6 ms·

Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music

286 points by 1f97 7y ago

DanAtC 7y ago
Wow. 20 years in the making. Be sure to check out his 15-hour, 3.5 decade-spanning mix https://mobile.twitter.com/Ishkur23/status/1163294742949445632 https://mobile.twitter.com/Ishkur23/status/11632947429494456...
- duncanawoods 7y ago
  A 2GB mp3 - woah! Actual link for easier save-as: http://ishkur.com/mixes/Ishkur_-_The_Longplay.mp3 http://ishkur.com/mixes/Ishkur_-_The_Longplay.mp3
- MivLives 7y ago
  Is there a torrent around anywhere? His site is being slammed.
lukey_q 7y ago
Oh my gosh, I clicked expecting to see the classic old version... this is an updated one!! It looks like this one even shows the progression of the sound of a genre or subgenre over time, not just the other genres that came from it. Forgive my excitement but damn, the original guide was an absolute treasure of the early (at least for me) internet, and as a teenager getting into electronic music but with no real local scene or context for any of this stuff to say it was eye-opening is an understatement. Find a song or genre you liked (for me it was early French Touch/filter house) and you could see similar genres, plus what inspired it and what it inspired. And back then if you weren't familiar with this stuff everything with electronic drums or synths was lumped into "techno" (remember Eminem's infamous line about that) so it was great to figure out the actual names of the genres and subgenres I was into so I could dig deeper. Shout out to Ishkur, I'm obviously thrilled to see this today.
- harryh 7y ago
  BTW v2.5 of the guide can still be found here (requires flash): http://techno.org/electronic-music-guide/ http://techno.org/electronic-music-guide/
- stuntkite 7y ago
  I was just talking about this the other day with glowing nostalgia. What a delightful unexpected event. I had a similar experience to you with the flash version and it lead me to start making music myself and get involved in a scene that really was one of the most valuable experiences of my young life. Having the graph to explore the lexicon for what exists and examples side by side to get an understanding of why felt like finding a secret treasure map. I can only think of one other flash program I've gone and searched out in the years since and it's the dumb Something Awful Jeff K cartoon making fun of Linux users [0]. Any time I've shown the old version to people over the years it blew their minds. If I ever make anything half as impactful I'll consider myself pretty lucky. [0] https://www.somethingawful.com/feature-articles/jeff-ks-user/ https://www.somethingawful.com/feature-articles/jeff-ks-user...
unicornporn 7y ago
I remember using this in the very early 2000. I made electronic music myself, and it functioned as a sort of mashup between Wikipedia and the recommendations at Spotify. I remember browsing the genres, getting some recommendation and searching for the files on Soulseek. When I found the files I could browse all the files of the user that shared them and often find similar acts. Lovely times. Still have the files, btw. :-)
- klez 7y ago
  I think you should click the link. This is not what you were using in the early 2000s :)
  - unicornporn 7y ago
    I saw that. Not that far from it though. Remember the selection of genres and some of the samples provided. Much is still the same.
gingabriska 7y ago
I am interested in producing music but is there any book which can you teach you from scratch.
- omer_balyali 7y ago
  Audible Genius (http://www.audiblegenius.com http://www.audiblegenius.com) -> This is really a good resource. The subscription will be online tomorrow, 14,99$/m. I'm using it for some months now and it's really helpful, it develop your ear enormously. It's from the same guy who created Syntorial (http://www.syntorial.com http://www.syntorial.com). Dance Music Manual (http://www.dancemusicproduction.com http://www.dancemusicproduction.com) from Rick Snoman, version 4 has been recently released and it's the only book you need (for a time being). I don't own it but Secrets of Dance Music Production looks good too. Melodics (http://www.melodics.com http://www.melodics.com) is also good for practicing keyboard, if you're interested in learning to play the keyboard. Music Production is very similar to front-end development, especially Javascript development. Your hardware-software studio is like your bundle system, continuous integration etc. So there are many moving parts to learn and it takes time and many many readings (books, blogs, forums, facebook groups, music store product descriptions etc.). It also takes time to develop your ear and in time you will see that new levels will be opened in your mind, like a game. You will hear more details, you will easily describe the qualities of the sound (is it sine wave or a square, what kind of sonic movements happening, what kind of effects with what kind of settings make that specific sound sound like that) It's fun, takes time, may take money (if you're interested in hardware studio and premium software plugins). But it's basically so much fun!
