About EDM.

For those who didn’t knew, EDM stands for Electronic Dance Music. It has been and it is used by people  as a generic name for the whole Electronic Music Industry and covers styles like Trance, House, Electro, Techno, Eurodance, Hardstyle, Breaks, Jungle, Dubstep and others like, without being a Music Genre itself. For years, the stage was dominated by the two representative genres for EDM, Trance and House, which represent the real core of the Electronic Movement, both from the number of fans and representative artist’s quality point of views. I won’t give here a list of names, because they are many and i  really don’t want to forget anyone.

Unfortunately, in the last 1-2 years, from some points of view, things started to degrade, regarding EDM.  Some, let’s call them “artists”, forgot (or didn’t even knew) the basic principles on which the Electronic Music was guided through time, like creativity, innovation, quality, and tried (some even managed) to take EDM to it’s darkest farthest edges. I remember Paul Van Dyk’s words many years ago, when Trance was going trough the same things:

“Trance had become a dirty word. Thanks to Ian Van Dahl, Lasgo, Flip ‘N’ Fill and DJ Sammy, a generation of kids has grown up thinking trance is the shittiest music since country and western.” - Paul van Dyk

and heard many people saying that this can or will happen to the whole EDM this time. Why? We’ll try to analyze below.

The race for fame and money. And the frustration

As i said above, some people managed to take EDM to it’s farthest edges, making it lose a lot of quality and credibility. And we’ll talk about 2 people, the current No. 1 DJ in the world and the best New Commer/Sensation for last year (both according to DJ Mag, a very respected EDM magazine till some time ago, very disappointing for many in the close past).

So, first of all, let’s look at the current No. 1 DJ in the world, David Guetta (DG from now on). A VERY big amount of people wondered how and why could he won the award for the best DJ for the whole EDM, since he has so less in common with the Electronic Movement. Even for me it was a very big surprise to see him as Number One, over Armin Van Buuren, which everyone i talked with was expecting to win for the 5th year in a row. And even more, since the award was about to be given in Netherlands (Armin’s home country) at the Amsterdam Dance Event. So what exactly DG made in the past year to deserve this award? VERY good question. Let’s try to find some answers.

Who really voted for him as No.1 DJ? I seriously doubt that any Trance, House (real authentic House), Dubstep or Techno fans voted for him, since he doesn’t produce anything related to those styles. So if they didn’t, who? Well, it’s very simple. Black Eyed Peas’s fans, Ushers’s fans, Akon’s fans and all the other artists’s fans for whom he produced some songs (not with, FOR). I wonder how many people which voted for Guetta actually voted for him, for the music he makes, for the quality of his songs, and how many voted for the people he produced for. Therefore, the award should be a group one this time and shared between DG and all the others (see now part of the title, Usheretta). So how fair is that people which have nothing to do with the Electronic Movement decided the best  EDM DJ? And how fair from DG is to claim the reward and really act like he represents the entire Electronic Industry? When you, DG, did nothing, or very VERY less, to bring more quality or evolution into it? When you are at the border between music genres, with 1.9 foot in pop-dance and 0.1 foot in EDM? And how can you, DG, claim that you revolutionized the EDM when you did absolutely nothing to improve it? When your only merit is making some songs with very popular artists and leech the fame from them?

I heard few people saying that in fact, this is a good thing, that trough DG, a lot more people get in touch with EDM. Yes, that’s true, but whit what do they get in contact? With the farthest most commercial, quality less and soulless part of it. And we get back to Paul van Dyk’s words from the beginning. Will the people want to get to know more of EDM and get to it’s core, to it’s quality side, or will they run away thinking that, if DG is EDM’s best “product”, the rest are even worse then him? Unfortunately, all the work that people like Armin van Buuren, Paul van Dyk and many more did to improve and evolve EDM, to promote the quality and creativity of which the Electronic Music producers are capable, pale and vanish in front of this. The example that DG gives to the young DJs/producers who want to start a career is horrible. You don’t need to be creative, you don’t need to create quality tracks, doesn’t matter what boom boom bim bim bam bam you have there, as long you have Usher singing in your track. You don’t need passion, you don’t need to put your heart in it, as long as you put fame and money in front of everything else. Probably  DG never heard one of the best House Anthems, a track which represents the pure essence of all Electronic Music. Not everyone understands House Music. It’s a spiritual thing. A body thing. A soul thing. I’ll let you delight with it.

 

Second of all, the best New Commer/Sensation for last year, Skrillex, which became famous thanks to his strange combination of Electro, Hardcore, Dubstep Emo-ish “music”. He brought EDM to the other edge, taking it to it’s darkest corner, impregnating it with a strong sad, anarchic, dark, frustrated, “misunderstood”, chaotic feeling derived from the Emo “culture”, totally opposite of the original Electro-Rave feeling, party-happy-have fun-enjoy life-be nice, idea that ruled the Electronic Movement for so many years. A “music” (more noise then actual Music) pretty much paradoxical, since it’s VERY easy and at the same time VERY hard to make.

Why easy? As in DG’s case also, you don’t need much creativity or originality to “produce” it. Just need a music software, 2-3 VSTi’s and few samples and in no time you have a “song”. Probably anyone with a bit of music “feeling” would be able to “create” something like that, since it doesn’t require any music knowledge or skills. Why hard? From the same reason, the lack of creativity and originality. I saw (heard) sooo few original songs (and pretty much they all sound the same as well, more or less), but sooooooo many “dubstep remix”-es for famous songs. You can find a dubstep version for pretty much everything, from 2pac’s California Love to Adele’s Rolling in the deep. I wonder why it’s so hard to make your own creation and you need most of the time something else to get some attention. Sounds very similar with DG’s case…..

But more then sure this dubstep “rage” is not here to stay. If we look back, there were some other styles that came into attention and disappeared as fast as they came, like triphop, hardstyle or what groups like Limp Bizkit or Linkin Park tried to do. So pretty sure the same thing will happen this time as well.

The end.

A lot of people told me that i don’t understand the industry, that music now it’s mostly about money, fame, record sales… That i complain about things that now are “natural”. But i have a question. Did the best music “producers” of all times (i say best and all times because even now, after hundreds of years we still consider what they created as fine art) like Mozart or Vivaldi cared mostly about money when they made their masterpieces? Were they making music just to sell records, or were they composing from passion, from the desire to make something great, something extraordinary to last over the centuries? Were they putting fame on first place or were they putting creativity, quality and innovation in front of everything else?

I didn’t wrote this article to diss anyone, it’s everyone’s choice what music they produce or listen. You’re free to think or like whatever you want. But what model do you want to have? A radio guy like DG, unimportant, without leaving anything behind and who’s fans will forget him the next day he disappears and gets replaced by someone else like him, without anything special or remarkable, or someone like Armin, for example, with loyal and engaged fans, someone who will remain in history for being TRULY the best and will not be forgotten that easily? The leech or the source? As usual, the choice is yours.