Want to work in the most popular musical genre?

[Phil O'Keefe]

You'd better start working on your EDM chops. The popularity of EDM is increasing - unlike pretty much every other musical genre - even pop.

 

Do you think this is a trend that will continue, or just a temporary bubble?

 

http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2015/10/30/the-popularity-of-music-genres-2005-present/

 

[Ernest Buckley]

Those charts are not exactly useful. What does the vertical measure?

 

I started listening to EDM briefly in 2006 and from time to time do listen to EDM but like most genres, its hard to define exactly what it is. I think that EDM does satisfy a primal human instinct to move and it definitely increases dopamine levels a lot quicker than any other genre I can think of at the present moment. I would guess thats the reason for the popularity of it.

 

The genre does offer up lots of variety but I think its just another trend that will exist strongly for another 10 years or so until something else grabs our ears. What we do know is novelty wears off so the dopamine fix will be found elsewhere eventually, like it always does.

 

So yeah, EDM is a trend like all styles of music but that 4 on the floor is here to stay.

 

EB

[bieke]

as with many things, I think it is just a temporary bubble

 

FWIW I just pulled a chart for Harmony Central and for The Gear Page

HC peaked in 2004 and popularity sank with big dives in 2007, 2009, 2011 and it completely fell off the chart as of April 2014

whereas TGP peaked in 2009, sank a little but kept stable until 2014, sank a little further but is keeping it stable

[blue2blue]

I did EDM/club-influenced stuff in the 90s. It was fun then but in this century it just seems like we hear the same stuff over and over. The latest fixation on EDM-recycled trap passes for 'innovation.' Yawn.

 

Back in the second half of the 70's I came up with my take on the 'progression' from hipster/insider music to popular music when I was thinking about disco. I'd got involved in disco (strictly as a music consumer, I'd only been playing guitar for a couple years, starting when I was 20) circa 1974 and it probably reached a peak with me and my friends in '75 and trailing off in '76.

 

So I was all but dumbstruck when they announced they were making a disco movie with John Travolta. By '77 I really did think disco was dead, dead, dead. Saturday Night Fever came out in '78 and I really expected it to get laughed out of the theaters. (It didn't hurt the flick's to-me-surprising success that it wasn't actually a bad movie and had at least a little more on its mind than the by-then far-from-exotic disco scene.)

 

But... what I didn't realize was how the whole hep-hipster-mainstream pathway works. The hep (in the know) tend to be in at the beginning, either actively innovating or consuming. Then the hipsters get wind of a brand new trend and get involved... about the time they're starting to get really bored with the scene, it starts getting more commercial attention, as projects started by industry trend-watchers start reaching fruition. And then -- as I put it at the time -- it's a quick pathway to the "Kmartization" [you can update that to Walmartization if you like but the culture of Walmart today is different than that of Kmart in the 70s, I think, with little question; KMart actually kept trying to be hip. Walmart seems to understand its position in the commercial culture a lot better.]

[Beck]

I'm not all that interested in making that kind music and tried to wait it out, hoping it would decline in popularity. But it does seem to be here to stay, so I might have to learn to dance after all. The music is fun. It has it's place. I could easily do it well, but it wouldn't be me. I could fake it, but that is counter-intuitive to the whole point of artistic expression to me.

[blue2blue]

I'm not all that interested in making that kind music and tried to wait it out' date=' hoping it would decline in popularity. But it does seem to be here to stay, so I might have to learn to dance after all. The music is fun. It has it's place. I could easily do it well, but it wouldn't be me. I could fake it, but that is counter-intuitive to the whole point of artistic expression to me.[/quote']

 

I keep thinking I'm waiting out the obvious-vocal-tuning era but, despite occasional rays of hope like Amy Winehouse, we keep getting tuned-for-effect pop, rock, and country vocals. And, despite better and better corrective tools we STILL get unprofessional crap like the obvious tuning corrections that stick out of the 'tricky spots' in contemporary tracks like "Hello" from supposedly good 'traditional' singers like Adele.

