I Heart EDM, So What?
How a popular sound improved the way a generation creates and consumes music
I attended my first electronic dance music concert in June of 2011, the summer after I finished my sophomore year of high school. We were seeing some Swede whose name I wasn’t pronouncing right and whose musical presence on the Internet was miniscule.
I went with one friend around my age—both of us pubescent 15-year-olds — along with his older sister and her friends, all of whom were at least two years older than us. They were celebrating his sister’s birthday, I had merely been offered an extra ticket. When I asked her what kind of music it was, her response was, “You know, techno. Like European techno. Like house music. Yeah, techno.”
I then asked her what songs she liked so I could try to look them up. Her response: a hesitant “I don’t really know any of it. I’m just going because it’s something to do. And I like to dance.”
We took a chartered party bus to the Philadelphia Naval Yard, to a hollowed-out airplane hangar where this rave (as one attendee called it) was taking place. I could hear and feel the bass from outside, and through the fogged windows I could only distinguish an indivisible glob of humanness with slightly discernible arms and legs.
I entered, took a glance down at my polo shirt, pressed khakis, and boat shoes and realized I was grossly overdressed. Surrounding me, syndicates of muscle-bound meatheads, with bodies like the lovechild of Schwarzenegger and a Silverback, roamed around, draped in neon tank tops. They pursued contingents of scantily-dressed girls, clothes seemingly purchased at Baby Gap clinging to their curves. I decided I had no chance with those girls — being dressed the way I was and being a twig compared to those guys—so I settled for admiring the female scenery. Still, I couldn’t complain.
After a little while of us standing around with the lights on and no music playing, the DJ came on. Loud electronic sounds running at 128 beats per minute filled the sweaty air, pulse-pounding “drops” marked the musical climaxes. For the next hour and a half, everyone in that building became unified, bonding with the music, the DJ, and each other. I assimilated into that human glob, and we all leapt in unison to the beat of an endless song.
Towards the end of the set, the DJ played an ineffably catchy melody, but halfway through the song he seemed to lower the music. I thought it was an accident, but I was wrong. Just as I was leaning towards my friends to ask why the DJ stopped so abruptly, I heard sultry female vocals, deep but clear:
“Oh, sometimes I get a good feeling… Get a feeling that I never never never never had before…”►
Everyone knew the words, and I did too. (Another friend, who had started smoking weed rather young, introduced me to Pretty Lights’ “Finally Moving” a few months earlier, describing it as “the trippiest song ever, bro!”) I didn’t know it at the time, but the vocals were sampled from Etta James’ 1962 song “Something’s Got a Hold On Me”; now, with a mass of young people singing along, and I with them, the words were reinvigorated. The song sweeping us away was called “Levels.”
The DJ I saw that night was Tim Bergling, better known as Avicii. This was just a few months before “Levels” carried the addictive energy of modern electronic music from the underground to the surface. David Guetta’s work had set the tone, especially his collab with Black Eyed Peas “I Gotta Feeling,” or one of LMFAO’s smash hits like “Party Rock Anthem” — pollinating pop music with synths and a faster tempo.
Fast-forward three years, 2014. I heard Avicii’s music playing in the waiting area at my last doctor’s appointment. It seemed impossible that he would have a bigger hit than “Levels,” but “Wake Me Up” somehow surpassed it in prominence. And there it was, being piped into this painfully mainstream environment, the collection of sounds that one man amalgamated in solitude sitting in front of a computer.
A watershed moment of sorts: EDM had become ubiquitous.
In 2011, I was bitten by the EDM bug and forever changed. Through the relatively short time I’ve considered myself a fan, my involvement with and attraction to the music has undergone a metamorphosis. I began as a casual fan, and shortly thereafter I grew into a passionate enthusiast. From there I emerged as an true EDM aficionado, determined to immerse myself ever deeper into the music I love.
This is not the first genre of music that I’ve fallen for, music had always been a passion of mine. The same attraction happened between ages 3–10 with classic rock, from 10–13 with hip-hop, from 13–14 with 90s rock, and so on. I’ve played instruments—a few years of guitar and piano lessons—and even had a band with two friends in seventh grade. But as time passed, rather than fiddling with guitars or pianos, we visited Guitar Center for its DJ section, testing out the equipment, trying our hands at spinning. The evolution feels natural to us, but it’s part of a cultural shift — away from the classic instruments and into new, digitized ones. Now they’re offering DJ classes for babies in NYC. No joke.
Near-total immersion as a fan wasn’t enough to satisfy my unquenchable desire for electronic music. I started messing around with a piece of software called VirtualDJ on my computer, and within a year I obtained actual mixing hardware and started learning Traktor. I began performing as a DJ myself, first among small groups of friends and later at larger, more raging parties. Now after almost two years as a semi-pro DJ, I have one last, gigantic frontier to explore: producing.
For the casual fan, an analogy is helpful to understand how DJing and producing are interrelated but different beasts. DJing is driving a car, an act that is simple to learn yet fairly challenging to master. Producing is prototyping, designing and building that entire car, from the engine and brake systems, to the electrical and computer system, as well as the frame and paintjob. By that analogy, being a “casual fan” is akin to standing at an intersection, watching the cars go by.
I’ve been playing in traffic for a while—long enough to recognize that it is pretty damn impressive to create a high-performance vehicle. There’s a broad range of producer/DJs that I love, including Guetta, Swedish House Mafia, Calvin Harris, Afrojack, Diplo, Dillon Francis, DJ Snake, Alesso, Flume, Skrillex and many more. These guys aren’t your run-of-the-mill mechanics. They’re maestro-like engineers, builders with the highest degree of skill. Henry Fords and Formula-One racers.
