{"id":7227,"date":"2012-09-06T00:58:42","date_gmt":"2012-09-06T07:58:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=7227"},"modified":"2012-09-06T00:58:42","modified_gmt":"2012-09-06T07:58:42","slug":"sonic-boom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2012\/09\/sonic-boom\/","title":{"rendered":"SONIC BOOM"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/strong><\/p>\n

Born in the studio, raised in the club,\u00a0EDM is now poised to conquer the world<\/strong><\/h1>\n

By Kenneth Partridge<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s the bouncing, humming high-voltage strings that launch Nicki Minaj\u2019s hit \u201cStarships.\u201d It\u2019s the swirling, building buzz in Rihanna\u2019s No. 1 smash \u201cWe Found Love.\u201d It\u2019s the driving dance groove in hits by Usher, Pitbull, Jennifer Lopez, Enrique Iglesias, Chris Brown\u2014you can\u2019t turn on pop radio for 10 minutes without hearing its influence.<\/p>\n

But what do you call this thing?<\/p>\n

When we talk about tunes made with synthesizers, drum machines, sequencers and computers, it\u2019s best to use the most basic term: electronic music. For a spell in the 1990s, \u201celectronica\u201d reigned as the prevailing genre tag, but this was a horribly unhip industry buzzword\u2014the nomenclatural equivalent of a dad at a rave. These days, as synth riffs and club beats rule the charts, and DJ\/producers such as Skrillex and Deadmau5 enjoy the kind of notoriety reserved for pop stars, the term EDM\u2014electronic dance music\u2014has come into fashion. But according to British music journalist Simon Reynolds, author of Energy Flash: A Journey Through Rave Music and Dance Culture<\/em>, even this acronym is problematic. \u201cEDM isn\u2019t a word anyone in the dance underground would actually use,\u201d Reynolds says. \u201cThere\u2019s no one in the scene who goes around saying, \u2018I like EDM.\u2019 In the same way, saying you\u2019re a rock fan would be a meaningless statement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reynolds is right, and the reason is that electronic music, like rock, cannot be summed up by any one sound. It encompasses countless subgenres\u2014everything from classic techno and house to modern variations like hardstyle, trancestep and liquid funk. But whatever the music is ultimately called, it cannot be ignored.<\/p>\n

\"\"

The Crystal Method<\/p><\/div>\n

Since the Black Eyed Peas struck gold with French DJ David Guetta on their inescapable 2009 chart-topper \u201cI Gotta Feeling,\u201d Guetta has become the go-to collaborator for Top 40 artists like Usher, Flo Rida and Chris Brown. And Guetta has become a chart regular with his own hits, including \u201cTurn Me On\u201d featuring Nicki Minaj and \u201cTitanium\u201d with Sia. Rihanna enlisted Scottish beatmaker Calvin Harris for the aforementioned \u201cWe Found Love.\u201d And there\u2019s hardly a hit-maker on the pop charts who hasn\u2019t benefited from teaming up with Grammy-winning Swedish producer RedOne: Nicki Minaj (\u201cStarships\u201d), Pitbull (\u201cRain Over Me\u201d), Jennifer Lopez (\u201cOn the Floor\u201d), and Lady Gaga (\u201cPoker Face,\u201d \u201cJust Dance\u201d and \u201cBad Romance,\u201d to name a few). \u201cEveryone was looking for something new,\u201d says Tim Bergling, the Grammy-nominated 22-year-old Swedish house DJ better known as Avicii. \u201cWhen this upbeat, energetic music came along that pop and hip-hop artists\u2019 fans were already familiar with … it was very easy for the mainstream to start listening to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, it took the mainstream a while to catch on. In the early 2000s, following a \u201990s surge in popularity, electronic music had lost its juice. Only in the last few years has it resurfaced\u2014and now, it\u2019s arguably bigger than ever. EDM\u2019s ascendance has been the talk of the music industry, and in February 2012, even the Grammys staged a special\u2014if bizarre\u2014tribute to the genre. Joining Deadmau5 and Guetta for the puzzling performance were rapper Lil Wayne, R&B singer Chris Brown and rockers the Foo Fighters. Musical merits aside, the cross-genre confab showcased the extent to which DJs have infiltrated pop culture. A month later, more than 160,000 fans flocked to Miami\u2019s annual Ultra Music Festival. When it comes to North American festivals, Ultra is second only to the Electric Daisy Carnival, which drew an estimated 320,000 sweaty, writhing bodies to Las Vegas in June 2012.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is just the beginning of an era of electronic music,\u201d says Patrick Moxey, founder of Ultra Records, a label that has dealt in the dance realm since the mid-\u201990s. \u201cIt\u2019s going to have a substantial impact for a number of years. The festivals will get bigger, the artists will get more complex and intense, and more genres and subgenres will split off. It\u2019s going to get a lot more interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"