- ptah 7y ago
  back in the day, from drum and bass/jungle, essentially it consisted of hanging out on dogasonacid.com the grid subforum. not srure about other genres. there are some online courses nowadays
- anon9001 7y ago
  If you know how to use the tools but can't make anything that feels like music, you just have to keep copying songs until you understand how it works. It's just practice like anything else. There's a bunch of fantastic youtube channels that show the whole production process now too. If you don't know how to use the tools, that's a whole world. There's a bunch of different camps, but if you're trying to do EDM, then Ableton Live or FL Studio are pretty popular. There's open source stuff too, but I don't know much about it. Some people prefer to use hardware instead. Then there's those weird modular synth nerds. It really depends what you want to do and how much you want to spend. A commercial package like FL Studio will come with a bunch of standard plugins that would get you pretty far before venturing into the world of virtual instruments. There's a few books on the subject (Dance Music Manual comes to mind), but honestly I don't think they're very helpful. You can get extremely far without knowing any music theory, and it's hard to describe audio stuff in a book, so you'll probably get more out of youtube searches about whatever you're trying to do.
bigiain 7y ago
Some of these genre descriptions are _awesome!_ - th9s is from the LiquidFunk subgenre of Drum n Bass: "Just before the turn of the millenium is when a sufficient number of white people were attending Jungle parties to the point where music writers and magazines stopped calling it Jungle and rebranded it Drum n Bass, although the partykids retained the label "junglists" and they're still called that today (probably because "drumnbassists" isn't as catchy). Not coincidentally this is also the point where the two-step drum kick takes over everything, ushering in an age of mediocrity for a scene that was once specifically noted for its unique and inventive drum programming. You might as well call this Disco n Bass. As if things couldn't get any worse for Disco n Bass, the lucrative opportunity of mad festival money in the 2010s compelled it to whore itself into a subgenre depository of shitty pop remixes heretofore known as Dancefloor. If you hear a Lady Gaga or Taylor Swift or even Adele remix with a powerful Pendulum two-step drum kick, it's technically Dancefloor: The end game of pop music trendwhore oblivion. "
- ptah 7y ago
  yes, it required a big adjustment going to 100% step style all the time. it was a subgenre that took over the whole scene
- ethbro 7y ago
  "There are subgenres of Deep House that get even deeper, jazzier, and more soulful. One of my favorites is something I like to call "Dad House", because its liberal employment of walking basslines and saxophone solos evoke images of your dad walking around the house in his bathrobe on a Sunday morning before settling into his favorite chesterfield chair to smoke a pipe and read the newspaper in front of a roaring fire. Well, mine anyway." Provided link: http://ishkur.com/oldmixtapes/Jeffro%20-%20Five%20In%20Da%20Monin%20A.mp3 http://ishkur.com/oldmixtapes/Jeffro%20-%20Five%20In%20Da%20... I know what I'm doing this Sunday morning.
- new_here 7y ago
  "The word Garage doesn't mean anything pertinent other than its name comes from the legendary Paradise Garage nightclub in New York City where DJ Larry Levan would play anything he damn well pleased." "Today what most people think is House music is actually Garage. And what most people think is Garage is some dodgy nonsense the British sharted into their trousers. Someone should really try and set the record straight about that. Like make a guide or something." I love a bit of UK Garage but laughed out loud when I read that line about trousers. This Ishkur guy is a beast.
wyclif 7y ago
The Brostep entry alone is worth visiting the site to read.
- have_faith 7y ago
  Some of the writing is funny, some is distracting from its purpose. The Dubstep entry for instance spends most of its time bashing brostep and skrillex which is a shame as it glosses over the first few years of interesting music before it devolved.
  - Daishiman 7y ago
    It never devolved; the mainstream split off from the genre, which remains underground and still has a couple dozen labels actively producing music, as it has for the last decade. The genre is actually evolving constantly and there's a fair amount of interesting material and new artists. But it's back to being a niche much like jungle is nowadays.