When I set out to write this piece, my goal was to analyze and describe how Americans my age—teenagers and young adults—came to discover and love the burgeoning genre that is electronic music, and how it might be part of a broader change in the way that we as humans interact with our music. To lay the groundwork, I felt it important to illustrate my own experience, my own Bildungsroman.
Our generation of music fans is distinctive, or at least it feels that way to us. The notion of an album is outdated, that’s just not how we consume work by a particular artist. Record stores don’t exist. We discover and consume nearly all of our music online or through connected technology.
By introducing our friends to the music — even the friends who claim that “EDM sucks” and is overhyped — we feel we are doing our part to make their lives better. Normally we succeed, and the EDM wave sweeps up another surfer. All it takes is the right song.
I’ve probably introduced two dozen friends to EDM. Most of that happened back in 2011 when it was still on the precipice of mainstream. At the time, those friends had never even heard a dance music track; these days the genre no longer requires such a pure introduction. Everyone knows about it, and practically everyone’s heard it, even your grandmother.
Electronic music is a social genre primed for partygoers. It’s a pleasure to play for pulse-raising motivation when you’re alone in the gym, but the good energy EDM engenders is best displayed (and felt) at concerts. My generation of concert-goers has almost fully jettisoned the notion of live instruments—our musicians are masterful instrumentalists, just not in the traditional sense. They use technology, and we’re fine with it.
Many outsiders find the lack of “real instruments” at a performance a particular defect of EDM. We see it as just an evolution, and a predictable one apparently. Way back in 1969, The Doors frontman Jim Morrison prophesied, “I can envision one person with a lot of machines — tapes, electronic set ups — singing and speaking, and using a lot of machines..."
Following the point of discovery—which can come from a friend or a website or one of SiriusXM’s two channels devoted to EDM—comes the immersion stage. Mostly this happens online. From SoundCloud and Spotify to ThisSongIsSick and HypeMachine, there is an almost endless universe of websites and blogs one can visit to enjoy and discover new tracks.
Because of our (excessive) reliance on the internet to hear music, the discovery stage never really ends. Some fans check these sites or apps daily, watching artists’ social media feeds for news about a new track, perpetually striving to hear a song the instant it is uploaded.
We feel a sense of pride when we bring a new song to our fellow EDM fans. “Sick song, isn’t it?” we ask. “Great drop, right?” Why? Because we found that song first. We didn’t produce the song, nor were we the only ones who have heard it on the earth, yet we revel in the glory of discovering it and introducing it to our peers. This phenomenon is likely as old as replayable music itself, but it is as prevalent as ever.
From my vantage point, EDM is unequivocally the greatest party music genre ever conceived. Stand outside any college frat on a weekend night, and I promise you’ll hear some progressive, pounding electro track—Martin Garrix’s “Animals,” for example. From Las Vegas to Ibiza, the most successful nightclubs are those with superstar DJs as resident performers. The prominent DJs seem to be living in one incessant party, with frequent commutes, usually on private planes. When we reach adulthood at age 21, it is our goal to join this party.
I started this article talking about my first EDM concert—since then, I’ve attended probably 35. The beat of EDM is the soundtrack for the world’s best, most energetic, most entertaining social gatherings. Tomorrowland, Ultra Music Festival, Electric Daisy Carnival… We younger fans literally dream about attending these festivals.
Having read the recent stories on Cuepoint, I concede that an uncomfortable amount of electronic music fans seem too superficial. Many unapologetically care more about molly than music and are attracted to concerts because of the pyrotechnic explosions, the light shows, or for a chance at a DFM (that’s Dance Floor Makeout, fyi). That said, those fans are still fans, regardless of whether they know only the DJ’s most popular songs or can name (without using Shazam) each and every track played.
Some EDM dissenters contend that this new era of sounds has forever tarnished the original vibes and feel of “house music.” Naming a genre progressive house, electro house or tech house — as Beatport does — is borderline blasphemy to these critics. To those detractors, please direct your attention to the deep house movement, which is gaining rapid clout and popularity as a subgenre thanks to Disclosure and the young Dutchman Oliver Heldens, among others.
The sound is pure groove, layered with disco-like bass lines, deep, funky drum lines, and synths with a lot of “womp.” As genres evolve, music often sounds markedly dissimilar compared to past eras. But these Deep House and Nu Disco tracks are influenced by (and rooted in) the house sounds of the late 80s and early 90s in Chicago and the UK.
To those who slander EDM for killing the “art of DJing”—look no further than the French phenom Hugo Pierre Leclercq, aka Madeon. A classic-style turntablist? Not exactly. But Madeon’s style is just as creative and ingenious, using hardware controllers to trigger digital music files. There may never be another Frankie Knuckles, but Madeon (and Skrillex, and Pretty Lights, and Disclosure, etc.) are inventive and artistic in new, maybe even more interesting, ways.
My generation will forever identify with and lay claim to EDM as its own, the same way my brother’s does with hip-hop, the same way my Dad’s does with rock and roll. Just now I heard a Major Lazer song playing across the hall—my roommate, a fellow EDM lover. And before I go meet some friends to pregame for a Dada Life show, let me state: I believe the so-called “EDM bubble” will never burst. Throughout the past five years, electronic music and many of its subgenres exploded into the mainstream. As to whether the term EDM really is the worst thing ever to happen to electronic music, I must disagree. To us, those three letters signify the movement, not just an abbreviation.
Follow James Shecter on Twitter @SHECstasy.
Don’t miss a beat! Follow Cuepoint: Twitter | Facebook
