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Berlin's techno scene added to Unesco intangible cultural heritage list
(theguardian.com) 398 points by kasperni 9 months ago | hide | past | favorite |
287 comments



helloplanets 9 months ago | next [–]

"Der Klang der Familie: Berlin, Techno and the Fall of the Wall" [0] is a good
book on the origins of the Berlin Techno scene. It's based on interviews and
discussions by the people originally setting up the whole thing, making it a
pretty breezy read that you don't necessarily have to go through
chronologically.

No city can really replicate the absurd situation Berlin was in after the second
world war. The absolute oppressive atmosphere, with one day the whole city
getting flipped upside down. Anyone being able to take over a building on the
East side and throw a party there. When before you could end up in a cell
overnight for playing a boombox too loud on the street. The original location
for Tresor (club) was the literal translation of the German word: A big old safe
in a bank. That you had to climb down a ladder to get to.

An unexpected connection of cities is between Berlin and Detroit: Underground
Resistance (a group of Detroit born Techno producers) among many others playing
gigs in Tresor going back to the early nineties.

[0]: https://www.amazon.com/Klang-Familie-Felix-Denk/dp/373860429...



hackandthink 9 months ago | parent | next [–]

Can't remember climbing a ladder down to get into Tresor.

The ladder was into the cellar of the Fischbüro location somewhere in Kreuzberg
36. (these guys started Tresor later)

(Eimer (Bucket) was a really bad location several years later, you wouldn't have
been able to get out of the basement if ...)



helloplanets 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Sorry got my details mixed up, Tresor had a staircase that led downstairs to the
vault!



wizerdrobe 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

What exactly is Kreuzberg 36? I always assumed that was a street number after
hearing an old Smut Peddlers song.

https://genius.com/Smut-peddlers-kreuzberg-36-lyrics



luplex 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Kreuzberg is a borough in Berlin with 150k inhabitants, and it used to be
divided into two postcodes: 36 and 61.

36 is the cooler, poorer, more political, younger half of the borough, it really
was a center for non-conformists after reunification, but it's being gentrified
these days.



bravura 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

https://needleberlin.com/2014/07/03/the-two-faces-of-kreuzbe...

"36 Brennt, 61 Pennt"

'I’ve tried to come up with a rhyme that works in English: “36’s on fire, 61’s
just tired” was one solution, but it doesn’t carry the matter-of-factness of the
German.'



wrs 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

ChatGPT suggests “36 blazes, 61 lazes”.



seabass-labrax 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

For a AI paradigm that gives the neural network no explicit information about
phonetics, the ability of GPT to produce rhyming phrases never ceases to amaze
me - especially in a language which is as infamous for its inconsistent
orthography as English. Has there been any research attempting to work out how
such subtle patterns are learnt by the AI?



mitjam 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

It‘s actually called SO36 and a famous punk / music club named after the former
postal zone 1000 Berlin 36 which was a part of Berlin Kreuzberg.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SO36 https://www.so36.com/



crucialfelix 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

And it's still going strong



aow83u45oaw8u 9 months ago | parent | prev | next [–]

I don't think they had boomboxes during WWII



empath-nirvana 9 months ago | parent | prev | next [–]

> after the second world war.

I think you mean the cold war.



helloplanets 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

No, I was talking about the atmosphere before the wall came down, during the
cold war. That paragraph was written in a bit of a confusing way now that I look
at it, though.



psunavy03 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

Wow, this exchange made me feel old.



scns 9 months ago | parent | prev | next [–]

Tresor was the first club to fly over artists from Detroit.



larodi 9 months ago | prev | next [–]

According to many people, including record shop owners I’ve talked to, Berlin’s
scene is actually not so underground and not so cool anymore as a result of
tourism and immigration. Rich people nowadays buy property in Potsdam, and the
scene is moving towards Leipzig.

In a more general sense the old rave cities are making way, and have been making
way, to other cities. A movement spanning more than 20 years now, thanks to very
active promoter teams, leads to Lyon, Prague, Zagreb, Thessaloniki and even
Sofia.



junon 9 months ago | parent | next [–]

I live in Berlin. This isn't true at all. Berlin's underground scene is still
quite strong, perhaps just not as strong as it used to be. There's more "in the
open" stuff due to the popularity, yes, but there's still plenty of (sometimes
literal) underground raves happening.

I'd also argue that the most recent accelerator for the shift in culture in
Berlin isn't so much the tourism, but the pandemic. People haven't really been
the same since.



wheels 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Tourism definitely wasn't a major drag on the techno scene. There's always been
the tourist clubs and the clubs that were more underground. Berliners usually
don't go to Berlin's best known clubs. (Who the hell goes to Watergate or
Tresor? Old joke was that Tresor was the biggest club in Dresden.)

I think the biggest drag is actually rent prices. When I got to Berlin 20 years
ago you could get a room in a shared flat for €100. That same room now would be
€500. Same for music spaces: it was easy to rent unused warehouse space in the
inner city 20 year ago. There are a lot of interesting things that happen to a
city when rent is ridiculously low as it was in Berlin for a long time (there
were more apartments than people).

There's still a lot going on in Berlin, but the character has very much changed.
20 years ago it was rare for clubs to be legal. Most of Berlin's well known
clubs now started off as illegal clubs back then. But there were hundreds of
other spaces that didn't survive and transition to being legal spaces. There's
still some of that, but much, much less. Also back then just randomly setting up
a sound system in a park in the summer was much more tolerated. "Open Airs" in
Berlin were just kind of what you did in the summer.

Honestly, while I generally did not partake in such, the pandemic was the first
time that I realized that came back some. Partying was illegal and the parties
were moderately guarded secrets. I hadn't seen that much buzz around illegal
parties in more than a decade.

Addendum: As a weird note, I don't even get the grandparent's comment about
Potsdam? For the non-Berlin folks, it's a city just outside of Berlin's borders,
but an hour away on the train from the more alternative bits of the city. It's
neither known for its music scene, nor honestly as a place that rich people want
to move. I know a couple of people that have moved there because of usual suburb
reasons: they wanted a bigger place, and it's cheaper there. The other cities
listed there are also weird. I've been out in all of them but Lyon and, yeah,
there's some stuff, but to say the "scene" is moving there is really off. Three
of the cities listed there are in the Balkans, but the best city for techno in
the Balkans is undoubtedly Belgrade.



immibis 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

You are absolutely right about rent. Its effect is not limited to techno - rent
extraction is a damper on everything in the economy (except for rent
extraction).

Imagine a guy comes around to your house every month and demands $1000 or else
he breaks your kneecaps. You'd be quite motivated to ensure you can make that
$1000 each month and you'd not be left with as much energy for doing everything
else you might want to do. That's essentially the economic effect of rent. At
least taxes are indexed to your income, so you can always afford to pay them;
rent is not.



m_fayer 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Right on.

I moved to Berlin 15 years ago in my mid 20s. Back then we didn’t work very
much, we constantly had hangovers, we were constantly out, running around
Neukölln and Kreuzberg.

Whenever I chat to that age group now, while they often look the part, they’re
actually tired, overworked, cash-strapped, and living far from the center of the
city.

A good weird party scene needs that bad-judgment-high-enthusiasm energy of the
young, and now there’s much less of it.



seabass-labrax 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

As someone who considers themselves somewhat principled, I would be somewhat
more motivated to spend that month in exercise and martial arts training, to
allow myself the opportunity to terminate this questionable attempt at a
contractual relationship on the man's part. Replace acquiring 'physical fitness'
with 'understanding of the minutiae of state and federal renting laws' though,
and I think that would just about characterise my response to an obnoxious
landlord, too...



codethief 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

I think your comment depicts the current & past situation in Berlin quite well.
Overall, rents & overall cost of living in Berlin have increased tremendously,
and available resources (unused warehouses, apartments, …) have gone down. It
just can't be as underground and "poor but sexy" anymore if your DJs and ravers,
during the day, all need to work high-paying 9-to-5 job to make ends meet.

Sooner or later, the Berlin scene will just feel like the one in Brooklyn.
Everything will be properly gentrified.



elevaet 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

I think this same kind of dynamic happened with London as well.



ska 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

> I think the biggest drag is actually rent prices

This is a super common cycle. City gets economically depressed -> rents drop a
lot -> lots of young people and artists, etc. move in -> great "scene" develops
-> people with a bit more money start moving in because of the scene -> rents
rise -> young people and artists move elsewhere -> scene slows or stagnates.

Obviously that's an oversimplification, and just becoming cheap to live in isn't
enough by itself, and just becoming more expensive isn't the death knell.



whstl 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

True, but I feel like in Berlin it was probably more drastic because, apart from
gentrification, there was a huge wave of people moving in because of work
(especially in tech), and more recently refugees.

Charlottenburg, Steglitz, Wilmersdorf or Wedding were never known for "the
scene" but prices still got way higher. And places like Prenzlauer Berg were
already gentrified when prices got even crazier.



lippihom 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

A room in a flat now for €500? Maybe way outside the ringbahn...



wheels 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

I was trying to make a comparison to the €100 rooms from 20 years ago. That
would be a single room in a 4-6 person shared flat. Those are still €500-ish.
(In places just outside the ring like Treptow, Britz, Wedding, Lichtenberg.) In
my shared two person flat back then I paid €300 (bills included). That room now
would be way over €500.



kjkjadksj 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Minimum wage also went up to be fair



wheels 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

There wasn't actually a minimum wage back then. That was introduced in 2015 in
Germany.



okr 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

The hipsters all wanted to have proper cappuccino. And its delicious. Hahaha.



pantalaimon 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

Potsdam certainly is the place where the rich and famous live (Günter Jauch,
Hasso Plattner just to name a few), they are shaping the city by donations and
philanthropy to restore it’s historic glory.



wheels 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Potsdam has almost exactly the same GDP per capita as Berlin (€45,378 vs.
€45,074) and is ranked only 63rd highest GDP per capita of the 110 large-ish
cities in Germany. I'm not convinced. ;-)



luzojeda 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

Genuine Q. Do berliner straight dislike any tourist no matter how they behave? I
tend to go out in Buenos Aires where I live to more underground clubs and don't
mind that there are a few tourists here and there. Im travelling to Berlin and
was recommended Tresor, is it just a place for tourists?



wheels 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Hate's not the right word. A lot of clubs have a community around them -- they
have their regulars; people go there to see their friends. If there are too many
tourists, there's less space for regulars. There are always some tourists, and
that's fine, but a lot of those communities that I mentioned a second ago have
been choked out by a club eventually being so popular with tourists that the
regulars don't bother going anymore. The lines are too long, it's full too
early, prices go up, etc. A lot of the well known clubs started off as
underground spots that eventually were overrun. God, the last time I went to
Renate, it was credit card only, didn't know a single person there who wasn't
working there, even though we had guest list there was a 30 minute line at the
coat check. That's what we don't like. ;-)

Also, often tourists aren't accustomed to Berlin's marathon club opening times
(some clubs don't close on weekends) and end up too trashed and are annoying.
So, yeah, tourists have a harder time at the doors.

