186 replies
1d8h
According to many people, including record shop owners I’ve talked to, Berlin’s scene is actually not so underground and not so cool anymore as a result of tourism and immigration. Rich people nowadays buy property in Potsdam, and the scene is moving towards Leipzig.
In a more general sense the old rave cities are making way, and have been making way, to other cities. A movement spanning more than 20 years now, thanks to very active promoter teams, leads to Lyon, Prague, Zagreb, Thessaloniki and even Sofia.
Nothing even compares to Berlin. Prague has basically 2 clubs and they are working partly because it's cheap and only 4hour train from Berlin so it's fun destination for both Berliners and Berlin DJS. Athens is where lots of the techno scene (djs, producers) has been moving to but that's because property is cheap so they can run away from Berlin winter. It also has like 2 clubs. In Berlin there are so many venues it's hard to remember them.
Is this specifically techno/underground clubs you mean? My pokey city in Aus has like a dozen "EDM" clubs that spin a decent breadth of techno to house to dnb etc. Perhaps I should count myself lucky?
EDM isn't Techno. It's a bit like saying that hard rock is like metal (somewhat bad analogy, but I hope you get the point). I know you listed a range of genres but it's important to note that the Berlin techno scene would never consider itself part of EDM.
In Europe, most EDM is happening in Amsterdam.
Can you distinguish these two? In my head EDM & techno occupy the same space.
That's the case for a lot of "normies", but it really feels insulting to the electronic music fans in general. Unlike say rock nobody's gonna ask you to know every band in existence and every album they put out decades ago, but you should be able to distinguish between major electronic music genres like house, techno, drum and bass, trance, hardstyle and what not. Sometimes the line gets really blurry, sure, but 90% of the time it's pretty easy to know what you're listening to.
The vibe is different, the tempo is different, the people that go to those places are different, pretty much everyone develops some sort of a very specific preference, and European countries kinda "specialize" based off of that. If you want techno, you go to Berlin. If you want grime, you go to London. If you're into house, you go to a beach in Croatia. I'd say the Netherlands are a bit all over the place, but what really sets them apart is hardstyle, which is pretty much not a thing anywhere else. And so on, and so on.
That's not to say you can't find other things in those places, but they're always gonna be a bit more niche and you kinda have to know what you're looking for to find them.
Plenty of people are able to enjoy music without getting caught up in nomenclature. The idea that those people aren't real fans always feels very snobbish.
If you can't differentiate between neurofunk and liquid, you're probably not a big dnb fan.
That doesn't mean you can't enjoy it, but enjoying something and being a fan of something can be quite distinct things.
I'll be honest with you, I thought this was satire before I read the next line.
The word “fan” has become really watered down over time. Didn’t it used to be short for “fanatic”? If someone isn’t deeply familiar with the landscape of a genre, then it seems logical to say they aren’t a fanatic.
It may just come down to whether one uses the watered down meaning of “fan” or the original.
That's fine, maybe you don't care about being able to differentiate between the stuff you listen to, a lot of us do.
I find the nomenclature discussion very interesting. I wonder why "modern" music has so many genres?
I listen to a lot of "classical". People will generally dump centuries of music into that label, or into the slightly better "baroque/classical/romantic/etc" bins.
But composers often have phases where their music can change considerably. Even with in a work (say, Dvorak's 9th symphony) individual movements can be very different. Yet I don't see classical music enthusiasts trying to place every single work into tiny bins (or maybe they do?). They just enjoy them.
I actually find that aspect of classical music really frustrating, subgenres are really useful to identify the particular elements of music that you enjoy.
I've come across plenty of classical music that I enjoy but I don't know where to begin to find more of it.
If I am being charitable it is probably partly to do with how much music is coming out, it is basically impossible to listen to all new DnB releases so it helps that they get categorized so you can find what you want.
If I am being uncharitable, some people just want to differentiate to feel special. Elitism in genres is nothing new either, rock and jazz have their own blend of genre snobbery and I am sure even Classical had people trying to look down on others from adjascent, equal height high horses.
Pretty much everyone is a fan of music in general or some kind of music in particular. But I would counter that being able to name and differentiate a genre is a valid minimum standard to be a "real" fan of that genre.
I also reckon that being a fan connotes something different from merely enjoying the sound when you happen to come across it. But I guess there's room for disagreement there.
I highly disagree. I'm not going to say someone isn't a a true fan of Bach and Vivaldi because they refer to the music as "Classical" instead of "Baroque." Saying they "merely enjoying the sound when [they] happen to come across it" because they aren't interested in how other people have decided to name these things seems incredibly dismissive. Enjoying music is entirely unrelated to being interested in where other people have decided to artificially create divisions and the names they give to those divisions.
ok.
Netherlands is top in Europe overall. Most Berlin people are migrating to Amsterdam.
Hardly. Amsterdam is comparatively small city = much smaller audience. You can se the stability of the scene in how often clubs close down. Just recently De School closed (now it should be reopen again under different management/name). Some of the Berlin clubs have been open and solid for 20 years.
Did De School close because lack of interest? From what I've experienced (during ADE) and also heard, Amsterdam is very popular for all the techno sub-genres.
They must really love the music then, they sure as hell aren't moving for the better housing prices.
I'm not at all in the Amsterdam EDM or hardstyle scene (just not my music), but I had indirectly got the feeling that it was slowly declining (ADE excepted), I could be quite wrong though, maybe they're just all in NDSM or something.
ADE is wild. I don't think anything else compares.
You can find good techno in almost any large city because those DJs tour a lot. I don't think you're going to find something like Berghain in any other city, but if your city has any kind of underground scene at all, there's going to be good techno nights. Like I could go out tonight and see Loco Dice and Marco Carola in my city in the US.
And don't assume that people in other cities don't get it. There's lots of underground clubs where people that go out are 100% into it for the music and "get it" and aren't just going for bottle service and VIP or whatever.
Which is a hang up that they should work on, because we are all just trying to love the same thing. I agree with your descriptions of the distinctions mind you. Genres are important to find and discuss music you like, but it gets wrapped up in the ego of the listener, and that can get expressed negatively through elitism and gate keeping.
Compare:
* Plastikman: Spastik: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TYsOMYaz6E (minimal techno)
* Fred Again: Pull Me Out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cl6Rz1Uvi2M (house / "EDM")
(EDM is more a US term than a European one, IME.)
I think the differences in style are quite obvious.
Ahhh Ritchie Hawtin. Legend!
A friend was playing this in a bar last night and it took me back.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yWOtCXu6dCE&pp=ygUTc3lzdGVtIDc...
Killer Acid tune.
Fred Again is pretty unique, would not classify him as EDM.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0-hvjV2A5Y
There's two definitions of EDM, the first is it's original intended definition, which was as a blanket classification for all electronic dance music -- techno, jungle, house, dubstep, whatever. Instead of calling it techno or electronica, or whatever, EDM was meant to encompass all of it.