- haunter 7y ago
  Not really. Bashing someone because they like a style of music is one of the lowest of low. inb4 it's just a banter
  - RobertKerans 7y ago
    Yeah, but Skrillex! He's bashing the music, saying it's garbage isn't exactly controversial, it's ripe for skewering. And it's supposed to be his opinion; if you like Skrillex the site might not be for you
- hajhatten 7y ago
  Same for McProg
dukeofharen 7y ago
Yes, finally! Ishkur's original guide and Listology's Darktremor's top 400 trance list and Dazzamack's top 1000 EDM lists are what really got me into electronic music! I'm kinda bummed out right now that listology.com doesn't exist anymore :( EDIT: For anyone interested, at the time, I downloaded both Darktremor's and Dazzamack's lists. You can find them here: https://gist.github.com/dukeofharen/48450ec07254f82c7a9b5d77ee2bebf5 https://gist.github.com/dukeofharen/48450ec07254f82c7a9b5d77... https://gist.github.com/dukeofharen/fff467f6fc7574864358f9974d61ab0c https://gist.github.com/dukeofharen/fff467f6fc7574864358f997... I've downloaded a few other lists from Listology as well (progressive trance, classic trance, best albums etc.). If anyone is interested, I could add these to Github Gist as well.
- saganus 7y ago
  Yeah, please upload them!
  - dukeofharen 7y ago
    See my reply on the original comment
- dukeofharen 7y ago
  I got at least one reaction :) So here you go: https://github.com/dukeofharen/listology-lists https://github.com/dukeofharen/listology-lists I've also sent a mail to the webmaster of Listology to see if there is any possibility to get the community back online (I've also offered my time for helping).
unixhero 7y ago
Whoa version 3?!?!?!?!?!? Secretary; Cancel all my calls for today. I have been waiting for this since what, 2003? He said it would cost him an arm and a leg, by the time elapsed since that statement, I guess it did! I assumed he had lost interest in this project, but no. Thanks Ishkur!!!
- rzzzt 7y ago
  Here is a screenshot of the classic Flash version: https://www.electronicbeats.net/the-feed/ishkurs-guide-electronic-music-will-updated-2017/ https://www.electronicbeats.net/the-feed/ishkurs-guide-elect...
AAM2RF 7y ago
Wow, just when I thought this wouldn't release, because of The Longplay. This guide is amazingly detailed, Ishkur outdid himself
Golfkid2Gadfly 7y ago
Ishkur's guide may have been useful in 1998. It's now super outdated.
bartread 7y ago
I first discovered this in 2009 when it still needed Flash (for obvious reasons). A fantastic resource, and really pleased to see it updated for the modern web. Great work (again!), Ishkur!
RantyDave 7y ago
Whoa, great upgrade.
proverbialbunny 7y ago
Pretty neat, but it's missing some important genres. eg, lounge music is quite possibly the first popular electronic music genre from the 40s and 50s, yet it's not mentioned. Also, I'm surprised by the lack of newer genres.
- hajhatten 7y ago
  Missing Future Funk aswell
  - greensoup 7y ago
    Read the FAQ or the UAQ for explanations.
pgt 7y ago
This Electro Tech Tree is greatly welcomed only 5 days after I lamented the lack of electronic music on the Psytrance Guide[^1] :). Where is progressive melodic techno, though? E.g. Atlas (Adriatique Remix) by Romboy & Bodzin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gq4NSDcbmsI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gq4NSDcbmsI I wish the text was searchable using my in-browser search. - [^1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20695334 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20695334
EdwardDiego 7y ago
> Cybergoths: What happens when you take the stock Rivethead look and add Steampunk, mecha anime, and The Predator. Love it!
noelwelsh 7y ago
Does the author actually like any music? So far every description I've read tells me that the music is either pretentious or a sell-out. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Although this looks like a lot of work, a more positive guide would be vastly more useful. Help me find the best of a genre, rather than telling me it all devolved in trash. My metric so far is that if it's labelled pretentious I'll probably like it.
- _xerxes_ 7y ago
  From the stuff I like, he hates Trip Hop, is somewhat OK (but amusing) about Synthwave and seems to like Dark Ambient.
  - busterarm 7y ago
    He hates everything that's a British invention. IIRC even from the old guide, "the British take everything good about music and ruin it".
- RobertKerans 7y ago