Honestly, I've only been to Tresor once. It's kind of a misnomer since it's
named after a very famous, very important long-closed club in a different part
of Berlin with a totally different vibe. The current incarnation ... it's
probably fine. Like, there are a handful of clubs in Berlin that actually feel a
lot like the clubs Berliners do go to, but are mostly there for tourists. You
can spot them because ... you can spot them. ;-) (Good rule of thumb in Berlin:
if you can easily find the entrance, it's for tourists. Most of the more scene-y
clubs don't have a sign.)



junon 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

This. Also, if you do find the entrance, be prepared to explain what's happening
there in some cases, especially if it's a themed night.

Also be prepared to be denied entry. It's allowed and not uncommon, especially
for some specific clubs.



luzojeda 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

Many thanks for the info. When you say some clubs that now the lines are too
long, etc. Berghain would be an example? Or is has kept its "undeground" scene?

I'm travelling there for the first time, as a woman alone I wouldn't like to
have nasty looks tbh (or even be yelled at as other user suggested), not want to
bother, know to behave and just want to get to know the city along with other
places in Europe.



Applejinx 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

My understanding is that Tresor was destroyed and any current one with the same
name isn't 'the' Tresor club. Berghain seems like it's the real successor there,
and Berghain is not tourist accessible, it's about as easy to get in as Studio
54 in its heyday.

It's not about just line length, you would have to fit in and seem non-tourist
to get into Berghain, and then you'd need to actually enjoy a dark, brutal, kink
and techno club full of intentional degeneracy. I would absolutely go, for the
music, but wouldn't be as much into the kink side, which I think is escalated
somewhat from what Tresor was?

There's a good documentary on the history of Tresor: "Sub Berlin - The Story Of
Tresor" which appears to even have a re-cut version on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiuJhq-z2LE



wheels 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

Berghain has quite a few regulars. I don't know so much what the mix there
inside is anymore. I went a handful of times in its earlier years, and never
really loved the place, but haven't been back since the last 2-3 times I waited
in the line I didn't get in (which never happened before). There's kind of two
poles in Berlin techno style and aesthetics kind of represented by Berghain and
Kater / Bar 25, and I was always more in the Bar 25 camp. Berghain is very dark
and industrial; Kater is more playful with lots of bright colors and odd
objects. The music coming out of their labels is different in the same way.

I think the yelling at tourists is mainly going to be if you're doing something
stupid (though some of those are non-obvious: e.g. taking pictures in clubs is
mostly a no-no). I probably wouldn't mess with trying to get in to Berghain.
Other places you'll have a decent shot. If you want to go like a pro, show up
from 4-6 a.m. instead of midnight with the tourists. The pros come out late, and
the lines are shorter and the dancefloors are less packed -- if you actually
like to dance, later is better. I'll sometimes even go out on Sunday afternoon.



pdntspa 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

Dang... a Berlin native friend of mine took me to Renate around 2011-2012 ish.
Great vibe but I got yelled at for being a tourist :(

I get it though, where I live we have desert undergrounds and parties up in the
mountains with a vibe that is threatening to be overrun by tourists. To say
nothing of all the plug-in camps popping up at Burning Man...



luzojeda 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

It's a fine line between having some foreigners/tourists which can be really
interesting fellows with realities completely different from you aaaaand being
overrun by people that behave like locusts and just care about consuming as
cheaply and quickly as possible no matter what (what happened to us in Buenos
Aires). I don't think most people mind some foreigners in the places they
frequent, the problem is the excess.



Tenoke 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

Depends on the tourists - there's a lot of tourists that fit in the scene very
easily, there's some that don't. It's not a requirement but if you already
listen to the artists that are going to be playing you are in the first group.
Tresor has pretty decent lineups while still being a bit more touristey but it's
not a tourist trap or an ibiza-style club or anything like that. The crowd is
generally considered a bit worse than the cool clubs, but nowhere near as bad as
the actually uncool clubs (like say Watergate).



groestl 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Tresor: As a tourist, could enter because I knew the DJs on the lineup and was
wearing a black hoodie. Guy behind me with a fancy shirt got rejected subito, no
questions asked.



junon 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Meanwhile, at Sisyphos the bouncer thanked me for wearing bright clothing and
told the ladies behind me wearing black "this isn't Berghain, ladies".

So research where you're going first! Helped me get in without having to say a
word!



jijijijij 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

> Do berliner straight dislike any tourist no matter how they behave?

I think, no citizen of any larger city likes tourists and the way tourism shapes
the city. It's mostly ugly, tasteless entertainment venues and ever the same
groups of people standing in your way, the same questions asked. Don't expect
anyone to be enthusiastic about your week long expedition through their lived
reality. Do your own research.

You have to behave like a "tourist" to be noticeable as one. If you are
disgustingly drunk and obviously in "don't be gentle, it's a rental" mode, you
may not get into some clubs, tourist or not. Some legendary clubs are very
sex/kink positive, and/or queer spaces, bouncers take their job serious and
filter out people who may disturb the peace or don't fit the general vibe. It's
not a zoo. As a "tourist", or really anyone not in the scene, you likely won't
get the info on anything "underground" going on.

That said, Berlin's tourism really isn't that bad compared to e.g. Paris or
Prague. The city feels very much like actual people are living there. Speaking
English won't get you "flagged" per se and you won't have trouble communicating.
Mind you, the "expat" type isn't exactly liked either...

My advice, to get an authentic feel for Berlin: Explore the city by bike! Rent
or cheaply buy one for the time being there. Traffic is intimidating, but the
city is much, much less overwhelming and exhausting on a bike. (Don't clog the
bike lanes, tho!) Berlin is incredibly green and got several lakes (!) inside
and around, where you can swim and hang-out. It's also very explorable, meaning
you can discover nice, or odd places and things just by walking around, in many
areas. Don't get too focused on certain locations.



luzojeda 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

I live in Buenos Aires which became extremely attractive for expats, digital
nomads and tourists in general last years due to the favorable exchange rate for
first worlders. Considering this I started disliking _some_ tourists as you say.
Those that go drunk everywhere, are loud, obnoxious, etc. I don't mind and are
actually nice to those that are just chill and want to get to know the city.}

Thanks for the tips :) ! Will make sure to rent a bike while there.



junon 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

> Do berliner straight dislike any tourist no matter how they behave?

No. Maybe some, but not many I've personally met.

> Im travelling to Berlin and was recommended Tresor

Not a bad club, not particular popular with people here. It is well known,
though.



kjkjadksj 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

The rent thing doesn’t exactly make sense to me because there are sometimes
large underground scenes in expensive cities too. I have no idea how they
coordinate warehouse parties in these places where the warehouse even for
warehouse use would have a lot of value, but they do.



larodi 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

Yea prices, forgot to mention it. Indeed very massive factor, Berlin is much
more expensive compared to… say 2005.

Belgrade is long way from Europe although the scene is good, but I’d say Croatia
and Albania are much more preferred by promoters



wheels 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

I think with the references to "promoters" a few times it's clear you're talking
about a different metric than I am. Clubs in Tirana and Zagreb feel gltizier,
more what one would expect from Balkan clubbing (which obviously exists in
Belgrade too). Belgrade has some grittier clubs where both the decor and crowd
feel like they're taking style cues from Berlin.



downWidOutaFite 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

This sounds similar to what's happened in Oakland, CA. When I moved here 25
years ago there was a huge underground music and arts scene in West Oakland
warehouses but the last 10 years of gentrification has wiped it out. After the
pandemic (and constant right-wing propaganda) Oakland is now once again deemed a
wasteland and businesses are fleeing, but I've started noticing a new youth
culture is slowly starting to emerge here and there.

I've seen the pattern in several other places as well: arts thrive in the
affordable undesirable edges of society until it generates enough buzz for
capitalists to notice it and move in seeking to profit off of it. The problem is
that culture is not valued in capitalism because it has no landlord.



Gibbon1 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

The crackdown on all the spaces after the Ghostship fire basically obliterated
it. Says something about the civic culture in the US that they chose to just
wipe those spaces out instead of just making sure they were safe.



ambicapter 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

"making sure they were safe" What a weird thing to say. Places like Ghostship
are built on not following the rules. You think they're going to follow the
rules on fire safety? You want the authorities to spent their time and energy
trying to enforce rules on a place who's raison d'etre is to be anti-authority?
Sounds like a waste of everyone's time.



Gibbon1 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Why is that weird? The Ghostship was a nightmare firetrap that the code
enforcement people knew about and did nothing. In a perfect world they'd have
done their job and 36 people would still be a alive. In a less perfect world
they'd be in prison.

Most of the places they shut down were mostly fine.



kwere 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

>culture is not valued in capitalism because it has no landlord

intellectual property is the way to monetize intangible culture



AlgoRitmo 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

Yes - I absolutely agree, any DJ who is familiar with the scene knows that is
the #1 place on the planet as far as talent goes…there are residents at CDV who
fly to Chile and Berlin a few times a week



omnimus 9 months ago | parent | prev | next [–]

Nothing even compares to Berlin. Prague has basically 2 clubs and they are
working partly because it's cheap and only 4hour train from Berlin so it's fun
destination for both Berliners and Berlin DJS. Athens is where lots of the
techno scene (djs, producers) has been moving to but that's because property is
cheap so they can run away from Berlin winter. It also has like 2 clubs. In
Berlin there are so many venues it's hard to remember them.



throwaway55671 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Total nonsense about Prague. There are 2 great techno clubs/bars on each Žižkov,
Vršovice or Holešovice street, lol. It's mostly locals and expats listening to
guys doing it for fun with no managers or marketing (or entrance fees), so yeah
it makes sense you have no idea if you don't live there, but just walk around
the city and listen.

Let me get you a list for your next Prague trip: Fuchs 2, Bike Jesus, Altenburg,
Bukanýr, Ankali, Roxy, Onyx, Jilská 22, Swim, Centrála, Cross, Storm, Chapeau
Rouge, Planeta Za, Wildt, Mecca, Studio ... That's just the very well known
ones, then you have hundreds of random small unknown places with great unknown
DJs all around the city, and many great rave events in places like nuclear
bunkers, castles, churches, forests.

The mainstream event halls normally used for big artist concerts are now hosting
raves too.



ehnto 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

Is this specifically techno/underground clubs you mean? My pokey city in Aus has
like a dozen "EDM" clubs that spin a decent breadth of techno to house to dnb
etc. Perhaps I should count myself lucky?



earthnail 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

EDM isn't Techno. It's a bit like saying that hard rock is like metal (somewhat
bad analogy, but I hope you get the point). I know you listed a range of genres
but it's important to note that the Berlin techno scene would never consider
itself part of EDM.

In Europe, most EDM is happening in Amsterdam.



_kb 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Or perhaps more appropriately for this context: "hey, you work with computers.
Can you fix my printer?"



ehnto 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

I didn't say techno was EDM, I said our EDM clubs spin techno.

