Have you ever been interested in electronic music but never found a way to listen to it? Maybe you’ve been curious about how to listen to it, or you’re just fascinated by the hype.
In the last few years, electronic music has been on the rise. As more people discover the genre, they’re flocking to electronic music festivals, buying tickets to see the biggest names in the industry, and even listening to it at home.
There’s just something about this genre of music that is captivating and exciting.
Let’s dive into it together and find out the answers to these questions.
Electronic is growing as a music. Since its inception, electronic music has been a part of our lives. But, if earlier it was more underground topic and scene, now it attracts more and more listeners and artists. Why do people listen to electronic music at all?
Rhythm is gonna get ya.
There are several reasons, one of which is Rhythm. Most of the electronic music (not all of it, of course, for example, the whole field of ambient genres) is built on a very strong rhythmic core, much more than in many other genres.
Many of them come straight from the roots of human music, such as singing and tribal rhythm. It takes almost no musical training or exposure to recognize a «good beat», most electronic music is filled with great beats. One else is emotional range.
We all feel that electronic music has a much wider emotional range than most traditional genres, although its expression is often much more subtle. (The closest competitors are probably jazz and symphonic classical.) The types of feelings that electronic music can evoke are rarely as obvious or direct as most pop music’s lyrical and melodic messages.
Traditional genres tend to offer deliberately accessible narratives (especially with lyrical forms), whereas electronic music evokes more complex, subtle emotions that don’t necessarily develop in a linear or easily described way. And non-traditionalism.
Electronic music and cultural identity
Social factors strongly influence musical tastes and are often an important part of cultural identity. Many forms of electronic music tend to be seen as non-traditional (particularly in the United States), and belonging to such genres can provide both a sense of community and a means of symbolic rejection of mainstream ideals.
This is by no means unique to electronic music, although the effect is particularly pronounced in a genre such as techno. Also, when we talk about electronic music, we need to understand that there are many sub-genres like techno, electro (which grew out of early hip hop), drum and bass, beats (which we can hear in the beats of modern rap and hip hop artists), ambient and many others.
This variety of genres allows people with different musical tastes to enjoy and fall into the music. The culture of electronic music itself has always had a development, but in the last decade, this development has become incredibly rapid, attracting more and more people. We will look at why this happened and why the development of electronic music has no end in sight in our time.
Every year there are more and more festivals, both big and small, or just parties (also big and small) where people come who never even thought to start listening to this kind of music, and came because of the recommendation of friends or just to talk and meet new people.
As Kurt Vannegut wrote in his book Utopia 14: «It was wild, barbaric music, with an exciting rhythm going in and out of phase, a kaleidoscope of sounds. Paul Proteus tried to isolate and define individual themes. There! A turning band, tenors: ‘Furrazuah-uahac! Ting! Furrazuah-ah-ah-ah…» Welders, baritones: «Waaa-zuzzip! Waaaaa-zuzzip!» And then comes the bass part of the presses, amplified by the basement as a resonator: «Ovgrump! Tonka-Tonka. Ovgrump! Tonka-Tonka…»
It was intoxicating music, and Paul, blushing with embarrassment, listened to it, forgetting all his troubles.». And like the hero of this quote, a lot of people surprisingly for them falling in this music and here it starts.
It was wild, barbaric music, with an exciting rhythm
Also, more and more creators, performers and musicians from different countries are paying attention to electronic music, that is, there are countries with a rich history in this direction, and somewhere it is just emerging, somewhere, still an empty white sheet of paper or just a draft with notes in this regard, on which future creators are going to make history, develop the whole direction.
Lot of them are creating an interesting hybrid between the traditional music of creator’s country and electro. Of course, due to such an «infection» electronic music will develop exponentially. One of the most obvious factors for development is the digitalization of modern society.
This is a very symbolic factor, given that electronic music itself appeared due to the past industrialization of society. Technology, and social networks have become even more indispensable in our lives. Jim Morrison (vocalist of The Doors) once said: «I see a lone artist with many records and an electronic musical instrument that resembles a synthesizer, but with the capabilities of an orchestra.
Somewhere in the basement, there is someone who is creating a whole new genre of music. As we can see, it happened. Now, this musical instrument can be a laptop in your room, the development of software for creating music is incredible; update after update, there are more and more opportunities for experimentation.
Electronic Music and Accessibility
Because of this accessibility to create (not everyone has to have a cool PC or macbook with cool audio cards, I know many musicians who have started creating on simplified, sometimes outdated software that does not require a strong PC), again, many musicians take advantage of the opportunity to create music sitting at home.
I also believe that this genre (and some others, which I will write about in another article) embodies the period of digitalization of society, as once, psychedelic or garage, bright music of the 60s embodied the hippie movement, the transition of humanity to a completely different level of culture.
You must agree that in the period of rapid development of technology, its use and indispensability, the transition to the standard of living about which we watch movies, and read in books is very suitable for the motives of electronic music.
The incredible, still untapped potential, accessibility for creation and an incredible variety of genres and sub-genres for completely different tastes make electronic music a really powerful force, an engine that is always running and will never stop. In our stage of a complete transition to technology, there will be more and more TECHNOlogical music.
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