  All music genres burn out, they all devolve into trash or repetition, so inevitably every almost genre description is going to bookended with when/why/how that happened else it wouldn't really be an accurate history. There's no need for the hyperbolic "Does the author actually like any music?" when about half the descriptions are him talking about great music > The peak period for any popular genre is 3-5 years, and then everyone wants to move on to the big thing
  - noelwelsh 7y ago
    I agree, but read, say, the entry for Drill'n'Bass. This happens to be a genre I like (Girl/Boy Song by Aphex Twin and and u-ziq's Lunatic Harness being some favourites of mine). However, according to Ishkur "the result [is] not complex ... it [is] just busy and schizophrenic". So there we go. No redeeming features here.
    - 7y ago
easymodex 7y ago
From the comments I was expecting a really cool site with a lot of knowledge, but so far all I've seen is genre bashing. Since this is supposedly a general guide on all electronic music, it's really unfortunate they need to convey their negative opinions on everything that isn't their genre of choice. Either Ishkur is getting old and resentful or we live on completely opposite sites of music taste.
- vinceguidry 7y ago
  People like what they like and they don't like what they don't like, there's an art to conveying what you don't like about particular art, this art is called criticism. When criticizing art, the only sin you can commit is not being expressive enough. If you start to place positivity above expressiveness in art criticism, you get puff pieces that don't teach anyone anything. People love this guide not because they want to feel good about being a snob but because they actually learn about music. For example, in the guide for New Jack Swing he makes the argument that Thriller aged better than Dangerous or Bad because of the drum sounds, I might or might not share his assessment, but the point he made about the tinniness of the drums was well-taken.
- aasasd 7y ago
  Haven't read the update yet, but with the olde version Ishkur's tongue was pretty much piercing his cheeks. His knowledge of the old scene still was good and valuable. However, it's rather clear from the update timing that he's not getting younger, and you can't really follow all the micro-scenes these days unless it's a full-time job, so I won't be surprised if the guide's spirit is not the same.
- RobertKerans 7y ago
  I mean, he has clear deep love for dance music and the history of the genre which shines through in everything he writes and the examples he picks. And that's chimed with people for the last 20 years, it's a bible of a site. Maybe you just have crap taste ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- Gatsky 7y ago
  I think this is unfair. Only someone with a deep love of music would put in this colossal and ongoing effort. A mere curmudgeon would have quit years ago. And in any case, the music itself is provided, so you can just listen for yourself.
creatonez 7y ago
This is missing all of the post-2011 dubstep subgenre stuff. If you search "melodic dubstep" or "chillstep" there's lots of relatively popular post-2011 stuff that's way more tasteful for a mass audience than skrillex. But that's just one branch. The other major branch is called "freeform bass" or sometimes "spacebass". Certain bass music (post-2016?) no longer has a clear genre definition, so we've literally adopted the term "freeform bass". A lot of it is pretty good. But some of it overlaps with brostep/riddim.
- jedimastert 7y ago
  I'd love to see something about tearout Here's an example I found https://soundcloud.com/iamthedreameater/the-cleansing https://soundcloud.com/iamthedreameater/the-cleansing
  - creatonez 7y ago
    > #Goat-Noises Oh god. Not the soundcloud tag you want to be in.
- Avery3R 7y ago
  If you read the FAQ, he stopped working on most of this around 2014, so a lot of the newer stuff will be missing.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
MrsPeaches 7y ago
Definitely worth checking out the chiptune entry, goes into a fair bit of detail on making music using early sound generation chips used in NES etc.
ethbro 7y ago
Does anyone have a donation link? It'd be nice to chip something in for the work + streaming to the entire internet right now.
JulianMorrison 7y ago
Why so little after 2000? Too close to see what's going to matter? Or has musical creativity stalled?
justaj 7y ago
I really don't like the way the expanded info alters my scrolling behavior.
marble-drink 7y ago
Wow... I've been waiting for this for over 10 years now. The previous version was an example of a loss when Flash started to die. Since I don't install Flash any more I've been unable to use it. So glad to see it back.
mankeysee 7y ago
Fucking modern web dev piece of shit where you can't even ctrl+F among the big list to find what you were seeking. Guess at least it covers a decent breadth of styles.