Almost immediately after the term started being used, though, it became strongly associated with a particular type of dance music -- namely the mainstream house music that got played at big "EDM" festivals -- think David Guetta and Afrojack and Avicii and Tiesto... They used a blanket term when putting the festival together because the festival booked all kinds of dance music, but the main stages were dominated by a particular kind of dance music, so for most people that went to those festivals, that was the kind of music they associated with EDM.
"Techno" went through a similar evolution. It was originally a term for a particular subgenre of disco and kraftwerk influenced dance music coming out of detroit in the 1980s, around the same time that house music was starting up in Chicago and garage music started up in New York. It pushed further into pure electronic sounds than house and garage did (at first) and early techno compilations solidified in people's minds that electronic music was "techno", especially in america, so "techno" for a while became a catch-all term for all kinds of electronic music. That faded away when "electronica" and then "edm" sort of took on that role, and techno continued as a subgenre of music by itself.
So, I think, properly, techno is a _sub genre_ of "electronic dance music" in the general sense, but is a different genre than what a lot of people think of as EDM (the kind of house music played at large festivals).
Thanks, that helps. I would love to see a classifier try to cluster tracks across the different types of "not-necessarily-festival-EDM', and compare to see if it clusters as many fans also would.
It's hard to get even professional djs to agree on what genre songs are.
It’s not anything to do with AI, but you might like this: https://music.ishkur.com/
Crazy to think it’s been a thing since the 90s when it was built in Flash!
One clear difference is that EDM tends to have a lot of lyrics, whereas Techno tends not to.
Depends on the subgenre of Techno. A lot of hardcore and Tekno features a lot of movie samples.
I meant words that are sung not spoken.
The exact meaning of EDM has shifted over the years but I would say that currently it means stuff like Skrillex and Hardwell whereas techno is more like Carl Craig or Inigo Kennedy or Charlotte de Witte
Or perhaps more appropriately for this context: "hey, you work with computers. Can you fix my printer?"
I didn't say techno was EDM, I said our EDM clubs spin techno.
Genre elitism is why I stopped spinning, it is such a boring thing to bike shed over and contributes zero to the music.
I am not doing this. I know what techno is, and EDM clubs here can also spin techno, yes real techno.
How did Amsterdam become the EDM capital?
I'm unsure which "pokey city in Aus" you're referring to as that arguably covers all of our capitals. You really can't compare any Australian club to Berlin's institutions, and that a good thing!
Music, events, and culture in general should be diverse. It would be a fucking bleak future if the world converges on the single right way to party, detach, relax, or feel.
That's fair enough. I guess I am just surprised that there would be only two clubs. Most clubs here don't specialize in one genre except the "core edm" clubs but that might be an artifact of our distance from everything.
Rather than popping over a city to enjoy a different scene, we try to sprinkle a bit of all scenes into the one city.
I am sure we don't hold a candle to the scene in Berlin, but I think my takeaway is that I'll be thankful we get a sampler of many scenes here.
I mean the kind of places the article is talking about ("the cultural heritage" lol). I would say it's opposite of "EDM". Places where they only play ambient or techno (or disco lol) and music is loud to your core but not deafening. Where people get Club-Mate instead of Red bull, Skinny bitch instead of Cuba Libre, ketamine... Places where it's really hard to see because it's pitch dark but everybody is trying their best to look really hot when they go there.
Total nonsense about Prague. There are 2 great techno clubs/bars on each Žižkov, Vršovice or Holešovice street, lol. It's mostly locals and expats listening to guys doing it for fun with no managers or marketing (or entrance fees), so yeah it makes sense you have no idea if you don't live there, but just walk around the city and listen.
Let me get you a list for your next Prague trip: Fuchs 2, Bike Jesus, Altenburg, Bukanýr, Ankali, Roxy, Onyx, Jilská 22, Swim, Centrála, Cross, Storm, Chapeau Rouge, Planeta Za, Wildt, Mecca, Studio ... That's just the very well known ones, then you have hundreds of random small unknown places with great unknown DJs all around the city, and many great rave events in places like nuclear bunkers, castles, churches, forests.
The mainstream event halls normally used for big artist concerts are now hosting raves too.
I live in Berlin. This isn't true at all. Berlin's underground scene is still quite strong, perhaps just not as strong as it used to be. There's more "in the open" stuff due to the popularity, yes, but there's still plenty of (sometimes literal) underground raves happening.
I'd also argue that the most recent accelerator for the shift in culture in Berlin isn't so much the tourism, but the pandemic. People haven't really been the same since.
Tourism definitely wasn't a major drag on the techno scene. There's always been the tourist clubs and the clubs that were more underground. Berliners usually don't go to Berlin's best known clubs. (Who the hell goes to Watergate or Tresor? Old joke was that Tresor was the biggest club in Dresden.)
I think the biggest drag is actually rent prices. When I got to Berlin 20 years ago you could get a room in a shared flat for €100. That same room now would be €500. Same for music spaces: it was easy to rent unused warehouse space in the inner city 20 year ago. There are a lot of interesting things that happen to a city when rent is ridiculously low as it was in Berlin for a long time (there were more apartments than people).
There's still a lot going on in Berlin, but the character has very much changed. 20 years ago it was rare for clubs to be legal. Most of Berlin's well known clubs now started off as illegal clubs back then. But there were hundreds of other spaces that didn't survive and transition to being legal spaces. There's still some of that, but much, much less. Also back then just randomly setting up a sound system in a park in the summer was much more tolerated. "Open Airs" in Berlin were just kind of what you did in the summer.
Honestly, while I generally did not partake in such, the pandemic was the first time that I realized that came back some. Partying was illegal and the parties were moderately guarded secrets. I hadn't seen that much buzz around illegal parties in more than a decade.
Addendum: As a weird note, I don't even get the grandparent's comment about Potsdam? For the non-Berlin folks, it's a city just outside of Berlin's borders, but an hour away on the train from the more alternative bits of the city. It's neither known for its music scene, nor honestly as a place that rich people want to move. I know a couple of people that have moved there because of usual suburb reasons: they wanted a bigger place, and it's cheaper there. The other cities listed there are also weird. I've been out in all of them but Lyon and, yeah, there's some stuff, but to say the "scene" is moving there is really off. Three of the cities listed there are in the Balkans, but the best city for techno in the Balkans is undoubtedly Belgrade.
Genuine Q. Do berliner straight dislike any tourist no matter how they behave? I tend to go out in Buenos Aires where I live to more underground clubs and don't mind that there are a few tourists here and there. Im travelling to Berlin and was recommended Tresor, is it just a place for tourists?
