Discussion Main / Techno

Here's a few answers:

• Tropes Are Flexible, but that doesn't mean music genres are completely porous. If someone was to add The Rolling Stones or The Who on the list of Metal bands, I'm sure a lot of people would be opposed to that. Within electronic music, that'd be equivalent of calling some electrohouse tune "techno". I added that large comment block, because there was a thread in the Trope Repair Center asking for someone knowledgable in techno to clean up the page... The problem is that some people use the word "techno" as an umbrella term for any dance music with electronic elements, even though techno is a specific genre with its own history and aesthetic qualities. As a result of that, the example list was a mess: it included Eurodance and synth pop artists like Ace of Base, Army of Lovers, Basshunter, White Town, etc, which have as much to do with techno as the Beatles have with black metal. So I cleaned up the examples and added the the comment so people wouldn't misuse the term "techno", which had clearly been a problem with this page before. Because of this misuse, I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for people to add techno music artists to the page only if they know what techno music is. If I'd never read/seen any Detective Fiction and wasn't quite sure what the genre is, I wouldn't go adding examples to that page. Also, we have a separate page for House Music, so why should examples of that be put on this page?
• The tune examples were added before I edited the page, I've no strong opinion on them. I guess they're useful in illustrating what techno is, since most major techno artists don't have a page of their own in TV Tropes.
• With most tropes and genres, the page image is something that illustrates it, not something that parodies or mocks it. The page quote is already making fun of techno, so do we really need for the page image to do that too?
• I can edit the description and history, sure, if you can tell me what needs to be clarified?

OK. I didn't know there was a thread in the TRS and a corresponding cleanup. That changes things.

• I understand that genres aren't as flexible as tropes, and that house music should belong on it's own page. However, I think my issue is the more someone is told what "not" to put, the less inclined they are to make any addition at all. An example which partially fits is (usually) better than no example. Personally, I think saying in three different places (includng source) what "isn't" techno discourages contributions.
• Fair point about the image. Agreed. Yet it does illustrate the popular perception of techno though. I'm not a fan of the quote since you mentioned it, it's blockly and seems out of place.
• Honestly, could you clarify he basic defintion of what techno "is?" There are plenty of definitions of what it is not. Reading the description leaves me with the knowledge that techno is electronic dance music in 4/4. The rest of the description is vague. It uses vague words (most, typically, tends, etc.) and non-specifics ("However, this doesn't mean that music which has these characteristics is specifically techno, or that techno has to have all these characteristics.")