286 points by 1f97 7y ago

Wow. 20 years in the making. Be sure to check out his 15-hour, 3.5 decade-spanning mix https://mobile.twitter.com/Ishkur23/status/1163294742949445632 https://mobile.twitter.com/Ishkur23/status/11632947429494456...

duncanawoods 7y ago
A 2GB mp3 - woah! Actual link for easier save-as: http://ishkur.com/mixes/Ishkur_-_The_Longplay.mp3 http://ishkur.com/mixes/Ishkur_-_The_Longplay.mp3
MivLives 7y ago
Is there a torrent around anywhere? His site is being slammed.

lukey_q 7y ago

Oh my gosh, I clicked expecting to see the classic old version... this is an updated one!! It looks like this one even shows the progression of the sound of a genre or subgenre over time, not just the other genres that came from it. Forgive my excitement but damn, the original guide was an absolute treasure of the early (at least for me) internet, and as a teenager getting into electronic music but with no real local scene or context for any of this stuff to say it was eye-opening is an understatement. Find a song or genre you liked (for me it was early French Touch/filter house) and you could see similar genres, plus what inspired it and what it inspired. And back then if you weren't familiar with this stuff everything with electronic drums or synths was lumped into "techno" (remember Eminem's infamous line about that) so it was great to figure out the actual names of the genres and subgenres I was into so I could dig deeper. Shout out to Ishkur, I'm obviously thrilled to see this today.

harryh 7y ago
BTW v2.5 of the guide can still be found here (requires flash): http://techno.org/electronic-music-guide/ http://techno.org/electronic-music-guide/
stuntkite 7y ago
I was just talking about this the other day with glowing nostalgia. What a delightful unexpected event. I had a similar experience to you with the flash version and it lead me to start making music myself and get involved in a scene that really was one of the most valuable experiences of my young life. Having the graph to explore the lexicon for what exists and examples side by side to get an understanding of why felt like finding a secret treasure map. I can only think of one other flash program I've gone and searched out in the years since and it's the dumb Something Awful Jeff K cartoon making fun of Linux users [0]. Any time I've shown the old version to people over the years it blew their minds. If I ever make anything half as impactful I'll consider myself pretty lucky. [0] https://www.somethingawful.com/feature-articles/jeff-ks-user/ https://www.somethingawful.com/feature-articles/jeff-ks-user...

unicornporn 7y ago

I remember using this in the very early 2000. I made electronic music myself, and it functioned as a sort of mashup between Wikipedia and the recommendations at Spotify. I remember browsing the genres, getting some recommendation and searching for the files on Soulseek. When I found the files I could browse all the files of the user that shared them and often find similar acts. Lovely times. Still have the files, btw. :-)

klez 7y ago
I think you should click the link. This is not what you were using in the early 2000s :)
- unicornporn 7y ago
  I saw that. Not that far from it though. Remember the selection of genres and some of the samples provided. Much is still the same.

gingabriska 7y ago

I am interested in producing music but is there any book which can you teach you from scratch.