Hate's not the right word. A lot of clubs have a community around them -- they have their regulars; people go there to see their friends. If there are too many tourists, there's less space for regulars. There are always some tourists, and that's fine, but a lot of those communities that I mentioned a second ago have been choked out by a club eventually being so popular with tourists that the regulars don't bother going anymore. The lines are too long, it's full too early, prices go up, etc. A lot of the well known clubs started off as underground spots that eventually were overrun. God, the last time I went to Renate, it was credit card only, didn't know a single person there who wasn't working there, even though we had guest list there was a 30 minute line at the coat check. That's what we don't like. ;-)
Also, often tourists aren't accustomed to Berlin's marathon club opening times (some clubs don't close on weekends) and end up too trashed and are annoying. So, yeah, tourists have a harder time at the doors.
Honestly, I've only been to Tresor once. It's kind of a misnomer since it's named after a very famous, very important long-closed club in a different part of Berlin with a totally different vibe. The current incarnation ... it's probably fine. Like, there are a handful of clubs in Berlin that actually feel a lot like the clubs Berliners do go to, but are mostly there for tourists. You can spot them because ... you can spot them. ;-) (Good rule of thumb in Berlin: if you can easily find the entrance, it's for tourists. Most of the more scene-y clubs don't have a sign.)
Many thanks for the info. When you say some clubs that now the lines are too long, etc. Berghain would be an example? Or is has kept its "undeground" scene?
I'm travelling there for the first time, as a woman alone I wouldn't like to have nasty looks tbh (or even be yelled at as other user suggested), not want to bother, know to behave and just want to get to know the city along with other places in Europe.
Berghain has quite a few regulars. I don't know so much what the mix there inside is anymore. I went a handful of times in its earlier years, and never really loved the place, but haven't been back since the last 2-3 times I waited in the line I didn't get in (which never happened before). There's kind of two poles in Berlin techno style and aesthetics kind of represented by Berghain and Kater / Bar 25, and I was always more in the Bar 25 camp. Berghain is very dark and industrial; Kater is more playful with lots of bright colors and odd objects. The music coming out of their labels is different in the same way.
I think the yelling at tourists is mainly going to be if you're doing something stupid (though some of those are non-obvious: e.g. taking pictures in clubs is mostly a no-no). I probably wouldn't mess with trying to get in to Berghain. Other places you'll have a decent shot. If you want to go like a pro, show up from 4-6 a.m. instead of midnight with the tourists. The pros come out late, and the lines are shorter and the dancefloors are less packed -- if you actually like to dance, later is better. I'll sometimes even go out on Sunday afternoon.
My understanding is that Tresor was destroyed and any current one with the same name isn't 'the' Tresor club. Berghain seems like it's the real successor there, and Berghain is not tourist accessible, it's about as easy to get in as Studio 54 in its heyday.
It's not about just line length, you would have to fit in and seem non-tourist to get into Berghain, and then you'd need to actually enjoy a dark, brutal, kink and techno club full of intentional degeneracy. I would absolutely go, for the music, but wouldn't be as much into the kink side, which I think is escalated somewhat from what Tresor was?
There's a good documentary on the history of Tresor: "Sub Berlin - The Story Of Tresor" which appears to even have a re-cut version on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiuJhq-z2LE
Dang... a Berlin native friend of mine took me to Renate around 2011-2012 ish. Great vibe but I got yelled at for being a tourist :(
I get it though, where I live we have desert undergrounds and parties up in the mountains with a vibe that is threatening to be overrun by tourists. To say nothing of all the plug-in camps popping up at Burning Man...
It's a fine line between having some foreigners/tourists which can be really interesting fellows with realities completely different from you aaaaand being overrun by people that behave like locusts and just care about consuming as cheaply and quickly as possible no matter what (what happened to us in Buenos Aires). I don't think most people mind some foreigners in the places they frequent, the problem is the excess.
This. Also, if you do find the entrance, be prepared to explain what's happening there in some cases, especially if it's a themed night.
Also be prepared to be denied entry. It's allowed and not uncommon, especially for some specific clubs.
Depends on the tourists - there's a lot of tourists that fit in the scene very easily, there's some that don't. It's not a requirement but if you already listen to the artists that are going to be playing you are in the first group. Tresor has pretty decent lineups while still being a bit more touristey but it's not a tourist trap or an ibiza-style club or anything like that. The crowd is generally considered a bit worse than the cool clubs, but nowhere near as bad as the actually uncool clubs (like say Watergate).
Tresor: As a tourist, could enter because I knew the DJs on the lineup and was wearing a black hoodie. Guy behind me with a fancy shirt got rejected subito, no questions asked.
Meanwhile, at Sisyphos the bouncer thanked me for wearing bright clothing and told the ladies behind me wearing black "this isn't Berghain, ladies".
So research where you're going first! Helped me get in without having to say a word!
I think, no citizen of any larger city likes tourists and the way tourism shapes the city. It's mostly ugly, tasteless entertainment venues and ever the same groups of people standing in your way, the same questions asked. Don't expect anyone to be enthusiastic about your week long expedition through their lived reality. Do your own research.
You have to behave like a "tourist" to be noticeable as one. If you are disgustingly drunk and obviously in "don't be gentle, it's a rental" mode, you may not get into some clubs, tourist or not. Some legendary clubs are very sex/kink positive, and/or queer spaces, bouncers take their job serious and filter out people who may disturb the peace or don't fit the general vibe. It's not a zoo. As a "tourist", or really anyone not in the scene, you likely won't get the info on anything "underground" going on.
That said, Berlin's tourism really isn't that bad compared to e.g. Paris or Prague. The city feels very much like actual people are living there. Speaking English won't get you "flagged" per se and you won't have trouble communicating. Mind you, the "expat" type isn't exactly liked either...
My advice, to get an authentic feel for Berlin: Explore the city by bike! Rent or cheaply buy one for the time being there. Traffic is intimidating, but the city is much, much less overwhelming and exhausting on a bike. (Don't clog the bike lanes, tho!) Berlin is incredibly green and got several lakes (!) inside and around, where you can swim and hang-out. It's also very explorable, meaning you can discover nice, or odd places and things just by walking around, in many areas. Don't get too focused on certain locations.
I live in Buenos Aires which became extremely attractive for expats, digital nomads and tourists in general last years due to the favorable exchange rate for first worlders. Considering this I started disliking _some_ tourists as you say. Those that go drunk everywhere, are loud, obnoxious, etc. I don't mind and are actually nice to those that are just chill and want to get to know the city.}
Thanks for the tips :) ! Will make sure to rent a bike while there.
No. Maybe some, but not many I've personally met.
Not a bad club, not particular popular with people here. It is well known, though.
A room in a flat now for €500? Maybe way outside the ringbahn...
I was trying to make a comparison to the €100 rooms from 20 years ago. That would be a single room in a 4-6 person shared flat. Those are still €500-ish. (In places just outside the ring like Treptow, Britz, Wedding, Lichtenberg.) In my shared two person flat back then I paid €300 (bills included). That room now would be way over €500.
