Clarifying EDM

The phrase Electronic Dance Music, abbreviated as EDM, is often quite polarizing. There

are masses of youth that visibly vibrate when the topic is raised, and there are self described

purists like myself for whom the term inspires varying degrees of nausea. One of the

problems created with this phrase is that EDM the musical genre, and EDM the umbrella term for

all electronically produced dance music are so different. Often the term EDM is used when

discussing the culture of music festivals, raves, and nightclubs, and the very different meanings

of the two identical abbreviations can complicate the discussion. I would like to clarify the

distinction between the two terms and, in the process, hopefully remove some of the negative

stigma associated with club and rave culture.

EDM, the genre, is essentially a hyper-popularized sub-genre of house music. From a

DJ/musicology perspective, the umbrella term of EDM loosely covers the genres of North-

American Electro House, Big Room, and Bass House. The bass heavy, hip-hop inspired Trap,

and island inspired but British made half time Dubstep often find a way into tracks, but EDM in

its current permutation is predominantly 4-to-the-floor house music, around 128 beats per

minute.

The larger concept of Electronic Dance Music, however, is much broader than the

muscle-shirted, molly infused, neon clad bros and biddies that propagate the mainstream

festivals of the last 10 years. Electronic Dance Music should be considered music, any music,

made electronically to be danced to. The technology may induce future shock to the unprepared,

but the spirit of the whole thing is as old as music herself.

I am a DJ, something which many people see as an easy hobby rather than a complex

vocation, especially in a world infatuated with acts that are more performer than DJ like in the
Aoki, DVBBS, or Carnage. I have played student house parties, weddings, anniversary parties. I

graduated to nightclubs, playing rooms that could fit 200, but often held 50. Gradually, I shifted

to larger rooms, often playing venues, which allow for around 400, and have even gone so far as

playing for a room of 1200 alongside the popular DJ/Producer Rezz. I have played music

festivals, after parties, and, most often my own, basement. Playing, but not like a video game.

Playing, like an instrument.

I DJ Tech House, which is essentially a modern combination of House and Techno, and I

do much more than press play and smoothly mix one track into the next. To be honest, I dont

enjoy Tech House music. It is boring, repetitive, and thoroughly predictable. On the other hand,

however, there are few things I have done in life that are more rewarding than DJing this same

boring music. The reason for this odd duality is the culture of nightclubs, which many ignore in

the popular discussion of EDM and its musical relatives.

DJing, as we know it today, began with Jimmy Savile, who, in 1947, was the first person

to play records and charge people to listen. He also pioneered the idea of using two turntables so

that the music played in a dance club would be seamless. The record-based dance club evolved

through the disco era, and the appearance of Kraftwerk on the BBCs Tomorrows World in 1975

injected other-worldly electrical pulsations into the dance music world. The 1982 hit track Blue

Monday reinforced what Kraftwerk started almost a decade before. Chicago House came into the

scene in 1984, giving us tracks like Jack Your Body, which is still sampled today. The growing

culture came to a head in the frustration within youth culture in England in the late 80s. Dance

clubs couldn't stay open late enough, and the music and dancing and the drugs shifted

outdoors. The motorway, which encircles most of Greater London, England, gave birth to the
M25 raves: free-tech, or illegal unlicensed parties in the small towns off Londons encircling

highway, which at at times could last for a full weekend and were too large for the small town

police forces to shut down. 1989 saw Turnmills open its doors - one of the first all night dance

clubs - followed closely by All Bar One, a classy pre-bar marketed as a quasi-club to drink in

before the dancing began in ernest. Ravers no longer wished to constantly be on the look out

or at odds with Police, and nightclub owners became suddenly aware of the huge revenue that

would be possible if this underground movement could be legitimized and moved indoors. Club

culture had been born, and was learning to walk on its own.

1990 saw The White Collection born: a Rifat Ozbek fashion line inspired by the nightclub

and their easy-dress-down approach. Clothes which were loose fitting and casual enough to

dance in replaced the tight waists, padded shoulders, and height-defying hair of the 80s. The

underground movement had begun to shift into the limelight, but DJs still weren't quite achieving

the rock star status they do today.

