killer - to blissful ambient). I don't think this is POV at all now I think about it - is it POV to say that wagner's music is more 'art' than Busted? Leonig Mig 5 July 2005 17:08 (UTC)

The name says it all, "intelligent" dance music. This means IDM is more intellectual, artsy, "smarter", or "better" than other types of dance music. I take it as meaning average dance music is just for the simple pleasure of dancing, and is repeatitive and childish in that manner. Therefore the more you break away from this, the more you add interesting sounds, abstract rhythms, etc it becomes more intelligent and can be appreciated more for being experimental and not conforming to the easy/simple production of other types of dance music. Simply put rave/trance type music is for morons who just want to dance and trip-out, and IDM is for people who are there to enjoy the actual creation/production of the music. I realize this could be very offensive to some people and could be a very POV statement, but this is just a basic interpretation of my first impression of IDM and what makes it different from other electronic music. I think this is basically what people were trying to get across when they made up the term "IDM". - Milk 5 July 2005 18:50 (UTC)

I realize that I'm entering this conversation a little late to be of much use, but from where I sit you guys are sporting a somewhat limited view. Dance music is a term used to define much more than techno. Latin, pop, waltz, swing are all forms of dance. I think classifying IDM as somehow more intelligent or artistic than swing or latin would be a tough sell. While it may seem that IDM is more intelligent than pure dance as you've been describing it, I think that the reality is a little less clear. The art of providing good music for people to dance to is more rich and subtle than it appears on the surface, and simple things like finding the right bass thump is often the work of a seriously talented engineer. Conversely, I've seen a lot of self-described IDM performances which amounted to little more than some clueless kid with his laptop. Really, within every genre there is a range: for every piece of bad techno there is a piece of equally poor IDM, and for every piece of good IDM there is a piece of good techno, defined on its own terms, not those of the IDM community. And yes, it is POV to say that Wagner's music is more 'art' than Busted. It's just a POV most people would agree with. To make it NPOV, you find a study that says most people agree... and you cite it. Monkeyfacebag 18:19, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Whether or not IDM or any other music is artistic, artistry is not verifiable in any reasonable way, and thus inappropriate for an encyclopedia. An individual may reflect to himself and believe that certain music is artistic, but this is introspection, not verification. In the words of Wittgenstein, "on that which you cannot speak, you must pass over in silence." Twelvethirteen 20:51, 24 July 2006 (UTC)


I hope you all know IDm isn't the only electronic genre that experiments or tries new things. Techno is also very big on experimentation. Richie Hawtin's Concept 1 96:CD is the perfect example of this. Or music by Thomas Brinkmann. Or Christian Vogel. Etc. IDM doesn't hold a monopoly on electronic musical experimentation, by any means.

[edit] Inaccurate

This article is full of innacuracy and needs a rewrite. Although journalists and fans have described many of these things as IDM, in fact, the artists are not, and the IDM label is more accurately used to describe the artists who were fans of the former artists. Aphex Twin is not IDM. Warp Records is not IDM. But Merck records is IDM. And Otto Von Schirach is IDM. The difference is generation, and the difference is practical. Also this article has random references to Stockhausen and musique concrete. Because this issue is so contentious, there should be a clear re-write, purely based of facts and objectivity. It's a good time to clear this up on Wikipedia, so that future generations have a more truthful (rather than music press invented) view of this IDM music label. IDM (as the main point of the name) is a mailing list, and the name of a genre defining the later music of the 20th century which used softsynths and softsamplers and computers (not forgetting the free mp3 culture of new artists of the very late 20th century and very early 21st century. There is too much emphasis in this article on the early definition(which didn't last), and not enough on the people who actually call themselves IDM. There's a definite lack of objectivity in this article, and a definitely strong point of view. With much discussion, this could easily turn into a strong and accurate article of factual basis. — 02:21, 11 July 2005 LukeAcidwalker

What I've come to realize is that IDM is a non-specific term that at best, describes the music put out by certain artists and a couple of record labels. It also hints to the influences of techno, hip-hop and electro, but extends itself as far as any electronic music that defies popular theories of music. So, in the most proper context, IDM describes all the music which does or does not combine the elements of existing or non-existing styles of music to produce a new, unique style of music? This sounds like a complex argument proving nothing except that music is eventually made? I'm not expressing my discontent for any music that carries the stigmata of the term IDM, but instead emphasising the redundancy of it's definition. It's a needless definition. Diverse artists who drew from influences from hip-hop/electro, techno, and ambient music came together on a similar label (warp) and released music in the early to mid 90's. This includes artists such as Kenny Larkin and Richie Hawtin as, who if it were not for their output on Warp,are not well described as IDM. But these artists are usually view as "influences", so I'll skip to 1996/1997. Autechre's Anvil Vapre EP, Garbage, and Tri Repetae show just how diverse the duo really is. From ambient tunes, to the "edit the hell out of it" electro tunes reminiscent of Mantronix(the duo met due to a shared interest in electro) still falls conveniently under the ironic label of Intelligent Dance Music and further away from their musics roots. The IDM confusion that happened in the early 90's is the same type of confusion that took place with the terribly ambiguous phrase "krautrock" which sounds like it originated from ostentatious record clerks from the 1970's so closed minded about music it was necessary to attach a completely non-descriptive term to all the music from Germany. The phrase "Intelligent Dance Music" denotes a lack of understanding of the musical influences of an artist and subsequently the artists' music itself. If you love in the music you enjoy, keep it alive by researching it's history with an open mind. --Bunterabend 01:20, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Hell yeah. And why crush Braindance and call it IDM? It's not IDM if it's Braindance. There should be a seperate Braindance article.

[edit] Timeline and thoughts for better definition of IDM.

note: Please click on the edit page to read a better formatted version of this post in the edit box. Kind of objective (Not really, but that's the end goal for us, right?) time line (Please correct this if you know better). If we get this right, we can base a re-write on it. 80's/pre80's: Techno/Rave/Hardcore/Acid/Ambient/etc. Early 90's: Warp Records release innovative music based on these styles. 1993: The IDM mailing list begins. Firstly mainly based on Warp Records's output. The press and fan invented acronym IDM defines music from Warp Records. 1996: Aphex Twin releases album of music made on softsynthesizers and softsamplers. The IDM definition split is more apparent. IDM means 1. The name of a mailing list talking about Warp Records' releases 2. What a group of fans are calling Warp Records releases. Note that Aphex Twin doesn't call his own music IDM. 1997+: The popularity of the Internet increases. More electronic music artists are on the web. They have websites, and they offer their "IDM music" for free download. Note that these later artists actually label their own music as IDM. This music is very different in style to the early releases of Warp Records, and much more based on computers. 1999+: Warp Records releases less electronic music, and starts to release more guitar music such as Vincent Gallo (no way you could call this IDM). I say: 1. IDM is an early name for Warp Records' output. 2. IDM is the name of a mailing list. 3. IDM (after about 1997) is the name of a style of music made by fans of Warp Records, rather than the artists on Warp Records. I also say: 1 hasn't stood the test of time, and the artist Aphex Twin doesn't refer to himself as IDM. 2 is accurate. The name of the list is IDM list. 3. These IDM artists actually call themselves IDM. These artists make the actual music called IDM (whatever the origins of the name). Say, labels such as planet-mu, merck, schematic, terminal dusk, etc. Also, I think this article should have a sentence or two about the contention of this label, which shows the multiple viewpoints. The definition is so vague, and has changed over time. These multiple definitions should be kept seperate to avoid confusion. I think this Wikipedia article should address these points, and of course clearly refer to the musicians and people or other relevant topics about these 3 major points. Obviously, nobody can achieve total objectivity (only an arrogant fool would claim to), other people have different thoughts and views, and I hope we can discuss and work together to correct this article into a highly non point of view work. One person alone can not do this. --~~~~Luke Acidwalker.

