1.Prologue

In MUSIC & PARTIES #037, I wrote about the Japanese club scene and outdoor rave scene. Many of the psychedelic trance and techno raves that were launched in the late 90s proved to be significant moneymakers for the stakeholders as they grew in scale. But their rapid rise would also bring about a rapid fall: drug-related problems and the milking of the scene by criminal groups led to its decline in the late 2000s.

Meanwhile, in the U.S., electronic dance music had grown as an underground culture throughout the 80s in pockets in cities like Chicago, Detroit, and New York. In the 90s, Miami, Florida would become another one of the epicenters of the U.S. scene.

Back in the early 80s, Florida was known as a place where relatively well-to-do East Coasters moved to spend their retirement years. Gradually, due to the abundant availability of cheap real estate, celebrities and models also began to buy homes in the region. Then when the crime TV series Miami Vice became a hit in the mid-80s, the region began to see an influx of tourists. Just like party people in New York went out to the clubs, party people in Florida went out to the beach. And much like Europeans dreamed of vacationing in Ibiza or Goa, Americans saw Florida as paradise—at least, the closest thing to paradise in the country.

In 1986, in a Marriott Hotel in Fort Lauderdale—about 40 km north of Miami--the electronic dance industry started to hold the Winter Music Conference. Although it was initially just a small event with about 90 attendees, it steadily grew in size and scope, and relocated to Miami Beach in south Florida in the early 90s. Originally envisioned as a networking event for promoters, labels, DJ management, and brands, it became the place where the industry set plans for the coming year, assessed trends, and discussed important topics that needed to be addressed. Panel discussions and seminars were held during the day, and pool parties and cocktail parties were held at night. The event also began to host the International Dance Music Awards, an annual ceremony recognizing both mainstream and underground DJs and releases, clubs and labels, radio shows/podcasts and music equipment.

Since 1999, the Ultra Music Festival has also taken place alongside the Winter Music Conference, offering a program of electronic music raves and parties held across the region. The fact that revelers could see all the biggest names in dance music over the course of a weekend became a huge draw, and the festival has grown from a one-day event hosting 10,000 people in 2000, to a three-day event hosting 100,000 people around 2010. By 2018, Ultra Music Festival had grown so big that it outright acquired the Winter Music Conference. In the latest edition back in 2019, the event hosted 170,000 people.

More than the arrival of tourists and partygoers from around the world, the event’s meteoric rise was bolstered by the aggressive commercialization of electronic dance music in the U.S. over the past two decades. It’s also significant that the event takes place in mid-March—conveniently overlapping with spring break. College kids—many of whom have never even been to a club before—receive a world-class, up-close-and-personal introduction into the many types of dance music that is out there for them to consume.

In this column, I will present an overview of the notable DJs and producers who are responsible for electronic dance music morphing into what’s called “EDM" and overtaking the U.S. in the 2010s.

2.House Music Takes America

In the second half of the 2000s, just as the Japanese club and rave scenes had entered their decline, similar EDM-themed raves were starting to pick up steam in the U.S: Ultra Music Festival, Electric Daisy Carnival, Electric Zoo, etc. Their rise coincided with the development of a pop-leaning house music sound that broke through into the mainstream.

The French house/electro duo Daft Punk set the gold standard for what an EDM live show could be with their 2006-2007 world tour. Combining a set comprised of mashups of their greatest hits with a gigantic pyramid fitted with lights that blinked in sync with the music, the visual and aural spectacle was enough to convert even the most diehard of rock fans. (Granted, Daft Punk’s music is quite guitar-heavy.) Daft Punk also brought that pyramid to Japan for their headlining appearance at Summer Sonic in 2006. The set from their 2007 Paris show was released as the fantastic live album Alive 2007.

The French DJ David Guetta brought French house into the mainstream by...creating music that was unabashedly mainstream. (Guetta is not known for his subtlety.) Guetta started DJing in the 90s in his native France, and gradually established his reputation as the “Godfather of EDM" by taking over the U.K. and U.S. markets during the 2000s. During this time he started his “Fuck Me I’m Famous" club nights at Pacha in Ibiza. His success was largely fueled by his many collaborations with pop/R&B artists, such as 2009’s “When Love Takes Over", featuring the singer Kelly Rowland from Destiny’s Child. The single sold over 5.5 million copies worldwide, and received a Grammy nomination for Best Dance Recording.

