Power Electronics is Dead.

[xdementia]

Here's a great example of a new PE release that is totally solid but in the end just feels like it's retreading on familiar territory - no need to add this to my collection https://perstrepo.bandcamp.com/album/forces-of-hate

Thanks for the tip! I do see/hear what you mean here, it is not a new milestone of the genre, but that classic territory needs to be retread a lot more if you ask me... there is not enough of it. Love this stuff.

This reminded me that there is the concept that an artist often needs to imitate before they can innovate. And I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with straight-up solid material that falls into a certain genre, it's a good thing. Especially if the artist themselves and fans are enjoying it. I'm just saying I look for a higher standard these days.

Some thoughts on classics vs. new stuff: What is a classic to some, might not be for others. A lot has to do with timing and experience. When hearing Whitehouse (Dedicated to Peter Kürten was my first album by them) for the first time, f.ex., I was utterly dissappointed. I had read about them and expected it to be much wilder than it was. At that time I had already listened to Atrax Morgue, Masonna etc. for years, so nothing Whitehouse did was even remotely shocking and many outdid them on  most parameters. So classics for many, but not for me. If I was 10 years older, it's very possible I would feel differently about them.

What becomes a classic may just be about hitting the right people at the right time. To me Prurient and the whole Hospital thing was never really anything of note, but it struck a chord with a lot of people younger than me, so who am I to argue? Maybe if I was 10 years younger, it would have hit me differently?

The point is that it's completely possible that someone might like something new better than what any of us might regard as a genre classic, and that what any of us may regard as "solid" or "just good" right now may be the best and most meaningful record ever for someone else and may even become a classic in the future. I don't think the early GO releases were that well received when they came out, f.ex. and I know many old industrial fans who still see them as derogative and not particularly original, but to me and many here they're absolute genre classics...

Yea, there's a lot of different ways classics can be interpreted. I think the Hospital stuff wasn't necessarily the cutting edge but they more popularized the cutting edge trends that were going on at the time and influenced a lot of people which is now why some of that stuff is considered classics.

Some classics are just that simply because they utilize a method or procedure that was never done so before but now that the method has become much more common maybe that classic doesn't have much other value than the one method it broke ground on. Sometimes classics fade or don't stand the test of time.

Sometimes work - overlooked at the time - will emerge later on to be understood as groundbreaking.