Hi Luke, I appreciate your write-up, but we've agreed before on this page that IDM is the name we're sticking with, whether it's silly or inaccurate or whatever. The fact that certain artists don't describe themselves as IDM is irrelevant. They describe themselves using similar or related terms which plainly mean the same thing. I don't like the name IDM very much. In fact, I find it pretty annoying. However, if I'm trying to describe the music I chiefly listen to to somebody, they will either (1) already be very familiar with the genre, and I can just start naming artists, rather than messing around with silly labels. (2) Be familiar with, say, Aphex Twin or Autechre, and have heard the name IDM, and know sort-of what I'm talking about. (3) Have no clue about this electronic music business in the first place, rendering genre names pointless. It seems to me that this wiki article needs to be written under the suumption that (3) is trying to become (2), or (2) is trying to become (1). There's a bit in the article about the dispute over the name. This seems enough to me to make this page no longer disputed, since I believe you will find yourself in a very slim minority should you continue to suggest that we should drastically alter the content of this article and, presumably, write a new article about IDM under whatever name you think more suitable. I'm going, in fact, to remove the disputed tag. Feel free to put it back, of course, if you feel I haven't made my point, and we can continue to discuss. You'll probably notice, too, that I've reverted your removal of Aphex Twin and Squarepusher from the article. This article is about this sort of music, whether we call that music IDM or braindance or electronic listening music or whatever. The fact remains that whatever we call it, those are two of the biggest names of the genre and ought to be in the article. Junjk 14:29, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
From section 3, "Criticisms of the name":
"The term "intelligent dance music" is often criticized for not being an actual description of the music genre. Whether or not intelligence or dancing are involved, or whether everybody else's music is not intelligent, in particular, the name was apparently more memorable than other competing phrases (see: memetic replicator). This is probably due in large part to the high volume of the aforementioned IDM mailing list." Junjk

Hey, thanks for the reply Junjk. Removing Aphex Twin and Squarepusher was too hasty, my apoliguies for that(it was a mistake and a vandalism, of course they should stay in the article). I got no intention of "renaming IDM", but theres more accuracy for the acronym, it does describe a lot of music around (different stylysticaly to Warp records music... so the idea is the article should stress the different meanings for IDM. because if you say idm and you mean early 90s techno, then it wont sound at all the same as music made on the computer and given away on mp3s that is made today. also it does still matter if aphex dont call his music idm, when thousands of mp3 artists call themselves IDM, so theres two generations of IDM really, and also the IDM mailing list, which should have more information about here because they invented IDM, and they carried the word into the future... just my thought is 3 main parts to this article: early IDM (mostly warp records), IDM list, then later IDM (which is more widespread, more mp3 + messageboard culture). as a fella on the messageboards planet-mu, forum.watmm.com www.xltronic, i see so much stuff from modern IDM culture, but the article just is too vague and random saying stockhausen and musique concrete, and otto von shirach (who is he?). Ok, well not to make my personal views take over or fights, i will just keep discussing, and chill with the edits. thanks.... hope we can discuss it more. Luke.

Luke, Okay, I think I understand your intent now. I would say that you go to writing any of this stuff as you see fit and start editing it in to the article. I don't know if I'm qualified much to write about the mailing list, or even much the internet community up until recently. That said, I think it's also important to keep in mind an understanding of the concept of IDM as a unifying genre that does connect early innovators who don't think of themselves as IDM artists to current ones that do, not to mention the very many current artists who would never refer to their own music as IDM. It's not important, for reasons detailed in the article, because IDM is the name chosen out of all the alternatives to be the most commonly applied, and therefore the one under which the article ought to be written. There is also precedent, as with Braindance, to link some of these alternate terms to IDM itself. I see no reason that this couldn't be done with many of the many many terms for this sort of thing floating around in cyberspace. An exception, of course, would be a term which is related but has content relevant only to itself. An obvious example of this would be Techno. In this case, one could certainly link to IDM from some appropriate text in that article. Again, though, I don't know a lot about terminologies or very early roots, so I'm not the man for the job. Anyway... I hope we've found an even ground on this, but naturally, feel free to keep the discussion going if there's anything else you'd like to work out about the article. Happy editing. Junjk 02:29, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
I will provide details about the origin of the IDM mailing list. I was there, posting from day 1, and am still co-admin of the server it runs on. You might be surprised to know the wide range of artists that were discussed without anyone raising a fuss over whether or not they were IDM. :) — mjb 03:16, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Labels and artists

Should we move the artists and labels sections, except for a short list of major names for each, to their own pages? It seems that there is a lot of room for differing opinions of what constitutes popularity in this genre, and I wouldn't know where to begin in determining where a line to stick to would be. I'm open to suggestions, of course. Junjk 04:55, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

Not sure about popularity criteria. Artists and labels of sufficient note (eek… notability…) can have their own articles. They can be tied together via a category, Category:IDM musicians, and this can be linked to from the IDM article. The most important/notable ones can be featured in the article as well. See disc jockey for an example of how that can be done. So far it seems to be working OK there. — mjb 05:15, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
Wiki's notability rules are good, but don't really take in to account stuff like IDM. If we were to apply the same notability (wow, that's a clunky word) rules to IDM as we do to, say, rock, it would basically be Aphex Twin. And nobody else. As for the DJ solution, I like it. It shouldn't be too hard for us to agree on a short list of very important artists, and if anybody feels an artist should be represented on Wikipedia who's not, they need only write the article and hope it doesn't get vfd'd as non-notable. The only possible issue I can see is people getting upset about who we put in Category:IDM musicians. Well, I guess I know what I'm doing with my morning, now. Junjk 14:27, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
Added Leftfield since Leftfield's page claims they were pioneers in IDM. Seems reasonable.
Readded!!! Seems to have been removed. -andy 80.129.118.15 06:56, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Experimedia

Promotion of your internet label and its related artists is very helpful for the growth of said label and artists, but Wikipedia is not the place to do it. JBible, I am looking in your direction, and I am, of course, speaking of Experimedia and Milieu, specifically. I'm not going to touch the Experimedia article, although it's plainly just an ad. Whatever you do with that article, though, Experimedia is not notable, Milieu is not notable, jbible is not notable, and therefore they do not have places on lists of notable websites, artists, or record labels. Once we get the IDM musicians and IDM labels categories up and going, feel free to link to your articles. You may also want to examine Wiki's vanity policy in particular. Junjk 16:40, 14 July 2005 (UTC) They are more IDM than Aphex Twin! These labels are from the IDM internet community. Just because you never heard of them, you delete their IDM.

[edit] Takeshi Muto

Does anyone fancy having a go at doing an article on Takeshi Muto? There doesn't seem to be one at the minute.

If no one else does, I'll have a go, but I want to be sure I'm not treading on any toes. --195.92.168.175 23:28, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Since Takeshi is just Romulo from Phoenecia then why not just have a paragraph on Phoenecia's side projects within their own article? You could also inlcude Jeswa which is Josh's side project. The three projects together haven't been very active within the last year or two, but info can still be written on what they have accomplished in past years. Patcha Kutek (on Beta Bodega) was also a project of Romulo's. - Milk 02:46, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Interstellar Debris Management?

I did a quick Google search for the term "Interstellar Debris Management," and the only link that came up was this Wikipedia article. Do we have any source for the claim that this is a favorite term for IDM? To me this sounds just as spurious as the term "idiot dance music" or "internet dork music," and I don't see how it has any connection with sample retriggering or dynamic delay, which is what I assume is meant by "stutter type effect."

I'm going to remove that line for now, but it might be wise to include a discussion on sample retriggering and dynamic delay, which are used in a lot of IDM tracks. Twelvethirteen 21:10, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Modern use of the word IDM

(Regarding the following text) Whats the best way to chop this into the article then? — 62.252.32.13 02:56, 12 August 2005

I don't see anything in it that isn't already accounted for in the article or that should be added. My comments are interspersed below. — mjb 11:02, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Intelligent dance music (IDM) is a rainbow label applied to electronic music artists mostly influenced by the most successful British artists from Warp Records: Aphex Twin, Autechre, Boards of Canada, and Plaid.

'rainbow label'? Where is that term from?