The same year, Guetta produced the track “I Gotta Feeling” from the Black Eyed Peas’ fifth album, The E.N.D. The track became the most downloaded song of all time on iTunes, and won a Grammy for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals. Guetta has since continued to collaborate with many of hip hop’s biggest names, and he remains a leading figure in EDM. In 2011 he was voted the world’s No. 1 DJ by the readers of DJ Magazine, and he has stayed in the top 10 every year since.

In the late 2000s, the Swedish House Mafia became worldwide names with its in-your-face brand of house and electro house. The DJ supergroup, comprised Axwell, Steve Angello, and Sebastian Ingrosso, released a string of house/EDM singles that were all perfectly adequate, but the real magic lies in their legendary live shows as headliners of the world’s biggest EDM festivals. To get a sense of what made them so popular, check out their mix albums Until One and Until Now, which perfectly encapsulate their big room sound and EDM’s number one rule: never let up on the gas. In December 2011, they became the first dance music artists to headline Madison Square Garden in New York City.

Former Swedish House Mafia member Eric Prydz is also known for his big room house sound and his live shows, known for featuring holograms. His 2008 track “Pjanoo", arguably the most famous example of modern piano house music, topped the U.K. dance chart and reached No. 2 on the singles chart. His 2009 single “Miami to Atlanta" featured the prominent use of a heavily compressed and stretched out snare drum sound—known was the “Pryda snare"—that has since become a favorite go-to of EDM producers around the world.

In 2008, the Chicago-born house music DJ Kaskade and the Canadian progressive house producer Deadmau5 had their mainstream breakthrough with their collaboration track “Move for Me". The track was a radio hit and reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot Dance Airplay chart. The pair followed it up with “I Remember", which became one of the biggest tunes on the U.K. club circuit in 2009. Both tracks feature pop-inspired female vocals.

Kaskade, one of America’s biggest DJs, is also a Mormon who has never touched alcohol or drugs in his life. His family’s religion made him feel like an outsider growing up, and as a teenager he would gravitate to house music—music for outsiders. He frequently went to parties at the teen club Medusa—the spiritual successor of the Warehouse nightclub—and was inspired by seeing Frankie Knuckles DJ live. Kaskade’s unique background led him to develop an uplifting, melodic house sound that triggers an all-natural high.

The video game and audio equipment otaku Deadmau5 captured the attention a generation of young fans with the giant mouse head helmet that he wears on stage. In 2012, he became the first EDM artist to be featured on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. His stage show also heavily borrows from Daft Punk, although towards completely different ends. While Daft Punk wears robot helmets as a way to maintain an air of mystery and anonymity, Deadmau5 first put on the mouse head—with lights that flash in sync with the music—in order to stand out from other acts on the scene. And whereas Daft Punk’s stage show featured a pyramid, Deadmau5 brought an extra dimension to his show with a cube.

Since the 2000s, Las Vegas has become an epicenter of the EDM scene in the U.S. In 2008, the English DJ Paul Oakenfold became resident DJ at the Palms Casino Resort, and introduced average Americans to dance music—then still largely an underground phenomenon—with an elaborate stage show featuring synchronized lights, dancers, and performers. Many DJs would follow in Oakenfold’s footsteps. In 2009, Kaskade became the first “EDM" artist to get a Las Vegas residency, at the XS nightclub. In 2013, the Dutch DJ Tiesto became resident at the restaurant/nightclub Hakkasan, which is owned by Sheik Mansour bin Zayed al Nahyani, a Prince in Abu Dhabi’s royal family. (The Prince also owns the Manchester City soccer team in England.) His shows were an enormous success, and he has remained a Las Vegas resident ever since. When did the Las Vegas Strip become about nightclubs rather than casinos? The shift was partly the result of the 2008 global economic crisis, which, for a time, pushed guests away from the slot machines and into the clubs. At this point the EDM industry has become a major part of the Las Vegas economy, and big-name resident DJs are said to make hundreds of thousands of dollars a night. (As of June 2020, the industry has come to a standstill due to the spread of COVID-19.)

