I don't care who makes fun of me....

[Blackmail]

I've noticed alot of people rip on VNV Nation. You know what? I could care less. I think VNV Nation's last 3 albums are brilliant. I grew up listening to Kraftwerk, OMD, Art of Noise, Yello, Severed Heads and other left-of-center electronic groups and this "future pop" genre is the next phase.

So why do people get so worked up over VNV Nation anyway? What did they do to you?

[Head Wreck]

i like VNV lots.

i think its just a case of underground sellout syndrome.

usually seen in most "alternative" scenes where a band breaks from its patch and gains more and more acceptance, theres a certan point where the elitists of that genre snub it as its not to underground, then the sheep follow.

lots of genres have this issue.

[Head Wreck]

all genres are the same i find.

i first came across this in my sedcond year of collage. all the 1st year students were a more colourfull and louder bunch next to the sort of quiet bunch of welders we had down out regualr moot/dos point. and they were the bigest bunch of sicophants ever.

never did get in good stead with that lot.

last i heared most of them are still there. and i left in 2000

[FarrIL]

I LOVE VNV Nation.

Honestly, they were what first got me listening to Underground music, so i think I owe the tunes quite a bit.

I have found some of their lyrics to be gorgeous and contemplative.

"Saviour", the vocal version, makes me think of a false idol being thrown into someone's face.

"A god of love, a god of care,

A god of hope, a god of words.

A god as lost as you and them,

To find your hollow soul again.

You seek a god to stand above you

Wrapping healing arms around you

You'll find another god of pain

A god of suffering and tears."

This song makes me think of those people who put their all into something so simple or weak, and they ignore the warning signs but when everything falls through, it makes me think about what those 'lost' people would do.

VNV Nation's produced a lot of good music, and while I personally feel that "Empires" was their best album, I gotta give kudos to "Matter and Form" because Chrome, Arena, Homeward and Perpetual are my favourite tracks, and I swear, the day I finally move out of Midland, I'll have "Homeward" played loud and on repeat.

[saechalyn]

I love VNV. I adore their lyrics. Make fun of me all you want, but "Arena" is one of few things that got me through 2005.

[FarrIL]

I love Arena!  The line "I can't turn my feelings down/beyond my means to turn my thoughts around" is one of the better lyrics I've heard.  I think it says a lot about human nature in general.  Emotions despite ourselves?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'm kinda partial to "No creed on Earth can replace or provide, in my darkest hour, the comfort I'd feel, Leading me to see that I can be more than I expect of me" =3

[Blackmail]

all genres are the same i find.

i first came across this in my sedcond year of collage. all the 1st year students were a more colourfull and louder bunch next to the sort of quiet bunch of welders we had down out regualr moot/dos point.  and they were the bigest bunch of sicophants ever.

never did get in good stead with that lot.

last i heared most of them are still there. and i left in 2000

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

techno is the worst and Detroit has the most snobs. Detroit techno people only listen to techno made in Detroit or Germany. Forget Orbital or Underwold because they are British and they are mainstream. It has to be minimal and repititious or it's not worth listening to.

As for VNV, I notice a few of the "haters" have been silent in this thread. I know there are 4 or 5 people on dgn who can't stand them but just in the "goth" scene in general I've noticed they get the wrath spewed by the elite goth purists. Which is fine, Ronan Harris never claimed VNV Nation was a goth band anyway.

[phee]

You mentioned YELLO!!!! YAY!!!

[TearSandrille]

I love VNV.

I can not stand people who believe that somehow a band that gains popularity has lost its crediblity or talent. Personally, if I like a band I want to show them to everyone so that they can appreciate them as much as I do.

[Scary Guy]

I like VNV Nation, but I also like the parodies making fun of them.

I like techno, I live in Detroit, and I am not a snob. Though VNV isn't really techno (maybe one or two tracks off the new album). Or at least not true techno to me.

http://simronan-v2.livejournal.com/

Since it looks like they took down the video...

http://www.scary-guy.com/media/flash/SimRo...d_of_swords.swf

[n0Mad]

I can dance to them, vocals don't annoy me, all in all ... I LOVE 'em.

[Head Wreck]

honour and procession are great "gear up, lock and load" music tracks when loading my webbing and rifles first thing at larks-fart

[Blackmail]

I like techno, I live in Detroit, and I am not a snob.  Though VNV isn't really techno (maybe one or two tracks off the new album).  Or at least not true techno to me.

