Talk:Electronic body music

New School / Old School

in europe (mainly germany) a new school doesn't exist. there it's called "elektro" 1 or "electro-industrial" 2

EBM has no distorted vocals. mostly echo/delay effects and clean shouts or grunts.

In Sweden electro is what we call bands like Ladytron --Dalen 20:20, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Ladytron is Electroclash. But Stuff like Funker Vogt, Hocico, Amduscia, Aslan Faction, Feindflug or E-Craft is called Elektro. Harsh Techno-Bassdrum & Hooklines (typical Techno sounds) and distorted vocals - that's untypical for EBM.

EBM = clear structures & clean shouts & old sequencer lines.

The Neon Judgement is a new wave project with guitars ect., not really EBM. The first EBM-compilation This Is Electronic Body Music was a mistake created by german labelchef Manfred Schuetz in 1988 (SPV/Animalized in cooperation with PIAS).

• "Es war 1986. Es ging darum, all die belgischen Electro-Bands zu pushen. Meine Idee war schließlich, einen Sampler zu machen, für wenig Geld, mit viel Musik und mit fettem Booklet, für jede Band eine Seite. Was noch fehlte, war ein Name für den Sampler..." (Manfred Schuetz, 2004)

This Is Electronic Body Music is a medley with belgian projects of all kinds of new wave music or new beat - nothing more.
The same shit like World Of Electronic Body Music...

Ionic Vision

I would argue that Ionic Vision is a old-school ebm band. They are after all inspired by and very similar to early Pouppée Fabrikk. And that's old-school. They sound more similar to DAF songs like Verschwende deine Jugend than new school bands like suicide commando. --Dalen 20:20, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Variations of EBM

how about a brief mention of varations of ebm, such as aggrotech/terror ebm and techno body music? --MilkMiruku 11:22, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

techno body music is a stupid term created by a stupid guy (Andy LaPlegua). that's not really a musicstyle. and what the devil is "aggrotech/terror ebm/hellektro"? new terms invented for the english wikipedia? google found 442 sites, and mostly the mirrors of the aggrotech article. ;-)

Electro-industrial or techno-industrial

These terms were used roughly synonymously with EBM since the mid-80s at least; the previous article text was inaccurate in applying electro-industrial to later EBM.

And, I agree it is a hopeless cause to try to cover every thin slice of purported genre distinction - most of them are fleeting and localized and either overlap indistinguishably with a genre term that's already out there or are so narrow they only apply to a handful of groups. Especially with industrial more than any other artistic endeavor, the whole point is to constantly overthrow the old and experiment with the genuinely new. The whole idea of genre pigeonholes is the precise antithesis to industrial. --Reaverdrop 05:49, October 10, 2005

Do you have any sources on the term 'electro-industrial' being used in the 80's? --Sanctum 01:42, December 3, 2005

Maybe it's from the ishkur's guide of electronic music... a really useless guide, full of mistakes. ;-) --87.122.29.150 14:34, January 2, 2006

i'd be interested to see references also. the source i based the previous version on was industrial.org's faq (which, although obscure fan driven genre names arn't my seciality, generally seems to be spot on for all the other info it provides) plus the input from the german wikipedia (see right at the top of this talk page). --MilkMiruku 19:31, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

i'm changing back some of the info on the page from this edit through the fact that there are references (the faq, the german wikipedia article and also Ishkur's Guide) that point towards the older info being most acurite --MilkMiruku 13:39, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

You should forget the fucking Animalized/Pias compilations and use your sense of hearing. Manfred Schütz, label-chef from SPV/Animalized had released the compilation "this is electronic body music" in cooperation with Pias. He used the term ebm and selected any band from belgium for his fucking compilation. He didn't divide between New wave, synth pop or New Beat... he titled any belgian band with front 242's term "electronic body music". But they're not really EBM. Bands like The Neon Judgement are definitely no EBM...

references for electro-industrial?