Genre elitism is why I stopped spinning, it is such a boring thing to bike shed
over and contributes zero to the music.



ricksunny 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

Can you distinguish these two? In my head EDM & techno occupy the same space.



empath-nirvana 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

There's two definitions of EDM, the first is it's original intended definition,
which was as a blanket classification for all electronic dance music -- techno,
jungle, house, dubstep, whatever. Instead of calling it techno or electronica,
or whatever, EDM was meant to encompass all of it.

Almost immediately after the term started being used, though, it became strongly
associated with a particular type of dance music -- namely the mainstream house
music that got played at big "EDM" festivals -- think David Guetta and Afrojack
and Avicii and Tiesto... They used a blanket term when putting the festival
together because the festival booked all kinds of dance music, but the main
stages were dominated by a particular kind of dance music, so for most people
that went to those festivals, that was the kind of music they associated with
EDM.

"Techno" went through a similar evolution. It was originally a term for a
particular subgenre of disco and kraftwerk influenced dance music coming out of
detroit in the 1980s, around the same time that house music was starting up in
Chicago and garage music started up in New York. It pushed further into pure
electronic sounds than house and garage did (at first) and early techno
compilations solidified in people's minds that electronic music was "techno",
especially in america, so "techno" for a while became a catch-all term for all
kinds of electronic music. That faded away when "electronica" and then "edm"
sort of took on that role, and techno continued as a subgenre of music by
itself.

So, I think, properly, techno is a _sub genre_ of "electronic dance music" in
the general sense, but is a different genre than what a lot of people think of
as EDM (the kind of house music played at large festivals).



ricksunny 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Thanks, that helps. I would love to see a classifier try to cluster tracks
across the different types of "not-necessarily-festival-EDM', and compare to see
if it clusters as many fans also would.



NamTaf 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

It’s not anything to do with AI, but you might like this:
https://music.ishkur.com/

Crazy to think it’s been a thing since the 90s when it was built in Flash!



ricksunny 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Wow, mind-blown, thank you; this site alone should get UNESCO protection and/or
robust archiving. Really cool how so much branching happening in the late 80s &
90s is illustrated =)



empath-nirvana 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

It's hard to get even professional djs to agree on what genre songs are.



input_sh 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

> In my head EDM & techno occupy the same space.

That's the case for a lot of "normies", but it really feels insulting to the
electronic music fans in general. Unlike say rock nobody's gonna ask you to know
every band in existence and every album they put out decades ago, but you should
be able to distinguish between major electronic music genres like house, techno,
drum and bass, trance, hardstyle and what not. Sometimes the line gets really
blurry, sure, but 90% of the time it's pretty easy to know what you're listening
to.

The vibe is different, the tempo is different, the people that go to those
places are different, pretty much everyone develops some sort of a very specific
preference, and European countries kinda "specialize" based off of that. If you
want techno, you go to Berlin. If you want grime, you go to London. If you're
into house, you go to a beach in Croatia. I'd say the Netherlands are a bit all
over the place, but what really sets them apart is hardstyle, which is pretty
much not a thing anywhere else. And so on, and so on.

That's not to say you can't find other things in those places, but they're
always gonna be a bit more niche and you kinda have to know what you're looking
for to find them.



bnralt 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

> That's the case for a lot of "normies", but it really feels insulting to the
electronic music fans in general. Unlike say rock nobody's gonna ask you to know
every band in existence and every album they put out decades ago, but you should
be able to distinguish between major electronic music genres like house, techno,
drum and bass, trance, hardstyle and what not.

Plenty of people are able to enjoy music without getting caught up in
nomenclature. The idea that those people aren't real fans always feels very
snobbish.



sseagull 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

I find the nomenclature discussion very interesting. I wonder why "modern" music
has so many genres?

I listen to a lot of "classical". People will generally dump centuries of music
into that label, or into the slightly better "baroque/classical/romantic/etc"
bins.

But composers often have phases where their music can change considerably. Even
with in a work (say, Dvorak's 9th symphony) individual movements can be very
different. Yet I don't see classical music enthusiasts trying to place every
single work into tiny bins (or maybe they do?). They just enjoy them.



iamacyborg 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

I actually find that aspect of classical music really frustrating, subgenres are
really useful to identify the particular elements of music that you enjoy.

I've come across plenty of classical music that I enjoy but I don't know where
to begin to find more of it.



ehnto 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

If I am being charitable it is probably partly to do with how much music is
coming out, it is basically impossible to listen to all new DnB releases so it
helps that they get categorized so you can find what you want.

If I am being uncharitable, some people just want to differentiate to feel
special. Elitism in genres is nothing new either, rock and jazz have their own
blend of genre snobbery and I am sure even Classical had people trying to look
down on others from adjascent, equal height high horses.



giraffe_lady 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

Pretty much everyone is a fan of music in general or some kind of music in
particular. But I would counter that being able to name and differentiate a
genre is a valid minimum standard to be a "real" fan of that genre.

I also reckon that being a fan connotes something different from merely enjoying
the sound when you happen to come across it. But I guess there's room for
disagreement there.



bnralt 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

I highly disagree. I'm not going to say someone isn't a a true fan of Bach and
Vivaldi because they refer to the music as "Classical" instead of "Baroque."
Saying they "merely enjoying the sound when [they] happen to come across it"
because they aren't interested in how other people have decided to name these
things seems incredibly dismissive. Enjoying music is entirely unrelated to
being interested in where other people have decided to artificially create
divisions and the names they give to those divisions.



ehnto 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

I have had a hard time articulating this too. I really like trains, I travel to
go ride them, but I don't sit on the internet researching trains in my spare
time and I don't know thr minutae of the different train models. I just know
what I experience, and love it when I do.

When I tell this to normal people they think I'm a superfan, but I am not even
in the same conversation as actual train fans. I doubt I could even hold a
conversation about trains with a train fan.

It is the same for music, and I have the benefit of having been both a superfan
and now later just a regular person who loves the music. I have an in depth love
for the music, and no one can take that from my heart. But I don't give a lick
about genres anymore.



giraffe_lady 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

ok.



iamacyborg 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

> Plenty of people are able to enjoy music without getting caught up in
nomenclature. The idea that those people aren't real fans always feels very
snobbish.

If you can't differentiate between neurofunk and liquid, you're probably not a
big dnb fan.

That doesn't mean you can't enjoy it, but enjoying something and being a fan of
something can be quite distinct things.



bnralt 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

> If you can't differentiate between neurofunk and liquid, you're probably not a
big dnb fan.

I'll be honest with you, I thought this was satire before I read the next line.



pfannkuchen 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

The word “fan” has become really watered down over time. Didn’t it used to be
short for “fanatic”? If someone isn’t deeply familiar with the landscape of a
genre, then it seems logical to say they aren’t a fanatic.

It may just come down to whether one uses the watered down meaning of “fan” or
the original.



iamacyborg 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

That's fine, maybe you don't care about being able to differentiate between the
stuff you listen to, a lot of us do.



empath-nirvana 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

You can find good techno in almost any large city because those DJs tour a lot.
I don't think you're going to find something like Berghain in any other city,
but if your city has any kind of underground scene at all, there's going to be
good techno nights. Like I could go out tonight and see Loco Dice and Marco
Carola in my city in the US.

And don't assume that people in other cities don't get it. There's lots of
underground clubs where people that go out are 100% into it for the music and
"get it" and aren't just going for bottle service and VIP or whatever.



ehnto 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

> That's the case for a lot of "normies", but it really feels insulting to the
electronic music fans in general.

Which is a hang up that they should work on, because we are all just trying to
love the same thing. I agree with your descriptions of the distinctions mind
you. Genres are important to find and discuss music you like, but it gets
wrapped up in the ego of the listener, and that can get expressed negatively
through elitism and gate keeping.



randomopining 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

Netherlands is top in Europe overall. Most Berlin people are migrating to
Amsterdam.



eythian 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

They must really love the music then, they sure as hell aren't moving for the
better housing prices.

I'm not at all in the Amsterdam EDM or hardstyle scene (just not my music), but
I had indirectly got the feeling that it was slowly declining (ADE excepted), I
could be quite wrong though, maybe they're just all in NDSM or something.



randomopining 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

ADE is wild. I don't think anything else compares.



omnimus 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

Hardly. Amsterdam is comparatively small city = much smaller audience. You can
se the stability of the scene in how often clubs close down. Just recently De
School closed (now it should be reopen again under different management/name).
Some of the Berlin clubs have been open and solid for 20 years.



randomopining 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Did De School close because lack of interest? From what I've experienced (during
ADE) and also heard, Amsterdam is very popular for all the techno sub-genres.



jahnu 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

The exact meaning of EDM has shifted over the years but I would say that
currently it means stuff like Skrillex and Hardwell whereas techno is more like
Carl Craig or Inigo Kennedy or Charlotte de Witte



noelwelsh 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

Compare:

* Plastikman: Spastik: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TYsOMYaz6E (minimal
techno)

* Fred Again: Pull Me Out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cl6Rz1Uvi2M (house /
"EDM")

(EDM is more a US term than a European one, IME.)

I think the differences in style are quite obvious.



jahnu 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Ahhh Ritchie Hawtin. Legend!

A friend was playing this in a bar last night and it took me back.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yWOtCXu6dCE&pp=ygUTc3lzdGVtIDc...



scns 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Killer Acid tune.



scns 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

Fred Again is pretty unique, would not classify him as EDM.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0-hvjV2A5Y



HKH2 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

One clear difference is that EDM tends to have a lot of lyrics, whereas Techno
tends not to.



iamacyborg 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Depends on the subgenre of Techno. A lot of hardcore and Tekno features a lot of
movie samples.



HKH2 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

I meant words that are sung not spoken.



dleeftink 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

How did Amsterdam become the EDM capital?



ehnto 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

I am not doing this. I know what techno is, and EDM clubs here can also spin
techno, yes real techno.



_kb 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

I'm unsure which "pokey city in Aus" you're referring to as that arguably covers
all of our capitals. You really can't compare any Australian club to Berlin's
institutions, and that a good thing!

Music, events, and culture in general should be diverse. It would be a fucking
bleak future if the world converges on the single right way to party, detach,
relax, or feel.



ehnto 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

That's fair enough. I guess I am just surprised that there would be only two
clubs. Most clubs here don't specialize in one genre except the "core edm" clubs
but that might be an artifact of our distance from everything.

Rather than popping over a city to enjoy a different scene, we try to sprinkle a
bit of all scenes into the one city.

I am sure we don't hold a candle to the scene in Berlin, but I think my takeaway
is that I'll be thankful we get a sampler of many scenes here.



omnimus 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

I mean the kind of places the article is talking about ("the cultural heritage"
lol). I would say it's opposite of "EDM". Places where they only play ambient or
techno (or disco lol) and music is loud to your core but not deafening. Where
people get Club-Mate instead of Red bull, Skinny bitch instead of Cuba Libre,
ketamine... Places where it's really hard to see because it's pitch dark but
everybody is trying their best to look really hot when they go there.



padjo 9 months ago | parent | prev | next [–]

At the point where UNESCO are recognizing it it’s probably fair to say it’s not
underground at all anymore



diggan 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

It doesn't seem like "Berlin underground techno" is being recognized by Unesco,
but rather just "Berlin Techno". So while the underground movement might be the
grassroot for the mainstream, it would seem like they're recognizing techno in
Berlin overall, not just the underground part.



larodi 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

Precisely. Why did I need to tell this all BS at all, you nailed it soo good. It
is heritage, history, not the wave itself.



testfrequency 9 months ago | parent | prev | next [–]

You know, I didn’t want to get attacked by Berliner’s for saying this…but I was
pretty….whelmed…by the techno scene when I was there for a month.