Minimum wage also went up to be fair
There wasn't actually a minimum wage back then. That was introduced in 2015 in Germany.
The hipsters all wanted to have proper cappuccino. And its delicious. Hahaha.
This sounds similar to what's happened in Oakland, CA. When I moved here 25 years ago there was a huge underground music and arts scene in West Oakland warehouses but the last 10 years of gentrification has wiped it out. After the pandemic (and constant right-wing propaganda) Oakland is now once again deemed a wasteland and businesses are fleeing, but I've started noticing a new youth culture is slowly starting to emerge here and there.
I've seen the pattern in several other places as well: arts thrive in the affordable undesirable edges of society until it generates enough buzz for capitalists to notice it and move in seeking to profit off of it. The problem is that culture is not valued in capitalism because it has no landlord.
The crackdown on all the spaces after the Ghostship fire basically obliterated it. Says something about the civic culture in the US that they chose to just wipe those spaces out instead of just making sure they were safe.
"making sure they were safe" What a weird thing to say. Places like Ghostship are built on not following the rules. You think they're going to follow the rules on fire safety? You want the authorities to spent their time and energy trying to enforce rules on a place who's raison d'etre is to be anti-authority? Sounds like a waste of everyone's time.
intellectual property is the way to monetize intangible culture
You are absolutely right about rent. Its effect is not limited to techno - rent extraction is a damper on everything in the economy (except for rent extraction).
Imagine a guy comes around to your house every month and demands $1000 or else he breaks your kneecaps. You'd be quite motivated to ensure you can make that $1000 each month and you'd not be left with as much energy for doing everything else you might want to do. That's essentially the economic effect of rent. At least taxes are indexed to your income, so you can always afford to pay them; rent is not.
As someone who considers themselves somewhat principled, I would be somewhat more motivated to spend that month in exercise and martial arts training, to allow myself the opportunity to terminate this questionable attempt at a contractual relationship on the man's part. Replace acquiring 'physical fitness' with 'understanding of the minutiae of state and federal renting laws' though, and I think that would just about characterise my response to an obnoxious landlord, too...
Right on.
I moved to Berlin 15 years ago in my mid 20s. Back then we didn’t work very much, we constantly had hangovers, we were constantly out, running around Neukölln and Kreuzberg.
Whenever I chat to that age group now, while they often look the part, they’re actually tired, overworked, cash-strapped, and living far from the center of the city.
A good weird party scene needs that bad-judgment-high-enthusiasm energy of the young, and now there’s much less of it.
This is a super common cycle. City gets economically depressed -> rents drop a lot -> lots of young people and artists, etc. move in -> great "scene" develops -> people with a bit more money start moving in because of the scene -> rents rise -> young people and artists move elsewhere -> scene slows or stagnates.
Obviously that's an oversimplification, and just becoming cheap to live in isn't enough by itself, and just becoming more expensive isn't the death knell.
True, but I feel like in Berlin it was probably more drastic because, apart from gentrification, there was a huge wave of people moving in because of work (especially in tech), and more recently refugees.
Charlottenburg, Steglitz, Wilmersdorf or Wedding were never known for "the scene" but prices still got way higher. And places like Prenzlauer Berg were already gentrified when prices got even crazier.
Potsdam certainly is the place where the rich and famous live (Günter Jauch, Hasso Plattner just to name a few), they are shaping the city by donations and philanthropy to restore it’s historic glory.
Potsdam has almost exactly the same GDP per capita as Berlin (€45,378 vs. €45,074) and is ranked only 63rd highest GDP per capita of the 110 large-ish cities in Germany. I'm not convinced. ;-)
Yea prices, forgot to mention it. Indeed very massive factor, Berlin is much more expensive compared to… say 2005.
Belgrade is long way from Europe although the scene is good, but I’d say Croatia and Albania are much more preferred by promoters
I think with the references to "promoters" a few times it's clear you're talking about a different metric than I am. Clubs in Tirana and Zagreb feel gltizier, more what one would expect from Balkan clubbing (which obviously exists in Belgrade too). Belgrade has some grittier clubs where both the decor and crowd feel like they're taking style cues from Berlin.
I think your comment depicts the current & past situation in Berlin quite well. Overall, rents & overall cost of living in Berlin have increased tremendously, and available resources (unused warehouses, apartments, …) have gone down. It just can't be as underground and "poor but sexy" anymore if your DJs and ravers, during the day, all need to work high-paying 9-to-5 job to make ends meet.
Sooner or later, the Berlin scene will just feel like the one in Brooklyn. Everything will be properly gentrified.
I think this same kind of dynamic happened with London as well.
The rent thing doesn’t exactly make sense to me because there are sometimes large underground scenes in expensive cities too. I have no idea how they coordinate warehouse parties in these places where the warehouse even for warehouse use would have a lot of value, but they do.
Yes - I absolutely agree, any DJ who is familiar with the scene knows that is the #1 place on the planet as far as talent goes…there are residents at CDV who fly to Chile and Berlin a few times a week
It's funny how the (somewhat leftist) techno scene hates on foreigners destroying their tradition. Berlin and Bavaria aren't so far apart after all.
Which is immensely ironic considering that modern house and techno is an invention of African Americans in Chicago. We've truly come full circle.
The same thing is being done to hiphop in a similar way.
Just to be a bit pedantic: techno didn't come from Chicago but from Detroit :)
My bad. But the point stands. Complaining about a cultural movement that they have almost entirely gentrified is massively ironic.
I wouldn't say "gentrified", techno just evolved from the Detroit roots, first in the UK and then continental Europe (Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, etc.).
Techno came from an already gentrified African-American community in Detroit, the Belleville Three [0] were from a more affluent part of Detroit at the time, inspired by the 70s/80s German and Japanese electronic music scene, it was never like the roots of hip-hop...
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Belleville_Three
Belleville? Affluent??
Lol. Lmao. Belleville is Juggalo country, cuz. Ypsituckians working in auto parts factories.
Nobody in Detroit has ever called Belleville affluent (or 'more affluent' or whatever), and I go back to those days. I will politely omit the lol because you (obviously) aren't from around here.
Techno was indeed the music from middle-class African-Americans. It's too bad the world demanded that young Black male artists must act like the white world expected - like gangsters - to sell hip-hop records.
Do you have a lot of knowledge about how the techno scene in Berlin evolved and came to be?
I think the scene is complaining about tourists and "foreigners" was a bad choice of word in this thread. People are flocking to big names and entry prices are as high as they have ever been. It's less about the actual music.
And in that complaint I don't see any irony.
Seems like UNESCO forgot about us in Detroit. Not to worry, we're used to it, and we'll party all the same.