Deadmau5<\/p><\/div>\n

FROM DISCO TO TECHNO<\/strong><\/p>\n

Not that it hasn\u2019t been interesting thus far. The story of electronic music has no shortage of possible starting points, but most critics begin with Kraftwerk. Combining minimalist melodies, rigid electronic beats and an eerily cool android-chic visual aesthetic, the German band emerged in the 1970s as unlikely harbingers of a funky new age. Kraftwerk were too avant-garde for the mainstream\u2014their biggest U.S. hit, 1975\u2019s \u201cAutobahn,\u201d peaked at No. 25\u2014but their influence can\u2019t be overstated. Echoes can be heard in such disco-era hits as \u201cI Feel Love,\u201d a collaboration between diva Donna Summer and Italian producer Giorgio Moroder. Composed entirely of electronic sounds, the 1977 smash famously led producer Brian Eno\u2014no slouch in the sonic-innovation department\u2014to proclaim, \u201cI have heard the sound of the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

These synthesized sounds fed into electro-funk and hip-hop, both of which led to techno and house, the building blocks of today\u2019s EDM. The story of these styles is a tale of two cities: Chicago and Detroit. The former gave rise to house, named for the style of music played at the Warehouse nightclub in the early \u201980s. The man often cited as the godfather of house was Frankie Knuckles, a DJ who specialized in manipulating old disco tracks. Meanwhile, in the Detroit suburb of Belleville, three middle-class African-Americans fashioned their own brand of electronic music. Known as the \u201cBelleville Three,\u201d Juan Atkins, Kevin Saunderson and Derrick May forged a dark, edgy sound.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

RAVING ACROSS THE GLOBE<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the U.S., house thrived mainly in the black and gay nightclubs, but overseas it found a pop audience. In 1986, Chicago producer Farley \u201cJackmaster\u201d Funk scored a No. 10 U.K. hit with \u201cLove Can\u2019t Turn Around,\u201d and early the following year, fellow Windy City artist Steve \u201cSilk\u201d Hurley topped the charts with \u201cJack Your Body.\u201d These set the stage for other house crossovers, and toward the end of the decade\u2014as tastes and technology progressed\u2014the music morphed into a new sound: acid house.<\/p>\n

Also cooked up in Chicago, acid house allowed for trippy music that, especially in Britain, meshed well with a certain hallucinogenic substance: ecstasy. As the drug gained popularity, U.K. youth staged increasingly massive underground parties, laying the groundwork for rave culture. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t about sex,\u201d says Reynolds. \u201cPeople weren\u2019t moving their bodies in that funky, sex-imitative way. It was all about losing yourself. It was much more ritualistic.\u201d<\/p>\n

By the early 1990s, electronic music had spread throughout Europe and reached places like Berlin, where Paul van Dyk got his start. Looking back, the superstar DJ remembers a \u201cmassive club scene\u201d filled with innovative artists. \u201cEverything was new,\u201d van Dyk remembers. \u201cNobody had any experience with what it could become. It was this adventurous moment.\u201d Van Dyk went on to build a mammoth following and is viewed as a pioneer of trance\u2014a hypnotic sound characterized by fast tempos, repetitive melodies and thrilling builds. He\u2019s sold more than 3 million albums and twice topped DJ<\/em> magazine\u2019s \u201cTop 100 DJs\u201d poll.<\/p>\n

The rave scene also spawned domestic stars. Ken Jordan and Scott Kirkland, a duo called the Crystal Method, formed in Las Vegas before setting up their own studio in L.A., then home to a fertile rave scene. \u201cIt had a real excitement value that you couldn\u2019t really find anywhere else,\u201d Kirkland says of the scene. \u201cIt had a group of likeminded people who really appreciated the music. It was such a welcome relief.\u201d Dubbed \u201cbig beat\u201d\u2014a label also foisted on the likes of the Chemical Brothers and Fatboy Slim\u2014the Crystal Method\u2019s was a hook-heavy brand of electronica that reflected their rock influences, showcased on their breakthrough 1997 debut, Vegas<\/em>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