I’ve enjoyed far more raves in LA and Detroit, and lots of harder techno clubs
in Chicago that felt a lot more authentic. The Berlin crowds were kind and
chill, but there definitely was this odd feeling where it all kinda
felt..scripted?

I hadn’t gone to Berlin up until two years ago, so I can only imagine it was
pretty incredible a decade ago before tourism swamped them.

And before anyone asks, I was rolling with native berliners and service industry
folks, so I was fortunate to get in to and attend a lot of the best parties
while I was there. I’d love to go back, I do just feel like it was slightly
overhyped before I got there :/.

Happy for them regardless, they deserve the recognition even if I didn’t get to
really experience the best of it



seabass-labrax 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Clarification requested: surely that's underwhelmed? Or are you saying that you
were emotionally involved in it despite the 'scripted' feeling as you describe?



satvikpendem 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

"Whelmed" is new slang to mean, it was ok, just alright. It is a reaction to
over- and underwhelmed which now carry a bit more extreme connotation.



testfrequency 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Exactly :)



testfrequency 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

The latter. I don’t think it’s fair to say I was underwhelmed (I wasn’t), I
enjoyed my time despite the feeling of how prescribed a lot of the
parties/clubs/people felt (party enough like I do and you’re sure to come across
this, it’s not unique to Berlin).

I just had this possibly _too_ high expectation of the Berlin techno club/party
scene before I got there, and it just didn’t wow me like I had heard it would
(despite having a great time and no issues).

Berlin as a city, however, exceeded my expectations..which definitely adds to my
confusion on my overall sentiment towards everything



jamil7 9 months ago | parent | prev | next [–]

There's still quite a lot of illegal/semi-legal free party scene type stuff
going on, especially in summer. A lot of the scene has been pushed outside of
the ring, though.

Leipzig is lovely but tiny in comparision, you won't find even remotely as many
clubs and parties.



codetrotter 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

> Leipzig is lovely but tiny in comparision, you won't find even remotely as
many clubs and parties.

That’s exactly what someone would say, to keep the tourists away :p

“No, there are no underground raves around here, nor have there ever been, nor
will there ever be. Please stay away from this town.”



picadores 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

You make two entrances - one is "backstage and delivery guys" - thats where the
people you want get in- the other is for insta-noodles and hipster-replacement
folk, who want to wait all night and then get rejected in some viral video..



picadores 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

Eh, because they do not want people there, who listen to promotions and whatever
the socialsewersystems carries as hip to them.

Where there is affordable housing, there be musicians doing brave new things
instead of worrying about rent and rapping rants about gentrification.



jackcosgrove 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

> Where there is affordable housing, there be musicians doing brave new things
instead of worrying about rent and rapping rants about gentrification.

So I am not a techno aficionado, and I'm curious what the state of Detroit
techno is now. It seems like it should be more notable (maybe it is and I'm not
in the scene to know) given the history and cost of living.

I regret the US turning away from house and techno, compared to Europe.



johnmaguire 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Detroit's cost of living is higher than the national average.

https://www.payscale.com/cost-of-living-calculator/Michigan-...

https://www.axios.com/local/detroit/2023/11/21/cost-of-livin...



samatman 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

> I'm curious what the state of Detroit techno is now

Still got it, never lost it.



wolverine876 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

So school us a bit, rep your city since UNESCO won't. Where does one go in
Detroit and what will they find?

Are people there talking about this?



sabellito 9 months ago | parent | prev | next [–]

Heard exactly that, including the Leipzig part, every year for the 5 years I
lived there 10 years ago.

Berlin is the biggest city in continental Europe, there's a lot of everything
and there'll always be hidden little nooks.



L_226 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Bigger than Paris?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_urban_areas_in_the_Eur...



toyg 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Maybe they meant big as in "big in Japan", if you know what I mean :D the techno
scene in Paris, although undoubtedly vibrant, is definitely less renowned than
Berlin's.



vidarh 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

Those are urban areas. If you instead count by city limits, Berlin is bigger by
a large margin [1]. This is the perpetual problem with defining "biggest" - to
some the urban area of Paris might still be "Paris" but the vast majority of it
is outside the city limits.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_the_European...



The_Colonel 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

This insistence on these officialities is frustrating, because the city limits
are pretty arbitrary and have no bearing on the discussion at hand. Did you know
that London (City of London) has less than 10 000 inhabitants? Apart from being
a legal and historical peculiarity, it's largely irrelevant in most discussions.

For this discussion (cultural centers of Europe), Greater Paris, Greater London
and Berlin (they have roughly similar areas) are what you want to compare, and
Berlin is clearly the smallest one population-wise out of these three (and it's
not even close).



vidarh 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

London and City of London are two different entities entirely so that comparison
does not work. London at its largest refers to the 32 boroughs and City of
London that makes up Greater London, not the City, to those of us who live here.
At it's smallest, it still refers to most of that, not just City.

If we want to shorten the name of City of London, the short form is the City,
not London. The only people who ever calls City by the name of London is people
who have just learnt of the oddity.

Greater London makes up the formal boundaries of London. It's the legal and
administrative boundary, and the city limits of London. Unusually, unlike the
city limits of many other cities, you'll find plenty of people including people
who live here who not quite consider the outer parts to be part of London.
People where I live sometimes still consider it part of Surrey even though it's
been part of London since 1965.

There are forests and agricultural areas almost entirely separating parts of the
borough I live in from the rest of London.

Yet in other areas, the Greater London urban area expands well past what anyone
would call London, including e.g. entirely separate towns in other counties,
like Watford in Hertfordshire, Gravesend in Kent, Epsom and Guildford in Surrey.

So yes, these comparisons are tricky but that is the point.

E.g culturally, London is likely reasonably described as smaller than it's city
limits, while indeed some other cities are often larger than them, but rarely as
large as the urban area they are within. It's extremely common for towns on the
outskirts of large cities to have their own separate identities and not be
considered part of the adjoining city, but still form part of the same urban
area.

Depending on what you want to compare and which cities you are comparing,
different measures will be more or less appropriate, and may require different
considerations.



ziddoap 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

>If we want to shorten the name of City of London, the short form is the City,
not London

This seems almost obnoxiously confusing when talking online to people from all
over the world.



vidarh 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Unfortunately, nobody took into account the difficulty of talking about this to
people online when the County of London was created (totally excluding the City
of London) in 1889, nor when the City of London and the London County Council
boroughs were finally merged into Greater London 1965 (only to be separated
again in 1986 when the Greater London Council was abolished, before being merged
again in 2000 when the current Greater London Authority was created).

[And, yes, this means there was a 14 year period when the UK had a capital
without a government, nor indeed any administrative unit - effectively
"(Greater) London" as a political and administrative entity didn't exist during
that period -, largely for political reasons - Thatchers government was strongly
at odds with the then particularly left wing Greater London Council]

But really, the reason for contracting City of London to "City" rather than
London is to minimise confusion, because it means London fairly unambiguously,
though not entirely, refers to Greater London.



zoklet-enjoyer 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

City limits are important because each city in a metro area could have different
zoning and noise ordinance laws. Or even just law enforcement that's more or
less strict in one city than another. This can help to shape the culture in each
city in a metropolitan area.



The_Colonel 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

> City limits are important because each city in a metro area could have
different zoning and noise ordinance laws.

You can have these differences within one city as well, on the district level or
even individual streets.



zoklet-enjoyer 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Yes, absolutely



earthnail 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

But Berlin stops entirely at its city limits. There is almost nothing beyond it.
That's just a consequence of its history with the east/west divide.

More people live in Munich's metropolitan area (i.e. where underground and
overground take you) than Berlin. Still, Berlin feels like a proper city and
Munich like a large village.

Berlin vs Munich is where your metric (people who live inside city boundaries)
works to describe the metropolitan effect.

Paris, on the other hand, is on another level entirely. When you travel from
Paris to Berlin, Berlin feels like a small town. And here, the metric of people
who live inside city boundaries just doesn't describe the feeling of the cities
at all.



vidarh 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Sure, but the point is you will get different results depending on which metric
you pick. It's not that one is inherently more correct than the other.

Often there are cultural aspects at play too. I live in London. I also live in
Croydon - it'd be one of the largest cities in the UK in its own right if it was
separate to London (and on more than one occasion the council has tried to make
that happen). Most of the borough is part of the same urban area, but some are
fairly well separated. Several parts of the borough are really separate towns,
separated not just from London but from Croydon by "relatively rural" land (by
our standards), with their own town centers, train stations, and culturally
distinct.

All of this is within the administrative city limits of Greater London ("London"
doesn't really exist as an entity of its own - and before anyone else says City
of London, that's one tiny constituent part of Greater London - nobody means
City when they say London)

So when you say Berlin, everything might be within city limits, when you say
London, odds are you wouldn't think of every part within the actual city limits
as part of it, nor even a city, but the Greater London urban area includes
tendrils extending beyond Greater London too that nobody other than perhaps
extra audacious real estate agents would call London. When you say Paris, odds
are you might include some parts beyond the formal city limits but very unlikely
the entire urban area.

Even then, you won't even get people living each place to agree where the line
goes.



mytailorisrich 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

The urban area is what matters. Paris is larger than Berlin and the largest in
the EU.

Paris has the specificity of having small limits for the city proper but it does
not make sense to use that metric for comparison because nowadays the city only
stops at the administrative limits for adminsitrative purposes and nothing else.
You won't even notice you've crossed the limit if not for the ring road.

In fact, Moscow is also larger than Berlin however you look at it we we're
talking about "continental Europe" (which I take as a way to exclude London,
which is also larger than Berlin...).



vidarh 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

The urban area of Paris ("aire d'attraction de Paris") extends well past the
areas where people would consider that they are "in Paris".

It might well still be the biggest in the EU if you drew limits based on what
people considered part of the city - I don't know - but it certainly would not
be as big as its urban area.

In fact, I'd argue you're unlikely to find any major city anywhere in the world
where most people would agree that every part of the outer boundaries of the
urban area are part of "the city" (or even "a city"; parts of urban areas will
still often be considered fairly rural by those who live there or in the nearby
city) even in a loose colloquial or cultural sense. Even coming close would be
exceedingly rare. This because the ways urban areas are designated by design
tends to include commuter regions far outside, with their own identities, and
often very separated from the biggest city in the urban area.

So while going by city limits will be misleading, so will going by urban area.
Unfortunately, no single metric will be accurate for these things.



mytailorisrich 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Just to point that "aire d'attraction" is not the same as the urban area. It is
the area of influence and extends much further than the urban area.