 

 

One thing -- while it's easy (often pushbutton) to make music that sounds more or less like today's EDM, there is, at any one time, a fairly narrow range of what is considered 'acceptable' or 'hip' -- and the criteria are all backward-looking -- it's very similar to the sense of 'tradition' in hip hop. It's a tricky dance of showing awareness of the revered past -- but not sounding like you're either 'stuck in it' or an outsider trying to ape it.

 

When I was working in/on the periphery of that scene, I found it made more sense to me to largely stay outside the mainstream of it -- so as not to put appear to be inserting myself into the middle of that easy-to-judge context.

[Mark L]

I don't particularly like EDM, but a while ago I thought I'd have a go at writing a song in that style just to see if I could do it

 

Here's what I came up with ------> Magic Spell

[nat whilk II]

EDM is an incredibly broad term. Too broad to tag "like" or "don't like" for me. Or to even really know what in the world people are referring to when the term gets thrown around without any specifics.

 

nat whilk ii

 

[sventvkg]

It's tripe. UTTER {censored}E. Sorry.

 

[Idunno]

I like the song but I was about to kill myself before the end.

[Idunno]

Phil, bringing up EDM in the brain-washing light of self-serving progressiveness (pretending it's a good thing) because you're tuning tender over it is kind of insulting. You and Anderton here on this site, and others elsewhere, have no choice but to shill it for personal gain. We get that. Please understand we are aware of the coercive nature of the game you have to play here. That much I will grant you. Personally, I think Anderton, being a victim of passive devices syndrome, can't help himself. He's hopelessly addicted to it and is, perhaps, poorly suited to keeping company with real musicians. This is not an attack on either of your characters. It's merely a marker of sorts illuminating the paradox of your presence on a site where real musicians gather, only to read you two hawking faux-musicianship.

 

The infiltration of this kind of thing is SOP in the spy world where agents are injected into the everyday life and begin spreading the word of a new regime of promise and progress when neither actually will ever work to the good of the targeted demographic, but rather to those who would control them. It's called propaganda and the act is indoctrination. Technology alone needs agents to shill it. It doesn't impact the world all by itself.

 

How about this - You and Anderton leave off of all the EDM and electronic nonsense of faux music and leave the entire site to it's originally intended purpose. If you get fired over it, then you are genuine and true to your musical soul. Otherwise, hey, we understand you need to put food on the table.

 

Make no mistake, knob-spinning board jockies are not musicians and never will be. There is nothing redeeming about the aural nature of their hobby and it's certainly minus the soul of making music.

[nat whilk II]

Phil, bringing up EDM in the brain-washing light of self-serving progressiveness (pretending it's a good thing) because you're tuning tender over it is kind of insulting. You and Anderton here on this site, and others elsewhere, have no choice but to shill it for personal gain. We get that. Please understand we are aware of the coercive nature of the game you have to play here. That much I will grant you. Personally, I think Anderton, being a victim of passive devices syndrome, can't help himself. He's hopelessly addicted to it and is, perhaps, poorly suited to keeping company with real musicians. This is not an attack on either of your characters. It's merely a marker of sorts illuminating the paradox of your presence on a site where real musicians gather, only to read you two hawking faux-musicianship.

 

The infiltration of this kind of thing is SOP in the spy world where agents are injected into the everyday life and begin spreading the word of a new regime of promise and progress when neither actually will ever work to the good of the targeted demographic, but rather to those who would control them. It's called propaganda and the act is indoctrination. Technology alone needs agents to shill it. It doesn't impact the world all by itself.

 

How about this - You and Anderton leave off of all the EDM and electronic nonsense of faux music and leave the entire site to it's originally intended purpose. If you get fired over it, then you are genuine and true to your musical soul. Otherwise, hey, we understand you need to put food on the table.

 

Make no mistake, knob-spinning board jockies are not musicians and never will be. There is nothing redeeming about the aural nature of their hobby and it's certainly minus the soul of making music.

 

Ok, let me get this straight...