The term began as a short-lived genre name for a narrow band of late 1980's and early 1990's techno. Later an internet discussion group called the IDM mailing list was formed, and the discussions between music fans changed the definition over time, eventually setting as a name synonymous with the artists of Warp Records.

In the article, I recently filled in more details about the history of the term IDM. Your version is somewhat inaccurate (it never encompassed late-'80s, except perhaps retroactively) and does not not contribute any new info.

With the rise of free hosting sites such as www.mp3.com and www.zebox.com, young artists with the ambition to imitate their Warp Records heros could upload their music for free. As the many songs were made by fans of Warp Records, the music took the individual styles of their artists, and merged them into one technically limited musical style. A musical style of imitating the electronic music artists of Warp Records.

Does anyone here agree with the assertion that the IDM genre's growth is attributable to the late-'90s free-hosting boom and amateur fans copying the sound of Warp Records? Are there any examples that can be pointed to? Sounds like BS to me. Aside from Autechre's ongoing development, IDM in general pretty much stopped being about the Warp sound before Boards of Canada was a blip on anyone's radar. I doubt anyone here would agree with the implication that modern IDM is little more than a tribute to the good ol' days of Warp.

The defining characteristics of this music genre include extremely fast breakbeats, software synthesizers and software samplers, the use of laptops, detuned melodies, bird song samples, and generative software to program an entire song (although these attributes are not always used together).

None of those characteristics are unique to IDM nor define it. In fact I hear very little IDM that uses fast breakbeats, much less bird songs. Everyone's using laptops and soft synths for everything these days, from r'n'b to house to techno and hip-hop.

IDM artists often release music through MP3 releases, CDR's, and MINIDISC's.

Again, not defining or unique characteristics of IDM by a longshot. Cite your sources if you know that IDM artists use these formats more than artists in other genres.

IDM is comparable to the reaction of America's youth to British Punk music of the late 70's. This time America's youth reacted to the British Electronic Music scene.

This is the most contentious statement of the lot. It is geographically biased, non-encyclopedic hyperbole (better suited to a press release or magazine article), and it doesn't even make sense. Even if you qualify the statement to clarify that you're talking only about modern American IDM, it's not clear what exactly you think the reaction of America's youth to British Punk was, and how modern American IDM relates to that.

Notable artists of the IDM musical genre include Christpuncher, OD, Wisp, Chris Clark, Khonnor, Twentyknives, µ-ziq, and thousands more. Web hives of this genre include [forum.watmm.com WATMM], and [www.xltronic.nu XLTRONIC].

Notable artists and important external links are already listed in separate sections in the article (and the ones listed are really notable).
Also, in the future, add new discussion to the bottom of the Talk page, and sign your posts with 4 tildes, like this: ~~~~. They'll be replaced with a timestamp and your user ID. Since you're on a shared IP address, you should probably create an account and login so that other people's edits aren't mistaken for yours (your IP is used by a lot of vandals, apparently). Thanks. — mjb 11:02, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] IDM genrebox

Ive noticed a lot of other music genere articles have a right-aligned genrebox. Im thinking of adding one to the IDM article. The preliminary version I have is at User:Twelvethirteen/idmgenrebox. Id appreciate any comments or otherwise, since I havent worked out all the kinks, and a lot of the fields are still empty. Please take a look.

Also, I've got some time on my hands, so i'm going to take a look at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links) and try to clean up our links a little. Twelvethirteen 15:32, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

I'm not opposed to a genrebox, but is there enough to put in it? What are the subgenres and crossover genres that you're going to put in it? Is drill'n'bass really a subgenre of IDM or is that just an example? Also, cheers for any cleanup, of links or otherwise :) — mjb 19:20, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Who invented the word IDM?

Who invented IDM? Was it the magazine journalists, the fans, or who? Just wondering if it was The Wire? Would be good to put in the article. Joyrex 13:45, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

I tried doing a LexisNexis search, but they don't archive magazines back far enough. We'd need to find a citation of "IDM" from prior to August 1993. Unfortunately it's probably only on microfilm or buried in someone's collection somewhere. — mjb 19:08, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
Found this on groups.google.com from August 1993:
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.rave/browse_thread/thread/b8592fef4a3a14b4/af70a963a5002ddd?lnk=st&q=idm+music&rnum=3&hl=en#af70a963a5002ddd
Was Alan Michael Parry the person who invented the term? It looks like he invented it when he created the IDM mailing list. Could be totally wrong here, I imagined it came from magazines, but it looks like plain ol' music fans created it. Out of interest, what did the LexisNexis search turn up from August 1993? Thanks a lot for doing that. Joyrex 12:16, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
Hoping to edit this information into the article. Any advice or suggestions? Joyrex 10:18, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
Brian Behlendorf suggested it to Alan, who originally proposed having the list only be for discussion of Rephlex Records artists, but I think Brian had already seen the initials in the music press. I can ask him to be sure.
The reason I mentioned August 1993 was because that was when the list started. I was hoping that a search of articles published before that date would turn up something, but the music periodicals that might've mentioned IDM are not digitized/searchable. — mjb 00:28, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
Brian swears that neither he nor Alan would've been so pretentious as to come up with the "intelligent" bit themselves, but they might have been the first to coin the initialism "IDM" when they paired "intelligent" with "dance music" instead of "techno". He's not sure. He suggests researching the history of the term "intelligent techno". A quick search of Usenet reveals that Greg Earle used "Intelligent Techno" in reference to Coil's "The Snow" EP in November 1991 [1], and Samu Mielonen used "intelligent techno", pre-Artificial Intelligence, in April 1993 [2]. I'd infer from context (both authors provide definitions) that the term was new to both of them. Still, none of this is conclusive; there's still the question of what was in the music magazines, which back then had a much wider circulation than Usenet newsgroups. Did they mention "IDM", "intelligent dance music" or "intelligent techno"? — mjb 20:09, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
Great work. UK's New Musical Express and Melody Maker are the papers to search through. Thanks. Joyrex 10:02, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
Cool. Hm, that "intelligent techno" bit is a useful bit of the puzzle, but it's not enough to say that the term "IDM" definitely came from "intelligent techno." To say that in the article would constitute originial research without some kind of reference to the derivation. We can say that "intelligent techno" was mentioned in that review, but we can't say that it actually led to the term "IDM". Perhaps we can leave out the derivation and leave that logical step to the reader.
I don't see any such derivations/conclusions nor any conentious assertions in my addition this evening. It is our responsibility to not just report what has been said by others about IDM, but to point would-be researchers to reliable sources of information where possible. The reliability of a Usenet post as a source of information about assertions made in that post is negligible, but the Google's archive of the post is reliable as a source for the implicit claim that "Google Groups says that there existed this early pairing of the word 'intelligent' with what would become IDM's most relevant ancestor, in reference to exactly the kind of music that is the subject of the article, before any other".
On another note, mjb took out a lot more stuff than he needed to in his recent edit I think. Twelvethirteen 04:30, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
Um, recheck the diff! Material was added (cited reasonably well, though the refs need expanding beyond just a URL), but nothing was removed. The only substantial edit, aside from adding the Usenet refs, was re-expanding the oversimplified IDM list history, which had been subjected to a number of reductions in the past year that rendered it inaccurate. It was in much better shape a year ago, so I started with that version and rephrased it a bit.
Also, aren't these primary sources? Shouldn't they be avoided? Twelvethirteen 04:35, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
Depends; I've been following the WP:V discussions for a while now and there is not as much consensus as, uh, "some" (weasel word, I know) would like people to believe. The policies are there because of abusers, people who try to rewrite history or elevate the credibility of crackpot pseudoscience. The policies fail miserably for contemporary or underresearched, underreported pop-culture trends, because they assume that the only notable topics and information are those that have been written about. That's great when the topic is something that publishers have a market for, but books about IDM aren't being written because they're not being published because they're not going to fly off the shelves. However there's still a responsibility to not just print something as fact, no matter how plausible; things need not be dropped entirely but must be phrased and cited accordingly.
If WP:V and WP:OR are taken to extremes and Wikipedia is reduced to only being a megaphone for what has been printed in reputable secondary sources, there'd be no article on IDM at all. Even reputable sources have their shortcomings; boilerplate background info appended to newspaper and magazine articles is viral and has a way of becoming accepted as fact just through sheer momentum of the publishing industry, which by the way is motivated to publish what sells. I'm not going to wait for the Washington Post to interview Brian Behlendorf and Alan Parry and myself about the origins of the mailing list. No one cares about this stuff but us.
I suggest using the WP policies to fight contentious assertions or to refine them. For example, to qualify and properly attribute assertions rather than just making them, like I am saying (in effect) Google Groups, a reliable source of info on what was posted on Usenet, reports that in 1993, Greg Earle referred to Coil's "The Snow" EP as intelligent techno, the earliest use of that term on Usenet ... which is a much different thing than saying Greg Earle coined the term intelligent techno, and Coil's "The Snow" EP is an 'intelligent techno' recording, perhaps the earliest one, which is something I belive I definitely neither said nor implied.
Thankfully, the policies all contain clauses about common sense, and from what I understand, discussion on wikipedia-l confirms that they're not to be taken to extremes; challenge what ought to be challenged (things that would mislead if let stand), remove what ought to be removed (e.g. anything potentially libelous), but give people a chance to make the article better, too. Ultimately, unverifiable material gets removed, but for example, there's a pretty widespread belief around here that UK music mags were referring to IDM before 1993, and there's no harm in letting that stay in the article while we await confirmation, though I feel pretty strongly about putting leaving the citationneeded templates in. Who's gonna read through all this on Talk? :)mjb 06:50, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
I agree it's up to the editors to decide what qualifies as a reputable source. My biggest concern up to this point is that the article looks nice, reads well, and makes sense. So basically, if there's poor wording or bad organization of ideas, it's going to draw my attention, and I'll tend to investigate sources to try to clarify what the editor meant. And if the source looks sketchy, I'll usually call it out. But if you can assure me that sources are at least reasonable for the subject matter, and that they are representative of common opinion on their topic, I'll leave them in. I realize that good sources are hard to find for IDM, mainly because very little has been written about it in the mainstream media. Probably the best sources are Allmusic.com and music magazines like The Wire. When it comes down to it, I think this article should cover what we know about IDM: unusual electronic music derived from dance with a name that's contentious. Anyway, I have to get back to work. (for now) Twelvethirteen 17:05, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Non-electronic IDM artists?