Detroit deserves much more in its failed financial state to be made héritage of like anything… Urban heritage man, re u joking. Sadly no bright future for Detroit for the time being…
Nonsense. Jeff Mills was a Skinny Puppy fan, and you can hear it. All the Belleville Three were heavily influenced by Kraftwerk and euro-electro, and you can hear that too. All of them namecheck a much richer and diverse set of influences than Chicago house, itself a refinement of disco, a far from strictly racially-defined movement. The UK was the first to wake up to US techno, long before the US did, if you actually know/ lived through the history. Then of course you have Plus 8, Tresor, Basic Channel and so on. You can try for an Afro-American imperial case, but it’s going to get factually unstuck fast.
The whole damn point was people dancing in a room together, not whatever authenticity tests you have in mind.
> Jeff Mills was a Skinny Puppy fan, and you can hear it
Totally. I have somewhere in my pile of neglected vinyl one of the "Final Cut" releases, which was a straight-up wax-trax style EBM/industrial thing which Jeff Mills was involved in. Late 80s/early-90s.
> The UK was the first to wake up to US techno, long before the US did
Arguably, the US never really did. Most people here in North America remain clueless to what techno is and can't distinguish from EDM or other dance music forms. In Detroit itself, there was obviously an active scene, but much smaller than anything you'd find in most European cities (Detroit itself is a fairly small city, population wise), and much smaller than its own hip-hop scene. Back in the 90s when I was much more into this scene, it was very much a niche underground thing. Active scene participants here in southern Ontario/Toronto (3rd/4th largest city in North America) were a few hundred people at most and we pretty much all knew each other. Detroit techno producers and DJs spent most of their time touring in Europe (where they could get paid), not here in North America.
The Detroit Electronic Music Festival events were kind of a rare acknowledgement by a larger audience (I went to the first two only, though).
All said though, the "Detroit" "authenticity" pole in techno served as a counteracting force against the unbearable soul-less, drug-rush-focused, "whiteness" of trance, progressive house, etc.
That last part - was trance/prog house always like that? Or did it start more underground and organic in 1989 onward until the mid-90s where it became very commercial and then went to the next level with someone like Tiesto?
When those forms became distinguished as separate genres, basically yes. I think there was a vein of maybe more interesting "trance" in 92, 93 timeframe (I'm thinking about Oliver Lieb's stuff and maybe Rabbit in the Moon and some other stuff) that was a bit more techno-ish, but with some of the hallmarks of what came to be the "trance" form. But by the time people were specifically carving out "trance" it had basically the drum rolls and drug rush thing going on. By 96 when I started paying attention to that, it was already unbearable (to me).
Detroit's population has decreased. It was the 5th or 6th largest city in the US around 1980, iirc.
Yes, they were virtually unknown in Detroit. I also remember the first DEMF. Detroiters had no idea what was going on - what was this music? Why were people coming here from all over the world? One of my favorite memories was Derrick May finally taking the stage as the headliner:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4xqV9_7rf0
That was a great moment. I recall the Stacey Pullen set being great, too. I'd seen both those people before and not been impressed, actually. But at DEMF it was amazing.
Yep, exactly. It was German etc sounds being appreciated by African Americans in Detroit, being mixed with their influences in Chicago, and then travelling back across the Atlantic. Its a transatlantic international group effort and to deny either side of it misses the whole point.
You both explained it very succinctly. I don't get why people have to grasp at depictions of history that simply aren't true. They want to believe that Jeff Mills and Belleville 3 somehow created this new music from nothing and inspired the entire world.
This is a different branch of music that doesn't have much in common with Chicago style house/techno. It's similar so people lump it together, but it evolved separately from synthpop, eurodance and electronic music that Kraftwerk did in 70s. The modern commercial EDM/techno is pretty different from what you're going to hear at a Berlin/Prague underground techno club, and has almost nothing in common with freetekno as heard in the forests.
I beg to differ. Plenty of Berlin techno is a descendant of Detroit techno. The fact that you only mentioned Chicago already shows a lack of understanding. Kraftwerk and the others you mentioned influenced Detroit techno pioneers, Detroit techno pioneers influenced Berlin techno pioneers. It's a transatlantic sound.
I mentioned Chicago because the parent did.
But I agree that there's a lot of cross influence.
Haven't you heard about the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studio_for_Electronic_Music_(W..., America's finest place of avantgardist music and sound experimentation? (/s)
That's funny, Detroit lays claim to the same thing.
Chicago claims house. Detroit claims techno. They aren’t exactly the same.
If you are suggesting that "modern house and techno" emerged fully formed from black kids in Chicago and that Berlin techno is just imitation, I do wonder why you're even bothering to take time out to comment - this isn't really a position that could be seriously held by someone who's ever actually listened to the music.
Dunno. Sven & friends at Berghain never looked particularly lefty. Tbh They always gave me a a strong...erhh... "Aryan" vibe if you know what I mean.
They aren't super 'lefty' but "Aryan" is completely unfair. Berghain cares a lot about diversity, and non-straight and non-white people have a sligtly higher chance of getting in (never any guarantees for non-regulars of course), which is the opposite of what a nazi place would promote.
Non-white and non-straight as long as they looked like they were coming right from a balenciaga catwalk. And they weren't shy in the past of hosting notoriously hard-right aligned djs and artists.
Berghain antics aside, the point I was trying to make it's that Berlin club scene isn't exactly as "welcoming" of outsiders as a whole as the OP was suggesting.
Whom?
Sven is gay.
Foreigners and tourists are different groups, albeit with significant overlap. The techno scene has a problem with tourists in particular, whether foreign or not. A Bavarian tourist booking an all-inclusive guided tour to pose on social media is going to stick out all the same. Meanwhile an Algerian on a student visa who spends more time partying than studying will fit right in.
I'm a foreigner, nobody cares about that. People coming in and recording their adventures, sitting in the corner texting, wearing fur boots or eye paint, etc are the ones that aren't so much appreciated. Nobody's ever had a problem with my shitty German as long as I've been partaking in the atmosphere as intended.
This has nothing to do with foreigners and everything to do with outsiders/passerbys/tourists.
It is basically the techno scene version of gentrification (not talking about the impact or harm or whatever else being comparable between the two, just the mechanics of it), except it is happening with the techno scene instead of housing.
This is not incongruent with your observation about “somewhat leftist” techno scene people hating on outsiders destroying their tradition. It is very similar to the analogous complaints those “somewhat leftist” people would make about gentrification.
A very comparable similar example: Burning Man. Look at how it changed and what people who have been attending it since forever ago are saying. Very similar things, and it obviously has nothing to do with actual foreigners. It has everything to do with “gentrifying” the event, and it just slowly turning into a trust fund glamping larp.
Heard exactly that, including the Leipzig part, every year for the 5 years I lived there 10 years ago.
Berlin is the biggest city in continental Europe, there's a lot of everything and there'll always be hidden little nooks.