 

Phil and Craig:

 

are brain-washing

self-serving

coercive

insulting

hawking

propaganzing

indoctrinating

shills

 

but wait, heaven forbid that anyone should misunderstand, as this is not an attack on either of their characters.

 

Ok! Wow, thanks for sharing!

 

nat whilk ii

 

 

 

 

 

[MDMachiavelli]

 

Ok, let me get this straight...

 

Phil and Craig:

 

are brain-washing

self-serving

coercive

insulting

hawking

propaganzing

indoctrinating

shills

 

but wait, heaven forbid that anyone should misunderstand, as this is not an attack on either of their characters.

 

Ok! Wow, thanks for sharing!

 

nat whilk ii

 

 

 

 

 

Damn that was good.

[rasputin1963]

Yes, EDM is white-hot right now. Everybody's in on the act, it seems. Younger folks like it, partially because many of its sounds they can simulate on their iPAds and whatnot, without ever learning a lick of music. Just last week there was some incident in which there was a riot at an EDM festival, and many kids got hurt and/or arrested. There is a new movie about to come out starring Zac Efron as a young guy who strikes it big in the EDM circuit... I want to see it.

 

The problem I have with a lot of current EDM is that.... it's a re-hash of earlier stuff (as Blue points out), and to my mind, it was done better and hotter in the past. It's pretty hard to top records like "Funkytown", "Blue Monday", "What Is Love", or "Days Go By". Every new music style is a rehash of things that came before it... but 2015 EDM really IS a shameless, all-too-obvious re-hash. But every new generation of kids thinks they invented pop music, sex and recreational drugs, and I can scarcely begrudge them that, for I was the same way in my youth.

 

I am currently getting many thousands of downloads of my custom-made loops over at Looperman, averaging about 300+ downloads per 24-hr-period. The D/L's are free, of course, and I'm giving them carte-blanche to use them in any way they might like. Wish I could get remunerated for them somehow, but hey. The young'uns are already embedding my loops into their new songs and bidding me to listen to the result; a couple have been very weak, but one or two of them have been cool as s***. The downloaders are from all over the world, which thrills me no end. (Croatia? Russia? Chile? Pakistan?) For some reason, my biggest fans are in Philadelphia. (?) The kiddos are crazy about stuff that sounds new to them; little do they know I am handing them grooves that came out in the 60's and 70's, haha. I hand them a Spector/Ronettes groove, or a Sly Stone groove.... and they think it's the newest thing.

 

Part of me hopes that their listening to EDM will eventually turn them onto Kraftwerk or Yazoo or Giorgio Moroder or Depeche Mode or Aphex Twin, where most of their ideas originated. Maybe even they'll work their way back to Karlheinz Stockhausen.....? (Naaa-aaah.)

[rasputin1963]

One thing -- while it's easy (often pushbutton) to make music that sounds more or less like today's EDM, there is, at any one time, a fairly narrow range of what is considered 'acceptable' or 'hip' -- and the criteria are all backward-looking -- it's very similar to the sense of 'tradition' in hip hop. It's a tricky dance of showing awareness of the revered past -- but not sounding like you're either 'stuck in it' or an outsider trying to ape it.

 

So-so-SO true. I find at age 52 that there are many domains like this. The French have that saying: "Si jeunesse savait, si viellesse pouvait." If youth only knew; if old age only could.

 

I also think of those hoary showbiz shrugs, "When you're hot, you're hot; when you're not, you're not."

 

and: "Nothing succeeds like success."

 

In the EDM world, incredible importance is placed upon one's synth patches. It's so goddam important to come up with synth patches that do not sound like what they were dancing to in Ibiza or Palm Springs in 2014. Was pop music like that in the 60's and 70's? I suppose it was, but can you picture Dylan or Zeppelin beside themselves because they were fixin' to unleash a new SONORITY (not a song, not a rhythm, but a sonority!) that none o' the hip kids have heard yet?