The opening paragraph says that IDM is a wide range of styles of electronic and electronic-influenced music. What would be some examples of electronic-influenced music (which I read to mean music that is basically non-electronic) that is generally considered IDM?

(Somewhat related: I removed Nine Inch Nails from the notable IDM artist list. Rock bands that use electronics, like NiN and Radiohead, may have IDM-y tracks but I doubt consensus would be reached on calling them "IDM artists". They are artists that have dabbled in IDM, at best.) — mjb 23:56, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Múm, maybe? Their later stuff in particular. And I'd call Radiohead IDM long before Nine Inch Nails. Junjk 07:07, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

How can it be IDM if they play guitars and drums? IDM is so vague now that it will eventually consume all genres (joke).

[edit] Too vague

IDM is way too vague a genre name. Same for Electronica. Can't this article be edited into the Electronica one? Or seperate the artists into their own genres like Glitch.

Please Wikipedia:Sign your posts on talk pages. While you may be right that IDM is too vague a genre name, that doesn't mean it isn't commonly used. Hyacinth 09:53, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
Right: though there are plenty of criticisms of the genre term itself, it has been and is widely used and has a significant, documentable history. The article takes into consideration both the term's use and its critics. —Tarnas 15:45, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

It's vague, so anything made on a sequencer is "IDM". The description in the article is vague too. Can it be tightened? Shouldn't Kid 606 and Khonnor and all those yammas be in the Glitch article instead? Keep the IDM article, but keep the artists in their main genre's articles, I say. Squarepusher is jazz and drum and bass, so he belongs in those articles, but then 2 Lone Swordsmen or Autechre are plainly IDM, and wouldn't fit anywhere else as their "major". Also I'm a bit confused because isn't IDM another name for electronica? So the music and bands mostly belong in electronica, but the information related to the IDM name belongs in this article. How is something IDM or not? If there is no limit, then eventually Missy Elliot, Frou Frou, and Madonna might end up in the article.

Since IDM is not necessarily a description of a highly particular sound, the article instead goes into great depth following the history of the usage of "IDM" as a label. I think it's very clear: IDM has been applied first to electronic music that went beyond the standard forms of the early 1990s, then was defined as a particular stable of more esoteric, less rave-oriented, more Warp- and Rephlex-associated musicians, and has recently been used to describe more musical acts because electronic music not oriented toward dance has spread into the more general rock and pop genres. I'm sure back in the 1950s there were blues artists who scoffed at the new term "rock and roll" and said it was just a new kind of blues and jazz and martial drumming, but that didn't stop rock and roll from becoming a well-established though inevitably vague genre. I think it's also totally reasonable to include Squarepusher and others here: few artists belong to one genre, and there's nothing in the article saying that Squarepusher (for instance) is only IDM. Multi-faceted musical acts belong to multiple genres, and therefore belong in multiple genre articles. —Tarnas 04:29, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] What makes a band IDM? What makes a band not IDM?

Not sure who asked this, but replace IDM with any genre name, and the answer is the same: consensus in the music press mainly, and consensus among fans to a lesser extent. — mjb 01:21, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Acid House = generally repetitive riffs on top of 4/4 dancing music with an acid line from a roland tb -303 bass machine.
Drum and bass = sampled breakbeats normally like the amen breakbeat and funky drummer with deep sub-100hz bass, normally made on akai samplers, sometimes with black rappers on top.
Pop music Music which is normally a love song which enters the top 40 british music charts.
IDM A desire in the artist to take music from one electronic dance music genre and deviate from the standard template for that genre through an experimental and/or novel approach.
well, thats what i think. the prodigy arent idm, but if they started playing 240bpm music playing 4 cds at once to get the whole song out, then they would be IDM. (joke) Joyrex

[edit] Khonnor and other linkspam

Relative IDM newcomer Khonnor (that link is a multiply-deleted vanity page for User:Khonnor) was listed with a reference to a Google search [3] and a comment that said "see the hundreds of reviews". Well, if you filter out copies of the Wikipedia article, sites having nothing to do with music, and download.com linkspam, and then browse to the end of the Google results, you'll find that there are only about 200 unique sites, half of which are only mentioning him in connection with his Sónar appearance, plus 170,000 duplicates. [4]. You're spamming Wikipedia to influence the Google results, and you're spamming Google to influence Wikipedia. This is a clear example of artificially inflated 'notability'. Same thing with Wisp. Lame. If this continues, we'll just remove the list of notable IDM artists and point people to a category. — mjb 01:21, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

I reject this accusation totally. When I linked to Khonnor the google article had reviews from professional publications like NME and the New York Times in the list. The google effect you describe was definitely not deliberate, although you're right it has happened. I think accusing people like that is a bit nasty minded, but I guess you were just pissed off when you thought someone is on a windup. Khonnor is definitely notable, as he had "top" reviews in many professional publications. I'm not even a fan of his music. I just recognise that he is notable and that he represents a different style of IDM. And if you look at my ip, I am from the UK, he is from America. By the way, the Wikipedia Khonnor article is nothing to do with me. I merely added Khonnor to the IDM page with the google link. I won't link to google any more on wikipedia now I know about this spam effect. User:Joyrex