I live outside of London, howver you define 'London', but still in London's area
of influence considering how many people commute into London from here every
day.



vidarh 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

It's a tricky one, because by some definitions it fits what is often called a
metropolitan area, but there's no formal, objective definition of either urban
or metropolitan area that is universally accepted. You're right it's probably
wider than most uses of urban areas in English.

At the same time it's specifically meant to be aligned to OECD and Eurostats
definition of a Functional Urban Area, which is a definition meant to ensure
comparable statistics across countries, which neither the "old style" urban nor
metropolitan area terms provide...

Which really just goes back to the main point that you can get pretty much
whichever result you want here unless you narrow it down to the specific
criteria that actually matter to you...



thiago_fm 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

It is bigger than Paris if you don't count the surrounding area around Paris,
which isn't Paris. This article isn't correct as it is taking into account the
surrounding area.



tpm 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

At least Paris, Moscow, Sankt Petersburg and Istanbul are significantly bigger;
some other cities are bigger too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metropolitan_areas_in_...



thiago_fm 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

A metropolitan area isn't a city. She/he said city. Why are people in HN so
pedantic and typically wrong about things?



vidarh 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

At least Moscow is bigger in terms of within it's city limits too, though, but
then unless we want to be pedantic we get into what the person meant by
"continental Europe". To what extent people colloquially refer to any part of
Russia when talking about Europe varies greatly.



LAC-Tech 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

any school boy knows west of the urals = europe



vidarh 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Most of us are no longer in school, and lots of people forget that as soon as
they learn it, but it's also entirely irrelevant to the question of how the term
was used. "Europe" is very commonly used as a synonym for the EEA or even just
EU many places today, no matter how incorrect that is.



LAC-Tech 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

and lots of people forget that as soon as they learn it

Great, then we don't need to hear from these people. They don't need opinions or
view points about things they were never intersted in, never learned about, and
couldn't be bothered to remember.

"Europe" is very commonly used as a synonym for the EEA or even just EU many
places today, no matter how incorrect that is.

The term was very specifically "Continental Europe".



vidarh 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

It's not up to you to decide whether or not people express opinions about
whatever they please, and frankly that sentiment comes across as deeply arrogant
and unpleasant. if that's the tack you want to take you can continue this
discussion with someone else.

> The term was very specifically "Continental Europe".

And "continental" in Europe very often is just used as a "but not the UK"
modifier.

You can argue about the correct meaning all you want, but it is entirely
irrelevant to whether or not that is how it was actually being used.



LAC-Tech 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

frankly that sentiment comes across as deeply arrogant and unpleasant

I don't care what you think about me.



tpm 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

The original poster is obviously wrong.

Also comparing city populations within city limits is exactly being too
pedantic, because Paris is one example where the administrative city is much
smaller than the real city.



jillesvangurp 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

It's definitely not as big as those in terms of surface area. But it's quite
spread out and what counts as the "center" is a very loosely defined notion that
is actually quite large compared to all those cities.

There's a ring of sbahn commuter rail around the center. From east to west
that's about 16km and from north to south about 10km. Anything inside that could
definitely be considered as the center. Walking east to west would take about
three hours or so. You'll pass through a lot of interesting neighborhoods, each
with their own little centers. You'll pass lots of landmarks. The former east
and west berlin "centers" are about 9 km apart. A lot of the traditional
landmarks and hotspots are spread out throughout that zone. And then you have a
lot of gentrified spots that are becoming hotspots in their own right.

I use the word center loosely of course because there really is no such thing in
Berlin. It's all spread out over a huge area. There are probably about well over
a dozen areas that can lay claim to being a center of something. And frankly,
most of the interesting bits are outside of what the tourists flock to these
days.

Outside the ring, the city continues in pretty much all directions for quite
some distance. And some of those areas are quite nice as well. But most would
not consider that the center. I've lived here for about fifteen years and there
are huge parts of the city that I've simply never even been to because it would
take like an hour plus to get there and there isn't much in terms of landmarks,
etc. to draw me there.

Technically Berlin is actually a city state (within the federation of Germany)
that includes the capital and a few suburbs. Total population is still smaller
than it was before WW II (3.5M people vs 4M people then). So there's a lot of
open space, huge parks, two decommissioned airports (Tempelhof, Tegel), etc. all
within the city limits. Tempelhof is huge. About 2km by 2km of open space in the
middle of a big city with two decomissioned runways. It was the site of the cold
war air bridge. You have Kreuzberg to the north, Neuköln to the east and Alt
Tempelhof just outside the ring on the south west side. And that's just one
corner of the city. All in former west Berlin.

The population is growing for the last decades at a pretty decent rate (about
50K new people per year or so). But it will take some time to catch up to pre WW
II era levels.



ecoquant 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

It seems a constant that raves were better 10 years ago before everything became
commercialized.

"It use to be about the music"

I remember hearing this 25 years ago.

Of course, what happens is that you get people who have been going to these
things for 10 years and the novelty has worn off along with being 10 years
older.

Most fun activities are better when you are 10 years younger with no
expectations.



aqme28 9 months ago | parent | prev | next [–]

That's what they say about every scene. It's always too late. It's always
getting too mainstream.



snakeyjake 9 months ago | parent | prev | next [–]

>Berlin’s scene is actually not so underground and not so cool anymore as a
result of tourism and immigration.

In my experience, people who like things because they are hidden and exclusive
tend to be shitty, shallow, superficial people. Many, many, varied decades of
life lived all over the world, and I've never witnessed a counterexample so I
hesitate to make it an absolute.

Same goes for people who think they like things more than others because they
liked them first.



lukan 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

"In my experience, people who like things because they are hidden"

Sounds a bit like a strawmen. No one here said, they like something, because it
is hidden.

But hidden places are quite free and can cultivate a very different culture,
than one that plays by all the legal rules. And where money took over
everything.

The best places I have been, were not listed in lonely planet. And I could not
book them online. I had to find them.



immibis 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

How do you feel about Twitter vs Fediverse? People don't like Fediverse "because
it's hidden", but they like it because of the qualities it has, many of which
are influenced by it being hidden. If it was bigger and still had those
qualities, that would be fine too.



ferongr 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

On the other hand, normies do ruin everything.



Tainnor 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Living in Berlin and being into techno, clubbing and drugs is the most "normie"
thing ever. Try being a rock or jazz fan - or even Schlager.



snakeyjake 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

In my experience, 100% of all people who use the word "normie" unironically are
shitty, shallow, superficial people.



mtizim 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

If you stop squinting, you'll see that neither the average exclusive activity
enthusiast, nor a person using "normie" unironically are shallow nor
superficial. Maybe your experience can be explained by how you see these people,
not by how these people actually are.



cribbles 9 months ago | parent | prev | next [–]

> the scene is moving towards Leipzig

Speaking as someone who's split ~half my time between Leipzig and Berlin for the
last 5 years, this is not true.

Leipzig's club scene is an extension of its university population. It's younger,
straighter, whiter, and about two orders of magnitude smaller. People visit the
clubs while they're going to school there, then they graduate and move
elsewhere. Often to Berlin.

Why does this illusion exist? Because Leipzig is about an hour away from Berlin
by train. Berliners visit for a weekend and think "wow, it's like Berlin in the
90s! Still cheap! And look at all these cool young kids at these scrappy clubs
-- so that's where the underground has gone!". Then they go back to Berlin and
spread the word to credulous out-of-towners, who go on to repeat this truism to
people who have never visited either city.

In reality, Berlin's club scene -- both "mainstream" and "underground" -- dwarfs
that of any other city. Nothing short of an asteroid hit is likely to change
that.



jijijijij 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

The main reason why Leipzig won't become the "next Berlin" is rents are
increasing there, as fast as in Berlin. It is still cheaper, but not "let's try
and find out" cheap.

I think, for a moment around 15 years ago, Leipzig was dirt cheap and had quite
a bit of momentum, because you didn't need a business plan to try and make
things happen. People, students from west Germany, payed 100€ for rent and 30€
for an atelier. Lots of raw excitement and empty buildings.

But the momentum died maybe 8 years ago. What's left is nothing like Berlin.
Cheaper, but still expensive; liberal-ish, but all kartoffel. Leipzig doesn't
feel exciting, but small now. And it's deep in enemy territory, very depressing
region, the mere thought doesn't spark joy at all.



larodi 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

Techno has always been about that in Europe - young and white. And it is not in
Berlin anymore.

Berlin can have the heritage, NOW it’s not there anymore, do u get it?



mat0 9 months ago | parent | prev | next [–]

Well I can tell you in my totally anecdotal view that the underground scene here
is alive and well, you just need to look a bit harder for it ;) It’s true that
mainstream media like Instagram and TikTok are bringing the worst of the scene
and it’s true that there are now a lot of kids that think that the techno scene
is to dress in fetish clothes and film yourself dancing waiting for “the drop”.
But this is just capitalism and globalization doing its thing. Trends come and
go. You can still go to awesome parties here in Berlin that won’t be filmed and
uploaded to Facebook, and it’s also true that people complain a lot about the
scene going mainstream but in reality if you want money from it, there’s so many
mouths that the underground scene can feed. I think a bigger problem for the
club culture is the festival scene, but that’s a whole different discussion.
There are cool initiatives coming from this such as ASlice so I don’t think it’s
as bad as some old schoolers are claiming



pantalaimon 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

I feel like the growing festival scene is a direct result of properties getting
scarce in the city.

Or maybe that people got too busy that they can only afford to party when it’s a
proper vacation.



diggan 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

> I feel like the growing festival scene is a direct result of properties
getting scarce in the city.

On the hand, Barcelona is as cramped as ever (with rents showing it too) but
there is plenty of festivals in the city, especially around Port Forum (a
marina) which have huge open spaces and is right before the city limits.



Tenoke 9 months ago | parent | prev | next [–]

>towards Leipzig.

This has been a meme forever, and while Leipzig has its own decent scene for its
size, it is not remotely close to rivaling Berlin. Pick a decent sample of
either established or up and coming DJs and compare how often they play in
Berlin vs there to disuade yourself of that notion.

>and even Sofia.

Yeah, no. Just because a city has some parties here and there, it doesn't mean
it should even be in the conversation in this context.



throwaway55671 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

> established or up and coming DJs

Well there's the problem. What you should compare is how many unknown new guys
just making good music for fun in small unknown clubs visited by locals are
there.

In my city I can go to a random non-descript bar with zero marketing or entrance
fee, sit down peacefully with a drink, and hear world class techno together with
few dozen strangers. Every evening. Doesn't feel that way in Berlin anymore,
even if I pay it's all that global commercial style that the established DJs
with promoter/management teams seem to fall into and the places are totally
overcrowded.



projectazorian 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

What city?



throwaway55671 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Prague



lippihom 9 months ago | parent | prev | next [–]

https://ra.co/events/de/berlin events tonight in Berlin... parties at 100+
clubs, doesn't seem like anywhere comes close.



larodi 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

It’s what commerce looks like. Abundance is not a mark of the underground.



brcmthrowaway 9 months ago | parent | prev | next [–]

Berlin is over, just like Burning Man is over



barrenko 9 months ago | parent | prev | next [–]

Leipzig being known as Hypezig.



piva00 9 months ago | parent | prev | next [–]

Leipzig seems to be the new underground place in Germany from what I've heard
and experienced.

