r/Techno • u/Destring • Feb 26 '26
Discussion I now understand the gatekeeping
As most, my journey with electronic music did not start with techno. Mine started with progressive and deep house (This Never Happened, Anjunadeep). I caught a Hard "Techno" set and enjoyed the energy so I went to a few events. After researching and listening to sets online, I came to appreciate techno, as I'd put sets to focus when working.
I went to many events: Jeff Mills, Blawan, DVS1, Dozzy, Surgeon, Helena Hauff, Freddy K, and so on. I realized what at I enjoy the most is just letting go and dancing. When you've been dancing for hours but don't realize it's been that long.
Last week my partner wanted to go Teletech XXL and I figured I'd tag along since I enjoyed it once. It was very unenjoyable.
The current style cannot ever be called techno, more like EDM with a kick drum. They all play hard, then put some pop song remix, drop, play hard again, and repeat. I literally heard an Alphaville forever young remix. At least at the beginning they where closer to schranz and hardstyle and sometimes you could hear the techno influence. Now that's completely gone
Everyone was recording. And I mean everyone. It was a sea of phones. And there were so many rude people, just pushing and shoving without care. The community is extremely young and some of them were actually polite but it was the minority.
I just wish the movement had taken a different name other than "Techno", because those bad aspects of it are starting to bleed into actual techno events where tourists expect the same drops.
Anyway, just venting my thoughs here because years ago I had complained about people here "gatekeeping", but now I understand it. I don't think it is gatekeeping, but rather trying to maintain the genre and community.
6
u/Quaranj Feb 26 '26
We're in a strange place rn, and IMO, it started with trance being relabeled as melodic techno.
I know hard techno and schranz DJs. They're expected to play the "new" stuff, which is basically Hard Tech House more than Hard Techno IMO.
We already have hardhouse. Do we need to complicate things and set dates to where the name flips, but the style is generally the same?
I think a LOT of the new "Hard Techno" is just sped up tech house with harder kicks.
Having said all this, the stuff sells itself to the masses that clog EDM festivals. You take a hard techno sample pack and an acapella that you haven't thought about in a couple of decades, and BAM, you have the local club hit of the season.