Sam Greenwood1. Laidback Luke
Known for working with artists like as David Guetta and Example, Laidback Luke actually made some pretty good techno back in his early days. He recently did a vlog via his YouTube channel explaining why he quit techno, due to him finding it repetitive just making loops in the studio and thus hitting a ‘wall’.
At least he admits to it, but it’s hard listening to his releases in the mid-1990s on Touché, and trying and compare them to his EDM releases over the past five years.
2. Umek
Where did it all go wrong for Umek? Musically active since 1993, he set up numerous techno labels and played sets with some of the biggest names in the game including Dave Clarke. Though in recent years his sound has changed into a more deep house, funky bass line tripe. Death by Spinnin’ Records.
3. Duke Dumont
From Underground Persistence to ‘I Got You’, Duke Dumont has well and truly put the nail in his coffin. You can’t be playing underground techno in 2012 and then Whitney Houston vocals three years later. He is the perfect example of someone who had sold out, or never really liked techno. I’m guessing it’s the sold out option.
4. Richie Hawtin
An absolute pioneer of techno. Some of the greatest tracks ever put out have been made by Richie under his Plastikman alias. In fact, even under his original Richie Hawtin name he has had some killer tracks, but when you start playing pool parties in Ibiza and creating your own brand of mixers for a quick buck, you’re going to get a lot of hate.
5. Adam Beyer
Head honcho of one of the biggest techno labels of all time, Drumcode, Beyer was the young gun in the mid 90s with many heavy hitting releases. Raking in four studio albums and many EPs, recently he is starting to go sideways. The ‘new’ Adam Beyer we have today doesn’t play much of the ‘crunchier’ early days stuff. Instead he opts for big festival shows and terrible Moby remixes on his iconic label.
6. Moby (we might as well…)
Following on from my point about the Moby remixes being terrible on Drumcode, what happened to Moby? One of the biggest musical influencers the world has ever seen, he is a DJ, singer, songwriter, and musician. But he was also responsible for bringing underground music to a mainstream audience in the UK and America. Not to mention recently opening the flood gates and licensing all of his tracks on Play.Ker-ching, thus allowing some of his classic tracks to be terribly remixed on Drumcode. Come on Moby!
Moby takes pictures of The Hives guitarist Nicholaus Arson in 2002.