Bigger than Paris? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_urban_areas_in_the_Eur...
Those are urban areas. If you instead count by city limits, Berlin is bigger by a large margin [1]. This is the perpetual problem with defining "biggest" - to some the urban area of Paris might still be "Paris" but the vast majority of it is outside the city limits.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_the_European...
This insistence on these officialities is frustrating, because the city limits are pretty arbitrary and have no bearing on the discussion at hand. Did you know that London (City of London) has less than 10 000 inhabitants? Apart from being a legal and historical peculiarity, it's largely irrelevant in most discussions.
For this discussion (cultural centers of Europe), Greater Paris, Greater London and Berlin (they have roughly similar areas) are what you want to compare, and Berlin is clearly the smallest one population-wise out of these three (and it's not even close).
City limits are important because each city in a metro area could have different zoning and noise ordinance laws. Or even just law enforcement that's more or less strict in one city than another. This can help to shape the culture in each city in a metropolitan area.
You can have these differences within one city as well, on the district level or even individual streets.
Yes, absolutely
London and City of London are two different entities entirely so that comparison does not work. London at its largest refers to the 32 boroughs and City of London that makes up Greater London, not the City, to those of us who live here. At it's smallest, it still refers to most of that, not just City.
If we want to shorten the name of City of London, the short form is the City, not London. The only people who ever calls City by the name of London is people who have just learnt of the oddity.
Greater London makes up the formal boundaries of London. It's the legal and administrative boundary, and the city limits of London. Unusually, unlike the city limits of many other cities, you'll find plenty of people including people who live here who not quite consider the outer parts to be part of London. People where I live sometimes still consider it part of Surrey even though it's been part of London since 1965.
There are forests and agricultural areas almost entirely separating parts of the borough I live in from the rest of London.
Yet in other areas, the Greater London urban area expands well past what anyone would call London, including e.g. entirely separate towns in other counties, like Watford in Hertfordshire, Gravesend in Kent, Epsom and Guildford in Surrey.
So yes, these comparisons are tricky but that is the point.
E.g culturally, London is likely reasonably described as smaller than it's city limits, while indeed some other cities are often larger than them, but rarely as large as the urban area they are within. It's extremely common for towns on the outskirts of large cities to have their own separate identities and not be considered part of the adjoining city, but still form part of the same urban area.
Depending on what you want to compare and which cities you are comparing, different measures will be more or less appropriate, and may require different considerations.
This seems almost obnoxiously confusing when talking online to people from all over the world.
Unfortunately, nobody took into account the difficulty of talking about this to people online when the County of London was created (totally excluding the City of London) in 1889, nor when the City of London and the London County Council boroughs were finally merged into Greater London 1965 (only to be separated again in 1986 when the Greater London Council was abolished, before being merged again in 2000 when the current Greater London Authority was created).
[And, yes, this means there was a 14 year period when the UK had a capital without a government, nor indeed any administrative unit - effectively "(Greater) London" as a political and administrative entity didn't exist during that period -, largely for political reasons - Thatchers government was strongly at odds with the then particularly left wing Greater London Council]
But really, the reason for contracting City of London to "City" rather than London is to minimise confusion, because it means London fairly unambiguously, though not entirely, refers to Greater London.
The urban area is what matters. Paris is larger than Berlin and the largest in the EU.
Paris has the specificity of having small limits for the city proper but it does not make sense to use that metric for comparison because nowadays the city only stops at the administrative limits for adminsitrative purposes and nothing else. You won't even notice you've crossed the limit if not for the ring road.
In fact, Moscow is also larger than Berlin however you look at it we we're talking about "continental Europe" (which I take as a way to exclude London, which is also larger than Berlin...).
The urban area of Paris ("aire d'attraction de Paris") extends well past the areas where people would consider that they are "in Paris".
It might well still be the biggest in the EU if you drew limits based on what people considered part of the city - I don't know - but it certainly would not be as big as its urban area.
In fact, I'd argue you're unlikely to find any major city anywhere in the world where most people would agree that every part of the outer boundaries of the urban area are part of "the city" (or even "a city"; parts of urban areas will still often be considered fairly rural by those who live there or in the nearby city) even in a loose colloquial or cultural sense. Even coming close would be exceedingly rare. This because the ways urban areas are designated by design tends to include commuter regions far outside, with their own identities, and often very separated from the biggest city in the urban area.
So while going by city limits will be misleading, so will going by urban area. Unfortunately, no single metric will be accurate for these things.
Just to point that "aire d'attraction" is not the same as the urban area. It is the area of influence and extends much further than the urban area.
I live outside of London, howver you define 'London', but still in London's area of influence considering how many people commute into London from here every day.
It's a tricky one, because by some definitions it fits what is often called a metropolitan area, but there's no formal, objective definition of either urban or metropolitan area that is universally accepted. You're right it's probably wider than most uses of urban areas in English.
At the same time it's specifically meant to be aligned to OECD and Eurostats definition of a Functional Urban Area, which is a definition meant to ensure comparable statistics across countries, which neither the "old style" urban nor metropolitan area terms provide...
Which really just goes back to the main point that you can get pretty much whichever result you want here unless you narrow it down to the specific criteria that actually matter to you...
But Berlin stops entirely at its city limits. There is almost nothing beyond it. That's just a consequence of its history with the east/west divide.
More people live in Munich's metropolitan area (i.e. where underground and overground take you) than Berlin. Still, Berlin feels like a proper city and Munich like a large village.
Berlin vs Munich is where your metric (people who live inside city boundaries) works to describe the metropolitan effect.
Paris, on the other hand, is on another level entirely. When you travel from Paris to Berlin, Berlin feels like a small town. And here, the metric of people who live inside city boundaries just doesn't describe the feeling of the cities at all.
Sure, but the point is you will get different results depending on which metric you pick. It's not that one is inherently more correct than the other.
Often there are cultural aspects at play too. I live in London. I also live in Croydon - it'd be one of the largest cities in the UK in its own right if it was separate to London (and on more than one occasion the council has tried to make that happen). Most of the borough is part of the same urban area, but some are fairly well separated. Several parts of the borough are really separate towns, separated not just from London but from Croydon by "relatively rural" land (by our standards), with their own town centers, train stations, and culturally distinct.
All of this is within the administrative city limits of Greater London ("London" doesn't really exist as an entity of its own - and before anyone else says City of London, that's one tiny constituent part of Greater London - nobody means City when they say London)
So when you say Berlin, everything might be within city limits, when you say London, odds are you wouldn't think of every part within the actual city limits as part of it, nor even a city, but the Greater London urban area includes tendrils extending beyond Greater London too that nobody other than perhaps extra audacious real estate agents would call London. When you say Paris, odds are you might include some parts beyond the formal city limits but very unlikely the entire urban area.