I like that idea. Can we just get rid of the list and make a category? That way there's no need to bicker about who's notable and who's not. If their article can survive an inevitable vfd, they're notable, and that's that. I'll do it if nobody has any objections, and I can't imagine why anybody would, aside from the fact that it would mean that Mr. Kirby-Long is no longer regarded as notable. Junjk 18:57, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm actually on the fence about whether to list notable IDM artists or not. If you look at a broad genre article like Rock (music) for example, there's no list, just a few examples in the prose, written in such a way that people aren't so tempted to add their favorite bands. I'm sure they gave up on listing notable rock bands in that article a long time ago. But the further down into the more specific subgenres you go, the more you'll see notable artists being listed. I guess the question is, what value does it add to the article? Does it help the scholar of modern popular music to see mid-2005's flavor-of-the-month listed alongside the genre's early pioneers, with nothing to indicate why they're being listed together? In the techno music article we have lists, but 'notability' is not the only factor; it's more related to where they're from and when they started making music. The disc jockey article is an example of something in between; there's a lot of notable DJs listed along with why they're listed, and many more are linked through categories. — mjb 20:18, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
Lol, it just seems like people were adding IDM bands they like into the article, so someone created the notable artist list to rid the article of clutter, now there are so many notable artists that you will delete the list. Well, at least it kept the main article free of clutter to have it. But Mjb and Junjk, you guys are pretty much in full control of this article so just do what you like with your ideas then the rest of us can edit smaller stuff in. I don't really mind.User:Joyrex
If it's true that we're in full control of the article, then that should change. Nobody on Wikipedia should control an article, ever. This clearly needs a deeper discussion than just what constitutes notability, or what constitutes IDM. I like the idea of talking about why artists are notable, but that would be pretty unseemly in a list, I think. Maybe a whole new section talking about important artists and there successors? Junjk 23:30, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
If Junjk and I wanted to be in full control of the article, we wouldn't be sitting here discussing drastic changes; we'd be making them. There are sections of this article aside from the notable arists list that are not written how I'd prefer, and I'm sure Junjk and Joyrex and the lurkers here feel the same. But we pick our battles. I don't want to get into a reversion war, nor do I feel comfortable cutting out every artist on the list just to put a stop to the spamming and addition of artists whose notability is dubious. I do, however, want people to see that behavior for what it is, and to be productive in curbing it. IMHO, an article about the IDM genre will not be any worse if it doesn't make mention of Bola and Plaid, but since those are very popular, influential IDM artists, they shouldn't be too many clicks away, either… There's no simple answer. — mjb 00:48, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
I like your response better. Hrmm. The most logical thing seems to be determining what the standard of notability in an IDM artist is, but I'm not sure where to start, and given the nature of the genre, it'd have to be a pretty fluid definition. Junjk 15:27, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
Hey, I just went and listened to a bit of Khonnor. If this is IDM, so is The Postal Service, and I think we can all agree that they're not, right? Junjk 19:06, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
Hey, I just listened to a bit of Aphex Twin. If this is IDM, why is it a piano playing sounds? This sounds like Erik Satie, and I think we can all agree that he's not IDM, right? :-) User:Joyrex
If Aphex Twin had released an album of just his piano works, I would say that that album wasn't IDM. Of course, this side-steps the fact that Aphex has a good 15 years of albums behind him, and near as I can figure Handwriting is Khonnor's first album. Anyway, though, I really don't think that music which has guitar and voice as its central elements can really qualify as IDM. I'm not saying that Khonnor's music is good or bad, just that it's only barely electronic music. Despite all evidence to the contrary, though, I really don't want to turn this in to a debate over what IDM is or isn't, because that essentially is a debate over whether or not the music is creative, and that's very dangerous territory. I'd like to avoid having to pass judgement on musicians where possible. Junjk 23:30, 24 October 2005 (UTC)


MY 2 CENTS

i like the idea of idm have no central idenity and a fluid moveing debate about what it is. anything that is always in a state of becomeing and nomadic seems somewhat new into its self . i liked the name IDM beacuse it was just not only electronic but could be a space for other types of experemental movements. i like telling people i like idm and gettinga "what is that " response. at the moment idm has huge potental. but how can that potental be approriated when its idenitity is fluid and non exsistant? a useful stategey for new ways of thinking

[edit] Detroit

Ok i can accept most of what this article has to say. What I feel is a glaring omission however, is that in the early influences part, to mention B12 and As One, the Orb and others and make no reference at all to Detroit techno is unfortunate. Detroit techno was what inspired the majority of the first wave of influential "idm" musicians to start making a racket in the first place. When i was reading some of the first interviews ever given by people like Richard James, The Black Dog, B12 etc. i would rarely get through an article without some mention to Detroit techno. The Detroit sound was born out of the marriage of Kraftwerk and the emerging inner city electro sound combined with the early flavourings of Chicago house. The music of Detroit's earliest and most influential originators would often transcend straight ahead techno and venture into a realm of real intelligence that would not be replicated with the same passion or flair for many years to come. To try and track who was influenced by what would be futile, but names such as Derrick May, Juan Atkins, Drexcia, Jeff Mills, Carl Craig and Kevin Saunderson are truly legendary. And that's just the main players. Detroit ushered in such a monumental tsunami of change in the electronic music landscape, that without it's innovation, most of what we listen to today, no matter how many degrees of separation it may be from Detroit, would likely never have gotten made. I didn't feel it proper to alter the actual article because it's quite good, but I post this here for anyone who has not had a chance to discover some of the most forward thinking music made in the past 30 years. If Detroit cannot be considered Intelligent Dance Music, than neither can anything that sprouted forth from it's womb.

IDM is a preposterous genre name. This much is recognised by all music, aphex twin, and so on. Aphex Twin is influenced by those artists that you listed. IDM as a musical genre are the groups who were influenced by Aphex Twin. If you're calling music IDM then you are on the internet and you are describing music that is influenced by Aphex Twin. The Detroit thing is part of Aphex Twin's history. IDM's history starts with the IDM list.

[edit] Edits by 81.104.136.184: Amateur production & Fruityloops...

I have removed the description of amateurs using FL Studio. Your sentence has one scant reference to a page describing how to create "IDM" with FruityLoops, it does not say anything about who does this. If there are in fact amateur IDM artists creating their music with fruityloops, then state it. However, you paragraph implies that there are amateurs and that they use fruityloops to imitate warp records productions. The reference you provided proves none of that.--ДрakюлaTalk 21:24, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing this up. I know for years that fruityloops has a reputation for beginners IDM software. If you ever hung around planet-mu or watmm or xltronic you would know. I don't know how to put this into proper writing for inclusion on wikipedia. Do you know how to do it specifically for this point. I know there is mention of 909 grooveboxes and that for live performance. I think there is a big hobbyist movement of IDM made on Fruityloops and to a lesser extent tracker software, because I have heard many artists over the years on messageboards who use it. I think most IDM music is strongly influenced by Warp Records, and this amateur fruityloops style needs a shoutout in the IDM article. Ok, I don't know how to write things properly because I didn't go to university. Help me out blud, if you could spare a little kindness to someone less intelligent than you. User:Joyrex
What you have said here is a good start. I, myself have never heard of anyone notable using FL Studio to construct IDM. I don't doubt it has been done (Hell, I do it myself!). However, A mere mention of FL after the other softwares, perhaps even adding, "less popular software for creating IDM is FL", or something like that. I don't see a source emphasizing the popularity of FL for IDM, is what I am saying, and this should be reflected in the article. If these artists ever make it big (WP:MUSIC), then the FL part deserves more attention. --ДрakюлaTalk 01:00, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
To supply a "notable" using FL-Studio ... look to the blog of proem. He uses FL-Studio among other things. Personally I find it generally incorrect to state that any tool is more professional than another without supplying a waterproof explanation why that were to be the case.
For example:
I have used both Ableton Live and FL-Studio myself, and I could not put the finger on it why one would be a more "professional" tool than the other. If we were talking Logic, Cubase or Protools versus FL-Studio, that would be another story. Those programs offer a much higher level of complexity in music production and sound engineering. A lot of the features offered by those programs, however, are intended for actual studio recording projects like recording bands, or orchestras for film soundtracks. I would propose, that such features are not strictly necessary for electronic music production, which neither makes heavy use of polyphony, nor does it involve sound engineering that aims to recreate the sound of a concerthall or the "live" feeling of a band performance. The main difference being, that recording of live instruments has to pass on the sound of the instrument in it's most crisp and clear quality onto a recording medium; i.e. there is a "real life" example of how that instrument sounds. In electronic music, the sound remains "inside the box" either as analogue wave or as a digital waveform computation. It only becomes "actual" sound once it reaches the speakers. The sound engineering necessary to produce either result differs quite substantially.
Finally, the whole argumentation about FL-Studio does not hold when looked at in the light of the statement that Venetian Snares is using trackers. On one hand this artist is not considered to be an amateur, on the other hand, he is using software that is even more limited and simple than FL-Studio.
--User:conosphaera 04:29, 30. March 2006 (CET)
Umm. Fruityloops is cheap. Any kid can afford it, so that's what he buys. That's the point. The notable thing about Venetian Snares in this context is that he got famous by making music on software that was free. Cheap/free = what the amateurs mostly use. Waterproof! Let's revise that section of the article to not offend you and your friends then... thanks.

