this thread is mental. i think one stylistic choice couldn't be futher from the issue of whether or not something is good. it's like saying that the 7th interval is the devil's interval and that any music featuring a chord with two notes 7 semitones apart should be consigned to hell.
Ok I've been away and had a think about this,
I still don't really see the distinctions mms is talking about. As i see it house and techno are defined by their 4/4 kicks. (when i say 4/4 by the way I mean the 4/4 kicks, of course 99.99% of 'dance' / club music / continuum stuff is in 4/4 time). If it doesn't have the 4/4 kick it's not techno, it's electro - right?
try arguing with eg keith tucker about that, he's talked about how irrelevant it is for him, can't find where now unfortunately.
if you're trying to categorise music based on one materially tiny necessary and sufficient property surely you're barking up the wrong tree? surely almost all issues of musical definition involve a less than neat bundle of considerations?
and the idea elsewhere that because 99.5% of a genre is shit the whole thing is incredibly vexing seems really aesthetically invalid (or something) to me. i'm just happy with the quantity in absolute terms of good stuff i come across, i can't imagine why it should make any difference to me that there's a lot of corresponding bad stuff i don't listen to.
i really dislike this idea that formula is bad too. why would you evaluate some music based on whether the process used to conceive it was novel or repetitious?