I wonder if the 313 mailing list still exists, this is where most of the snobs can be found. I used to hang with DJ Will Web - a cool guy - who was on Direct Beat records and put out a 12" on Astralwerks and toured with the Chemical Brothers. He was great....but thru him I met a bunch of the other techno DJ"s like Sean Deason (cool guy) Alan Oldham aka DJT1000 (complete asshole snob) Juan Atkins (cool as hell) Derrick May (asshole snob) mad Mike Banks (cool but snobbish) Kelli Hand (real cool) and several others. Most of them were musical snobs even if they were cool people.

On the 313 mailing list were even people from the UK who hated all electronic music from the UK - except for Depeche Mode and New order who everyone in the electro music scene respects - sort of along the same lines of Kraftwerk (everyone likes kraftwerk no matter what type of music they are into it seems).

I guess I'm getting off topic.

[Blackmail]

I think alot of older goths blame VNV Nation for the 'graver' sound - bringing techno/trance influenced rhythms into the clubs that once played Bauhaus and Sisters of Mercy.

I think alot of industrial fans hate VNV Nation because VNV aren't hard enough and they think the trancey stuff is sort of cheesy techno masquerading as music that fits alongside Skinny Puppy and Frontline Assembly.

Of course some argue that Frontline Assembly and Skinny Puppy aren't industrial anyway (throbbing gristle, einstersende neubautin (sp) are industrial - that dance shit is EBM) anyway.

[Blackmail]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_pop

"Futurepop is a recently-emerging electronic dance music genre, an outgrowth of electronic body music incorporating influences from synth pop (such as song structure and vocal style) and trance (uplifting, grandiose and arpeggiated synthesizer melodies). The term was coined by Ronan Harris (of VNV Nation) and Stephan Groth (of Apoptygma Berzerk) while attempting to describe the style of music their bands produced.

In recent years the basic futurepop concept has been expanded upon in various ways, with bands like Pride and Fall, mind.in.a.box and Rotersand pushing the trance aspect of the genre, while others such as XPQ-21 have incorporated further influences from industrial and synthpop to create their own brand of futurepop music. Further, traditionally harder aggrotech bands are using futurepop-style melodic hooks in their songs, such as Suicide Commando and SITD.

Futurepop music is popular in the cyber, goth and general alternative electronic scenes. Music festivals that feature futurepop bands include Infest, Wave Gotik Treffen and M'era Luna."

http://www.hard-wired.org.uk/VNVNationInt.htm

HardWired Magazine – For me Futurepop was a term coined by journalists and music execs it was just a marketing ploy to sell more records to create a new genre when there was no need to.

Ronan Harris – Sure. Wait till people see our new marketing campaign and then we’ll see about what people think of that term!

Erm.. I feel very flattered by the bands that want to emulate our sounds. I thought it was very, very funny when I read all these comments on-line about bands from ‘certain other labels’ were telling all the DJ’s on a personal level that Futurepop’s dead and suddenly they sign a band that sound very much like us and everyone says it. Not one single person that I’ve met would say the opposite. And then the ‘certain other label’ puts out a press release that says that we’re the label that created this..It stinks of marketing, it reeks of we’ll do anything to get a sale, and I think that lacks integrity. You either have an opinion in which case you follow it, or you don’t.

The backlash of that is that a lot of people in our fanbase were incredibly cynical and vocally critical of it. I think the guys themselves are great, I’ve got all these bands that people say copy us. But I think to say that we’re an influence is a nicer and more accurate way to put it. That’s more true and I’m very flattered by it for sure. I’d have liked that my influence was more about baring your soul through your music than copying the sounds from Empires, but that’s ok, and maybe someday soon people will get that message and more great bands will come into the fore.

http://www.releasemagazine.net/Spotlight/s...htvnvnation.htm

The future of pop

Ronan was the one to coin the expression "future pop". He once mentioned it to Stephan Groth of Apoptygma Berzerk, and the term has been widely spread since then. This newly founded genre seems destined to get wider attention, with its catchy melodies on top of hard dance rhythms. There are even compilations labelled as future pop, which do not have that much in common with the original meaning, says Ronan. He elaborates:

"The "original" three future pop bands: us, Apoptygma Berzerk and Covenant have come very close to mainstream recognition. I suggested the term because I thought we needed to call this music something else than EBM. The media don't care one bit about you if you are from the EBM or goth genre. There's a lot of prejudice about our music. Anyway, we bring a lot of contemporary elements into our music, and do not sound like the stereotypical clichéd EBM band. It's pop, but in a futuristic way, hence future pop. But as with every term, there's always people who'll jump all over it."

[FarrIL]

Delectable read.

Too bad it either gets a bad rap or people try to imitate it and claim it as their own.

Though I have a few things to nitpick on my own views about electronic music.....

Neuroticfish = EBM (( even though the sampling in the song "The Bomb" says their website is www.ebmisdead.com ))

VNV Nation = Futurepop

I always saw Apoptgyma Berzerk as Synthpop, but I can believe it being put under Futurepop, it fits here and there.