[edit] Steve Albini's brutal criticism of IDM.

"As the idiom developed, the music became more and more about the novelty of certain sounds and treatments, ridiculously trivial aspects like tempo and choice of samples, and the public personae of the makers. It became a race to novelty. I find that kind of evolution beneath triviality. It is a decorative, not substantive, evolution."

Steve Albini is a well known recording engineer and journalist who has 20 years experience of making records by famous and unfamous artists. When asked of his opinion of groups like Aphex Twin and µ-ziq he replied with this quote. It's quite a brutal criticism, that up to the race to novelty part is dead on accurate. Steve Albini is known for being honest and sincere and objective and his opinions have stood well against time before. That's why I think this quote shouldn't be deleted or reverted or have some Wikipedia user type his refutation of the criticism into this article.

First, please Wikipedia:Sign your posts on talk pages. Secondly, while Albini is respected, and known for his honesty, he is not know for his objective opinions but rather for being willing to trash even those he has worked for. That said, if the quote has a source and appropriate context I think it should stay in the article. Hyacinth 09:53, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
Squarepusher also criticised IDM quite brutally. I might add that to the Albini criticism, and seperate the criticisms of the IDM name and IDM music. Unless someone beats me to it. Joyrex
Do you really think that's wise? It might be me, but this article already seems a bit critical of IDM even without this Criticisms of IDM section. I assume at least some people actually like IDM, so in keeping with wikipedia's proportion and emphasis guidelines, it might be a good idea to include something on notable praise of IDM, lest this article become an IDM self-loathing fest. Twelvethirteen 21:27, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] IDM as a "novel approach"

We have a paragraph in the opener right now that basically says IDM is an umbrella term for music that deviates from the norm. This is pretty vague and can be used to describe a lot of music that isnt IDM. This is more a description of avant garde (which, while related to IDM, is not the same). If no one has any argument, I'm going to either get rid of this or rework it so it's more specific to IDM. Twelvethirteen 02:30, 19 January 2006 (UTC

Go ahead.

Unconventional sequencing and processing? Loads of r&b/rap music is like that. Damn near every new guitar record is sequenced and processed on protools. :)

Haha, good call. But, I'd say if everyone is doing it a certain way, it's conventional. I think what you are saying means that protools is conventional, not that guitar music uses unconventional production. I'm talking about the things that are done during production, not the tools which are used for the production (though tools do have an undeniable effect on which things are done in studio).Twelvethirteen 20:44, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sources

Anyone know how to add sources to the article? This article doesn't really have any sources, and I was thinking of going looking for them, but I don't knwo how to add them into the article. If anyone else can look for sources, that would be a big help to the article. I wont go round deleting stuff, but I will try to find a source for everything.

I'm a personal friend of the IDM mailing list founders and was active on the list from day one (though I gave up on it some years later), and I still am co-admin of Hyperreal, so my contributions regarding that topic are basically first-hand info, although I can point you to the list archives.
Wikipedia isn't supposed to use first hand information. Is a discussion list acceptable as a source?
As for how to cite sources, see Wikipedia:Template_messages/Sources_of_articles. Very recently, after I saw the Intelligent Design article's references section, I followed its lead and used the ref and note templates in the Acid house article. In my references I wanted to incorporate fair-use quotations of any material that I couldn't readily link to, and I think it worked out pretty well. — mjb 03:23, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
Could you add a couple of sources? Or just one. Then we can add our own in the same way. Thanks. User:Joyrex

[edit] IDM musicians category and list

In an effort to cut down on the edit wars and spamming going on in the 'Notable IDM artists' section, there is now a category for Wikipedia articles about IDM musicians and groups: Category:IDM musicians. I explain the rationale a little bit more on Category_talk:IDM musicians. While setting up the category, I noticed there is a Category:Folktronica, so I put a couple of artists in there as well.

I was a little bit stingy about putting breakcore/drill'n'bass artists in the IDM category, which reflects my prejudices a bit, although I do realize Aphex Twin, Venetian Snares, and Richard Devine produce some pretty hard material that no one questions is IDM and that isn't much different from what some of the artists coming from hardcore techno backgrounds produce. So if someone wants to put [[Category:IDM musicians]] in those articles, feel free. However I am less amenable to listing every one of those artists here in the IDM article; use categories and lists, linked to from this article, and work out how to relate the genre to IDM via prose, please.

Speaking of lists, I did not create a List of IDM musicians article, although I think one is needed. It's apparent that there is a high demand for every IDM artist on the planet to be mentioned somewhere on Wikipedia, regardless of notability, so it seems a separate list (so that Wikipedia articles aren't needed for each artist) is the best option. If someone wants to create it, be my guest; I'm done for the day. — mjb 01:46, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] IDM also "Intellectual Dance Music"

The IDM moniker is now supposed to mean "Intellectual Dance Music", which is both non-insulting (thus non-controversial) and more accurate (in line with "braindance"). I have quickly edited the lead to namecheck it (there was already a redirect for it, too).

However, I think the article should probably be edited to better reflect the other name. The first name and the "controversy" are things of the past, more worthy of a historic section about them. Actually, the page should maybe be moved to intellectual dance music, and the lead be more like " Intellectual Dance Music or simply IDM is ... (It was formerly known as Intelligent Dance Music.) "

References: I have no idea when the switch from "intelligent" to "intellectual" was actually suggested, or who coined it -- any information about that is welcome. But its actual use is easy to check: Google query for { "intellectual dance music" -wikipedia } -- About 550 hits, excluding Wikipedia mirrors. Admittedly a minority use yet, but that's also the weight of 10+ years of the other meaning being cut-n-pasted.

Comments, suggestions, objections, informations?

-- 62.147.113.140 02:20, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Sounds ok to me. Joyrexchanged my mind Joyrex

I object strongly to the proposal of renaming the article to make the "I" stand for anything other than "Intelligent". This is not what an encyclopedia is for. You are proposing renaming an article and an entire genre of music just to suit your preference and promote an extremely unpopular (and, as far as we can tell, accidental) interpretation of what the "I" stands for. It was always "Intelligent". It is documented far and wide as "Intelligent". If there is a movement afoot to change it to "Intellectual" then we can document that, but we can't make the article be the movement, and I don't see any evidence that people want to change it anyway. Take this discussion to the mailing list and see what kind of support you get. —mjb 22:17, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

agreed, definitly just a mention if notable. (just a note; someone tried to start Indie Dance Music a while back [5].) --MilkMiruku 00:29, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

I may be highly incorrect, and please correct me if I am, but I have never heard IDM referred to as "Intellectual Dance Music". The more heard of term is Intelligent Dance Music. Is there any point of reference that can verify this claim? Any info would be much appreciated. -- DJ RedSkeye

[edit] Geographical Bias

I find it a bit biased to say that the spread of IDM happened mostly in the United States. Many prominently featured artists of the "new generation" are from elsewhere. For example: Boards of Canada (Scotland), Amon Tobin (Brazil/UK), Bauri (Sweden), Apparat (Germany), Venetian Snares (Canada), Quench/Funckarma (Netherlands) ... the list could go on. My point is, I'd like to propose that the paragraph stating that "In particular, during this period, IDM production greatly increased in the United States." may be rephrased to reflect that this increase was rather more widespread than just in the states, maintaining that it certainly was significant there. -- Conosphaera 03:11, 30 March 2006 (UTC) go ahead

[edit] Intelligent Dance Music Samples

If the groups listed in this section do not have wikipedia pages associated with them already, they are probably not representative enough to be included. I am removing watershell, floex, paranoia and biot. If you intend to revert the page, please have the courtesy to at least offer an argument as to why.