 

(Hey, maybe that's a topic for a new thread: Sonorities that sounded blisteringly new when they appeared in the 60's and 70's. Hmmm... I dunno, The Kinks' fuzz guitar? Tommy James's tremoloed vocals? George's sitar? Ray Manzarek's transistor Vox? Bob Dylan's pedal steel intro to "Lay Lady Lay" ? The chattery tape-echo intro to Simon & Garfunkel's "Cecilia"? 10cc's weird, airy choir in "I'm Not In Love" ?)

[davd_indigo]

I had wondered if "Disco" would have a nostalgic revival like the 1950's music did in the later '70's. To my ears EDM is pretty similar to Disco, just dressed up in a different outfit. Maybe without the pounding bass drum. The most common link to my ears is the mechanical repetition. Very elevatorish to me.

 

I made an observation years ago that synthesizers are like polyester double knit fabric. . OK maybe in a blend with cotton. But My guess is that at some point it will sound as dated as the old polyester leisure suit. But probably the (now) kids who grew up loving it will still have a special fondness for it. We all generally like the music we loved in our youth. I (a baby boomer) also eventually grew to love music by people like Strayhorn/Ellington and (even) Perry Como. There's a lot of musical craftsmanship in their harmonic movement and arrangements. And entities like Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix had to learn to play their instruments and play chord progressions. Listening on YouTube to EDM, there's craftsmanship in it. But it seems more like the craftsmanship involved in TV or movie editing.

 

The music, EDM also reminds me a little bit of the minimalist people like Steve Reich, and Phillip Glass. I'm not a huge admirer of their music either.

 

I of course have my generational and cultural biases, like anyone. In the last 20 years I've also gone to Indian (Asian India) classical music concerts and enjoyed singing that is foreign to my understanding. But they made music with their voices and hands. And I enjoyed the music. The mechanicalization of this music - EDM - not so much.

 

Some Indian Classical Singing

 

 

Steve Reich minimalism:

https://youtu.be/E_jwv2QMtAo

[blue2blue]

Yes' date=' EDM is white-hot right now. Everybody's in on the act, it seems. Younger folks like it, partially because many of its sounds they can simulate on their iPAds and whatnot, without ever learning a lick of music.[img']http://www.harmonycentral.com/forum/core/images/smilies/deadhorse.gif[/img] Just last week there was some incident in which there was a riot at an EDM festival, and many kids got hurt and/or arrested. There is a new movie about to come out starring Zac Efron as a young guy who strikes it big in the EDM circuit... I want to see it.

 

The problem I have with a lot of current EDM is that.... it's a re-hash of earlier stuff (as Blue points out), and to my mind, it was done better and hotter in the past. It's pretty hard to top records like "Funkytown", "Blue Monday", "What Is Love", or "Days Go By". Every new music style is a rehash of things that came before it... but 2015 EDM really IS a shameless, all-too-obvious re-hash. But every new generation of kids thinks they invented pop music, sex and recreational drugs, and I can scarcely begrudge them that, for I was the same way in my youth.

 

I am currently getting many thousands of downloads of my custom-made loops over at Looperman, averaging about 300+ downloads per 24-hr-period. The D/L's are free, of course, and I'm giving them carte-blanche to use them in any way they might like. Wish I could get remunerated for them somehow, but hey. The young'uns are already embedding my loops into their new songs and bidding me to listen to the result; a couple have been very weak, but one or two of them have been cool as s***. The downloaders are from all over the world, which thrills me no end. (Croatia? Russia? Chile? Pakistan?) The kiddos are crazy about stuff that sounds new to them; little do they know I am handing them grooves that came out in the 60's and 70's, haha. I hand them a Spector/Ronettes groove, or a Sly Stone groove.... and they think it's the newest thing.

 

Part of me hopes that their listening to EDM will eventually turn them onto Kraftwerk or Yazoo or Giorgio Moroder or Depeche Mode or Aphex Twin, where most of their ideas originated. Maybe even they'll work their way back to Karlheinz Stockhausen.....? (Naaa-aaah.)

 

300 an hour. Holy crap!

 

That said, loops tend to be relatively small and, judging from what I know of people and samples, there's probably a lot of 'loop hoarding' going on. Still... 300 an hour. Holy crap.