Suicide Commando I beg to differ. I dont understand it as "Aggrotech" I always sought it as a stompy electro-industrial kind of music. Nowhere NEAR Futurepop, Synthpop OR EBM. Same concept applies to Wumpscut

[Blackmail]

I always just consider future pop music that is less harsh than the EBM stuff and slightly more aggressive than the synthpop stuff on 'A different Drum' records but with alot of trance mixed in.

So if you put David Gahan, Paul Van Dyk and Bill Leeb in a room you might get a future pop band.....hell, it might sound like VNV Nation :grin

[FarrIL]

I always just consider future pop music that is less harsh than the EBM stuff and slightly more aggressive than the synthpop stuff on 'A different Drum' records but with alot of trance mixed in.   

So if you put David Gahan, Paul Van Dyk and Bill Leeb in a room you might get a future pop band.....hell, it might sound like VNV Nation :grin

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

If there ever were a "next" VNV Nation, I would be thoroughly disappointed.

Synthpop = Poppy beats

Futurepop = Dancier beats

EBM = Bouncy beats, stomp-worthy

Suicide Commando-like stuff = STOMP STOMP STOMP!!

Edit: Never let me dance to Techno/Trance music........

......... I'm all over the place.

[Scary Guy]

I think alot of older goths blame VNV Nation for the 'graver' sound - bringing techno/trance influenced rhythms into the clubs that once played Bauhaus and Sisters of Mercy.

I think alot of industrial fans hate VNV Nation because VNV aren't hard enough and they think the trancey stuff is sort of cheesy techno masquerading as music that fits alongside Skinny Puppy and Frontline Assembly.

You are correct sir. Like I said, I like them, but to me it's "Gothic Disco".

Of course some argue that Frontline Assembly and Skinny Puppy aren't industrial anyway (throbbing gristle, einstersende neubautin (sp) are industrial - that dance shit is EBM) anyway.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Some are iditos, FLA and SP are Industrial. TG, and EN are also industrial, however more on the experemental side I think.

[FarrIL]

You are correct sir.  Like I said, I like them, but to me it's "Gothic Disco".

Some are iditos, FLA and SP are Industrial.  TG, and EN are also industrial, however more on the experemental side I think.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I can agree with these words whole-heartedly.

Personally I say any music that's "hard to swallow" is what Industrial sounds like. Throbbing Gristle you'd choke on or die from....... sorry but "Hamburger Lady" scared me shitless and it still creeps me out to this day.

Skinny Puppy, also industrial. Still hard to swallow, but easier to dance to, as is Frontline Assembly. Funker Vogt I think may be straying quite far from what used to be considered Industrial. "No Tomorrow" sounds more like EBM, barely staying balanced on the thin line between that and Trance........

[FarrIL]

I don't know what sort of genre Suicide Commando falls into, but whenever I hear them I think of a guy dancing at City Club with a full pint of beer in one hand... and very grateful that he can get away with farting on the dancefloor and not get blamed for it.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I just think of a lot of stomping and bouncing in platforms........ something I doubt I'd be able to do. Stomp, yes. Bounce, yes. In platforms? Maybe......

::: Shudders ::: Your thought makes me giggle but at the same time...... ::: Winces :::

[Shade Everdark]

I have no idea what any of that means.

Basically, if I like it, I listen to it. If I don't, I don't.

[FarrIL]

They're out there!

Worst is Funker Vogt.  A bunch of uncreative German DJs singing about honor in the battlefield and the horrors of war... the closest of which that they have gotten to combat, of course, is spilling hot cappuccino on themselves and yelling at the Starbucks cashier.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hey now...... I like "Nuclear Winter" from their album 'Maschine Zeit'. Also, 'Under Deck' if fairly good too.

But yeah..... give me Combichrist or something else.....

[FarrIL]

I like a handful of FV songs too.  They're a guilty pleasure.  I'd just think they would be better if they could branch out a little bit rather than slam the WHAM WHAM WHAM button on their drum machine for every other song.  (That and leave the silly war stuff to Laibach).

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Laibach or Suicide Commando.

Good call though.

Personal preference.............

....... Assemblage 23. =3

[FarrIL]

I saw them last summer.  I was in the front row.  I could have licked the sweat from Tom Shear's bald head if I wanted.  (which I did not, if you must know). 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well lucky you!! (( grr ))

I saw Cruxshadows back in october. I coulda fondled Rogue if I wanted to when he passed by me in the crowd as the show started. But I didnt, because that's rude of me and I think he's quite taken. XD

But still, ::: Claws the air in front of her :::

Rawr.