Sorry for the earlier revert. You removed them without an edit summary saying why. This made the edit look a lot like common vandalism. Now that you have explained, I will not revert it again. --GraemeL (talk) 18:14, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] idm genrebox

i've restored the genrebox once more. the argument "the links are all in the prose of the article." was given when it was first removed. well, yes, obviously. the point of a genrebox isn't to reveal information that can't be found somewhere else in the article. the point is, to quote Wikipedia:Infobox templates, that "they are designed to present summary information about an article's subject". also, the edit summary stated "it's embarrasingly lacking of information" - well, if it's lacking in information then update it and don't disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point. --MilkMiruku 18:59, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

There's not enough information to fill the genre box or at least make it interesting. Nobody can update it, because there isn't enough interesting information to go in there. It looks like a work in progress. Mainstream popularity: Medium What does that mean? Is there a source? I think it's opinion. If I'm in the minority, would anyone consider removing the infobox for now, storing it on the talk page until we can fill the contents enough with good information to make it useful? The information already in the genre box is boring, stupid, or wrong. Anything good in there has already been written in the prose of the article.--Jones5 15:28, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
as the infobox page says, the genrebox is a quick reference guide for readers who want to get the basic information about the style without them having to spand time scanning through the whole page. you only mention the popularity section as being flawed, but i'm pretty sure there's a reputable enough electronic music history book or website out there that talks about the popularity of idm which could be referenced. can i ask what else do you find at fault with it so we can sort it out? --MilkMiruku 23:29, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
Mainstream popularity Medium. You've gotta be joking! Even with a source, it's meaningless and less than trivial.
Derivative forms Indietronica
The -tronica hints that this is a derivative form of electronica. So there is no need for this in the IDM article.
Glitch
Not really a subgenre of IDM. It's more like something on the side of IDM, rather than underneath it. It didn't follow down from Aphex Twin and Warp Records, it developed seperately.
Drill 'n bass, Breakcore
These are genres of drum and bass...
With this information removed, perhaps the box won't look so bad. How about removing this information then?
--Jones5 10:33, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
on indietronica; if you read the article or listen to some of the bands described in the article then you'd understand how it's related to idm.
I took a look. They all look like bands who have mixed electronica and indie rock to me. I say folktronica is a subgenre of electronica, and is on the side of IDM, rather than beneath it.
on glitch; i'd have though it should either be listed in 'Subgenres', 'Derivative forms' or 'Other topics', but there would probably have to be a seperate discussion about the relationship between idm and glitch before anything is changed.
When I hear the genre name Glitch I instantly think of Kid606 and Tigerbeat6. I don't think of Aphex Twin and Warp Records. Therefore, I think IDM and Glitch are seperate genres. Glitch is not a subgenre of IDM.
drill 'n bass is much like glitch in the sense that it's definitly related, but the history and relationship of the genre to idm needs to be sorted out. breakcore is more a derivitive of idm/glitch, hardcore and breakbeat than dnb so should also get a mention in the genrebox --MilkMiruku 12:24, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
drill 'n bass is related to this article by the artists Aphex Twin, Luke Vibert, and Squarepusher. The music itself is related to hardcore, breakbeat, and dnb. That's an awkward one, I admit. It's further awkward, seeing as Squarepusher rejected IDM in an essay. folktronica and glitch aren't subgenres of IDM, please remove them from the genre box.Jones5

WHY IS THIS USELESS GENRE BOX BEING REVERTED ALL THE TIME? THE CONTENT IS NIFF.

Please sign your discussion posts with four tildes at the end. And don't for get to keep discussions civil.
Anyway, genreboxes on Wikipedia are not designed to devine true ontologies of music. They are partially to document verifiable relationships between genres of music, such as the relationships between a genre and its subgenres. Whether or not breakcore or drill'n'bass are musically derived from IDM or Drum'n'Bass, there are documented cases of people calling artists like Venetian Snares both IDM and Breakcore, and people have called aphex twin's music both IDM and Drill'n'Bass. In fact, its even been suggested by lonelymachines that IDM artist Autechre originated drill'n'bass with Cichlisuite.
Even if the content of the genrebox is incomplete or inaccurate, every other A-class genre page has one. Is IDM so bereft of content that we can't come up with something to fill it with?
Yep.

[edit] Incorrect redirect

Experimental techno ends up getting redirected to the IDM page. This is horribly wrong. Experimental techno is a musical genre unto its own. If any citation is needed at all, go to AllMusic.com and read up on it. Experimental techno could be said to be a subgenre of IDM, but they are not one in the same. Can anyone possibly fix this? Red why dont you

[edit] removed diatribe in overview

The IDM list was originally created in August of 1993 for the discussion of music relating to Aphex Twin and Warp's early "Artificial Intelligence" compilations. Since that time, both the list and the range of music that is discussed on it have grown considerably. As there is no set definition of the boundaries of "Intelligent Dance Music", the official stance is that all opinions are to be respected. That being said, when you declare that "Rozalla is intelligent dance music", you should be willing and able to back it up - not just "because it obviously is."

im not sure why this was in the introduction/overview. it's neither relevant for a brief introduction to IDM nor is it NPOV. theres a weasely reference to "the official stance," whatever that means, and it gives readers advice on what they "should be willing" to do. it sounds more like a guideline to wikipedians than a proper encyclopedic statement. lets leave this kind of thing on the discussion pages. Twelvethirteen 20:18, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

It's a full quote from the IDM list page. They're the ones responsible for this genre name! Well, we had a lot of trouble with the first paragraph, so this was pasted in as a guide, it was much better than the original paragraph. About the first two paragraphs up there are the moment, I am satisfied with them.

[edit] IDM production & professional/amateur production

I have changed this section. I am an 'amateur' IDM producer of about 6 years. Not only has software and hardware changed, but this distinction is extremely hard to sustain. Many 'amateur' artists have albums out in the shops, and many 'professional' arists release their materials for free on the internet. I can discern very little difference between high quality and original non-profit material, and profitable materials. Indeed, with the advent of new forms of property rights (e.g. creative commons) and new forms of distribution (internet, etc), the entire article begins to read like it was written by the rules of the late 80s or something.

I have also updated the section on production; this seemed rather dated - and focussed on technology as a reason for a convergence of sound. This contradicted earlier statements about 'copy cat' production.

[edit] Some Editing

Hi. I'm doing some fairly extensive edits, since I've been kind of disheartened with the state of the article. There have been a lot of anonymous contributions, and people have been neglecting the wikipedia style guide and guidelines on verifiability. Please check these guidelines when you edit. Also please check out Wikipedia:WikiProject_Music_genres/Guidelines. I'm really into IDM and I hate to see the article in disrepair like this.

