Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music

#1

The new version of this came out this week and though I don’t like the tone in some of the writing it has been very informative. I spent hours yesterday digging into genres and finding music I hadn’t heard which is always exciting. So I thought we could talk about it maybe even recommend genres that should have been on it and give a list of examples of songs that fit into said genre

https://music.ishkur.com/

#2

Lol I really love his writing on dubstep / brostep, he’s very knowledgeable on the hardcore continuum. He could’ve wrote about all the different sub-scenes / genre cross-pollinations within dubstep (brostep notwithstanding) but that would be a whole other project in itself.

#4

He writes very grumpily like an old man (understandably, since he made the first version in 1999 and witnessed a lot of stuff since then) but anyone who knows about the evolution of UK dance music genres and understands the difference between dubstep and brostep (and hates the latter, especially) is good in my book.

#5

Don’t get me wrong I thought the Brostep section was hilarious but there is sometimes where his use of language seems dated it makes me cringe.

Still love the guide though have spent hours on it since it’s come out, and have found great trax I never knew existed.

#6




thank ishkur for these finds so far <3

#7

[deleted screenshot from site]

Yeah, not going to read this guy’s stuff ever again. Thanks.

#8

agree. it’s pretty cringey.

#9

owning the sjw libtards am i right gamers :sleepy:

#10

i’m actually realizing now that ishkur fucking sucks

#11

Yeah, he’s definitely not cool. He’s very jaded as fuck actually.

#12

I think we all have met someone who tries so hard to say shocking shit on purpose just for the reaction. the outcome is always never great. honestly, I don’t think he means any harm by it. the scope of the work itself is impressive and clearly he’s a scholar of sorts. maybe we should invite Ishkur so he can defend himself…

#13

After reading a couple more of his points on other genres, he’s very informative, without a doubt. However, he seems to abhor certain genres, so he’s very nitpicky. At his best, his writing is very enlightening. At his worst, he’s just super salty and snobbish, and sometimes he only provides basic info on genres with complex history. But seriously, this dude really needs to take some chill pills. He really hates Eurotrance and UK Garage, and he’s not reluctant to bash the audiences as well if he’s got a bone to pick with them on literally anything. Seriously, hating Skrillex was such a 2011 thing, everyone in the real dubstep scene has moved on years ago.

P.S. - I love how he wrote an entire article on Pendulum.

“It is one of those events that is so monumental that when people talk about history, they unconsciously draw a line between stuff that happened before the event and stuff that happened after (ie: “we are living in a post X world”, where X is something earth-shattering like the atomic bomb or 9/11). We are witness to one of these life-changing events in Drum n Bass. Welcome to the Pendulum Age.”

#14

Sorry wanted to chime in here as well. When Ishkur began he was one of the very few people to look at the main 7 electronic parent genres (he spotlighted) and then how each genre split off to form the next. For the most part he was one of the few to do so for Electronic Music (apart from Simon Reynolds who did so thru books and articles vs a flash website). But he sadly also had the same vibe about being really opinionated and talking trash about a lot of the genres he spoke about and that always tainted the seriousness and usage of his work. He’s a terrible ambassador if he dislikes so much of it with his terrible attitude.

His revision while updating it has deepened those same faults and created new ones sadly. While I’ll always care about what he wants to say and pick up on genres and scenes that weren’t named he’s way overboard with his need to entertain and to slag so many counties and genres. He’s also become a lot sloppier by not covering subgenres in depth anymore and just mentioning them. I’m still working on a detailed look at his big picture look at genres, comparing them against my own, and then what rym and discogs has, and will hope to have that list out soon. While he’s condensed and simplified his approach i think its best to go in depth and detail if you’re going to investigate it all.

#15

Just checked out the site (yes many years too late lol) and wooooow that shit is disrespectful at best, ahistorical and misleading at worst. Terrible music writing that dismisses both the musicians and audiences that allow the site to exist, all the while actively leaving out massive chunks of history. I can’t even begin to fathom how someone could be so far up themselves as to call any genre “not music”?

One of my biggest gripes, though, is it’s total erasure and dismissal of the early history of electronic music. It’s building a shoddy house on the shoddiest of foundations. If anyone is looking for a much more thorough history of early electronic music, [Thomas Holmes' book](https://www.routledge.com/Electronic-and-Experimental-Music-Technology-Music-and-Culture/Holmes/p/book/9781138365469#) is a good starting point (but by no means definitive, though it is at least respectful of the histories it’s telling).

I don’t even know where to start with the brostep one 🤦

#16

Yeah i agree with that the attitude is overall the worse part of the current (and original site). Some may be used to his shtick if they grew up with him and that style but it must even more jarring for newcomers to it.

I published a recent list that compared his new site with our site for electronic genres and then including rateyourmusic and discogs site genres as well. An indepth breakdown of all 4 and then a few genre tress also linked in at the very end too. I’ll never be able to change ishkur but i always aim to be a more accurate, in depth, and more respectful alternative.