omer_balyali 7y ago
Audible Genius (http://www.audiblegenius.com http://www.audiblegenius.com) -> This is really a good resource. The subscription will be online tomorrow, 14,99$/m. I'm using it for some months now and it's really helpful, it develop your ear enormously. It's from the same guy who created Syntorial (http://www.syntorial.com http://www.syntorial.com). Dance Music Manual (http://www.dancemusicproduction.com http://www.dancemusicproduction.com) from Rick Snoman, version 4 has been recently released and it's the only book you need (for a time being). I don't own it but Secrets of Dance Music Production looks good too. Melodics (http://www.melodics.com http://www.melodics.com) is also good for practicing keyboard, if you're interested in learning to play the keyboard. Music Production is very similar to front-end development, especially Javascript development. Your hardware-software studio is like your bundle system, continuous integration etc. So there are many moving parts to learn and it takes time and many many readings (books, blogs, forums, facebook groups, music store product descriptions etc.). It also takes time to develop your ear and in time you will see that new levels will be opened in your mind, like a game. You will hear more details, you will easily describe the qualities of the sound (is it sine wave or a square, what kind of sonic movements happening, what kind of effects with what kind of settings make that specific sound sound like that) It's fun, takes time, may take money (if you're interested in hardware studio and premium software plugins). But it's basically so much fun!
ptah 7y ago
back in the day, from drum and bass/jungle, essentially it consisted of hanging out on dogasonacid.com the grid subforum. not srure about other genres. there are some online courses nowadays
anon9001 7y ago
If you know how to use the tools but can't make anything that feels like music, you just have to keep copying songs until you understand how it works. It's just practice like anything else. There's a bunch of fantastic youtube channels that show the whole production process now too. If you don't know how to use the tools, that's a whole world. There's a bunch of different camps, but if you're trying to do EDM, then Ableton Live or FL Studio are pretty popular. There's open source stuff too, but I don't know much about it. Some people prefer to use hardware instead. Then there's those weird modular synth nerds. It really depends what you want to do and how much you want to spend. A commercial package like FL Studio will come with a bunch of standard plugins that would get you pretty far before venturing into the world of virtual instruments. There's a few books on the subject (Dance Music Manual comes to mind), but honestly I don't think they're very helpful. You can get extremely far without knowing any music theory, and it's hard to describe audio stuff in a book, so you'll probably get more out of youtube searches about whatever you're trying to do.

bigiain 7y ago

Some of these genre descriptions are _awesome!_ - th9s is from the LiquidFunk subgenre of Drum n Bass: "Just before the turn of the millenium is when a sufficient number of white people were attending Jungle parties to the point where music writers and magazines stopped calling it Jungle and rebranded it Drum n Bass, although the partykids retained the label "junglists" and they're still called that today (probably because "drumnbassists" isn't as catchy). Not coincidentally this is also the point where the two-step drum kick takes over everything, ushering in an age of mediocrity for a scene that was once specifically noted for its unique and inventive drum programming. You might as well call this Disco n Bass. As if things couldn't get any worse for Disco n Bass, the lucrative opportunity of mad festival money in the 2010s compelled it to whore itself into a subgenre depository of shitty pop remixes heretofore known as Dancefloor. If you hear a Lady Gaga or Taylor Swift or even Adele remix with a powerful Pendulum two-step drum kick, it's technically Dancefloor: The end game of pop music trendwhore oblivion. "

ptah 7y ago
yes, it required a big adjustment going to 100% step style all the time. it was a subgenre that took over the whole scene
ethbro 7y ago
"There are subgenres of Deep House that get even deeper, jazzier, and more soulful. One of my favorites is something I like to call "Dad House", because its liberal employment of walking basslines and saxophone solos evoke images of your dad walking around the house in his bathrobe on a Sunday morning before settling into his favorite chesterfield chair to smoke a pipe and read the newspaper in front of a roaring fire. Well, mine anyway." Provided link: http://ishkur.com/oldmixtapes/Jeffro%20-%20Five%20In%20Da%20Monin%20A.mp3 http://ishkur.com/oldmixtapes/Jeffro%20-%20Five%20In%20Da%20... I know what I'm doing this Sunday morning.
new_here 7y ago
"The word Garage doesn't mean anything pertinent other than its name comes from the legendary Paradise Garage nightclub in New York City where DJ Larry Levan would play anything he damn well pleased." "Today what most people think is House music is actually Garage. And what most people think is Garage is some dodgy nonsense the British sharted into their trousers. Someone should really try and set the record straight about that. Like make a guide or something." I love a bit of UK Garage but laughed out loud when I read that line about trousers. This Ishkur guy is a beast.

wyclif 7y ago

The Brostep entry alone is worth visiting the site to read.

