Detroit techno is 1980s Detroit dance music fusing electro, Chicago house, industrial and synth-pop

Detroit techno names the first techno productions by Detroit-based artists in the mid-1980s to early 1990s. Its stylistic origins are electro, industrial music, Chicago house and synth-pop; it later spawned fusion subgenres including minimal techno, ghettotech and dub techno. It was not only a sound but a scene and, through Underground Resistance, a political stance. Knowing this orients a learner to where the machine-driven 4/4 dance-music lineage they will study came from, and separates ‘techno’ as a specific Detroit genre from its later generic use for all electronic dance music.

Examples

Founding artists: Juan Atkins, Derrick May, Kevin Saunderson (the Belleville Three), plus Jeff Mills, Eddie Fowlkes, Blake Baxter, Robert Hood. Landmark records: Model 500’s ‘No UFO’s’ (1985), May’s ‘Strings of Life’ (1987).

Assessment

Name the decade and city of origin, two stylistic origins, and one fusion subgenre of Detroit techno; explain why ‘techno’ as a Detroit genre is narrower than the everyday use of the word.