I believe this is the usual cycle of cities going through: arts scene existing
because it's a cheap place to live, artists congregate in places they can
afford, create a cool scene, the cool scene brings some bars/cafés and slowly it
erodes to gentrification since these places are cool and attract other crowds
into it (higher income, and/or tourists), eventually it makes the place
expensive and artists have to find a new place where it's cheaper to live, and
create their spaces.

Very similar to the geeks, MOPs, and sociopaths essay on subcultures. [0]

[0] https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths



earthnail 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

But Leipzig doesn't have the same growth opportunity as Berlin. Leipzig is 1/8th
the size of Berlin and as such its upper bound on how large a scene can become
is massively capped.

Add to that that Berlin has been a place for internationals for generations,
whereas Leipzig is entirely German.

For the record, I love Leipzig, I think it's gorgeous.



immibis 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

The usual cycle of capitalism going through cities. This thing where vultures
move in and monetize things that other people created for free is a peculiarity
of the way our economy works, not a universal truth (although it's a universal
truth that it happens wherever it's allowed to, it's not universally allowed to
happen).



baxuz 9 months ago | parent | prev | next [–]

Zagreb. Seriously?



rospaya 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Yeah, I'm wondering too.



carlmr 9 months ago | parent | prev | next [–]

>Berlin’s scene is actually not so underground and not so cool anymore as a
result of tourism and immigration.

It's funny how the (somewhat leftist) techno scene hates on foreigners
destroying their tradition. Berlin and Bavaria aren't so far apart after all.



yorwba 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Foreigners and tourists are different groups, albeit with significant overlap.
The techno scene has a problem with tourists in particular, whether foreign or
not. A Bavarian tourist booking an all-inclusive guided tour to pose on social
media is going to stick out all the same. Meanwhile an Algerian on a student
visa who spends more time partying than studying will fit right in.



filoleg 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

This has nothing to do with foreigners and everything to do with
outsiders/passerbys/tourists.

It is basically the techno scene version of gentrification (not talking about
the impact or harm or whatever else being comparable between the two, just the
mechanics of it), except it is happening with the techno scene instead of
housing.

This is not incongruent with your observation about “somewhat leftist” techno
scene people hating on outsiders destroying their tradition. It is very similar
to the analogous complaints those “somewhat leftist” people would make about
gentrification.

A very comparable similar example: Burning Man. Look at how it changed and what
people who have been attending it since forever ago are saying. Very similar
things, and it obviously has nothing to do with actual foreigners. It has
everything to do with “gentrifying” the event, and it just slowly turning into a
trust fund glamping larp.



junon 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

I'm a foreigner, nobody cares about that. People coming in and recording their
adventures, sitting in the corner texting, wearing fur boots or eye paint, etc
are the ones that aren't so much appreciated. Nobody's ever had a problem with
my shitty German as long as I've been partaking in the atmosphere as intended.



easyThrowaway 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

Dunno. Sven & friends at Berghain never looked particularly lefty. Tbh They
always gave me a a strong...erhh... "Aryan" vibe if you know what I mean.



Tenoke 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

They aren't super 'lefty' but "Aryan" is completely unfair. Berghain cares a lot
about diversity, and non-straight and non-white people have a sligtly higher
chance of getting in (never any guarantees for non-regulars of course), which is
the opposite of what a nazi place would promote.



easyThrowaway 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Non-white and non-straight as long as they looked like they were coming right
from a balenciaga catwalk. And they weren't shy in the past of hosting
notoriously hard-right aligned djs and artists.

Berghain antics aside, the point I was trying to make it's that Berlin club
scene isn't exactly as "welcoming" of outsiders as a whole as the OP was
suggesting.



scns 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

> And they weren't shy in the past of hosting notoriously hard-right aligned djs
and artists.

Whom?



easyThrowaway 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Vatican Shadow is probably the most infamous example, it had resonance even
outside of the local scene. It was probably the point when their usual "We don't
take a political stance" position didn't fly at all.



scns 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

Sven is gay.



wolverine876 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

People's sexual preferences don't determine their political or ideological
preferences.



cookiemonsieur 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

Which is immensely ironic considering that modern house and techno is an
invention of African Americans in Chicago. We've truly come full circle.

The same thing is being done to hiphop in a similar way.



throwaway11460 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

This is a different branch of music that doesn't have much in common with
Chicago style house/techno. It's similar so people lump it together, but it
evolved separately from synthpop, eurodance and electronic music that Kraftwerk
did in 70s. The modern commercial EDM/techno is pretty different from what
you're going to hear at a Berlin/Prague underground techno club, and has almost
nothing in common with freetekno as heard in the forests.



helboi4 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

I beg to differ. Plenty of Berlin techno is a descendant of Detroit techno. The
fact that you only mentioned Chicago already shows a lack of understanding.
Kraftwerk and the others you mentioned influenced Detroit techno pioneers,
Detroit techno pioneers influenced Berlin techno pioneers. It's a transatlantic
sound.



throwaway11460 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

I mentioned Chicago because the parent did.

But I agree that there's a lot of cross influence.



pgeorgi 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

Haven't you heard about the
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studio_for_Electronic_Music_(W..., America's
finest place of avantgardist music and sound experimentation? (/s)



throwaway2562 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

Nonsense. Jeff Mills was a Skinny Puppy fan, and you can hear it. All the
Belleville Three were heavily influenced by Kraftwerk and euro-electro, and you
can hear that too. All of them namecheck a much richer and diverse set of
influences than Chicago house, itself a refinement of disco, a far from strictly
racially-defined movement. The UK was the first to wake up to US techno, long
before the US did, if you actually know/ lived through the history. Then of
course you have Plus 8, Tresor, Basic Channel and so on. You can try for an
Afro-American imperial case, but it’s going to get factually unstuck fast.

The whole damn point was people dancing in a room together, not whatever
authenticity tests you have in mind.



cmrdporcupine 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

> Jeff Mills was a Skinny Puppy fan, and you can hear it

Totally. I have somewhere in my pile of neglected vinyl one of the "Final Cut"
releases, which was a straight-up wax-trax style EBM/industrial thing which Jeff
Mills was involved in. Late 80s/early-90s.

> The UK was the first to wake up to US techno, long before the US did

Arguably, the US never really did. Most people here in North America remain
clueless to what techno is and can't distinguish from EDM or other dance music
forms. In Detroit itself, there was obviously an active scene, but much smaller
than anything you'd find in most European cities (Detroit itself is a fairly
small city, population wise), and much smaller than its own hip-hop scene. Back
in the 90s when I was much more into this scene, it was very much a niche
underground thing. Active scene participants here in southern Ontario/Toronto
(3rd/4th largest city in North America) were a few hundred people at most and we
pretty much all knew each other. Detroit techno producers and DJs spent most of
their time touring in Europe (where they could get paid), not here in North
America.

The Detroit Electronic Music Festival events were kind of a rare acknowledgement
by a larger audience (I went to the first two only, though).

All said though, the "Detroit" "authenticity" pole in techno served as a
counteracting force against the unbearable soul-less, drug-rush-focused,
"whiteness" of trance, progressive house, etc.



Detroiterr 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

> Detroit itself is a fairly small city, population wise

Detroit's population has decreased. It was the 5th or 6th largest city in the US
around 1980, iirc.

> Detroit techno producers and DJs spent most of their time touring in Europe
(where they could get paid), not here in North America.

> The Detroit Electronic Music Festival events were kind of a rare
acknowledgement by a larger audience (I went to the first two only, though).

Yes, they were virtually unknown in Detroit. I also remember the first DEMF.
Detroiters had no idea what was going on - what was this music? Why were people
coming here from all over the world? One of my favorite memories was Derrick May
finally taking the stage as the headliner:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4xqV9_7rf0



cmrdporcupine 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

> One of my favorite memories was Derrick May finally taking the stage

That was a great moment. I recall the Stacey Pullen set being great, too. I'd
seen both those people before and not been impressed, actually. But at DEMF it
was amazing.



randomopining 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

That last part - was trance/prog house always like that? Or did it start more
underground and organic in 1989 onward until the mid-90s where it became very
commercial and then went to the next level with someone like Tiesto?



cmrdporcupine 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

When those forms became distinguished as separate genres, basically yes. I think
there was a vein of maybe more interesting "trance" in 92, 93 timeframe (I'm
thinking about Oliver Lieb's stuff and maybe Rabbit in the Moon and some other
stuff) that was a bit more techno-ish, but with some of the hallmarks of what
came to be the "trance" form. But by the time people were specifically carving
out "trance" it had basically the drum rolls and drug rush thing going on. By 96
when I started paying attention to that, it was already unbearable (to me).



helboi4 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

Yep, exactly. It was German etc sounds being appreciated by African Americans in
Detroit, being mixed with their influences in Chicago, and then travelling back
across the Atlantic. Its a transatlantic international group effort and to deny
either side of it misses the whole point.



randomopining 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

You both explained it very succinctly. I don't get why people have to grasp at
depictions of history that simply aren't true. They want to believe that Jeff
Mills and Belleville 3 somehow created this new music from nothing and inspired
the entire world.



piva00 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

Just to be a bit pedantic: techno didn't come from Chicago but from Detroit :)



luma 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Seems like UNESCO forgot about us in Detroit. Not to worry, we're used to it,
and we'll party all the same.



larodi 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Detroit deserves much more in its failed financial state to be made héritage of
like anything… Urban heritage man, re u joking. Sadly no bright future for
Detroit for the time being…



cookiemonsieur 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

My bad. But the point stands. Complaining about a cultural movement that they
have almost entirely gentrified is massively ironic.



Mashimo 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

I think the scene is complaining about tourists and "foreigners" was a bad
choice of word in this thread. People are flocking to big names and entry prices
are as high as they have ever been. It's less about the actual music.

And in that complaint I don't see any irony.



piva00 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

I wouldn't say "gentrified", techno just evolved from the Detroit roots, first
in the UK and then continental Europe (Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, etc.).

Techno came from an already gentrified African-American community in Detroit,
the Belleville Three [0] were from a more affluent part of Detroit at the time,
inspired by the 70s/80s German and Japanese electronic music scene, it was never
like the roots of hip-hop...

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Belleville_Three



Detroiterr 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

> the Belleville Three [0] were from a more affluent part of Detroit at the time

Nobody in Detroit has ever called Belleville affluent (or 'more affluent' or
whatever), and I go back to those days. I will politely omit the lol because you
(obviously) aren't from around here.

Techno was indeed the music from middle-class African-Americans. It's too bad
the world demanded that young Black male artists must act like the white world
expected - like gangsters - to sell hip-hop records.



samatman 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

Belleville? Affluent??

Lol. Lmao. Belleville is Juggalo country, cuz. Ypsituckians working in auto
parts factories.