have_faith 7y ago
Some of the writing is funny, some is distracting from its purpose. The Dubstep entry for instance spends most of its time bashing brostep and skrillex which is a shame as it glosses over the first few years of interesting music before it devolved.
- Daishiman 7y ago
  It never devolved; the mainstream split off from the genre, which remains underground and still has a couple dozen labels actively producing music, as it has for the last decade. The genre is actually evolving constantly and there's a fair amount of interesting material and new artists. But it's back to being a niche much like jungle is nowadays.
haunter 7y ago
Not really. Bashing someone because they like a style of music is one of the lowest of low. inb4 it's just a banter
- RobertKerans 7y ago
  Yeah, but Skrillex! He's bashing the music, saying it's garbage isn't exactly controversial, it's ripe for skewering. And it's supposed to be his opinion; if you like Skrillex the site might not be for you
hajhatten 7y ago
Same for McProg

dukeofharen 7y ago

Yes, finally! Ishkur's original guide and Listology's Darktremor's top 400 trance list and Dazzamack's top 1000 EDM lists are what really got me into electronic music! I'm kinda bummed out right now that listology.com doesn't exist anymore :( EDIT: For anyone interested, at the time, I downloaded both Darktremor's and Dazzamack's lists. You can find them here: https://gist.github.com/dukeofharen/48450ec07254f82c7a9b5d77ee2bebf5 https://gist.github.com/dukeofharen/48450ec07254f82c7a9b5d77... https://gist.github.com/dukeofharen/fff467f6fc7574864358f9974d61ab0c https://gist.github.com/dukeofharen/fff467f6fc7574864358f997... I've downloaded a few other lists from Listology as well (progressive trance, classic trance, best albums etc.). If anyone is interested, I could add these to Github Gist as well.

saganus 7y ago
Yeah, please upload them!
- dukeofharen 7y ago
  See my reply on the original comment
dukeofharen 7y ago
I got at least one reaction :) So here you go: https://github.com/dukeofharen/listology-lists https://github.com/dukeofharen/listology-lists I've also sent a mail to the webmaster of Listology to see if there is any possibility to get the community back online (I've also offered my time for helping).

unixhero 7y ago

Whoa version 3?!?!?!?!?!? Secretary; Cancel all my calls for today. I have been waiting for this since what, 2003? He said it would cost him an arm and a leg, by the time elapsed since that statement, I guess it did! I assumed he had lost interest in this project, but no. Thanks Ishkur!!!

rzzzt 7y ago
Here is a screenshot of the classic Flash version: https://www.electronicbeats.net/the-feed/ishkurs-guide-electronic-music-will-updated-2017/ https://www.electronicbeats.net/the-feed/ishkurs-guide-elect...

AAM2RF 7y ago

Wow, just when I thought this wouldn't release, because of The Longplay. This guide is amazingly detailed, Ishkur outdid himself

Golfkid2Gadfly 7y ago

Ishkur's guide may have been useful in 1998. It's now super outdated.

bartread 7y ago

I first discovered this in 2009 when it still needed Flash (for obvious reasons). A fantastic resource, and really pleased to see it updated for the modern web. Great work (again!), Ishkur!

RantyDave 7y ago

Whoa, great upgrade.

proverbialbunny 7y ago

Pretty neat, but it's missing some important genres. eg, lounge music is quite possibly the first popular electronic music genre from the 40s and 50s, yet it's not mentioned. Also, I'm surprised by the lack of newer genres.

hajhatten 7y ago
Missing Future Funk aswell
- greensoup 7y ago
  Read the FAQ or the UAQ for explanations.

pgt 7y ago

This Electro Tech Tree is greatly welcomed only 5 days after I lamented the lack of electronic music on the Psytrance Guide[^1] :). Where is progressive melodic techno, though? E.g. Atlas (Adriatique Remix) by Romboy & Bodzin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gq4NSDcbmsI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gq4NSDcbmsI I wish the text was searchable using my in-browser search. - [^1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20695334 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20695334

EdwardDiego 7y ago

> Cybergoths: What happens when you take the stock Rivethead look and add Steampunk, mecha anime, and The Predator. Love it!

noelwelsh 7y ago

Does the author actually like any music? So far every description I've read tells me that the music is either pretentious or a sell-out. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Although this looks like a lot of work, a more positive guide would be vastly more useful. Help me find the best of a genre, rather than telling me it all devolved in trash. My metric so far is that if it's labelled pretentious I'll probably like it.