Even then, you won't even get people living each place to agree where the line goes.
Maybe they meant big as in "big in Japan", if you know what I mean :D the techno scene in Paris, although undoubtedly vibrant, is definitely less renowned than Berlin's.
It is bigger than Paris if you don't count the surrounding area around Paris, which isn't Paris. This article isn't correct as it is taking into account the surrounding area.
At least Paris, Moscow, Sankt Petersburg and Istanbul are significantly bigger; some other cities are bigger too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metropolitan_areas_in_...
A metropolitan area isn't a city. She/he said city. Why are people in HN so pedantic and typically wrong about things?
At least Moscow is bigger in terms of within it's city limits too, though, but then unless we want to be pedantic we get into what the person meant by "continental Europe". To what extent people colloquially refer to any part of Russia when talking about Europe varies greatly.
any school boy knows west of the urals = europe
Most of us are no longer in school, and lots of people forget that as soon as they learn it, but it's also entirely irrelevant to the question of how the term was used. "Europe" is very commonly used as a synonym for the EEA or even just EU many places today, no matter how incorrect that is.
and lots of people forget that as soon as they learn it
Great, then we don't need to hear from these people. They don't need opinions or view points about things they were never intersted in, never learned about, and couldn't be bothered to remember.
"Europe" is very commonly used as a synonym for the EEA or even just EU many places today, no matter how incorrect that is.
The term was very specifically "Continental Europe".
It's not up to you to decide whether or not people express opinions about whatever they please, and frankly that sentiment comes across as deeply arrogant and unpleasant. if that's the tack you want to take you can continue this discussion with someone else.
And "continental" in Europe very often is just used as a "but not the UK" modifier.
You can argue about the correct meaning all you want, but it is entirely irrelevant to whether or not that is how it was actually being used.
frankly that sentiment comes across as deeply arrogant and unpleasant
I don't care what you think about me.
The original poster is obviously wrong.
Also comparing city populations within city limits is exactly being too pedantic, because Paris is one example where the administrative city is much smaller than the real city.
It's definitely not as big as those in terms of surface area. But it's quite spread out and what counts as the "center" is a very loosely defined notion that is actually quite large compared to all those cities.
There's a ring of sbahn commuter rail around the center. From east to west that's about 16km and from north to south about 10km. Anything inside that could definitely be considered as the center. Walking east to west would take about three hours or so. You'll pass through a lot of interesting neighborhoods, each with their own little centers. You'll pass lots of landmarks. The former east and west berlin "centers" are about 9 km apart. A lot of the traditional landmarks and hotspots are spread out throughout that zone. And then you have a lot of gentrified spots that are becoming hotspots in their own right.
I use the word center loosely of course because there really is no such thing in Berlin. It's all spread out over a huge area. There are probably about well over a dozen areas that can lay claim to being a center of something. And frankly, most of the interesting bits are outside of what the tourists flock to these days.
Outside the ring, the city continues in pretty much all directions for quite some distance. And some of those areas are quite nice as well. But most would not consider that the center. I've lived here for about fifteen years and there are huge parts of the city that I've simply never even been to because it would take like an hour plus to get there and there isn't much in terms of landmarks, etc. to draw me there.
Technically Berlin is actually a city state (within the federation of Germany) that includes the capital and a few suburbs. Total population is still smaller than it was before WW II (3.5M people vs 4M people then). So there's a lot of open space, huge parks, two decommissioned airports (Tempelhof, Tegel), etc. all within the city limits. Tempelhof is huge. About 2km by 2km of open space in the middle of a big city with two decomissioned runways. It was the site of the cold war air bridge. You have Kreuzberg to the north, Neuköln to the east and Alt Tempelhof just outside the ring on the south west side. And that's just one corner of the city. All in former west Berlin.
The population is growing for the last decades at a pretty decent rate (about 50K new people per year or so). But it will take some time to catch up to pre WW II era levels.
It seems a constant that raves were better 10 years ago before everything became commercialized.
"It use to be about the music"
I remember hearing this 25 years ago.
Of course, what happens is that you get people who have been going to these things for 10 years and the novelty has worn off along with being 10 years older.
Most fun activities are better when you are 10 years younger with no expectations.
In my experience, people who like things because they are hidden and exclusive tend to be shitty, shallow, superficial people. Many, many, varied decades of life lived all over the world, and I've never witnessed a counterexample so I hesitate to make it an absolute.
Same goes for people who think they like things more than others because they liked them first.
On the other hand, normies do ruin everything.
In my experience, 100% of all people who use the word "normie" unironically are shitty, shallow, superficial people.
If you stop squinting, you'll see that neither the average exclusive activity enthusiast, nor a person using "normie" unironically are shallow nor superficial. Maybe your experience can be explained by how you see these people, not by how these people actually are.
Living in Berlin and being into techno, clubbing and drugs is the most "normie" thing ever. Try being a rock or jazz fan - or even Schlager.
"In my experience, people who like things because they are hidden"
Sounds a bit like a strawmen. No one here said, they like something, because it is hidden.
But hidden places are quite free and can cultivate a very different culture, than one that plays by all the legal rules. And where money took over everything.
The best places I have been, were not listed in lonely planet. And I could not book them online. I had to find them.
How do you feel about Twitter vs Fediverse? People don't like Fediverse "because it's hidden", but they like it because of the qualities it has, many of which are influenced by it being hidden. If it was bigger and still had those qualities, that would be fine too.
There's still quite a lot of illegal/semi-legal free party scene type stuff going on, especially in summer. A lot of the scene has been pushed outside of the ring, though.
Leipzig is lovely but tiny in comparision, you won't find even remotely as many clubs and parties.
Eh, because they do not want people there, who listen to promotions and whatever the socialsewersystems carries as hip to them.
Where there is affordable housing, there be musicians doing brave new things instead of worrying about rent and rapping rants about gentrification.
So I am not a techno aficionado, and I'm curious what the state of Detroit techno is now. It seems like it should be more notable (maybe it is and I'm not in the scene to know) given the history and cost of living.
I regret the US turning away from house and techno, compared to Europe.
Still got it, never lost it.
Detroit's cost of living is higher than the national average.
https://www.payscale.com/cost-of-living-calculator/Michigan-...
https://www.axios.com/local/detroit/2023/11/21/cost-of-livin...
That’s exactly what someone would say, to keep the tourists away :p
“No, there are no underground raves around here, nor have there ever been, nor will there ever be. Please stay away from this town.”
You make two entrances - one is "backstage and delivery guys" - thats where the people you want get in- the other is for insta-noodles and hipster-replacement folk, who want to wait all night and then get rejected in some viral video..
You know, I didn’t want to get attacked by Berliner’s for saying this…but I was pretty….whelmed…by the techno scene when I was there for a month.
