Fascinating article.. the prediction is almost spot on.. but there needs to be change or we will die off and we have made a struggle to get to this point and get the respect we deserve.

Its a Time Capsule and its been open.. lets not seal it up again.

SPOT ON with this article. Here's the problem in a nutshell.

Despite Internet streams, social networks and digital media players, there is still some sort of "fascination" with terrestrial FM radio. In America unfortunately, thanks to the Telecommunications Act of 1996, a radio corporation can own up to 5 FM stations in a given market. With that you kill the competition of the markets and "corporate" steps in to market what THEY feel is dance music which in THEIR eyes is Rihanna, Pit Bull, Flo Rida, Chris Brown...you get the point. Add TO the fact that we only have 5 PURE dance stations in the US, (2 commercial), that does NOT help.

For core fans such as ourselves we know better, but corporate doesn't care to serve us figuring there's no money in doing so. So they put on THEIR brand (which is also based on the influence of the big labels) and throw that onto Top 40/CHR since they feel that's what can "sell" and not want to go deeper. People that are "bandwaggoners" jump into that corporate "brainwashing" based on what they hear and are stuck in terms of opening more because they're NOT hearing more.

That's why this is boggling my mind because EDM is RISING so much in the states yet corporate radio has NO idea on how to approach it. In the mindset of a 55 year old CEO, techno is really BOOMING; let's get Carly Rae Jepsen and Adele in there!

TONY SANTIAGO/Coordinator, New York Dance Music Coalition

F**K Vegas!

You want REAL MUSIC head to BERLIN!

The problem with the 1% of commercial fans who go to underground will be they will have the mentality of a commercial douche who just wants to see a tracklist played ... There's a life motto Americans need to learn ... Don't move to the music, let the music move you.

Either that or get Osama back so he can finish what he started.

What a great article. Thank you.

Great article, thank you Angy. It's a sad state of affairs and in the long run everyone loses......

Love these articals angy

Another great article Angy, awesome work!

NIce article. I actually searched in wikipedia for stampede as Pete Tong suggested, fantastic visual.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...k_Stampede.jpg

I can answer the question in the title with just one word - "yes" ;)

Luckily we live in Australia were we "Might" be able to be a little different!

*where we "Might" be able to be a little different

Yes America is destroying EDM, one once pioneering EDM artist at a time. Call it the lure of big paychecks, who could say no?
But "an audience may be developing that wants nothing more than predictable, middling entertainment.%u201D - as far as I'm aware, this audience isn't 'developing' but something that has always existed in the post high-school/pre-career phase of young clubkids, myself included. I've always been a music snob and proud to be slightly ahead of the curve and the one who always brings the music to parties. But people always demand predictability in the masses, whether it was Michael Gray, Justin Timberlake or Fragma etc. The problem now is that the mainstream trend is lacking real soul. You can argue the hits of the above artists singing about miracles, senoritas and the weekend doesn't really dig deep, but it somehow feels a lot more comfortable than singing about getting drunk, having hangovers, throwing up, having shots and well... "wobbling"....?

id have to agree to some point that we love to hate, but the balance between underground & true to the music and selling out seems to be a super fine line.
as others have said though, i it mean me listening(occasionally with my less musically inclined friends) to cheesy house or trance vs pop/rock/rnb sign the the F up any day!

Blah blah blah

advise those quick to judge take a little time to visit/tour/play/listen to all that America continues to offer. Just sayin'.

Like everything that becomes popular, soon it won't be. Then we can enjoy our music in deafening peace :)

Who cares? Same shit, different decade. 5 years everybody was derping about dance being overwhelmed by mainstream-pandering shit in Australia. 10 years ago it was the UK that it went 'mainstream'.

Oh no! Mainstream shit sucks the soul out of it, blah blah blah fucking blah. Some people want to keep their "art" underground and exclusive, yet the scene moves on. Go away. Fuck off. Complain about something not completely retarded. In the words of Caprica Six: All of this has happened before and will happen again.

So much butthurt here about shit that's been happening forever.

Well written indeed!
The US commercialisation of dance music just means more money is being thrown at DJ/producers to create more cheesy McDonalds-esque music for the masses.
When will people wake up to themselves that half the goons are hardly doing anything, hiding behind some big visual LED show with lazers and getting paid zillions? They must all be laughing all the way to the bank.
On the otherhand, whenever something becomes this big and horrible, there's bound to be a backlash... and the underground and good music will start coming back.

This 'so-called' explosion of EDM is exaggerated. I've been the to the states twice in the last three years and EDM is vurtually non-existant in the whole scheme of things. Vegas is dominated by R'nB and hip hop........you have to understand that most visitors to Vegas are youngsters from L.A and L.A is dominated by RnB and hip hop..........that's what the crowds want so EDM will never go down well in vegas.

Two festivals and a couple of chart hits by David Guetta doesn't translates to an 'explosion' IMO

Great article! Just know that there are still a few of us here in the US who haven't scummed to the drivel being passed on top 40 radio.

