so true! the stuff with quality is just harder to find, that's all.

I don't think saturation will neccesarily lead to a decrease in sales, look at pop-punk. However I suppose we are talking about a fairly un-marketable genre. I can't help feeling they will find a way though!

I guess we need to define a little clearlier how the purity of artistic vision lends itself to quality, versus the common marketplace approach where ideas are appropriated and bastardized in order to suit the artists 'original sound'.

How we end up with the fractionalized hair-splitting measures of difference comes out of the common marketplace approach. It is a system of mimicry... each artist appropriating from their predecessors in minute ways, yet *claiming* some measure of originality.

If you take a deck of cards and deal 5 cards to each player at the table (5 players), then each player shuffles their cards and exchanges 3 of them with the person sitting next to them, you still have 25 cards. Yes - you have variations on the order of those 25 cards, but there still is the same amount in play. That is what idm is doing right now; however, once its run its course (i.e. every variation of 5 cards in a hand has been explored) it ends.

Also, dont forget that the only thing truly groundbreaking about idm was its treatment of sound. In terms of structure nothing new was ever accomplished (save for ambient). It is silly to exaggerate the importance of its originality apart from its treatment of sound and method of production. So yes, it did spawn the full realization of computer music, and it did reorgainze many of the 5 card variations, but structurally it didn't invent anything new. Basically I'm saying that if Idm involved some massive shift in the structural treatment of music, that would give it staying power and room to mature. But with that lack in mind its difficult to place where exactly the next step comes from. Imitation of computer music through acoustic/live means, perhaps.

So what your saying is IDM has become less (if at all) groudbreaking over the past couple of years.

Well, I can't argue apart from, as I said earlier, releases such as Matmos' The Civil War.

As to whether purity of artistic vision is damaged by saturation, that's down to the individual artist. The artist may go into territory that has been done before, but that doesn't mean they feel less passion for it.

Quality comes from passion and a true belief in what your doing mixed with talent and technical know how.

I see no evidence that any of the above would be damaged by a saturation of artists. Originality can come from any direction, be it IDM or 1930s jazz records.

If all you want out of IDM is the originality and don't glean any enjoyment from it as music itself, then yes, for you, it will die.

For those of us who see it as music and enjoy it, it wont.

Where will the next step come from? I don't know. Maybe there won't be one maybe there will. That doesn't mean people won't be writing great music that I can enjoy stil.

Hell there are people who still enjoy EBM and nothing new has come out of that in over 10 years!

I think you are wrong, you can't define music by genre like that. There is music alive in all styles and genres.

Well that's what I said earlier. Music is (more than ever) becoming wider.

In that case I agree with you!

I suppose what I mean is that creativity in EBM has faded quite a lot but that doesn't stop the genre being popular or decent music coming out of it!

I hate these discussions usually, but pseudotrop actually made some good points, despite them being negative. I think that "the boundaries of sound" have almost been exhausted (this doesn't mean anything is any less impressive), but the places we will see the most innovation will be in the way music will be made, and heard...and experienced.
Surround sound, neural interfaces, touch screens, raw computer horsepower and other things in combination with an intuitive mind could make the next five to ten years pretty interesting...

Also, the reduced cost of computers/software is a plus in my mind. Imagine if Mozart's brain was in an Ethiopian child, all he'd have is a drum or something, and a genius would be wasted (stupid example, but you get my drift)

That's interesting actually, with music becoming easier to make we could see the boundries being pushed even further. Surely the fact that there will be a lot more people out there making music is a good thing?