BIG BEATS = BIG BUSINESS<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 1997, the hard-hitting, awesomely coiffed English group the Prodigy topped the U.S. charts with The Fat of the Land<\/em>, which contained the hit \u201cFirestarter.\u201d Although the incendiary track came to signify electronic music for many pop fans, Paul van Dyk is quick to point out that the Prodigy\u2014like Fatboy Slim and the rest of the era\u2019s heavies\u2014had little to do with authentic underground dance music. \u201cIf you look at Prodigy, it was basically a fusion between really cool progressive rock and elements of electronic music,\u201d van Dyk says. \u201cEverything that became really popular used other already-popular elements.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shawn Reynaldo, editor of XLR8R<\/em> magazine, agrees, and notes that the decade marked a fundamental shift in how DJs were perceived. \u201cIt was being marketed the same way as rock music with bands, even though they weren\u2019t bands in the traditional sense,\u201d Reynaldo says. \u201cThe Prodigy, Chemical Brothers and Crystal Method were being presented as artists with backstories to latch onto, the same way a band would be marketed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just before the turn of the millennium, Moby gave electronic dance music perhaps its greatest boost, wracking up platinum sales around the world with his 1999 album Play<\/em>. Packed with gospel samples and plenty of pop appeal, the album resonated with fans, critics and advertisers, who were quick to license the tracks for commercials, adding to Moby\u2019s ubiquity.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

THE RETURN OF EDM<\/strong><\/p>\n

The key for artists like Moby, Daft Punk and the Prodigy was putting a face on a style of music that hadn\u2019t previously centered on superstar personalities. For the current crop of EDM luminaries, image is vital. The poster children for the new movement are Deadmau5\u2014notable for his illuminated Mickey Mouse-on-acid helmets\u2014and Skrillex, the black-clad former rocker who\u2019s transformed Britain\u2019s dark, fidgety dubstep sound into something fierce and abrasive. In 2012, Skrillex took home three Grammys, and although he plays to adoring fans around the world, he\u2019s suffered the inevitable backlash from purists.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople in that Skrillex position always get criticized from the underground,\u201d says Reynolds. \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s a bad thing at all, myself. Populizers of music are good. It\u2019s not like he\u2019s taking away money that would otherwise be going to these obscure underground DJs. They\u2019re in a different world altogether.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not sweating the backlash is Avicii. At the 2012 Ultra Music Festival in Miami, he performed with Madonna who has a long history of hijacking underground trends and was gearing up to release a club-friendly album called MDNA<\/em>. Genre hardliners weren\u2019t alone in dissing Madonna, and even Deadmau5 got in on the act. Avicii didn\u2019t follow the controversy. \u201cPeople want the music to be cool, and they want to be the only ones listening to it,\u201d Avicii says. \u201cI don\u2019t see the point of it at all. Good music is good music. It doesn\u2019t matter if it\u2019s 100 or 100,000 people listening to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

THE FUTURE<\/strong><\/p>\n

If a common thread spans Kraftwerk to Skrillex, it\u2019s the compulsion to move forward. While Reynolds believes electronic music has become less innovative in the last decade, he\u2019s confident we\u2019ll hear exciting new sounds likely from outside the U.S. and Europe. \u201cThe slums of Brazil have produced their own twist on this kind of music, and places in Africa,\u201d Reynolds explains. \u201cAll around the world, there are people making wild party music. On the one hand, they live in ghettos, but on the other hand, they\u2019re plugged into the whole world of music.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over at XLR8R<\/em>, Reynaldo has his eyes and ears on several under-the-radar scenes. In L.A., he says, Flying Lotus and artists associated with the Low End Theory dance party are creating an experimental hip-hop-indebted sound. In Britain, progenitors of so-called \u201cbass\u201d music have brought new variations on that country\u2019s garage, grime and dubstep subgenres. Reynaldo is perhaps less enthused about the Skrillexes and David Guettas of the world, but like all followers of electronic music past and present, he hasn\u2019t lost faith in the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re a kid, and you want to make music, it\u2019s a lot easier to do that in your room on your laptop with some software you either bought or pirated than it is to find three friends and learn how to play instruments and make a band,\u201d Reynaldo says. \u201cIt will probably keep growing, and it will become more normal hearing electronic music in the U.S. The interesting part will be seeing what develops.\u201d\u00a0 M<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Born in the studio, raised in the club,\u00a0EDM is now poised to conquer the world By Kenneth Partridge It\u2019s the bouncing, humming high-voltage strings that launch Nicki Minaj\u2019s hit \u201cStarships.\u201d It\u2019s the swirling, building buzz in Rihanna\u2019s No. 1 smash \u201cWe Found Love.\u201d It\u2019s the driving dance groove in hits by Usher, Pitbull, Jennifer Lopez, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3630],"tags":[4679,4682,4678,4680,1368,4671,4677,1633,4681,4676,4300,1961,2721,4672,4683,4675,4685,4673,4543,4684,3790,4674],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7227"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7227"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7231,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7227\/revisions\/7231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}