After talking with Menorrhea here I thought it's probably time to clean up the confusion between EBM and electro-industrial, so does anyone have links to any references, articles, etc regarding the latter style so we could possibly look at seperating it to another page as it should be? --MilkMiruku 14:26, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I bought an issue of Keyboard magazine in 1989 whose cover story described many of these bands as "cyberpunk". I googled the words Keyboard magazine cyberpunk and came up with this as as the first hit: http://project.cyberpunk.ru/idb/mainstreaming_cyberpunk.html

There, a book is quoted that uses the term electro-industrial. Anyway, I was a fan of Front 242 but somehow missed hearing the term EBM at that time. I considered them to be electronic/industrial, or broadly second-wave industrial. Nicknicknickandnick 03:34, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, this is what I associate with EBM: Assemblage 23, Solitary Experiments, VNV Nation, system syn, Temple of Tears with others. Personally, I call the other genre for EBM/Industrial, not to be confused with Dark Elektro (snow in china) - dark electronic music.

EBM (electronic body music, also commonly known as "industrial dance")

The term EBM was coined by Belgian act Front 242 in the eighties; it denotes a certain type of danceable "electronic music". EBM beats are typically 4/4, often with some minor syncopation to suggest a rock rhythm. Heavy synths are usually prominent, and the vocals are often militaristic. This style was widely considered to be the defining sound of "industrial" in the 80s. In recent years, however, there has been somewhat of a schism within the EBM scene, and it is now not uncommon to hear futurepop and synthpop artists referred to as EBM artists. For this reason, many EBM fans have begun to refer to this earlier style as old-school EBM.

Electro Industrial

Electro Industrial (now often called elektro, not to be confused with "electro") is largely a catch-all category that fills the space between powernoise, EBM, old-style industrial and gothic music. The main forerunner for these acts is the legendary eighties Canadian band Skinny Puppy, who used a variety of experimental production techniques to great success. Whereas "EBM" was generally straightforward in structure and production, elektro became known for its deep, layered sound.

Typically this is a darker form of EBM. However, this can often refer to acts that combine EBM with another subgenre (for example Feindflug, who combine EBM with powernoise).

Within North America, this style was widely considered to be the defining sound of industrial in the mid to late 1990s.

Aggrotech

Aggrotech is an evolution of EBM and electro that first surfaced in the mid-1990s, but has been revitalized in recent years. Also refered to as terror EBM or TortureTech, its sound is typified by somewhat harsh song structures, aggressive beats and lyrics of a militant, pessimistic or explicit nature. Typically, the vocals are distorted to sound hoarse, harsh and without tone. Artists also frequently use atonal melodic structures. --Shandris 10:27, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Citing sources and selecting bands

This article needs some major cleanup. There isn't a single cited source in the whole article, making it subject to deletion per WP:NOR. Second, we need to come up with some standards by which bands get included in the article.

Having a Wikipedia article about a band is really the absolute minimum to have the band included in the "Notable EBM Artists" section. But we should be a good deal more selective than that. F242, Skinny Puppy, VNV Nation, and Wumpscut are obviously notable, while Pouppée Fabrikk and Orange Sector are obviously not. Yet the latter have Wikipedia articles about them. So perhaps there needs to be some sort of standard of historical importance which bands have to meet. Should we use the number of records sold? Frequency of appearance on the DUC, or what?

A similar issue of what gets included is also particularly glaring for the section of the article that talks about new bands. There the criteria of having a Wikipedia page for the band may be debatable. Yet surely we don't want this to become a list of every new EBM band in existence, or for just anyone to come and put their favorite band on the list (which seems to be happening a lot). But how could we prune the list to just significant or important new bands while adhering to WP:NPOV? Thoughts? -- noosphere 19:51, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

I fully agree with you, noosphere, and I'd like to create a template where people may add their suggestions for EBM bands, and they must automatically be a bit well-known (at least two albums released), and supposedly topical (of current interest). I've never heard of Pouppée Fabrikk nor Orange Sector, guess they have to go. Template here, let's contribute --> List of EBM artists --Shandris 08:12, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