 

Every year or two, a few more hardy individualists find their way to Stockhausen, Nancarrow, Partch, Shoernberg, Xenakis, Subotnik and the other pioneers and iconoclasts.

[rasputin1963]

No, no... 300 per 24-hrs.

[Ernest Buckley]

Phil, bringing up EDM in the brain-washing light of self-serving progressiveness (pretending it's a good thing) because you're tuning tender over it is kind of insulting. You and Anderton here on this site, and others elsewhere, have no choice but to shill it for personal gain. We get that. Please understand we are aware of the coercive nature of the game you have to play here. That much I will grant you. Personally, I think Anderton, being a victim of passive devices syndrome, can't help himself. He's hopelessly addicted to it and is, perhaps, poorly suited to keeping company with real musicians. This is not an attack on either of your characters. It's merely a marker of sorts illuminating the paradox of your presence on a site where real musicians gather, only to read you two hawking faux-musicianship.

 

The infiltration of this kind of thing is SOP in the spy world where agents are injected into the everyday life and begin spreading the word of a new regime of promise and progress when neither actually will ever work to the good of the targeted demographic, but rather to those who would control them. It's called propaganda and the act is indoctrination. Technology alone needs agents to shill it. It doesn't impact the world all by itself.

 

How about this - You and Anderton leave off of all the EDM and electronic nonsense of faux music and leave the entire site to it's originally intended purpose. If you get fired over it, then you are genuine and true to your musical soul. Otherwise, hey, we understand you need to put food on the table.

 

Make no mistake, knob-spinning board jockies are not musicians and never will be. There is nothing redeeming about the aural nature of their hobby and it's certainly minus the soul of making music.

 

I don`t know what you`re smoking but I`d like some.

[Beck]

because you're tuning tender over it is kind of insulting. You and Anderton here on this site' date=' and others elsewhere, have no choice but to shill it for personal gain. We get that.[/quote']

 

Ummm.... please leave me out of the "We."

 

I think this is a little paranoid.

 

Phil simply started a topic about a particular genre and asked us what we thought about it. I don't see any dark conspiracy.

 

[blue2blue]

No' date=' no... 300 per 24-hrs.[/quote']

 

Ah... still quite impressive!

 

[blue2blue]

 

Ummm.... please leave me out of the "We."

 

I think this is a little paranoid.

 

Phil simply started a topic about a particular genre and asked us what we thought about it. I don't see any dark conspiracy.

 

Me, too.

 

Now that I'm no longer a moderator, I used that freedom to leave a comment to him yesterday telling him in no uncertain terms what I thought of him -- and making it clear that I was making an attack on his character. But I guess there must still be a bit of mod left in me because I came back an hour or so later and deleted it.

[Phil O'Keefe]

I'd suggest more snare in the mix... and maybe more variation; break things up, add some musical variations and mix them up a bit - the arpeggiated part is too static and gets a bit repetitive IMHO. The higher part you bring in at the very end is a nice variation - I'd suggest using more things of that nature.

[Phil O'Keefe]

EDM is an incredibly broad term. Too broad to tag "like" or "don't like" for me. Or to even really know what in the world people are referring to when the term gets thrown around without any specifics.

 

nat whilk ii

 

Kind of like "rock", huh?

[Phil O'Keefe]

Phil' date=' bringing up EDM in the brain-washing light of self-serving progressiveness (pretending it's a good thing) because you're tuning tender over it is kind of insulting.[/quote']

 

Wow! Where do I begin? I'm going to have to address this one section by section.

 

First of all, please re-read what I posted. You might want to turn off whatever preconceptions and biases you may have (you seem to have a bunch of them, based on your post) before doing so.

 

Please notice my post said nothing about me being personally involved or even particularly interested in the genre. I'm not "turning tender" on it, and my post makes no suggestion that I am. Look at the records I've been involved in. Notice any EDM stuff? It's all jazz, rock, pop, CCM... there's nothing particularly "dance oriented" on the list. Have I owned, recorded and used drum machines and synths? Sure... but those are used in many other genres besides EDM.

