What is electronica, anyhow?

December 15, 2006 12:18 PM

I often see artists such as David Gray and Dido, or specific cd's such as Bright Eyes' Digital Ash in a Digital Urn listed as electronica. However, when I look at Wikipedia's entry on electronica, the stuff listed there seems to be a much different genre. How would you classify the above music, and what are some similar type artists or cd's?
posted by stovenator to Media & Arts (19 answers total)

Best answer: I often see David Gray classified as folk; Dido sometimes as well, though way less often.

When I put those CDs on, I tend to combine them with: Emiliana Torrini, Fiona Apple, Portishead, Bjork; sometimes Neko Case, Gillian Welch, Iron & Wine. If you look up each of those CDs I'm sure the genre listings will be all over the place, but I tend to think of them collectively as "strong quirky female voice or soft crooning male voice, accompanied by lush deep orchestration, often good as background music for dinner parties" music.
posted by occhiblu at 12:37 PM on December 15, 2006 [1 favorite]

David Gray I would definitely not classify as electronica. The only thing electronic about him is the occasional drum machine in the back of some of his tracks, IIRC. Folk and singer-songwriter are the genres that come to mind. I think Dido has more electronic elements and signatures in her music, but she's also still a long ways away from what I would ordinarily think of as electronica.

The allmusic.com is good for these types of questions. Here's David Gray entry and the Dido entry. Each page lists the styles of the artist and also, regarding the second part of your question, artists who are similar to that artist.
posted by epugachev at 12:42 PM on December 15, 2006 [1 favorite]

There's only a couple David Gray album's that could be considered electronica, and only because his MIDI-controlled "backing band" was recorded in a bedroom-sized studio, and it's the electronic drums doing all the work, like epugachev said.

Likewise with Dido and Bright Eyes. Electronica influence, but they don't define the genre.

Possible classifications: indie pop / folk rock
posted by Milkman Dan at 12:47 PM on December 15, 2006

Best answer: According to Rhapsody (just happen to be listening right now):

David Gray: Rock/Pop > Adult Alternative
Dido: Rock/Pop > Adult Alternative
Bright Eyes: Alternative/Punk > Indie Rock

So, top artists within adult alternative: John Mayer, Sarah McLachlan, U2, Jack Johnson, The Fray, Coldplay, Snow Patrol

Top artists within indie rock: Sufjan Stevens, Death Cab for Cutie, Beck, The Postal Service, The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus

Distinguish this from top artists in what Rhapsody calls "electronica" (actually called Electronica/Dance in their classification system): The Postal Service (a-ha! crossover!), Moby, Zero 7, Thievery Corporation, Goldfrapp, Massive Attach, Cascada, Air, Daft Punk

Electronica is a huge category, though. My guess is that if you want to explore "electronica" you should check out "downtempo" and its sub-genre, "trip-hop". However, I think you'll find that the lines are sort of blurred between categories.

You might want to see what Pandora gives you of you put in David Gray, Dido, and Bright Eyes.
posted by nekton at 12:57 PM on December 15, 2006 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: To clarify, I don't consider any of these electronica at all. It's the fact that I see others classifying them as electronica which leads to my confusion.

Carry on.
posted by stovenator at 12:57 PM on December 15, 2006

Attack.

Massive Attach makes me think of a giant leech.
posted by nekton at 12:58 PM on December 15, 2006

Well, with Bright Eyes, it's because he's usually not plugged-in at all, and that album came out at the same kind as a traditional one, so it got tagged as the "electronica" one.
posted by smackfu at 12:59 PM on December 15, 2006

Best answer: Obligatory link to Ishkur's guide to electronic music (I guess they're currently building version 3, I've linked to a page to launch an older one - sorry about the annoying intro). As nekton said, Downtempo is the section you want.
posted by twoporedomain at 1:11 PM on December 15, 2006

Since you ask, the artists you cite are most correctly classified as Hipster Burnout Music.
posted by Methylviolet at 1:28 PM on December 15, 2006 [1 favorite]

Electronica is more of a technique or a method than a style. There are many styles within electronica. The only thing they all have in common is how the music is made.
posted by scalefree at 1:38 PM on December 15, 2006

"Singer songwriters."
posted by afx237vi at 1:51 PM on December 15, 2006

Alot of new music crosses over genres, so it's useful to label them with as many classifications as make sense for the music. I find the 'tagging' method of Last.fm and other sites to be much more effective in showing the links an artist has to different sounds and labels.

Here's the Dido tag collection, for example.
posted by cowbellemoo at 1:59 PM on December 15, 2006

It's really a style crossover than anything: a lot of times, a indie or pop person collaborating with an established electronic music artist (Ben Gibbard with Jimmy Tamborello = The Postal Service, Florian Armstrong with Rollo Armstrong = Dido)

However, minus the beeps and boops, this kind of music usually has the structure of rock, pop, etc., rather than electronica.
posted by tmcw at 2:47 PM on December 15, 2006

(a) Any taxonomy is going to have a platypus or two, more especially so in art where artists often *try* to defy or transcend classification.

(b) You can try to refine away the problem, but we're not good at it for some reason. I can reason a connection of David Gray with "folk" by saying yes, he's basically a performing singer/songwriter with a slightly more literate and confessional bent than the average pop tunesmith and that puts him in the company of Dar Williams and John Gorka who probably trace their genealogy to Joni Mitchell who, before she started writing original material, really did folk singing, as in traditional folk tunes. But by the time you get to Gray (or heck, even Williams and maybe Joni Mitchell), you're really not in folk music anymore, you just have this chain that connects to an ostensible folk singer. Electronica is similarly a tenuous connection, given that he's really melding electronic instrumentation into pop forms. We've had artists around like this for two decades, and we still haven't come up with better terms than "adult contemporary" or "singer/songwriter" or "folk."
posted by weston at 3:11 PM on December 15, 2006

I echo the allmusic sentiment. The "similar artists" section under each artist is useful for this sort of thing. Actual labels are somewhat irrelevant, for my money, however.
posted by The God Complex at 3:27 PM on December 15, 2006

"Adult alternative" sounds about right.
posted by dagnyscott at 5:34 PM on December 15, 2006

David Gray did a song with Orbital (on their album The Altogether) and likes to use some electronic instruments on his tracks, but I think his stuff comes out of a rock/pop, singer/songwriter mold more than anything else.

Dido, to me, is just pop.

"Electronica" is more a marketing label than a genre.
posted by wheat at 7:16 PM on December 15, 2006

Hipster Burnout Music is a perfect description.

Dido also vaguely falls into the Gaptronica or 21st Century Elevator Music category. David Gray, as far as I know, is just a folky singer/songwriter.
posted by klangklangston at 10:36 AM on December 16, 2006

They're both MOR or maybe Adult Oriented Rock.
posted by bifter at 6:16 AM on December 18, 2006