3.EDM Goes Global

The mainstream American success of DJs like David Guetta and Kaskade was also facilitated by a rebranding of genres like house music, electro house, and trance under the umbrella term “EDM". Starting in 2013, Billboard starting publishing the Dance/Electronic Songs chart, which ranks the most popular dance and electronic songs according to sales, streams, radio airplay, and club play. In the 2010s, brands began aggressively marketing to millennials by licensing popular EDM tracks for commercials. Whereas the mainstream DJs of the 2000s were more house oriented, the 2010s saw the rise of a new generation of EDM DJs—many of whom had never even been to a club before being signed by major labels.

The biggest EDM star to come out of the U.K. is Calvin Harris. As a teenager, the Scottish DJ started making tracks in his bedroom and posting them to MySpace, and was signed to a major record label in 2006. His sound, heavily inspired by 80s electro, quickly made him a popular name in the U.K. In 2007, he caught the attention of Australian pop singer Kylie Minogue, which led to him co-writing and producing two songs for her 2007 album X. In 2011, he produced the electro house tune “We Found Love" for Rihanna, which topped the charts in over 20 countries and won Best Music Video at the MTV Video Music Awards. The success led Harris to sign an exclusive DJ residency deal with Wynn Las Vegas in 2012. Since 2013, he has been resident DJ at Hakkasan alongside fellow EDM giant Tiesto. For six consecutive years between 2013 and 2018, he topped Forbes magazine’s list of the world’s highest paid DJs. In 2014, he was named the new face of Emporio Armani for its men’s underwear line.

Several of EDMs biggest names hail from the Netherlands: the aforementioned Tiesto, Afrojack, and Martin Garrix. Afrojack started making a name for himself on the electro house scene in the late 2000s, and became a global name in the 2010s. He had an especially big year in 2011: he produced “Give Me Everything", a track for the Miami-based rapper Pitbull that became a chart-topping hit in both the U.S. and the U.K, and also teamed up with David Guetta to remix Madonna’s single “Revolver", and won a Grammy for their efforts. He also signed a DJ residency deal with Wynn Las Vegas, and went on to embark on a U.S. tour in 2012. In 2015, Afrojack produced the track “Summer Madness" for the Japanese dance/vocal group Sandaime J Soul Brothers.

Martin Garrix first became interested in becoming a DJ when he saw fellow Dutchman Tiesto play at the opening ceremony for the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. He downloaded a DAW and began making tracks in his bedroom. After being discovered by Tiesto, Garrix was signed to Spinnin’ Records, one of the biggest EDM labels of the 2010s. His 2013 single “Animals” became a huge hit across Europe, and he became the youngest person (17) to reach No. 1 on the Beatport charts. The following year, he became the youngest person to headline Ultra Music Festival. He has gone on to produce tracks for many of the biggest pop and hip hop artists in the U.S. and the U.K. In 2017, he became the new face of Armani Exchange for their Fall 2017 campaign. For three consecutive years between 2016 and 2018, Garrix was voted the world’s No. 1 DJ by the readers of DJ Magazine. In 2018, he performed at the closing ceremony of the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympic Games.

While the EDM stars of Europe were heavily influenced by house music and trance, and EDM stars of the U.S. were heavily influenced by hip hop and party music. Two of the biggest American names in the EDM scene are Diplo and Steve Aoki. The Mississippi-born Diplo forged a playful sound that was rough around the edges by incorporating Southern hip hop and Miami bass music influences into his work. In 2015, he teamed up with Skrillex and Justin Bieber to pen the hit single “Where Are Ü Now", which won a Grammy for Best Dance Recording.

Steve Aoki started producing DIY records and throwing underground parties while studying feminist studies and sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. At 19, he started his own label, Dim Mak, and became one of the central figures in the American electro house scene in the 2000s. His relentless touring and onstage antics—crowd surfing, throwing cakes into the crowd, spraying champagne bottles, etc.—won him legions of fans among the college crowd, and he became America’s best known party DJ. In the 2010s he released many well-received collaborations with big name hip hop and rock artists, and made his international breakthrough with his 2013 album Wonderland, which received a Grammy nomination for Best Dance/Electronica Album. Side note, Aoki’s father, Rocky Aoki, was a former Japanese wrestler who is best known for founding the teppanyaki restaurant chain Benihana. The model and actress Devon Aoki is his half-sister.

Perhaps the biggest and most tragic figure of EDM was the Swedish DJ Avicii. Avicii started making music in his bedroom as a teen, and drew attention for uplifting progressive house productions that were very much inspired by the Swedish House Mafia and Eric Prydz. He was signed to a major record label in 2010, and had a worldwide hit with his 2011 single “Levels".