The US is big place...

the whole hip hop/trance thing has destroyed dance music... Now all you need is a slight R&B flava and a trance sample from 1984 and your in business. The day you tell me that beiber has dropped a dubstep track is the day I say bring back live bands..

Quote:

Originally Posted by elaine31347

Still, Sandra Collins and Sasha have maintained there own special style of Prog House, using elements of minimal, tech house and progressive breaks creating sets that take a person on creative musical journeys. They don't spin top 10 hits and yet they fill stadiums all over the world...
June 14, 2012

The problem though is that Sasha never filled stadiums and even less so now. Big rooms- yes, but never stadiums.
And now he'd be lucky to fill 2,000 cap room.
He's amazing but has been pushed to the side by this horrible music...
Hopefully the backlash will arrive soon... which it seems to be reading all the comments on this article and people will start appreciating great DJs like Sasha again

Quote:

Originally Posted by rubbishtalk

and the underground and good music will start coming back.

It hasn't gone anywhere

USA invented house, how can they kill it??

The last sentence so nails what must be done in order to get back to where house needs to be. The trouble is that all too quickly Guetta remixes of Rihanna songs WILL be the new house for everyone, not just most of America. Not content with totally effing up the pop scene, the major labels and corporations like clear channel are dumbing down the underground scene to the lowest common denominator and cranking out endless soundalike radio plays of the same sounds marketing it and the next new craze. In a very real sense, they are choking the very life out of the scene.. Maybe we need a new "Disco Sucks" revolution to get Dance music back underground and following its true path and off the road to pop mainstream? In response to the original question... Hell yes its killing it and it Truly DOES SUCK!!!!

I'd say Calvin Harris has pretty much manouvered himself into a situation where he is being asked to play pop music by releasing bland, generic pop music with a 4/4 beat. Acceptable in the 80s was quirky but everything else has been utterly turgid.

tl;dr
yes, america did ruin some of it... like dubstep and uk bass.

DON'T TALK ABOUT HO-OH

Agreed 100%. But we are living in a time where there are almost more djs than punters. Its become very competitive, and the problem with competitive is that one loses touch with creativity. We are seeing a phenomenon that tends to happen with all genres of music. Maybe if djs and producers did not have this ridiculous elevated status, and were simply music nerds in the corner, it just might be a story with a different ending... :)

PS While this is a generalization and not true of everyone, I have found that truly creative people tend to be introspective and do not really like the limelight. They prefer to focus on making music as opposed to the huge amount of self promotion necessary to even get a foot in the door.

Interesting Article, ok it's already been said but but big respect goes out to where it all started, Chicago, New York, Detroit , and guys like Larry Levan, Frankie Knuckles, Moby, BT, Joey Beltram , UR, Masters at Work etc the whole scene would have never have been possible without them.

I think the title of this article should have been ' Is the commercialization of dance music killing it ? ' instead, because it's a now a western world phenomenon. I went to a few ' Dance music Festivals " in Aus and soon realised they are nothing like what I experienced at Raves and Dance Parties back in 90's, that was a special time that will never be replaced, that's not to say I didn't have a bit of fun at one of them, but you wouldn't catch me dead having anything to do with skrillex, so anything he had to do with, I avoided.

I also feel once the 90's passed with each year of the 00's passing by dance music lost it's soul ( in terms of the sound ), not even talking about cash here, and the 90's sound is where the most creativity and soul in the music occurred, and yeah Guetta's point about people saying they wanted to keep the music to themselves ?, that was not the case for me, for me, as a music lover, it was about the sound, if a DJ I loved changed direction, and I no longer liked the sound for example sasha going to minimal, I didn't get into it anymore, it had nothing to do with me thinking, man this guy has sold out or is very successful and he now sucks !?

Thankfully there are some DJ's and producers out there still producing and mixing the real shit, I tend to head to an intimate club with my select fave DJ's for that, and masses will hit Guetta ( although I don't mind one or two of his tunes I don't think he's worth seeing live )

There is also a difference between listenable and commercial, some DJ's have gone off the listenable track to go more underground where others have sold out to be way to commercial or tried to change their style to suit a younger crowd, I think a DJ can still be listenable and underground with cool tunes that are not to off the mark, listenable, or danceable, uplifting yet still not cheesy.

Original_Beats, I liked what you said, and I agree. But I really think the time has come to get rid of this stupid elevated status of djs and producers. It is really nice to make something creative and uplift people, but it doesn't make you the next messiah. Get rid of the ego and bring back the heart, because the simple fact is the two things cannot exist together.

Well on a personal level I never gave the DJ's and producers a god like status, I just liked certain DJ's that have dedicated their life to the art, if I met them in person I would say " I really like your work ", and not kiss their arse.

Make me a messiah ?, WTF are you talking about ?, I am not a messiah, just a music lover with an opinion. As far as the ego thing goes, I would say that the new rockstar commercial DJ's and producers are fueling that fire a lot more than the old school or underground DJ's.

Bit late on this, but Carl Cox is talking out his arse. I saw him at Space in Ibiza a week ago and he played Levels. Not a "hit-player"? Righto.

that's because most of the people who listen to hip hop and pop music have an IQ of below 40 and people like David Guetta pander to them