All Music Guide To Electronica: The Definitive Guide to Electronic Music

By: Various

Provides information about the artists and styles that make up electronica, including profiles of Autechre, DJ Spooky, and John Digweed. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0879306289
• ISBN13: 9780879306281
• Release Date: May 2001
• Publisher: Backbeat
• Length: 1 Pages
• Weight: 2.72 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 1.1" x 1.1"

Customer Reviews

Good now, getting less good every day

But that, of course, isn't really this particular book's fault, but rather the reality for any printed survey of a topic that's constantly evolving. Like previous reviewers have said, you might want to just checkout the allmusic web site, unless you're a freakishly obsessed collector or are using a gift certificate and feeling a little more free than usual with what you buy (like me).

Could you be any cooler??

AMG's voluminous electronic music directory is cogent and exhaustive, sure to be a delight for the style's fans and non-fans alike. Fans will love this book for its thoroughness, its uber-cool, authoritative air and for its immense lack of humor, all of which seem reflective of the scene(s) it seeks to document. Non-fans will be delighted by the intensive devotion to ephemera and the belligerently academic tone which seeks to browbeat outsiders into accepting the worldview of a musical movement that hails each club opening as the birth of a new subgenre. Hundreds of artists and dozens of styles are outlined and their histories detailed with absolute, messianic precision. While AMG's level of writing is superior to most of its contemporaries, the tone is no less smug or evangelical; the sense of being intellectually bludgeoned will seem familiar to those of us who have watched the rise of electronica with wry but aggrieved detatchment. (Yes, I'm sure you love the stuff, but do you have to devote so much energy to coercing the rest of us into adopting your point of view?) All kidding aside, this book will be a definitive resource for years to come. Anyone interested in understanding the growth and self-perceptions of the electronic music cult will find this book invaluable.

From Kraftwerk to Amon to Aphex Twin

Just a reply to Matthew here in terms of the prolificness of Amon Duul compared to the Prodigy. Theres absolutely nothing prolific about the Prodigy, not compared to the real innovators from Amon Duul to Kraftwerk to Aphex Twin ( who is the king of all electronic music the last decade). Amon Duul is extremely important in a lot of the electronic music groundwork, so thats why there are 2 and a half pages compared to the Prodigy , who are just a pop/dance band and merely entertaining to watch.It's not about who ones likes , its about who truly is and was important in electronic music. It's good to be diverse in liking different styles and all that, even though I dont understand liking a true innovator such as an Aphex Twin in the same vein as Armin van Buuren, DJ Tiesto, Ferry Corsten or Anti-loop who are the most one dimensional, generic/teeny bopper-techno acts/Dj's around.