In 2013, Avicii released his debut album True. The single “Wake Me Up”, which roused controversy among diehard dance music fans for its blend of EDM with country-tinged folk, topped the Billboard Dance/Electronic chart for 14 consecutive weeks, becoming one of the biggest EDM tracks of all time. Avicii would retire from touring in 2016 after suffering from health problems related to overwork and life on the road as a DJ. After a brief hiatus, he started producing music again in 2017, but tragically decided to end his own life in 2018.

The EDM craze has also come to Japanese shores. The dance/vocal group Exile has released many electro and EDM-inspired tracks, and the deluxe version of their 2015 album 19 even came with a CD of remixes by big-name DJs. The aforementioned Sandaime J Soul Brothers have released so many EDM tracks at this point that they should called the “J-EDM Brothers”.

One of the most prominent figures in Japanese EDM is the producer Nakata Yasutaka. Nakata made his record debut in 2001 with the YMO and Shibuya-kei inspired band Capsule. But his biggest success has been as a producer. Since 2003, he has produced the electro pop trio Perfume. Perfume debuted in the early 2000s with an anime-inspired techno-pop sound, but under Nakata’s tutelage, they have gone in a more sci-fi influenced direction that more evokes European electro acts like Daft Punk. They broke through with singles like “Polyrhythm".

Since 2011, Nakata has also produced the singer and model Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, who is best known for hits like “Pon Pon Pon" and “Tsukematsukeru". Her public image is heavily inspired by kawaii culture, and her quirky style and slightly grotesque sense of humor have made many of her music videos viral hits. She made her U.S. debut in 2011 with a performance at a kawaii-themed fashion show in California. In the time since she has also performed in Asia and Europe, and is now known as an ambassador of modern Japanese pop culture.

4.Dubstep and Brostep

While house music went mainstream in the U.S., other genres of dance music were being fostered in the U.K. underground. Perhaps the most significant one is dubstep, which developed out of genres like UK Garage, 2-Step, jungle, and drum ‘n’ bass. While drum ‘n’ bass overwhelms listeners with furious breakbeats, dubstep overwhelms with heavy, wobbly, stretched-out sub-bass that is not so much audible as it is meant to be felt by the body. Dubstep is dark, wet, and oppressive, evoking rainy, moody dystopian soundscapes.

Dubstep originated in South London in the late 90s and early 2000s. Two of the central figures in the early days of the scene were Skream and Benga, two video game-loving teens from Croydon. The two first met at a local record shop called Big Apple Records, and both started making music in their bedrooms using DAW software. Skream’s 2005 track “Midnight Request Line" is considered one of the classics of the genre. Skream and Benga played an integral role in helping establish the dubstep scene in the U.K. Between 2012 and 2014, they hosted their own radio show on BBC Radio 1, which featured the hottest dubstep tunes of the week.

Another central figure of dubstep was the DJ/producer Kode 9, who ran his own show on the pirate radio station Rinse FM and started the label Hyperdub in 2004. The first artist he signed to the label was Burial, a lover of video games who developed a singular sound by sampling video games like Metal Gear Solid and digging—not through vinyl at his local record store, but through YouTube covers of popular songs. He cuts up, stretches, and pitch-shifts those sounds until they are almost unrecognizable, and weaves them to create a dark, oppressive atmosphere. His 2007 album Untrue was awarded the Mercury Prize and is considered one of the best electronic albums of the 2000s. While many of the producers on the scene made a name for themselves by DJing, Burial has made himself an essential figure through maintaining an aura of mystery, rarely making public appearances and keeping his identity a secret for many years.

The English singer-songwriter James Blake combined the dubstep sound of artists like Skream and Burial with influences from neo-soul/R&B artists like D’Angelo. Blake started making music in his bedroom in the second half of the 2000s, and his music started being featured by DJs on BBC Radio 1 starting around 2010. His second album Overgrown won him a Mercury prize as well as a Grammy nomination for Best Newcomer. He has since collaborated with the likes of Beyonce and Jay-Z. In recent years his sound has begun to lean toward pop/electro pop.

Around 2010, dubstep spread to the U.S., where it developed into a more mainstream, party-oriented sound that came to be called brostep. Whereas U.K. dubstep is all about the lower frequencies (that is, bass), American brostep emphasizes the mid-range frequencies. The most prominent figure in brostep was Skrillex.