Detroiterr 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Ha. Maybe they are thinking of this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Triplets_of_Belleville

(Could that be a subtle reference? Was the director or writer a techno fan?)



have_faith 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

Do you have a lot of knowledge about how the techno scene in Berlin evolved and
came to be?



rvense 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

If you are suggesting that "modern house and techno" emerged fully formed from
black kids in Chicago and that Berlin techno is just imitation, I do wonder why
you're even bothering to take time out to comment - this isn't really a position
that could be seriously held by someone who's ever actually listened to the
music.



boppo1 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

>African Americans in Chicago

That's funny, Detroit lays claim to the same thing.



briankelly 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Chicago claims house. Detroit claims techno. They aren’t exactly the same.



jamil7 9 months ago | prev | next [–]

How exactly does the city and federal Government square this with their plan to
build a huge (unwanted) freeway through the city and bulldoze multiple clubs and
music venues?



ryukafalz 9 months ago | parent | next [–]

I just looked this up because I was surprised to hear about this. Context for
those unfamiliar:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-07/berlin-pl...

This is the kind of mistake that we made in the US decades ago, and the results
are plain to see today in any neighborhood bisected by a freeway.



lenerdenator 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Considering the US chose an interstate highway system in large part due to
Eisenhower's exposure to the Autobahn during WWII, there's sort of a karmic
quality to this.



scoofy 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

The controlled-access highway system is a fantastic innovation for our
automobile-based transportation system in America. It dramatically increases
safety, fuel-efficiency, and throughput.

This issue is that the controlled-access highways should have never been placed
inside cities, but that precludes the automobile becoming the de facto mode of
transportation.

It's important to remember that many of Robert Moses's city-splitting projects
were started before WWII. I suspect that some of the worst aspects of what
resulted from his legacy were based on vain attempt to use suburbia as defense
mechanism to better survive a nuclear exchange.

The irony is that the existing controlled access highways could be fairly easily
repurposed to rail if we wanted to, it's just that the automobile addicts that
we are would collectively lose our mind if we actually converted some of
redundant urban highways into railways.



itishappy 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

My hometown did this in the 60s, and it was a major factor in creating one of
the worst slums in the US.

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/11/syracus...



aketchum 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

atlanta is trying to fix this by building a park over the interstate in the city
center. Only tangentially related but it blows me away how ambitious the project
is. The stated goal is for reconnecting communities on either side



ryukafalz 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Philadelphia too:
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/pennsylvania/article...

It's a much-needed change, the side of Philly's Chinatown to the north of the
freeway is clearly suffering compared to the south side. It's such a stark
difference.



immibis 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

In Berlin there's a park, Westpark am Gleisdreieck, that occupies an old rail
yard and covers up a rail tunnel underneath. I can testify although it still
feels like the park is a dividing line between separate communities on each
side, it's nowhere as divisive as an actual railway that you couldn't just walk
over.



wolverine876 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

It's a widely recognized problem in the US - they built the highways through the
politically marginalized communities. The Biden administration has a program to
repair some of that, and I wonder if that's where Atlanta is getting funding.



masfuerte 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

An egregious example:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cairo-flats-are-handy-for...



hobofan 9 months ago | parent | prev | next [–]

I mean they have to figure that out now. IIRC, having the UNESCO status as
concrete evidence to point to in the future to prevent situations like this,
where the club scene has to make was one of the main reasons the Berlin has
advocated for that status.



t_mann 9 months ago | prev | next [–]

The museum-ification of Europe continues unabated. I can't get into the mind of
the people who thought that this award was a good idea, much less anyone who'd
feel happy about receiving it (it's usually not the 'real' locals anyway, but
people who are close enough to feel some connection but far enough to not be
exposed to the reality; or people with financial interests).



wolverine876 9 months ago | parent | next [–]

That's similar to my initial response.

The museum treatment is the end for any artform, IMHO; it's petrification. Did
rock'n'roll grow and move and thrive after its Hall of Fame opened? I suppose
there was grunge.

It freezes the artform in a certain state (and by who and how is that state
chosen?) and defines it that way for eternity. That's death - growth and change
are ended; like the dearly departed it's defined by memories of it, not who it
will be today or tomorrow; it's no longer doing something new that will surprise
you or make you uncomfortable; it's sometimes reenacted by people who try to
represent it, who miss the point of art - to express something of your own.



immibis 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

This is not a museum. It doesn't prevent new things from happening or old things
from closing down, although it may provide some legal weight to prevent them
from being forced to close down or not happen (e.g. because the CDU wants to
build a highway through the poor part of town, as it does right now).

Demoscene is on the same list, but that doesn't mean UNESCO is forcing
demoparties to run a certain way or forcing demosceners to make demos a certain
way or that any of it became a museum. It just means the government shouldn't
try to shut it down. Maybe it enables the government to make some official demo
archive in the future or something, but what's wrong with that? A demo museum
can exist at the same time as an active scene, just like museums about the past
of Berlin can exist at the same time as Berlin exists, and the same in techno.



ChrisArchitect 9 months ago | prev | next [–]

Another recent addition from 2021 close to HN's heart:

Demoscene

https://www.unesco.de/en/culture-and-nature/intangible-cultu...



mahmoudhossam 9 months ago | prev | next [–]

Disclaimer: I live in Berlin currently but I've never been a techno person.

From what I hear from people who are, the clubs have become basically tourist
traps that are unaffordable to locals and some have even been priced out of
their original locations so not sure if this decision will help much.



walthamstow 9 months ago | parent | next [–]

Same thing happened in London a long time ago. The antidote is word-of-mouth
raves in abandoned buildings, forests, farms, canal boats, wherever



dbspin 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Can't speak to London, but abandoned buildings are few and far between in
today's Berlin. It's not the city it was even five or six years ago due to
massive redevelopment. As regards forests, I guess there's the Grunwald, but
good luck running a rave there, it's basically the backgarden for a whole bunch
of old people's dachas.



piva00 9 months ago | parent | prev | next [–]

They got much more expensive after the pandemic, in 2019 an expensive entrance
was 18-20€, after it seems that some clubs are up to the 20-30€.

I remember in 2015 paying 10-15€, even Berghain would be around 15-18€ and that
was expensive already.

The techno scene is still pretty good music-wise if you check the line-up and
avoid the new fad of celebrity DJs from the past 8-10ish years. I'm very fond of
my early techno days where you could barely see the DJ from the dancefloor, they
would be spinning in the shadows and the focus was dancing (this in the early
2000s so not an OG at all to the scene from the 90s, and not in Berlin).



te_chris 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Berghain's door policy mostly still works: keeps the American tourists out and
the club good times. It's starting to feel a bit dated in general, like the
moment's moving past it, but it's always a good time.



piva00 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

I agree, as ruthless as the door policy is every single time I've been there I
had a good time, the crowd inside knew what they were there for and what the
scene is about.

To me personally since the big room/celebrity techno DJs took more space in the
scene it has become much harder to find dancefloors like Berghain. I'm still sad
for De School closing in Amsterdam, it was a very different place than Berghain
but the crowd and dancefloors were very enjoyable.



te_chris 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Totally. Skrillex at bhain is some end times shit



Tenoke 9 months ago | parent | prev | next [–]

I moved in Berlin in 2016, which isn't too long ago but the prices were much
cheaper (for some places that means sub-10 vs over 20 euros now, for Berghain it
means half the price back then), and even then locals were the minority.
Foreigners self-select by coming especially for the scene, while the % of locals
here who care for it isn't that much higher than the % of locals born in other
cities.



earthnail 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Even at today's prices, Berghain is a fraction of what you'd pay on proper
tourist hotspots like Ibiza (think $70 upward). Or what you'd pay in other
cities like London.



aqme28 9 months ago | parent | prev | next [–]

I think night clubs are always mostly tourist traps in most cities in the world.
In Berlin, like other places, there are a few cream-of-the-crop that attract the
locals.

Interestingly, as an expat/immigrant I've met all my local Berlin friends
clubbing, and most of my friends here are German. My colleagues who don't go
clubbing seem to be in little bubbles of other expats.



mrtksn 9 months ago | parent | prev | next [–]

This is happening everywhere and with everything. IMHO its a result of the
inflated "elite class", that is people who are well off enough to spend their
days with consumption only or they were overpaid.

As a result, these people go everywhere and do consumption and outcompete
everyone who is not like them. Then everything gets adjusted to their pleasure
and they consume all the resources(being housing, food, entertainment etc).

Also, the supply and demand are not able to stabilize because the money moves
around the globe freely but working people can't. So when a cryptobro from
Russia moves to Portugal he can consume all the Portuguese resources but he
can't bring fellow Russians to work and re-supply. Why wouldn't Portuguese just
work harder and make buck by increasing the supply to meet the demand? Well
because the cryptobro demands luxury housing, luxury food, massages, cars and
cocaine but the Portuguese in the location they moved in are maybe painters,
taxi drivers, chemical engineers or doctors and they can't simply start doing
this new stuff.

The folks are angry with working class immigrants but most of their troubles are
actually due to a-few-millionaires who are not rich enough to do substantial
long-term investment but are rich enough to consume like there's no tomorrow.



epups 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

You write as if there is a finite supply of "entertainment" which comes out of
thin air. If someone is consuming, then someone is supplying. You mentioned
yourself that the ones supplying are the locals. So, in your analogy the locals
are getting jobs in night clubs, restaurants and construction to feed the needs
of this "consumption class". In economies without tourism, this is done by
producing export goods.



mrtksn 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

It is a finite supply that can be build upon over time. That's why the prices
are going up. If everyone suddenly had the same amount of money as the
"consumption class", some of the millionaire would have had to prepare the food
and clean the toilets. The whole idea of money is that it is something you are
supposed to receive for creating value and use it to extract value from others
by trading it. Fiat, gold, crypto - it doesn't matter - you can't consume it
directly. When you have a lot of people who own a lot of money but not enough
people to do the stuff, prices go up. Basic supply-demand stuff.

The real economy is not elastic enough to handle increase in demand instantly.
It takes years to train people to do the things that are taken for granted.

Think of it like the developer salaries in the USA when the money poured in,
until it stopped.



pantalaimon 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

The finite supply is space, not DJs. And that’s a mostly political problem as
it’s not like there is a lack of space in general, but what you are allowed to
do with that space.



mrtksn 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Someone needs to turn stuff into an Apartment or a burger no matter how
libertarian or communist the policies are. It takes time, it transforms a
society.

Generally speaking, money is for bookkeeping among agents that produce and
consume value and the production and consumption has natural speed within the
laws of physics. When people who move around faster and demand stuff to consume
than the people who produce, then you have local bubbles that disrupts the
society.