 

Where did I insinuate that the popularity of EDM is a "good thing"? Even if I was highly interested in it or thought it was great (which again - I NEVER said), how is whatever I happen to be interested in and mention in a post "insulting" to you or anyone else?

 

You and Anderton here on this site, and others elsewhere, have no choice but to shill it for personal gain. We get that.

 

I saw a news story that I thought was interesting, and posted a link about it to start a discussion. Beyond that, please tell me how I have any personal interest, or gain ANYTHING from a discussion about EDM's current popularity. I normally don't record or produce EDM, and it doesn't benefit me by mentioning the fact that it's the only musical genre that is growing at the moment. And just because it's the only genre that's growing in popularity doesn't mean I'm particularly happy about that fact.

 

Please understand we are aware of the coercive nature of the game you have to play here. That much I will grant you.

 

Dude - seriously; you're reading WAY too much into a simple post about the current relative popularity levels of various musical genres. I didn't say anything "coercive" - if I did, then please feel free to point it out so everyone can see what it is you're seeing - because as far as I can tell, you're the only one in this thread who is seeing anything of that nature.

 

Personally, I think Anderton, being a victim of passive devices syndrome, can't help himself. He's hopelessly addicted to it and is, perhaps, poorly suited to keeping company with real musicians.

 

Real musicians? You mean like you? Care to post some of your work for comparison? I've seen Craig play - he's a fine guitarist and not bad on keys either. He's played Carnegie Hall, and has opened for the likes of Pink Floyd. He's recorded and produced some very fine musicians over the course of his career. Care to post your discography and musical background for comparison? I mean really - if you're going to insult someone's music and talk about them not being suited to keeping company with "real musicians", then you'd better be willing to back it up with your own highly impressive resume - especially when it's a well known and well regarded / highly experienced and respected musician like Craig Anderton you're dissing.

 

This is not an attack on either of your characters. It's merely a marker of sorts illuminating the paradox of your presence on a site where real musicians gather, only to read you two hawking faux-musicianship.

 

Bullpucky. You accused us of being self-serving, coercive, shills, being non-musicians and not being worthy of keeping company with "real" musicians. How is that not a personal attack and/or an attack on our character?

 

The infiltration of this kind of thing is SOP in the spy world where agents are injected into the everyday life and begin spreading the word of a new regime of promise and progress when neither actually will ever work to the good of the targeted demographic, but rather to those who would control them. It's called propaganda and the act is indoctrination. Technology alone needs agents to shill it. It doesn't impact the world all by itself.

 

lol - yeah, you caught me - I'm trying to indoctrinate people into becoming non-musicians by merely mentioning the fact that EDM is growing in popularity while other genres are experiencing declining popularity. Had I praised the genre, or said or even suggested anything positive about it, you MIGHT have a point - but again, I invite you to re-read what I actually posted and note that I said nothing of the kind.

 

How about this - You and Anderton leave off of all the EDM and electronic nonsense of faux music and leave the entire site to it's originally intended purpose. If you get fired over it, then you are genuine and true to your musical soul. Otherwise, hey, we understand you need to put food on the table.

 

How about this? Get over yourself. This board's purpose is to further the interest in, and the discussion of music. ALL KINDS of music. Not just the stuff that meets with your personal approval. I don't particularly care for dance music in general, and I can't dance to save my life, but I'm not going to make personal insults and accusations about those who are interested in writing/playing/recording that kind of music, and/or insult those who do enjoy it. I understand that everyone has their own tastes and likes/dislikes. Don't be such a musical bigot - there's something you can learn from the best examples from any musical genre if you're willing to listen and approach it with an open mind.

 

Make no mistake, knob-spinning board jockies are not musicians and never will be. There is nothing redeeming about the aural nature of their hobby and it's certainly minus the soul of making music.

 

I make no apologies for being a "knob-spinning board jockey" - I'm proud of the production and engineering work I've done. But make no mistake - I am a classically-trained musician, and a multi-instrumentalist. That came first - I've been playing music for years longer than I've been recording it.