Category: music

Josh passes along Ishkur’s Guide to Electronic Music, an electronic music family tree. In this Flash-driven app, Ishkur illustrates the origins and derivations of what appears to be every electronic music sub-genre.

Looking over the genres — which could make for an amusing afternoon in itself — I was surprised to find genres that I didn’t even knew existed (“Psytekk”, anyone?). And, likewise, I wasn’t aware that Eurodance and Eurobeat were separate genres (the former is the parent genre of the latter).

One of the more amusing entries is for the catch-all genre “Not Trance”:

Let it be said that electronic music NEVER learns how to “leave the audience wanting more”. Instead, like a spoiled, immature little child, it shamelessly and greedily exploits any whiff of success it sees, to cartoonish extremes. Somehow, a mutant form of trance evolved from Epic evolved from Anthem drenched itself in the “should’ve been put to rest years ago” one-trick breakdown-build-anthem formula and senselessly driven it to new, insane levels of asinine. […]

Metallica is readying their next studio album, St. Anger, for release on June 10th (their first in five years). I haven’t cared for Metallica much since the Black Album days (though …And Justice For All may be my favorite), but they claim that they may be selling-in this time around:

The release of St. Anger on June 10th will bring fans the old Metallica from the early days before the Black Album. The album is said to have the same thrash metal vibe that gained them underground popularity in the mid ’80s. […]

I remain skeptical about that, but hopeful all the same. I’m sure that their songs will get airplay through their usual bribes to radio stations (as all major record labels do). So, I suppose I’ll at least have a chance to hear a few tracks before buying it.