Is Electronic Dance Music a Major Sell Out?

This is an article I recently wrote for Dualshow. I don't mean to offend anyone or their musical interests, but I thought it was too pressing of a topic to let ease by without a discussion. Enjoy!


You see it everywhere now—the largest stadiums in the world selling out tickets to little girls in tutus and pacifiers and to boys in their mesh day-glo tanks. Electronic Dance Music, otherwise known as EDM, has taken the mainstream with full force, but what is it about this new music revolution that appeals to the crowd? And is its new mainstream status defeating the purpose of what once was an “underground” movement?


According to a 2011 article published in Spin Magazine, the American dance music scene has reached critical mass with a “new rave generation” of mainstream consumers having emerged. For the first time, the 2012 Grammys included EDM, with artists including Skrillex and David Guetta winning awards. In New York City you can find taxis promoting Sensation, a rave event at the Barclays Center this fall, or the Electric Zoo Festival, which will take place on Randall’s Island over Labor Day Weekend. This past June, the Electric Daisy Carnival drew over 60,000 attendees to New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium and over 345,000 to the Las Vegas venue, the largest rave in American history. Even mainstream pop artists are finding it difficult not to infuse hints of EDM into their own music… but why is it so big? What is it that kids aged 19-25 find so appealing in what is referred to as the “new rock and roll?”


“Youth culture loves to get wild, freak out, and they always have,” said Lorin Ashton, the California deejay known as BassNectar. “Stop being so stodgy and hypocritical and pretending you never did.” Well, Ashton has a point. The youth culture has always rebelled, whether it was in the ’20s with jazz, the ’50s with rock and roll, the ’70s with punk or the ’90s with rap. But just like all the aforementioned genres, they have become mainstream and lost their rebellious appeal.


According to the Wall Street Journal, some deejays are reaching for pop stardom—or perhaps they are just selling out. Even indie festivals, such as the Cali-based Coachella, are highlighting the new EDM craze. David Guetta was in attendance this year, whose 2011 album, Nothing but the Beat, featured vocals by the likes of pop artists Jennifer Hudson, Ludacris, Nicki Minaj and Usher. Five singles from that album scored high on Billboard’s top-singles charts. Calvin Harris, also at Coachella, made his set’s chief highlight an appearance by Rihanna.


Tim Berlinger, also known as Avicii, a forerunner of the EDM revolution, feels his best work is done in the recording studio, not in an arena or a nightclub, but he does what makes his fans happy. “I didn’t come up from deejaying, where you’re doing 300 shows a year,” he told the WSJ. “I feel pretty free, but I want to cater to everyone. I can’t play house [a subgenre of EDM] for two hours.”


It seems as if playing the same predictable bass-dropping, techno beats does become mindless. A few old-school veteran deejays hope the crowds will eventually grow weary of this pop-electronic nonsense, fueled only by computerized strobe light LEDs and Molly (ecstasy in its purest form) and will migrate to a more sophisticated sound.


One such veteran, Carl Cox, expressed his disappointment with the new mainstream. “I’m not Carl Cox the hit player, I find I work hard for it. I have no idea what I’m going to play when I start,” he said. “I’m 50 years old now. I grew up with vinyl, a needle on a record. Turntablism. I’d play a blend of disco with funk, soul and house with a 909 drum machine. Am I supposed to dumb down to the idea that all I’m doing is pressing a button?”


We know, not everyone will agree with this, and there are still millions out there who are infatuated with the new electronic fad. But I think we’re at the point where it’s losing what it originally stood for. Indeed the once underground fad is now fuelling the entire music industry. LiveNation and other such companies are making billions and billions off these concerts, a true definition of a sellout.


What do you think? Is it time to move on, to accept that EDM is now mainstream music? Is EDM truly mindless, to the point where deejays simply press a button on a laptop to make what they call music? Or is this just a continuation of the mid-nineties electronic boom that will soon die off?