The tides continue to change in pop music — remember when hip-hop producers were caking off Britney Spears? — but over the past few years, synth-heavy dance music has crashed on its money-laden shores. Electronic Dance Music (EDM) is the catch-all attached to the music that soundtracks the new rave scene: stadium-style, anthemic electronic dance.
Simon Reynolds, an influential British journalist, notes that this isn't the same as the mid-'90s rave phenomenon: this time it's "a marketing coup." And this year, as PLUR has mainstreamed, those who've been around since before Paris Hilton decided to get behind the decks and wave her hands in the air have taken the time to weigh in. Here, we compile the best EDM rants from some of electronic music's biggest names. Canadians, it seems, have a lot to say on the matter.
Deadmau5: 'EDM has turned into a massively marketed cruise ship, and it’s sinking fast.' (via Tumblr)
Toronto musician Joel Zimmerman, best known as Deadmau5, has strong ties to the EDM phenomenon: he spent a year in residency at Las Vegas's Wynn Hotel. In June he disparaged his fellow DJs and producers in an interview with Rolling Stone, claiming many just walk onstage and press play. Deadmau5 often takes to his blog to refute, troll or clarify his stance on his often caustic public stance, and sometimes he drops self-aware nuggets like the above.
A-Trak: 'The hair metal soap opera of EDM risks devaluing a culture that has waited for its big break for 30 years.' (via Huffington Post)
Montreal's A-Trak evolved from a DMC-conquering hip-hop turntablist to globe-trotting club music DJ. In a July essay for the Huffington Post, he responded to Deadmau5's comments and decried the technical inability of "hair metal soap opera" EDM artists. The core differential between EDM acts and electronic musicians, he says, is that the latter often play live, in addition to DJ sets.
Daphni (Dan Snaith): 'Set against the backdrop of bland and functional dance music and the mind-numbing predictability of the EDM barfsplosion currently gripping the corporate ravesters, there is a small world where dance music lives up to its potential to liberate, surprise and innovate. It's there that I hope Daphni has a place.' (via Pitchfork)
In an official statement announcing the release of his recent Jiaolong release (which has since been snipped from his label's website), Caribou's Dan Snaith slammed EDM culture vis a vis the more cerebral realm of his Daphni side project. While the Twitterverse was riled up by the flat and frank humour of a word like "barfsplosion," there was some merit to Snaith's wider sentiment, which mourned the loss of discovery in the club.
Richie Hawtin: 'We want to go beyond that definition of EDM, which we feel is a bit too tight. It should be re-titled EPM, Electronic Pop Music, because (especially in North America) that's what people are hearing ... I guess we want to throw away the 'D' or the 'P' and get people into electronic music.' (via YouTube)
Canadian techno legend Richie Hawtin recently took CNTRL: Beyond EDM on a tour of colleges and universities across North America, along with friend and collaborator Loco Dice, so these relatively tempered comments on the state of EDM are expected. In the latter half of the year it seems like we're hearing less EDM bashing and more revisionist ideas.
Derrick May: 'EDM? Edited Dance Music? Eradicated Dance Motherf--kers? Eloquent Dumb Motherf--kers? This is nothing but a flash in the pan moment in time.' (via YouTube)
Leave it to an American pioneer to really break it down.
Related:
Listen to a stream of Daphni's Jiaolong
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