I like your idea of having a seperate list of EBM bands. I'll definitely contribute to it. I have some concerns about the criteria for including bands on that page also, but I'll voice them on the talk page there. -- noosphere 19:27, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Adding cleanup tag --Shandris 13:58, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

band notability is an issue that has been noted at WikiProject Music genres, but i think that the ebm article gets off lightly compared to the complete mess that is on Electroclash [1] right now. i have heard of orange sector [2] before and they have released on Zoth Ommog Records in the early/mid 1990s so i'd say they were notable. i don't know of Pouppée Fabrikk [3] but have released stuff on relevant label Energy Rekords, mainly from to the late 1980s to mid 1990s so they're probably notable too. shame their articles suck though :/ --MilkMiruku 18:17, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, there's notability criteria for having their own article, and then there's notability criteria for being in this article. I don't think the two should be the same, unless we want this article to become just a giant list of every EBM band with a Wikipedia article about them. We want influential, well-known bands, not just any band who's put out a couple of albums, don't we? Unfortunately, there are no existing Wikipedia policies or guidelines that would help us out on this, as far as I know. Maybe the WikiProject Music genres people have some suggestions. -- noosphere 19:27, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

unfortunatly those policies need to be developed (something i've been pushing towards recently with that wikiproject), but i don't really mind, as long as there are enough relevant artists/bands mentioned to give readers a good idea of what old and new ebm sounds like --MilkMiruku 20:06, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I do mind. I feel that as Wikipedia gains prominence more and more people will try to use it as an advertising tool (it's already happening every day, but fortunately EBM is obscure enough not to feel the brunt of that effort, yet). So, there'll be people wanting to place their own band or their friend's band in this article, without having earned any kind of prominence.

I think most of the editors here have a good idea of which bands are prominent enough to make it in to a history of EBM, but I lament the lack of an objective standard, without which we really have no legs to stand on as far as Wikipedia policy goes when someone insists on including or excluding a particular band.

This counts when someone interested in the genre looks to this article for information, and gets told that some obscure band played a prominent role in EBM history or simply gets the wrong idea of what EBM is about. I'd like to keep this article at a high quality level, but am concerned that it will inevitably deteriorate over time if we don't have some way to determine which bands get mentioned. -- noosphere 20:25, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

non-notable bands like the ones you mention are easy to weed out, but i was talking more about was bands like orange sector which you brought up as an example. if you google for "old school ebm", the first result you get is a tread on the prominent industrial culture forum on side-line.com which mentions the band a few times. checking now, they also get 26k results for searches such as "orange sector" ebm industrial. my point being that while they are reputable, they're not massive. bands like f242, fla, wumpscut, vnv, covenant, funker vogt, vac, etc are massive in the scene, so do you draw the line at reputable or massive?

Well, I think the ideal criteria would be historical significance. How prominent and influential was the band in question. This is difficult to judge objectively beyond sales figures (perhaps adjusted as a percentage of all EBM albums sold at the time), chart ratings, and maybe playlists at clubs and radio stations. I suppose someone could do a study where there could be a questionnaire sent out to current EBM bands which asked them to rate other bands in terms of influence, but to my knowledge nothing like this has ever been tried. Nor are there any kind of compilations of club/radio-station paylists anywhere, to my knowledge. -- noosphere 21:48, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

of course, the thing about ebm, as i've mentioned already, is that there's older and newer ebm, and while orange sector may not be big in ebm these days, they're probably worth a mention in any section about the older stuff. the impression that i get from talking to people interested in alternative electronic is that there so many younger people in the scene now that a lot of the older music is overlooked in favour of genre pushing stuff (well, that and futurepop, some might say ;) with more modern production techniques, etc. --MilkMiruku 20:57, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, it's sad that all this history is being lost. The people that have this information are the DJs who played at that time, the band members themselves, and a handful of diehard fans who were around at the time, with maybe an underground zine or two thrown in for good measure. They're really the ones qualified to determine which of the older bands were really significant. But how do you get what they know in to a Wikipedia article while meeting NPOV and verifiability criteria? I have no idea. The best would be if there were some authoritative texts on this genre, but there aren't, to my knowledge. -- noosphere 21:53, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

while i agree that the 'point of notability where a band worthy of includsion in the artists section on a genre page' needs to be sorted out, releasing multiple albums on a notable industrial scene record label and

my main concern atm is the splid between 'ebm' as a reference to the original front 242 era sound and the newer 'ebm is an umbrella term including older stuff, electro-industrial, futurepop and everything inbetween' usage and the confusion it causes. although i'd say both uses are valid, i feel it would probaby be best to have seperate "Artists (early EBM)" and "Artists (later EBM)" sections just to avoid confusion. thoughts? --MilkMiruku 18:17, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, or maybe "Classic EBM" vs "New EBM"... but which band goes in which category is going to be a pretty subjective decision... especially as some bands have done both. Again, this is something Wikipedia policies don't address. So perhaps a simple chronological arrangement might be most objective and uncontroversial. -- noosphere 19:27, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

