Sticking to One Sound: Is It Important?

Here we go again! The ultimate, never-ending topic!
As musicians, should we spend most of our time:
Developing “THE SOUND” and creating our own wave?
Or should we consider exploring the trending waves and molding in?

This is an extremely complicated topic with an even more complicated answer.

The decision has so much to do with personal preference as well as your level of production skills. Let us explain!

Let’s take a look at two scenarios. We have two producers, producer Tim and producer Skrill.

Tim was born in Europe and grew up listening to electronic music all his life, more specifically European Dance music. His love and obsession for electronic music led him on the path of being a producer himself! Being European Tim is heavily influenced by a very specific melodic house being played at all his local clubs. Tim became increasingly known in his region and slowly became a household name worldwide, heavily influencing the music scene with his particular melodic style.

Now let’s look at Skrill, a musician who originally started out in a rock band. Growing up in the US, Skrill was heavily influenced by the late 90s Rock movement as well as a heavy dose of Hip Hop in the 2000s. Skrill’s addiction to electronic sounds came in a different form, it was during a head-banging festival he once attended that got him hooked on heavy drops and massive synth sounds. It was heavily influenced by much heavier sounds with a mild twist of hip-hop hooks and big synth guitar riffs blowing through the speakers.

Many years later these two producers were able to achieve the same level of greatness, but simply in a different form.

But…

How does this apply to us?

Let’s say Tim never listened to hip-hop and definitely was too young to be exposed to 90s US rock. Tim’s influence was fairly consistent with dance music and other pop dance acts, heavily revolving around the 4/4 format, while Skrill couldn’t get enough of the early Timbaland rhythms and a splash of “Rage Against the Machine” and made it his lifelong mission to mold the sounds together.

Throughout Skrill’s life, his musical addiction got so big that he simply couldn’t get enough of experimentation. Skrill was so in love with the variety of music he was exposed to early on throughout his life, that he simply couldn’t stick to one direction. There was a burning desire to experiment and blend it all together and constantly explore new waves, and no longer sticking to one set of rules.

Tim on the other hand was a purist due to a very specific sound being developed through his early life. Being European Tim was simply OBSESSED with pure dance music, and had zero desire to implement other genres together with his pure progressive sounds.

Do you see how two different regions played a massive effect on the choices made by both? Who is right and who is wrong in this case? Some purists might say Hip-Hop is not really part of the electronic dance music culture, but is that a fair assessment? Absolutely not! It’s actually an extremely silly assessment! But the truth is, it’s a personal assessment and should be respected.

At the end of the day both Tim and Skrill became superstars, one stayed with his sound and the other simply couldn’t resist flipping the script more often.

The answer to this incredibly complicated question is that there is no answer. The only thing that is important is do you love it, and do your fans love it!

Now, what the hell are we supposed to do in this tech house wave? The answer is simple, if you vibe with it, do something with it. If you hate it, stick to your own wave or make a new one!

There are vast varieties of successful musicians in the world. Some are huge country artists who don’t dare cross over, some are dance acts craving to inject a little freshness. Who is right and who is wrong here?

Essentially the answer is simple!

Follow your heart
Stop listening to all the noise
At the end of the day, it really does not matter one bit!