Techno Music

In recent years, “techno music” has become a synonym for any type of electronic/electronic music - even being applied to music which preceded its development. However, techno actually refers a sub-genre within the main genre of electronic music and has a history all its own.

Roots

Detroit is often considered to be the birthplace of techno music. (It should be noted here that this article will discuss the rise of techno music from an American perspective, however, many cities in Europe also stake a claim to the development of the genre.) In mid-1980s Detroit, three friends - Derrick May, Juan Atkins, and Kevin Saunderson, who later came to be known as the Bellevue Three - began collaborating on musical projects influenced by the music they heard on the seminal radio show Midnight Funk Association, hosted by the legendary DJ The Electrifying Mojo.

Midnight Funk Association played everything from Chicago house music to early rap/hip hop music coming out of New York to synth-pop from the UK to early electronic music by artists such as Kraftwerk. The sound that emerged from the combination of these influences was famously described by Derrick May as, “A complete mistake, like George Clinton and Kraftwerk stuck in an elevator.”

It was the same radio show that inspired techno music that began playing the Belleville Three’s music and helped expand its popularity. First, it became a phenomenon in Detroit, with local high school students running constantly moving club nights. As attendance at these clubs exploded, DJs joined forced and larger and larger clubs, culminating in the creation of the Music Institute, of which Derrick May was one of the founding members. Though the Music Institute did not last very long, it is internationally known and considered to be the root of many of the characteristics of the dance music culture that became popular in the late 80s and early 90s - all night dance parties that normally eschewed the alcohol usually associated with the club scene (often in favor of drugs like ecstasy, which is inextricably associated with the later dance music scene).

Expansion out of Detroit

The musical phenomenon in Detroit soon spread well beyond the city limits, but the name techno did not come out of the underground until 1988, with the release of the Virgin Records UK compilation Techno! The New Dance Sound of Detroit. This release “officially” named the genre and brought the sound further into the mainstream.

Development

As techno left Detroit, listeners began to put their own spin on the sound, often developing new genres of music inspired by techno. Many of these genres get placed under the umbrella of techno music. Examples:

• Acid House (popular in the UK - technically developed in London, but closely associated with Manchester, UK)

• Trance

• Hardcore

• Miami Bass

Chart Success

Several artists have taken techno music out of the underground and to chart success since the early 1990s. While their variations of the music might be considered to be “watered down” or overly commercial, they have nevertheless brought the term techno into mainstream lexicon. Some examples of these artists are:

• Technotronic

• 2 Unlimited

and later:

• Moby

• Underworld

• The Orbital