Also, since the output of the people is finite the larger is your elite class
the less stuff to consume for everyone. Better have you elites becoming elites
because they dramatically increased the production of the stuff they consume(for
example, they might have invented the internet and the services on it and
improved efficiency of trade or they might have made great music and improved
the working conditions of people who work in insulation, thus more people
accepted the job etc.). If you have an elite that is growing faster than they
improve the yield, then you have a parasitic class that might end up destroyed
if grows too big.



technotarek 9 months ago | prev | next [–]

We need an acknowledgment of the past, the origins, which may no longer be
present. Detroit starting in the ‘80s and into the 90s would be the prime
example. I wrote a short essay about the latter :

https://technotarek.com/shows/richie-hawtin



_bohm 9 months ago | parent | next [–]

In the US it seems there's still a decent appetite to connect to the history of
the genre. Carl Craig, Kevin Saunderson, Juan Atkins, Jeff Mills, etc. still
tour regularly. In NYC, DJ Assault is currently holding a residency at Market
Hotel. Nowadays has been running a series of "Foundations Nights" where they
book a group of DJs representing the lineage of a particular style, which have
been great. The Dweller festival has also been running for a few years which is
a wonderful initiative (the name paying homage to Drexciya).

I agree that it's worth considering why Berlin has been chosen without
acknowledgement to its roots (no shade to Berlin, I love that city and much of
the music it has produced).

I enjoyed reading you essay. Coincidentally, U Street Music Hall was one of the
venues that shaped my teenage years and served as my gateway into the electronic
music scene.



randomopining 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

It's pervasive in Berlin from what I see, understand, and have read about the
90's. Realistically it's not a pervasive fabric of even a place like Detroit.
Most people in Detroit don't even know that techno is "from" there.



te_chris 9 months ago | prev | next [–]

This is great, though it's hard to ignore that there's a bit of
techno-industrial-complex going on there. Still, there's a proper industry for
electronic music, nice people, good clubs, good music, good record stores and
that sense of freedom that comes with long opening hours - not just in the
clubs.

One of my favourite things about Berlin is just sitting in a bar with friends
till you're done for the night, no pressure to move on - often this can drag
till 4 in the morning, but it doesn't feel laboured.



helboi4 9 months ago | parent | next [–]

Bars in Berlin are so much more relaxing and enjoyable than in many other places
fr



bowsamic 9 months ago | prev | next [–]

Not enough mention of LGBT, especially gay male, scenes, which are the
foundation of German techno. Until very recently, Berghain was a gay club that
plays techno, not a techno club that supports gay people. Many Berlin clubs are
still gay orgies, including the ocassional basement show in Berghain, but more
famously kitkat club.

I agree the scene is "dying" though, simply because Berlin is very different
than it was 20 or 30 years ago. Robert Henke (Monolake) talks about this: after
the wall collapsed, the factories in east Berlin were abandoned, and west Berlin
were happily giving permission and even some money to any student who wanted to
open an "artistic space" in one of the old factories. So it was easy, you had a
very industrial space, you brought some speakers and some beer along, and
suddenly you had a club.

This is basically a very rare cultural moment: large amounts of unused
industrial space being given away to anyone who wants to party. Berlin is, of
course, nothing like this now.



treprinum 9 months ago | prev | next [–]

OK, how are they going to preserve it? Where can I visit 1999 Berlin techno
scene and experience the rave?



yakshaving_jgt 9 months ago | parent | next [–]

Fortunately, Odessa in Ukraine is also under the protection of UNESCO.

When the russians hit Odessa with missiles today, only 14 people died.

Thanks UNESCO!



morkalork 9 months ago | prev | next [–]

Every DJ and producer that goes to Berlin to do a "residency" comes back
sounding the same and I hate it.



bowsamic 9 months ago | parent | next [–]

Hardwax.com still has the great picks, I definitely recommend looking there if
you want great Berlin techno (and ambient, electro, etc.) that doesn't sound
like the stale genre "Berlin techno"



afro88 9 months ago | parent | prev | next [–]

Similar effect when they do a residency in Ibiza back in the 2000s and 2010s



dopamean 9 months ago | parent | prev | next [–]

couldn't agree more.



nemo44x 9 months ago | prev | next [–]

It’s like they’re going out of their way to make it uncool.



HKH2 9 months ago | parent | next [–]

Won't that help preserve it?



dopamean 9 months ago | prev | next [–]

I wish Detroit had the marketing that Berlin does.



samatman 9 months ago | parent | next [–]

It's only Techno if it's from the Rust Belt region of Southeastern Michigan.
Otherwise you have to call it sparkling EDM.



qgin 9 months ago | parent | prev | next [–]

I haven’t been to Detroit or Berlin. Is the difference really just marketing or
are there other differences?



LAC-Tech 9 months ago | parent | prev | next [–]

Yeah I associate techno a lot more with Detroit than Berlin. Detroit in Effect,
Jeff Mills, Plastikman...



siquick 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Plastikman/Hawtin isn’t from Detroit and no one from Detroit would want to claim
him either.



LAC-Tech 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Why? What is Detroits grievance with him?

I suppose a fair few 'detroit techno' artists are not from there.



rightbyte 9 months ago | prev | next [–]

It must feel really lame for those active in a subculture to be put on some
Unesco heritage list. Like, really really lame.



LAC-Tech 9 months ago | prev | next [–]

I'm somewhat into techno, and I cannot name a single artist from Berlin.

If I zoom out further into EDM in general, I think of Paul van Dyk, but that's
literally it.

My knowledge is dated, but it does fall in the realm of "post cold war", so I'm
wondering why I can't think of more if this scene was so important.



ChrisArchitect 9 months ago | prev | next [–]

Entry on the German UNESCO site:

https://www.unesco.de/kultur-und-natur/immaterielles-kulture...



world2vec 9 months ago | prev | next [–]

Going on a cultural trip to Berlin this next May, with some of my best friends.

What are your most favourite underrated techno clubs in Berlin? I've been to the
big ones already, keen to explore the fringe places.



huseyinkeles 9 months ago | parent | next [–]

I enjoyed Zur Klappe when I visited Berlin pre-pandemic times. It's literally
underground and used to be a public toilet.

And it's very close to the famous Mustafa's Gemuse Kebab, so you can try that
afterwards.



dewey 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

> And it's very close to the famous Mustafa's Gemuse Kebab, so you can try that
afterwards.

I'd skip the tourist queue and go to any other random places you find on the way
instead.



menor 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Agree, Mustafa's queue is not worth it



pantalaimon 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

Just don’t queue an hour at Mustafa's - it’s good Kebap, but it’s not that
extraordinary. Rüya(m), Superhahn or Servet's make the same style of Gemüsekebap
and are just as good.



profstasiak 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Hey, my friend moved to Berlin 2 years ago and he takes everyone to Mustafa - is
this a tourist attraction / internet one? I don't know why he does this, the
kebap is original but nothing special tastewise.



whstl 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Yep, it is definitely known as a tourist trap around here.



treprinum 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

Why go to Germany to get a Turkish meal? Any kebab in Istanbul is going to be
better than whatever is available in Berlin. Better get some Schweinshaxe mit
Sauerkraut...



Barrin92 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Okay I am German and I can tell you I don't know anyone who prefers Schweinshaxe
to a good döner kebab. Which by the way, funnily enough, was invented in Germany
by Kadir Nurman, a Berliner!

It's basically our national dish at this point and we're arguably better off for
it. Our more traditional cuisine is... not so great.



Towaway69 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

IIRC Döner Kebab Was invented in Berlin...

> The modern sandwich variant of döner kebab originated and was popularized in
1970s West Berlin by Turkish immigrants.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doner_kebab



treprinum 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

It's still the döner kebab one could buy earlier anywhere in Turkey or MEA just
adapted to European city life with different customs and technology. When in
Germany visitors should instead taste local dishes not available anywhere else
even if they taste weird/bland.



input_sh 9 months ago | parent | prev | next [–]

Sisiphos (temporarily closed right now I believe, not sure if that'll be the
case by May), Renate, Birgit, Ritter Butzke.



piva00 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Those are not really underrated or underground these days though, they are some
of the mainstays of clubs in Berlin.

I don't think even Golden Gate nor ://about:blank would be considered truly
"underground" anymore. As usual with the underground stuff you need to dig
deeper to find them, as I don't live in Berlin I need to rely on my local
friends to take me to these places as they are inserted within the underground
culture.



ciex 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

Yes, please dont post about any unpromoted venues on hacker news!



wheels 9 months ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

Those are probably all listed in Lonely Planet at this point. Renate and Butkze
had stints as scene clubs, but that was like 15 years ago when they were
illegal. Sisphyos still has some scene-y-ness, but is a mix of tourists and
locals. It only managed to stay off the radar for a couple years when it was
only an outdoor location. But it's so big that it can absorb the crowds better.
Birgit, on the other hand, was purpose-built for tourists. I actually like going
to the biergarten there since it's right around the corner from where I live,
and have played there a couple times, but it's unabashadly a club built to look
like Berlin clubs except be more accessible for tourists. There was never a
point that it was a scene spot.



WitCanStain 9 months ago | parent | prev | next [–]

It's not everyone's cup of tea but Kit Kat is an experience you won't find in
many other places.



te_chris 9 months ago | parent | prev | next [–]

Check RA for lineups and go based on that.



low_tech_love 9 months ago | prev | next [–]

The scene has thrived greatly under the watchful eye of the Techno Viking.



jen729w 9 months ago | prev | next [–]

Any Australians here who were there for Melbourne’s ‘dirty electro’ scene
through the 00s-10s?

I feel very privileged to have lived my 30s through that time. Public Office in
West Melbourne. The Lounge! Oh my god the Lounge on Swanston. E55 at the bottom
end of Elizabeth. And let’s never forget Revolver, not that it needs forgetting
as it’s still going.

Everyone in that scene was there for the music. We all danced, we all enjoyed
each other, we went home together, we bonded over ciggies on the balcony, we
stayed up all night, we shared everything. It was epic.

I’m 47 now. I have no mid-life crisis, and I put it down to living in Melbourne
through my 30s. A spectacular little bubble in human history. x



defrost 9 months ago | parent | next [–]

"I'm too old for that shit" ~ Lethal Weapon.

However .. I was there for https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yyUO93JpEw
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Band_scene

and later made it to Berlin to being working tech crew for Wim Wenders Wings of
Desire when the scene with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds was shot
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPf6SWcENWo

Two decades seems excessive, I was there for the shortest no-wave ever(?) The
Immaculate Consumptive in the time of Scraping Foetus Off the Wheel.

Melbourne's always seemed to have several layers of music scene on the go at any
one time, for better or worse many of the acts travel onwards and outwards, some
returning to base camp.



pastor_bob 9 months ago | parent | prev | next [–]

Not Australian but I wanted to say thanks for all the vids of the melbourne
shuffle that came out around that period. Very entertaining for an american
teenager



jen729w 9 months ago | root | parent | next [–]

My friends call me ‘Johnny two-step’ to this day.



_kb 9 months ago | parent | prev | next [–]

My time in Melbourne was after that, but Revs was still a beautiful place. So
many great memories, and some hazy ones.



samstave 9 months ago | prev | next [–]

The moment I saw this title, Immediately checked to see where Techno Viking is
from!

This is wonderful.



smudgy 9 months ago | prev [–]

Not gonna lie, this is awesome.

Cybergoth Dance Party and Techno Viking are now even more important parts of our
collective human heritage.

Edit: It seems Cybergoth Dance Party was shot in Dusseldorf, my life is now even
more full of lies.








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