Electronic dance music
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, following the emergence of raving, pirate radio, Party crews, underground festivals, and an upsurge of interest in club culture, EDM achieved mainstream popularity in Europe.
[15] A technique developed by DJ Kool Herc that became popular in hip hop culture was playing two copies of the same record on two turntables, in alternation, and at the point where a track featured a break.
Early synth-pop pioneers included Japanese group Yellow Magic Orchestra, and British bands Ultravox, the Human League and Berlin Blondes[citation needed].
After the breakthrough of Gary Numan in the UK Singles Chart in 1979, large numbers of artists began to enjoy success with a synthesizer-based sound in the early 1980s, including late-1970s debutants like Japan and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, and newcomers such as Depeche Mode and Eurythmics.
[47] The track, which also featured the melody line from Riot In Lagos (1980) of Ryuichi Sakamoto, informed the development of electronic dance music,[48] and subgenres including Miami bass and Detroit techno, and popularized the 808 as a "fundamental element of futuristic sound".
[15] [Note 1] This new scene was seen primarily in the New York metropolitan area and was initially led by the urban contemporary artists that were responding to the over-commercialization and subsequent demise of disco culture.
[56] Early hip hop and rap combined white European electropop influences such as Giorgio Moroder, Dan Lacksman (Telex) and Yellow Magic Orchestra inspired the birth of electro.
[59] In 1982, producer Arthur Baker, with Afrika Bambaataa, released the seminal "Planet Rock", which was influenced by Yellow Magic Orchestra (Ryuichi Sakamoto - Riot In Lagos 1980) and had drum beats supplied by the TR-808.
[73] In the UK an established warehouse party subculture, centered on the British African-Caribbean sound system scene fueled underground after-parties that featured dance music exclusively.
Also in 1988, the Balearic party vibe associated with Ibiza's DJ Alfredo was transported to London, when Danny Rampling and Paul Oakenfold opened the clubs Shoom and Spectrum, respectively.
[76] One of the first Detroit productions to receive wider attention was Derrick May's "Strings of Life" (1987), which, together with May's previous release, "Nude Photo" (1987), helped raise techno's profile in Europe, especially the UK and Germany, during the 1987–1988 house music boom (see Second Summer of Love).
In 2001, this and other strains of dark garage music began to be showcased and promoted at London's nightclub Plastic People, at the "Forward" night (sometimes stylised as FWD>>), which went on to be considered influential to the development of dubstep.
The term "dubstep" in reference to a genre of music began to be used around 2002 by labels such as Big Apple, Ammunition, and Tempa, by which time stylistic trends used in creating these remixes started to become more noticeable and distinct from 2-step and grime.
[104] Trap music in this connotation was characterized by "soulful synths, 808s, the pan flute, sharp snares and long, syrup-slurred vowels" which created dirty and aggressive beats resulting in "dark melodies".
[105][104] In 1980 English producer Richard James Burgess, and his band Landscape, used the term on the sleeve of the single "European Man": "Electronic Dance Music... EDM; computer programmed to perfection for your listening pleasure."
Unlike in traditional recording studios, bedroom producers typically use low-cost, accessible software and equipment which can lead to music being created completely "in the box", with no external hardware.
[124] At the time, a wave of electronic music bands from the United Kingdom, including The Prodigy, The Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim and Underworld, had been prematurely associated with an "American electronica revolution".
[132][133] In 2009, French house musician David Guetta began to regularly achieve crossover hits via collaborations with other pop and hip-hop acts, such as Kelly Rowland ("When Love Takes Over"),[134] Akon ("Sexy Bitch"), The Black Eyed Peas ("I Gotta Feeling"), and Sia ("Titanium").
[164][165] The company began to slowly divest its live music assets in 2018, including selling its stakes in Rock in Rio (which it had bought as part of an attempted Las Vegas edition of the festival),[166][167] and later other SFX-owned promoters such as ID&T[168][169] and React Presents.
[171] Following the popularization of EDM in America a number of producers and DJs, including Carl Cox, Steve Lawler, and Markus Schulz, raised concerns that the perceived over-commercialisation of dance music had impacted the art of DJing.
[137] Writing in Mixmag, DJ Tim Sheridan argued that "push-button DJs" who use auto-sync and play pre-recorded sets of "obvious hits" resulted in a situation overtaken by "the spectacle, money and the showbiz".
In August 2014, he released a studio album entitled "Worlds", which pivoted from his previous EDM-oriented material in favor of atmospheric tracks with aspects of video game music, new wave, and electropop.
The report also identified several emerging markets for electronic dance music, including East Asia, India, and South Africa, credited primarily to investment by domestic, as well as American and European interests.
[198][199] In the 1980s, electronic dance music was often played at illegal underground rave parties held in secret locations, for example, warehouses, abandoned aircraft hangars, fields and any other large, open areas.
Festivals have placed a larger emphasis on visual spectacles as part of their overall experiences, including elaborate stage designs with underlying thematics, complex lighting systems, laser shows, and pyrotechnics.
Rave fashion also evolved among attendees, which The Guardian described as having progressed from the 1990s "kandi raver" to "[a] slick and sexified yet also kitschy-surreal image midway between Venice Beach and Cirque du Soleil, Willy Wonka and a gay pride parade".
[206][207] Russell Smith of The Globe and Mail felt that the commercial festival industry was an antithesis to the original principles of the rave subculture, citing "the expensive tickets, the giant corporate sponsors, the crass bro culture—shirtless muscle boys who cruise the stadiums, tiny popular girls in bikinis who ride on their shoulders – not to mention the sappy music itself.
The commissioners voted to allow Ultra to continue being held in Miami due to its positive economic effects, under the condition that its organizers address security, drug usage and lewd behavior by attendees.
[223] Most music festival companies offered to rollover the ticket to their next event or give full refunds to those who could not attend, but ultimately lost a lot of customers due to the uncertainty of COVID-19.
[236] Before becoming a federally controlled substance in the United States in 1999, ketamine was available as diverted pharmaceutical preparations and as a pure powder sold in bulk quantities from domestic chemical supply companies.
