If you’ve ever spent any time reading marketing or business blogs, there’s a good chance that you’re familiar with the concept of the “funnel.” For the uninitiated, this is essentially a process for visualizing how people on the internet go from being complete strangers, to customers, to evangelizers of your product. Hardly the most stimulating idea, it does help businesses visualize their place in the market, their customer segments, and how well the sales process is moving along.
Today, I want to introduce to you an idea I’ve had for a while called the “Techno Funnel.” Unlike its no-frills counterpart, the Techno Funnel is a journey, an experience - a funnel which all the people of the world are subject to find themselves in, but also one in which few come out the other side. It’s also a process that seemingly has no bottom.
Electronic Pop Music
The funnel starts here. Essentially the “delta” of the process, this is where most people initially get sucked in. (Note: it doesn’t always start here, but we’ll go more into that later on down the road). This is a style of music with many derivatives - dream pop, future pop, synth pop, etc - maybe even including genres like chillwave and futurebeats. The driving similarity between these genres is their accessibility; usually featuring bright & sunny synths, syncopated drums, uplifting major chord progressions and light (if sometimes jokey) vocals, this is the first “dancey” style of music that most people find themselves exposed to.
And then shit starts to get weird.
EDM (Electronic Dance Music)
Once people become bored of EPM, they almost always (read: 90+% [needs citation]) take a trip to its demented, alcohol-soaked, pill-seeking older brother, EDM. EDM, as you may know by now, is characterized by a powerful trifecta of sonic elements: booty shaking bass-lines, alarmingly long risers, and a DJ insisting that you put your fucking hands up. Most folks move in and out of this phase quickly, but those who don’t, well.. they’re..interesting.
Deep House
It should be noted that not all Techno Funnels are built the same. Indeed, the middle of the process is widely interchangeable. For the purpose of brevity, I’m only going to explore one iteration, which sees listeners making the switch from EDM to deep house. Deep house, of course, is deeper than regular house, which can be confusing, because no one fucking knows what makes house music “deep.” There are some educated guesses, to be sure: stringy synthesizers feature prominently, as do minor chord progressions and a four-to-the-floor kick pattern. These items get drowned variably in cheesy European vocal games of ad-libs, late 70’s disco tape cuts, and shotgun shaker hits.
House
Those who don’t get stuck at the nadir of deep house (counterintuitively) wind up moving through to regular.. house. House music is nearing the end of the funnel because essentially it “gets” itself. Self-referential and soulful; bleak and yet uplifting, house music is the dance music connoisseurs’ dance music. In my opinion, it’s totally acceptable to get lost in the endless tropes found in house music - from the subtle vocal clips to the intricately-woven drum patterns. Above all else, house music seeks to unify its collective audience with a feelings of oneness, community and peace. And then shit gets weird again.
(Click to experience Bambounou.. on us)
Techo
Techno is, of course, the end of the Techno Funnel. And I’ll be completely honest - I just really don’t know if this is actually the end of the dance music journey. Sorry if you feel misled, but at least I tried. I’ve been listening to techno for about two years straight, and I still can’t find the bottom. I’m hoping to some day, but it feels like the abyss. But that’s what I like about it — it makes you feel small. Give it a shot and maybe you’ll see what I mean.
But hey, if dance music's not your shit, check out this guitar music website instead.