Anyway, raise a fuss if you don't like anything I'm doing here. Twelvethirteen 18:57, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps it's time to archive the talk page, and then nuke each unsourced claim from the main article. We need a precise, sourced definition of the genre name IDM. Then we can build the article around that. At the moment there is little in the article to seperate the music of IDM from Electronic Music. Aphex Twin is an Electronic Musician and his music is a descendent of the Electronic Music greats such as Stockhausen and Delia Derbyshire. The genre name IDM apparently came from Aphex Twin's press campaigns of making himself out to be a genius of the likes of Joe Meek. Because the origins of this genre name are so faulty and insincere, I think it will always be difficult to construct a good article here. Was there ever a useful definition of IDM in a magazine such as The Wire? We are desperate for sources based on published magazines, rather than original research from electronic music fans.
Please sign your discussion posts.
There's a lot of good stuff in the article, and I think a lot of it should stay in. The point of this article is not to give an account of the origins of the name IDM, but to inform people about what IDM is, i.e. characteristics of the sound, its history, and its importance. If that quote from the IDM list belongs anywhere in this article, it is in the History section, not in the lead, as it is not suitable for a brief overview of the topic. That quote is not a description of IDM, but merely a statement of policy from a mailing list.
I'm going to revert the changes you made, since I think you'll find a consensus here that at least some of this article is good, and certainly not every substantial section nees to be nuked to fix the problem areas. From now on, if you think something needs improvement, at least nuke one section at a time.
If you really think we need something as extreme as a total rewrite to fix this article (I don't), build consensus on this discussion page first. Twelvethirteen 00:10, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
I see your beef is with citing sources. If you peruse other music genre articles, you'll find that there are no sources cited for much of the Characteristics sections, even in articles which are explicitly cited as examples of good practice in the music genre guidelines. See Heavy metal music#Characteristics, Punk rock#Characteristics, Funk#Characteristics, Bouncy techno#Characteristics. The reasons for this I see as twofold. First, inline citations are not always necessary, as there is a references section at the bottom of the page. Second, the characteristics listed are musicological, and would be immediately obvious to anyone who has listened to the music. In this sense, while there are no sources listed, the claims are still verifiable by listening to any of the artists listed on the page.
Twelvethirteen 00:22, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Also, sorry, but 63.114.19.12 is me. I must have gotten an idle timeout and not have realized it.Twelvethirteen 00:23, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

We should base this article purely on music magazine sources, because I feel that is the only way to make a decent article. What to do? Set a time limit on adding a source to this article before deleting something?

The verifiability link you posted says we should not allow unsourced things to remain, even if it goes against talk page consensus. The responsibility of posting a source is down to the person who adds the contribution. Even if there is good stuff, if it is neither sourced nor verifiable then it must be deleted. I feel that if we're very strict on this, then the article will soon become good and verifiable. Leaving it alone is an invitation for lazy people to not add sources. I'm kind of pissed off because I'm the only one who has added any sources to this article.

I'm a bit confused about what to do. If we make an article based on things purely from The Wire, NME, Melody Maker, Rolling Stone, and other magazines, then we will have little problems. We can then nuke any unsourced additions right away, because they will be obvious. Even if your opinion is Squarepusher is the best IDM artist, you'll need a source from a good magazine otherwise it gets deleted, that's how I want it to be.

Should I spend time adding sources for everything in this article? Well, I have no responsibility to do that according to the verifiabilty link. I have a responsibility to delete everything that is not sourced and verifiable. I think if we do that, then all of the no source editors will crawl out from under their lazy hideouts and add a source when they make an edit. I admit I've done edits here without a source, and I see now that they should be deleted.

Not sourced? Sorry piece of information, you may not be published on the Wikipedia IDM page. The verifiabilty rule beats damn near any other rule and overrules even what happens in popular articles.

You are right. After reviewing the verifiability policy, I can see that It's extremely important to have verifiable sources. My fear is that the article will become a mishmash of verifiable but less-than-notable facts about IDM. Its going to take a lot of effort to present even the notable facts in a way that is actually readable. I'm not averse to this. I'm just wondering if there will even be an IDM article after these revisions.

Twelvethirteen 17:57, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

What are the notable facts? What are we going to lose be sticking to mostly print sources? If there's a notable fact, it should be easy to find a source for it.
I agree. My objection to your nuke is mainly that much of the information in the article (as I touched on before) is good. By that I mean that, while the sources are not cited, I believe sources do exist for much of it. Because of this, it would be nice to keep the information somehow readily available (more readily than in the edit history, as information like that tends to be forgotten). I propose that, instead of simply deleting offending passages, we comment them out, and add a citation needed tag to the comment. Since verifiability is so important to wikipedia, if you feel like removing an unsourced passage, apply your critical skills to the article to decide which passages probably have sources somewhere, and which ones are idle speculation or completely unverifiable even in principle. Delete the latter, and comment out the former, so potentially verifiable information stays available to future editors who may be searching for the sources that these claims come from.
My recent edits reflect this idea. Take a look to see what I mean in practice.
Twelvethirteen 17:51, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] AABA?

which primarily use this form include Autechre and Boards of Canada. Artists which use other musical forms, including "AABA" form, include Aphex Twin, Squarepusher, and Venetian Snares. All I can say is -- lol what? AABA? Explain please.

haha ok yeah. I forgot to add a link to AABA. Its a musical form. It's like verse chorus verse chorus bridge verse chorus. Pop music uses this form a lot. Twelvethirteen 17:45, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Radiohead and IDM

I'm a firm believer that Thom Yorke of radiohead cited either autechre or aphex twin or both as influences. I'm going to really dig to find some sources for these claims. So far I have found interviews with Yorke where he mentions:

  • an aphex twin song changing his life [6]
  • being into "electronica stuff like Autechre and Aphex Twin" [7]

I have also read (though not from a reliable source) that yorke cites chiastic slide as an influence, and I've heard (though it could be bunk) that he cites it as one of his favorite records of all time. If anyone has any sources for this, it'd be awesome to include. Twelvethirteen 22:54, 11 August 2006 (UTC) He said electronica, not IDM.

[edit] merging snare rush?

I dont think its a good idea to merge the snare rush article into the characteristics section. Snare rushes arent restricted to IDM. Trance and other electronic genres use them as well. Besides, they arent really a notable enough part of IDM to include as a significant part of the artile. Maybe a line with a link to the snare rush article would be appropriate, but it would need a reputable source (which I frankly dont think we can find).

[edit] Boards of Canada and software synthesis

Regarding this paragraph:

In the late 1990s record labels from around the globe began to notice IDM artists pushing electronic "listening music" in new directions. Notable artists from this period include Boards of Canada and others on the Skam Records label, many of which were beginning to use software synthesis, a technology that had recently become possible to use on ordinary personal computers.

I find this misleading, as Boards of Canada are well known for their use of hardware synths, often analog. While they have used computers at time, I have never heard of them using software synthesis. I suspect that comment was in reference to other Skam artists, like Autechre, but I don't know their roster that well. While certainly BoC should not be removed as a notable artist from the early 90s (and on Skam to boot), this should be changed in some way to avoid lumping them in with the software synthesis crowd. I just don't know enough about that subgroup to provide examples. Pimlottc 14:54, 3 November 2006 (UTC) boc were namechecked on the reaktor website

[edit] this should redirect to intelligent dance music

It's almost always what people are trying to link to when they type IDM. P4k 01:48, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

This article is about intelligent dance music, so I don't see what the problem is. According to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (technical restrictions), article names with leading lower-car characters are not supported. Hyacinth 02:34, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Deletion

This article (as well as Electronica and a few others) will be deleted one day. It's simply ridicolous that slang terms can reach the status of encyclopedic terms. IDM is popular in many p2p networks, and some music-zines, but it is not a new music genre, or a genre that differs from not-commercial techno.Dr. Who 02:22, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Is this a prediction or a threat? Exactly what is unencylopedic about slang? Please note that IDM is not just popular among your limited list, but that the article contains citations to AllMusicGuide and other sources. Hyacinth 02:37, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
Allmusicguide is not an academic-recognized and verifiable source of information, indeed many reviews are made by common internet users, not by reputable journalists or academics. Please let me know who and when decided that all slang words are usually included in encyclopedias; Wikipedia is not a dictionary, this is obviously true. Though a given word is commonly used, it doesn't mean that such word refers to a commonly agreed truth. There are many people around claiming that the term IDM is just a joke. IDM fans have some serious troubles in admitting that IDM musicians are playing discomusic, dancemusic, and are not the Kraftwerk. What's wrong with the words disco, dance and techno? Dr. Who 02:56, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Disagree. IDM seems to be the word replacing the notion "intelligent techno" which was commonly used for all the artists not fitting into one of the established categories ten years ago. And disco, dance and techno are three of these categories used in the 90s but no more common today. 195.46.251.215 18:40, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

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