I’ve enjoyed far more raves in LA and Detroit, and lots of harder techno clubs in Chicago that felt a lot more authentic. The Berlin crowds were kind and chill, but there definitely was this odd feeling where it all kinda felt..scripted?
I hadn’t gone to Berlin up until two years ago, so I can only imagine it was pretty incredible a decade ago before tourism swamped them.
And before anyone asks, I was rolling with native berliners and service industry folks, so I was fortunate to get in to and attend a lot of the best parties while I was there. I’d love to go back, I do just feel like it was slightly overhyped before I got there :/.
Happy for them regardless, they deserve the recognition even if I didn’t get to really experience the best of it
Clarification requested: surely that's underwhelmed? Or are you saying that you were emotionally involved in it despite the 'scripted' feeling as you describe?
"Whelmed" is new slang to mean, it was ok, just alright. It is a reaction to over- and underwhelmed which now carry a bit more extreme connotation.
Exactly :)
The latter. I don’t think it’s fair to say I was underwhelmed (I wasn’t), I enjoyed my time despite the feeling of how prescribed a lot of the parties/clubs/people felt (party enough like I do and you’re sure to come across this, it’s not unique to Berlin).
I just had this possibly _too_ high expectation of the Berlin techno club/party scene before I got there, and it just didn’t wow me like I had heard it would (despite having a great time and no issues).
Berlin as a city, however, exceeded my expectations..which definitely adds to my confusion on my overall sentiment towards everything
This has been a meme forever, and while Leipzig has its own decent scene for its size, it is not remotely close to rivaling Berlin. Pick a decent sample of either established or up and coming DJs and compare how often they play in Berlin vs there to disuade yourself of that notion.
Yeah, no. Just because a city has some parties here and there, it doesn't mean it should even be in the conversation in this context.
Well there's the problem. What you should compare is how many unknown new guys just making good music for fun in small unknown clubs visited by locals are there.
In my city I can go to a random non-descript bar with zero marketing or entrance fee, sit down peacefully with a drink, and hear world class techno together with few dozen strangers. Every evening. Doesn't feel that way in Berlin anymore, even if I pay it's all that global commercial style that the established DJs with promoter/management teams seem to fall into and the places are totally overcrowded.
What city?
Prague
Leipzig seems to be the new underground place in Germany from what I've heard and experienced.
I believe this is the usual cycle of cities going through: arts scene existing because it's a cheap place to live, artists congregate in places they can afford, create a cool scene, the cool scene brings some bars/cafés and slowly it erodes to gentrification since these places are cool and attract other crowds into it (higher income, and/or tourists), eventually it makes the place expensive and artists have to find a new place where it's cheaper to live, and create their spaces.
Very similar to the geeks, MOPs, and sociopaths essay on subcultures. [0]
[0] https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths
The usual cycle of capitalism going through cities. This thing where vultures move in and monetize things that other people created for free is a peculiarity of the way our economy works, not a universal truth (although it's a universal truth that it happens wherever it's allowed to, it's not universally allowed to happen).
But Leipzig doesn't have the same growth opportunity as Berlin. Leipzig is 1/8th the size of Berlin and as such its upper bound on how large a scene can become is massively capped.
Add to that that Berlin has been a place for internationals for generations, whereas Leipzig is entirely German.
For the record, I love Leipzig, I think it's gorgeous.
At the point where UNESCO are recognizing it it’s probably fair to say it’s not underground at all anymore
Precisely. Why did I need to tell this all BS at all, you nailed it soo good. It is heritage, history, not the wave itself.
It doesn't seem like "Berlin underground techno" is being recognized by Unesco, but rather just "Berlin Techno". So while the underground movement might be the grassroot for the mainstream, it would seem like they're recognizing techno in Berlin overall, not just the underground part.
Well I can tell you in my totally anecdotal view that the underground scene here is alive and well, you just need to look a bit harder for it ;) It’s true that mainstream media like Instagram and TikTok are bringing the worst of the scene and it’s true that there are now a lot of kids that think that the techno scene is to dress in fetish clothes and film yourself dancing waiting for “the drop”. But this is just capitalism and globalization doing its thing. Trends come and go. You can still go to awesome parties here in Berlin that won’t be filmed and uploaded to Facebook, and it’s also true that people complain a lot about the scene going mainstream but in reality if you want money from it, there’s so many mouths that the underground scene can feed. I think a bigger problem for the club culture is the festival scene, but that’s a whole different discussion. There are cool initiatives coming from this such as ASlice so I don’t think it’s as bad as some old schoolers are claiming
I feel like the growing festival scene is a direct result of properties getting scarce in the city.
Or maybe that people got too busy that they can only afford to party when it’s a proper vacation.
On the hand, Barcelona is as cramped as ever (with rents showing it too) but there is plenty of festivals in the city, especially around Port Forum (a marina) which have huge open spaces and is right before the city limits.
Speaking as someone who's split ~half my time between Leipzig and Berlin for the last 5 years, this is not true.
Leipzig's club scene is an extension of its university population. It's younger, straighter, whiter, and about two orders of magnitude smaller. People visit the clubs while they're going to school there, then they graduate and move elsewhere. Often to Berlin.
Why does this illusion exist? Because Leipzig is about an hour away from Berlin by train. Berliners visit for a weekend and think "wow, it's like Berlin in the 90s! Still cheap! And look at all these cool young kids at these scrappy clubs -- so that's where the underground has gone!". Then they go back to Berlin and spread the word to credulous out-of-towners, who go on to repeat this truism to people who have never visited either city.
In reality, Berlin's club scene -- both "mainstream" and "underground" -- dwarfs that of any other city. Nothing short of an asteroid hit is likely to change that.
Techno has always been about that in Europe - young and white. And it is not in Berlin anymore.
Berlin can have the heritage, NOW it’s not there anymore, do u get it?
The main reason why Leipzig won't become the "next Berlin" is rents are increasing there, as fast as in Berlin. It is still cheaper, but not "let's try and find out" cheap.
I think, for a moment around 15 years ago, Leipzig was dirt cheap and had quite a bit of momentum, because you didn't need a business plan to try and make things happen. People, students from west Germany, payed 100€ for rent and 30€ for an atelier. Lots of raw excitement and empty buildings.
But the momentum died maybe 8 years ago. What's left is nothing like Berlin. Cheaper, but still expensive; liberal-ish, but all kartoffel. Leipzig doesn't feel exciting, but small now. And it's deep in enemy territory, very depressing region, the mere thought doesn't spark joy at all.
https://ra.co/events/de/berlin events tonight in Berlin... parties at 100+ clubs, doesn't seem like anywhere comes close.
It’s what commerce looks like. Abundance is not a mark of the underground.
Zagreb. Seriously?
Yeah, I'm wondering too.
Berlin is over, just like Burning Man is over
Leipzig being known as Hypezig.
That's what they say about every scene. It's always too late. It's always getting too mainstream.