As Fat Boy Slim said, most DJs arent really oil paintings to look at, but [had] become

superstars sort of by default because [they] put bums on seats and one of the first instances of

this default rockstar status occurred in 1993 when Paul Oakenfold was asked to tour with U2.

The superstar DJ was born. The aftermath of this elevation of the DJ can still be seen today.

Even when I played at Rezzs event, without many knowing the name Siconic (my artist

moniker), everyone in the room faced me while I played: clapping when I gestured, like I was a

one-man rock band. As fun as it was, they shouldn't have been looking at me.
 I think that the separation between EDM and the pure electronic dance music which I

aspire to involve myself in can be seen thusly: EDM DJs and I use the term loosely here

want to be the centre of attention. They are fantastic performers, and I respect many of them as

talented musicians in their own right, but it seems that some have strayed from the core of our

craft. Music should always be the star, not necessarily the person playing it.

When most people think of EDM, they think often of the large outdoor summer festivals

that DJs often headline at. Cream Fields, Electric Daisy Carnival, Electric Zoo, Veld, Solaris,

Tomorrowland: all of these festivals can become focal points for public outcry because of their

huge numbers of attendees. Tomorrowland often sees their number of attendees well over the

100,000 mark, in 2014 that number reached around 360,000, but these events are entirely

separate from club culture. The music is similar although in truth, this style of EDM is rarely

heard in traditional nightclubs but relating a festival of this size to a nightclub is like

comparing Woodstock to a disco.

Perhaps it is prudent to point out that DJ is an abbreviation of the term disk jockey. In

horse racing, although the jockey is obviously critical, the central component is the horse.

Patrons pay money to attend, to hear the thunderous foot falls, to discuss the lineage of

thoroughbreds. A skilled jockey can make a difference to a good team, and is paid to get the

horse across the finish line, but still the undeniable reality is that the speed and stamina of the

horse is paramount. (Please forgive any inaccuracies, as I am not as studied with horses as with

bass-lines, but I believe the analogy will hold all the same.)

People pay to enter the club, to hear the thunderous bass, and experience and

sometimes discuss music. The job of the DJ is to ride the disks, or in the digital age the discs,
but not to be the centre of attention. We have a job to do, and although the big name DJs might

make you think otherwise, our hands are too busy to make hand hearts. And thats fine, because

its not about us, its about making sure you keep dancing. To keep a smile on your face. To make

you forget whatever it is that happened in your life before and allow you to enter a collective

ecstasy that helps you purge the stress of your day-life.

Nightclubs are places of release. Some studies suggest they are a modern extension of

primal animalistic mating rituals, with an often 50% increase in the number of couples exiting

compared to entering. There is solidarity built between the returning patrons, a bond which may

be tightened by drug use, but not created by it (scholars find similarity between this aspect of

club culture and the religious ceremonies of tribal cultures). As a DJ, I am blessed with the

opportunity to facilitate these connections by gently influencing patrons with the right track at

the right time. Bending melodies together. Mixing sometimes four songs at a time. Creating

something captivating and fleeting. Perhaps made more precious and enjoyable because of its

transitory nature: mirroring life itself. With a good DJ, two nights may have the same spirit, but

they will never be the same. This may be one of the most cathartic antidotes to our monotonous

day-to-day.

Perhaps the best way to sum up our culture is with a track I play at every gig I am blessed

with: I Get Deeper by LNGT, the Cassian Rework. It always gets the same response: a joyous

cacophony of shouts, stomps, claps, and whistles. The lyrics which spread across the second

break of the track, leading up to the final drop of the song, sum up the spirit of rave and club

culture in uniquely authentic way.

In this temple, we all praying unity for the same things. Rhythmic pause, without cause.

Bass from those high definition speakers: sitting in the corner of each side of the room, giving us
the boom-boom-boom to our zoom-zoom-zoom. The smell of an L lit while walking by, but the

music gets me high. Sanctified like an old lady in church: we get happy, we stomp our feet, we

clap our hands, we shout, we cry, we dance, and we say sweet lord, speak to me, speak to me,

speak to me, speak to me because we love House Music and this night it brings us together like a

family reunion every week. We eat, we drink, we laugh, we play, we sleep. So for all you Hip-

hop-ers you do-op-ers you name-dropers you pill-poppers come into our house, to get deep.