_xerxes_ 7y ago
From the stuff I like, he hates Trip Hop, is somewhat OK (but amusing) about Synthwave and seems to like Dark Ambient.
- busterarm 7y ago
  He hates everything that's a British invention. IIRC even from the old guide, "the British take everything good about music and ruin it".
RobertKerans 7y ago
All music genres burn out, they all devolve into trash or repetition, so inevitably every almost genre description is going to bookended with when/why/how that happened else it wouldn't really be an accurate history. There's no need for the hyperbolic "Does the author actually like any music?" when about half the descriptions are him talking about great music > The peak period for any popular genre is 3-5 years, and then everyone wants to move on to the big thing
- noelwelsh 7y ago
  I agree, but read, say, the entry for Drill'n'Bass. This happens to be a genre I like (Girl/Boy Song by Aphex Twin and and u-ziq's Lunatic Harness being some favourites of mine). However, according to Ishkur "the result [is] not complex ... it [is] just busy and schizophrenic". So there we go. No redeeming features here.
  - 7y ago

easymodex 7y ago

From the comments I was expecting a really cool site with a lot of knowledge, but so far all I've seen is genre bashing. Since this is supposedly a general guide on all electronic music, it's really unfortunate they need to convey their negative opinions on everything that isn't their genre of choice. Either Ishkur is getting old and resentful or we live on completely opposite sites of music taste.

vinceguidry 7y ago
People like what they like and they don't like what they don't like, there's an art to conveying what you don't like about particular art, this art is called criticism. When criticizing art, the only sin you can commit is not being expressive enough. If you start to place positivity above expressiveness in art criticism, you get puff pieces that don't teach anyone anything. People love this guide not because they want to feel good about being a snob but because they actually learn about music. For example, in the guide for New Jack Swing he makes the argument that Thriller aged better than Dangerous or Bad because of the drum sounds, I might or might not share his assessment, but the point he made about the tinniness of the drums was well-taken.
aasasd 7y ago
Haven't read the update yet, but with the olde version Ishkur's tongue was pretty much piercing his cheeks. His knowledge of the old scene still was good and valuable. However, it's rather clear from the update timing that he's not getting younger, and you can't really follow all the micro-scenes these days unless it's a full-time job, so I won't be surprised if the guide's spirit is not the same.
RobertKerans 7y ago
I mean, he has clear deep love for dance music and the history of the genre which shines through in everything he writes and the examples he picks. And that's chimed with people for the last 20 years, it's a bible of a site. Maybe you just have crap taste ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Gatsky 7y ago
I think this is unfair. Only someone with a deep love of music would put in this colossal and ongoing effort. A mere curmudgeon would have quit years ago. And in any case, the music itself is provided, so you can just listen for yourself.

creatonez 7y ago

This is missing all of the post-2011 dubstep subgenre stuff. If you search "melodic dubstep" or "chillstep" there's lots of relatively popular post-2011 stuff that's way more tasteful for a mass audience than skrillex. But that's just one branch. The other major branch is called "freeform bass" or sometimes "spacebass". Certain bass music (post-2016?) no longer has a clear genre definition, so we've literally adopted the term "freeform bass". A lot of it is pretty good. But some of it overlaps with brostep/riddim.

jedimastert 7y ago
I'd love to see something about tearout Here's an example I found https://soundcloud.com/iamthedreameater/the-cleansing https://soundcloud.com/iamthedreameater/the-cleansing
- creatonez 7y ago
  > #Goat-Noises Oh god. Not the soundcloud tag you want to be in.
Avery3R 7y ago
If you read the FAQ, he stopped working on most of this around 2014, so a lot of the newer stuff will be missing.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

MrsPeaches 7y ago

Definitely worth checking out the chiptune entry, goes into a fair bit of detail on making music using early sound generation chips used in NES etc.

ethbro 7y ago

Does anyone have a donation link? It'd be nice to chip something in for the work + streaming to the entire internet right now.

JulianMorrison 7y ago

Why so little after 2000? Too close to see what's going to matter? Or has musical creativity stalled?

justaj 7y ago

I really don't like the way the expanded info alters my scrolling behavior.

marble-drink 7y ago

Wow... I've been waiting for this for over 10 years now. The previous version was an example of a loss when Flash started to die. Since I don't install Flash any more I've been unable to use it. So glad to see it back.

mankeysee 7y ago

Fucking modern web dev piece of shit where you can't even ctrl+F among the big list to find what you were seeking. Guess at least it covers a decent breadth of styles.