45 minutes, 30 seconds

Proceed
Fehlgesteuert

Will there always be an audience for EBM? Intellectually, I know that musical genres--any and all of them--tend to stick around and never disappear. There's always a cluster of fans that carry a torch for, say, Dixieland jazz or classic blues. But those are pretty much moribund forms of music--not much new or innovative going on in Dixieland jazz. It's more of a museum exhibit than a living, breathing form of expression anymore.

I wonder whether EBM is already at that stage. It's been around for more than 20 years by now, and--not to pick on Proceed, per se--the new EBM being released is pretty much a retro phenomenon. More often than not, it's consciously produced to sound like the EBM we grew up with: Front 242, Leæther Strip, Prager Handgriff, etc. Is this evidence of a still-thriving genre? Or the death throes of something that never really had much of a shelf life to begin with?

I don't have an answer. And I think you could probably apply this same question to just about any form of modern music. It's an extraordinary challenge for the artist to create something truly original. Often the demands of commerce force musicians to produce music that's less challenging and instead more evocative of something that's already proven to be successful. EBM is what fills the dance floors, packs the clubs, and hence sells alcohol, so there's a constant demand for new material that doesn't stray too far from the good old stuff. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I wonder if it sustains a genre long past its due date.

Then again, does anyone really care? As George Sarah put it memorably in an old Stereotaxic Device song, "Dance, motherfuckers, dance."

Also today:

45:29 Psyclon Nine, Divine Infekt
45:29 Seven Pines, Histoire de l'Ours
45:27 The Joy of Nature and Discipline, The Fog That Life Is Haunted By
45:27 Nexus 8, Neurotransmisor
45:27 Photophob, Your Majesty Machine
45:27 Various artists, Prager Kodex: Songs of Three Brotherhoods
45:26 Love Is Colder Than Death, Eclipse
45:25 Garmarna, God's Musicians
45:22 The Protagonist, Songs of Experience