No it hasn't! If you are so sure of what you're saying than write an article about it instead of leaving some jaded comment. Let us know when you're ready to present your case.

Queer people have always been a great force in new art and music trends. That's not new news. Co-opted by straight people? Trust me, this attitude will do you no good. Who gives a fuck!?!?!?! Just let people do whatever they want, and stop worrying about bullshit! That's a lesson I've learned from some of my good faggot friends! Stop worrying about bullshit!

You bring up an interesting point, confuzed, but there are significant differences

Electroclash wasn't based on any original "lost" template -- although I've a sneaking suspicion that Miss Kitten and Thee Hacker did a bit more research than they let on for their sound. As for the others, sure they had some original influences -- ESG comes to mind, and definitely Kraftwerk -- especially on the sex-rap side of electroclash, but when he "invented" electroclash, Larry Tee wasn't trying to exactly emulate the past, he was merely trying to find a way musically forward by mashing up rock and dance music in fun ways.

Also, even though electroclash referenced an analog feeling, it was often digitally produced and marketed by established labels. It definitely brought more laptops to the DJ booth. (There wasn't a heck of a lot of electroclash vinyl.)

The key difference, though, is the feeling. Electroclash could feign iciness and definitely be arty, but it was never about bleakness and isolation. Much of electroclash was overtly sexual (even Miss Kitten had to be a peepshow stripper in her videos), or campy beyond camp (Fischerspooner). It was definitely the very embodiment of irony. Also, the people who made it were almost all total fame whores. Electroclash was anything but shy or into art for art's sake. Also, I don't think, years hence, that we'll come across a trove of "lost" electroclash, although you never know.

Wave music is introspective, often gloomy, bare-souled, instinctively poetic, and just, well, angsty and blue-lit. The songs you're hearing in the above mixes were made in isolation with what we'd now call rudimentary equipment, by people who probably never expected to or maybe even wanted to or could even become famous -- definitely not Internet famous, of course, which is what a lot of electroclash kids aimed for.

I would give a little shout out here to Ladytron, who weren't strictly electroclash but embodied a wave-type desolation feeling during the sunny internet boom, while admirably shying away from "goth" and "emo" bombast or self-conscious irony.

I'm not talking about Heaven 17, Sisters of Mercy, and the Cure here. I'm talking about music that was never pressed to vinyl (or may have been in very limited runs) or played in clubs or on the radio much. Of course people knew about goth and synthpop, and waves of people each generation get into those -- but this is different because people are being attracted to music in that vein that hardly anyone knew about at the time. Folks are using the power of the Internet and their own wonderful research to dig up these tunes and finally get them to a wider audience. It's a reaction against boiling this music down to the same 20 acts that are always chosen to represent the era just because they had better luck scoring contracts. And new people are making music with that more specific sound -- perhaps it's also a reaction against change? -- that they have no problem calling "retro." Not sure what you mean by "good music can't be called retro"? Maybe you can explain a little more?

how wonderfully astute.

Tru dat!

I also Djed and grew up in all the legendary late 80s LA clubs and on college radio back in the day like Scream, Helter Skelter, DDT, Kontrol Factory, Sin-a-matic, Club with No Name, Zombie Zoo, Lechtersternium etc. and I can assure you it was a completely different genre of music, and people went out looking fabulous to simply be seen and dance to the well known dark indie, goth and industrial dance hits we all knew well already and loved - from the likes of Wax Trax, Mute, 4AD, Factory, Zoth Ommog, et al., I still have many many of my old set lists from the clubs, the same trax over and over every week, with few surprises or obscurities. It was all very completely complicit with the MTV-oriented 120 minutes style image culture and quite predictable and commercially oriented in the end. It was a wonderful, deacdent and alive time, but as far as the music itself - not nearly to be compared with the amazing scene that has been forming around Wierd in Brooklyn that has finally made its way out here to great clubs like Nachtm, Tenebrae, and Killing Spree!

I went to Wierd many years ago and it really was an entirely new genre of music, and all the people there had come out to listen and hear that which they DID NOT know, it was all very alive like late 80s LA was interms of image, but here it really is all about the music itself. Cold Wave and minimal synth is now being heard for the first time and being someone whos been around the musical block too many years to admit to, I would not be surprised if this (hopefully) gives rise to an entirely new scene of young DIY electronic groups who are inspired by this amazing new musical language!

Thanks for the great piece SFBG, bravo!

The good majority of the releases played at any of these clubs were sold in LTD editions in the early 80s, sometimes as few as 200 copies each, and often in small towns in the UK, Germany, or The Netherlands on K7. The claim that these releases were widely heard anywhere in California of the late 70s / early 80s is just bogus, unless someone was constantly visiting European suburbs, buying strange tapes, and returning with them for play at dance venues specifically...were tapes a common dancefloor format? Don't think so. This is why Minimal Wave's compilations are gaining traction, as it is the first time much of this dance-friendly music is available on vinyl at all. Additionally, the stuff with foreign language lyrics was and is still hard to get, as it was never marketed to Anglophones, or similarly thought to be interesting to anyone outside of the specific region in which the microscene existed (i.e. Wassenaar, a wealthy suburb of The Hague). A link was posted to Max and Intro's 'Beogradska Devojtka'...this was a hit in now Ex-Yugoslavia, but of course it was released on a state-owned label and existed in an entirely different social dimension than what was known in the U.S., not to mention performed with Serbo-Croatian lyrics. And as someone who has attended Wierd for the past 3 or so years, I can say that there is an even wider variety of rare music played than just this kind of early, angular synth music -- also bizarre Italo, dark New Beat and late acid stuff...and what's more, no one is too proud to still play things like Depeche Mode or Leaetherstrip (but you might get a look of disapproval from the man presiding over the booth)...

Thanks for your comment! I didn't have room in the article to talk about Phantom Limbs and the older scene -- although I did get a mention of Rob Spector in there. And I couldn't recall any regular club night from that time period to hang a discussion on. But I'm sorry that the article didn't delve as much into the past, and that I wasn't aware of your current gigs. And I included Veil Veil Vanish (although they've also been described as Echo and the Bunnymenish) because I feel they do fall into the more dark wave side of things -- and Justin who puts on Nachtmusik is in the band. I didn't want to be too much of a purist, even though that's a lot of what the scene's about, because I wanted to give a sense of the variety available, and how the wave genre is taking on a life of it's own. Again, thanks so much for your response, I hope to write more on this great scene and its history (just starting the conversation here I guess), and I'll look for you out and about!