check the eol audio articles on ebm/old skool ebm; it has some good points on this. --MilkMiruku 20:06, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I think those articles perfectly illustrate just the kind of subjectivity I'm worried about. I don't want a huge thread about this or a flamewar, but I take objection to the characterization of Das Ich and In Strict Confidence are "goth friendly version of EBM". Neither one is particularly gothy. What evidence do I have? Well, my own experience. Really no different than what I presume was the reasoning used by the author of that article. This kind of thing is just far too subjective for Wikipedia. We really need to cite some authoritative source for our characterizations of music belonging to one genre or another, and as being notable enough to include in this article or not. But the problem is that EBM is just too obscure for there to be any authorities at all. Which is why I'm at a loss as to how anyone could ever object to the inclusion of any given band in to this article, or any characterization or a given band as being representative of a genre. -- noosphere 20:39, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

i agree, it's definitly a pov and unreferenced site, which is why i've never referenced any of the eol pages on wikipedia. i only mentioned it here as it has a list of older ebm bands and a list of general ebm bands. --MilkMiruku 21:17, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I appreciate that as a source of information on EBM, even if it's not as objective as I'd like.  :) -- noosphere 21:31, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

What about what I wrote about EBM and Electro Industrial? By the way, I added guidelines in the EBM artist list --Shandris 12:55, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Italian forum

I don't think anyone needs a link to an Italian speaking forum, it's practically useless, removal preferred. --Shandris 14:05, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

agreed, removed --MilkMiruku 17:56, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Endzeit Bunkertracks

I've added the first of a series of compilations, it's unfinished because I've haven't had time, it's just some layout and linking issues left -- Shandris 12:45, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Shall we add a link on the page? --Shandris 09:18, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Miss unter null

For those who know who unter null is:

Alfa Matrix was informed that Erica Dunham, aka Miss UNTER NULL, was involved in a very bad car accident last Friday. She is now back at home and safe with a head concussion, a chest concussion, and a few broken bones. The impact on the car was so big that it is literally reduced to pieces as you can see on the picture. Her current health condition unfortunately forced her cancelling her scheduled gig in San Francisco. (February 16, 2006)

Sad, unter null is among the best Dark Elektro acts out there, hope she'll be alright --Shandris 16:24, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Wow. Yeah, I know and love the music Unter Null. I don't know the person behind it, but my feelings and hopes for a speedy and full recovery are with her. -- noosphere 02:38, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

I think I'll create the unter null article, it's on time... Shandris 17:20, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
Done! I'd like someone to copyedit it for me --> unter null Thanx, --Shandris 20:23, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Later EBM list

What is the point of this list? Is it to get a sneak peek of List of EBM artists and/or how do you know what is OK to add and what's not? Guideline, here! --Shandris 14:55, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

more or less yes. the guidelines for adding bands have been discussed above, but as long as a band is definitly ebm and is fairly well known in the scene it should be find. if there are any discgreements we can simply discuss and come to a consensus --MilkMiruku 16:43, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Derivatives of EBM

In my opinion Aggrotech and Future pop are derivatives of EBM, not subgenres. EBM is a music style that uses old synth sounds (Korg, Emulator II, Yamaha DX7 etc.). Later so called "EBM" acts use techno sounds (techno/rave hooklines), TR-909 beats or groovebox sounds.

Especially from the perspective of Germany, EBM died in the early 90s, because Front 242 release "Tyranny For You" (a pre-part-Goa-thing) and later "Fuck Up Evil", the last pure EBM album of Front 242 was "Front by Front". Nitzer Ebb change her EBM style, many belgian EBM acts splitted up and swedish or german acts use guitar sounds... The original EBM sound was dead. The rebirth of EBM came later in the years 2001/2002. Today, web magazines and DJs use the term EBM for any electronic newcomer music group... But many of these music groups use trance or techno sounds. That's definitely an adulteration of a music genre...

Userboxes

Look, I've made 2 cool userboxes, feel free to use:

File:EbmLogo.jpg

This user enjoys EBM and Dark Electro.

43px	This user adores unter null.

Shandris^{the azylean} 11:52, 25 June 2006 (UTC)