The Battle over Techno’s Origins
I was curious about the Belleville Three (who have no relationship to the Triplets of Belleville) because I wasn&#x27;t really aware of them.<p>the wikipedia article on the Belleville Three says the &quot;first wave of Detroit techno&quot; was some of the future members meeting and forming Cybotron, releasing Alleys of Your Mind in 1981 <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=kMHNhJJnve4">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=kMHNhJJnve4</a> to me this is quite clearly Kraftwerk inspired, and Kraftwerk had been going for about 10 years at that point.<p>1981 puts them after Devo had been around awhile, and Talking Heads and B-52s, which were more pop but featured many of these sounds, and contemporaneous with Depeche Mode, Eurythmics, and Yaz&#x2F;Yazoo.<p>Two years later Cybotron released <i>Clear</i> which is Kraftwerk blended with more of a funk sound <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=V3QHj7lai9I">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=V3QHj7lai9I</a><p>I&#x27;m not trying to assign&#x2F;give&#x2F;take credit, just saying here&#x27;s what they sounded like and who else sounded similar to me. Zappa and P Funk are generally noted as having explored these sounds early on, but I don&#x27;t enjoy their stuff so much so I don&#x27;t listen to it much. This comment is a bit of &quot;you might try listening to this&quot; if you&#x27;re interested.<p>I don&#x27;t remember when we all started saying techno, it was definitely in full swing in the 90&#x27;s, I think it was the 80&#x27;s but gotta admit, I dunno.