The L.A.-born Skrillex was raised in a family of Scientologists. He was bullied at school and learned that he was adopted at the age of 16, after which he dropped out of a private academy school based on L. Ron Hubbard’s teachings. He found solace in punk rock concerts and electro house raves, and became the singer of an alternative rock band in 2004. He started Djing and producing music under the Skrillex name in 2008, combining electro house with the noise and edge of punk rock. His music caught the ear of Deadmau5, who signed him to his label Mau5trap. In 2011, he released the EP Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites, which won a Grammy for Best Dance/Electronic album, and, to the chagrin of some, announced the arrival of brostep as part of mainstream EDM.

Skrillex has won the Grammy for Best Dance/Electronic album two more times—in 2013 for his EP Bangarang, and in 2016 for his collaboration with Diplo, Jack Ü. He has won a total of eight Grammys—more than any other EDM artist.

Another important DJ/producer to come out of the brostep scene was Zedd, who came onto the scene in 2010 with a number of successful remixes—including one of Skrillex’s “Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites”. The Russian-German Zedd is known for combining electro house and dubstep with elements of classical music. He broke through to the American market with his 2013 single “Clarity”, which also won him a Grammy for Best Dance Recording. He is also known in Japan for producing Amuro Namie’s 2013 single “Heaven”. He has gone on to work with pop singers like Selena Gomez and Ariana Grande, while continuing to tour the world and headline EDM festivals as a DJ.

5.Epilogue

As we’ve seen in this article, the EDM craze of the 2010s was fueled by an endless stream of collaborations between the world’s biggest DJs and the world’s biggest hip hop and pop singers. Making the vocals the focus of a dance music track is another way of saying you’ve made a pop song, and so it was no surprise that those collaborations received heavy airplay on American radio and MTV. Before EDM, DJs would usually remix popular songs without obtaining permission and only be able to play them to the select group of people who attended their parties; now pop singers and hip hop artists (and their record labels) actively approach DJs to produce remixes and collaborations. The tables have turned.

The other defining element of the EDM scene is that it is currently largely supported by an army of so-called bedroom DJs. These DJs, many of whom I’ve listed in this article, learned to make music in their bedrooms on their laptops, and had often never stepped foot in a nightclub, let alone a recording studio. YouTube tutorials and endless hours spent experimenting were their teachers. As a result, when major labels scooped these bedroom DJs up and began putting them in front of audiences, they had to learn how to DJ practically overnight. Of course, advances in DJ software have meant that anybody with a laptop can learn to mix together two tracks; it’s also true that the production realities of an EDM festival mean that often all a DJ has to do is press play, literally.

Meanwhile, DJs who had already made a name for themselves as a “curator" or “sequencer" of music had to learn to become producers. As a result, the industry is now supported by ghost producers who make songs for other DJs who release the music as their own. The aforementioned Martin Garrix got his start as a ghost producer before being officially signed to a label.

Having a stable of producers is also beneficial for record companies. While a young pop singer might end up being a one-hit wonder, producers are able to make tracks to best bring out the qualities of an artist. They are able to produce more work and tend to have a longer “shelf life".

The net result of all of this is that the dance/electronic chart is littered with tracks that sound alike. EDM tracks today follow a template and make use of many of the same techniques—such as the aforementioned Pryda snare. Music streaming services have allowed artists and record companies to gauge what types of songs sell and what doesn’t, further leading to the proliferation of cookie-cutter music. People have long derided electronic dance music for its repetition and monotony, and the commercialization of EDM has only exacerbated the problem.

Throughout the 2010s, EDM has been at the center of American popular music. The big room sound filled clubs and stadiums and festivals, transforming the industry into an empire and reshaping hip hop and pop in the process. Take a glance at the music charts these days and you’ll find yourself hard-pressed to find songs that aren’t influenced by EDM. EDM has become the musical equivalent of fast food, and Americans have stuffed themselves silly.

Of course, a person can only take so many jumbo-sized fast food meals before they start questioning what they’re doing with their life. Around 2016, EDM producers started becoming bored, and they’ve started to splinter off into different directions in the time since. Since 2018, the EDM market has started to shrink. It seems clear now that Avicii’s death in 2018 was a signal that the industry had reached a tipping point. Even the world’s best DJ will drive an audience to exhaustion if all they played was the loudest, most high-energy sections of Top 40 hits.