Essay: Electronic Music is the New Rock N' Roll

Electronic Music is the New Rock N’ Roll

            When rock n’ roll first came into focus, parents considered it the devil’s music. This was mostly because the parents of that generation found the music loud, abrasive, and unlikeable. To them the loud guitar riffs and ear deafening bass sounded like some sort of new evil noise. The same might be said for electronic music today, where the synths and progression of the tracks sound weird and the bass is overwhelming, even by rock standards. Electronic music is attracting young people in hoards, and music festivals centered solely on “EDM” or electronic dance music is on the rise in America. This trend is delayed in many people’s opinion, as EDM has been huge in Europe since the early 90’s.

            As rock n’ roll took over the youth and got them (shockingly) out of their chairs at concerts and dancing with members of the opposite sex, electronic music events can be seen doing the same to stress out parents all over the country. At these events girls love dressing in scantily clad outfits, and the idea that drug use runs rampant isn’t always too far off. It’s also true that many of these events run late into the night, through the early morning, unlike your average concert by a band that’s over before midnight.  Electronic music is working itself into every nook and cranny of the USA, with DJ’s booking shows in small towns where even more popular bands wouldn’t be able to play profitably.  Ultra Music Festival in Miami is entirely EDM based and sold out last year at 100,000 ticket sales. Electric Daisy Carnival originally based in California is also showing record attendance sales. After a death at their event two years ago they have since moved to Las Vegas where the state isn’t hell bent on shutting down “raves”. Over the course of this essay the rise of electronic music in America will be discussed in detail, and will be compared to the movement of rock n’ roll, and why it’s here to stay.

            Dance music has been in America longer than many people have even realized. In fact the evolution of dance music could arguably be America’s creation. Studio 54 was the end-all be-all haven of disco. Disco ditched song progression for a repetitious beat and longer song lengths in order to be more fitting for the dance floor. As disco became to mainstream and self centered on the celebrities that interacted within this realm, music continued evolving underground. Soon new nightclubs opened up in New York City that were free of the glitz and glam, rather they were huge dingy places where people danced until eight in the morning, even though many of these places didn’t even have liquor licenses. The thing that brought the people there was the music, which was now “house” music or “dance” music, and the kings of these clubs were the dj’s who played music that no one had ever heard before. The most famous of these clubs was the Paradise Garage, a famous discotheque that members of all orientation got loose in.  “Paradise Garage (84 Kings Street) was indeed a garage but paradise was never known there until the great Larry Levan showed a disjointed world how to love and support each other. Out of his great heart a sound developed that still rocks clubs all over the world today. This was his house and he is the legend—the standard bearer for so many. Paradise Garage is like that De Niro character from Awakenings. It was asleep, but suddenly from nowhere rose up and enjoyed a magical period of sound and joy and meaning, only to eventually slip back into a mundane coma (The Best Nightclubs in the History of New York City, Steve Lewis).”  Dance music did see a miniature explosion from this point until the early 90’s and many music critics and publications heralded it is as the next big thing. But where the news appeared to be capturing the events they were really just capturing the wildly dressed characters that came to these clubs and raves, and the electronic music craze quickly quieted back down in America.

            Fast forward to the present and it appears that electronic music is back on the surface of American music, boiling in its pot rapidly. The reason why cannot be answered easily. For many concert goers of EDM music, the customer has found the music themselves, as most electronic music isn’t on the radio. Perhaps it can be said that electronic music was first back on the minds of Americans in California on April 29, 2006. “Playing the U.S for the first time in a decade, Daft Punk and their giant glowing pyramid headline Coachella, blowing the collective minds of a new generation of concertgoers and, with some help from Kanye West the following year, helping turn French house’s greatest exponents into unlikely American pop icons (Spin Magazine: The Dance Issue.)” Daft Punk headlined the festival, receiving top billing on a list of over a hundred acts, and as word spread about the amazing performance the duo put on, so too did people’s interest spread into the various types of electronic music. Now both Coachella and Lollapalooza, two of America’s biggest music festivals for all genres of music, have two stages set up for mainly electronic based artists. Electronic music is very cool to the current generation of college students and teenagers in America right now, and the reason why is because it feels new and fresh in a sea of the same on the radio.

            However the radio cannot be taken out of this discussion either. If you turn on the radio now, to a station playing all of the current billboard hits, in a single rotation one or two of the songs will be “euro-dance” inspired.  Where Kanye sampled electronic music to create a distinct hip hop track, other artists are ripping off the sounds of dance music in a less then inspired way.  The craze could have been started by Lady Gaga who ripped the sounds of techno from frequent gay clubs she visited. “You see the video for 'Telephone,' and you're like, 'This is real stuff here,' " he marveled.”I mean, this is mega serious money being spent to put together amazing videos, using real film directors, for a dance record. That's a dance track! That is the 'Thriller' of our time, you know. And there is all this hubbub about it. I haven't seen that kind of [excitement] over a video in 20 years. I mean, MTV did that all the time back in the '80s ... and now it's back. And it's back with dance music. (Lady Gaga Has Made Dance Music Mainstream, DJ Tommy Sunshine Says, Akshay Bhansali).”  Where Lady Gaga was unique, it now appears that every pop track on the radio is really just an electro house song with vocals laid over top. For examples try listening to “Sexy and I Know it” by LMFAO or “You Make Me Feel…” by Cobra Starship, two bland songs that are currently high on Billboard’s charts, which have obvious electro influence. The production is generic and predictable; however it might be leading people to the real electronic music that feels authentic and euphoric at these music events happening all over the country.  

            As with many things, electronic music in America can be summed up with the popular phrase “one step forward two steps back”.  At the 14^th annual Electric Daisy Carnival in Los Angeles California in 2010 a female died of a suspected overdose. To add insult to injury she was also under the age limit required by the event. The local and national news leapt on the death, feeding on many older people’s imagination that these events are full of crime, drug selling, and drug abuse.  “Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa this week questioned whether such public venues were the right places for kids to party. ‘We're going to have to assess whether or not these events will occur in the future,’ he said (Fifteen-Year-Old Girl Dies After Attending Electric Daisy Carnival Rave; Drug Overdose Suspected, Dennis Romero).” By the time Insomniac (the production company of Electric Daisy Carnival) announced its 2011 event their location had been moved to Las Vegas and it had been clear by them, and by the government in Los Angeles that they weren’t welcome. It can now be said that close to 100,000 people attended the 2010 event, where one person died. It can now also be said that people have died over the past few years at many of America’s biggest music festivals for other types of music, including Bonnaroo for the past two years. 

            To say that California is taking things to serious might be a bit of an understatement. Look no further than a bill proposed by San Francisco Assemblywoman Fiona Ma to, “introduce new legislation that would outlaw raves in California. The text of AB 74 (dubbed “the anti-rave act”) will make it a misdemeanor for anyone to hold a public event with prerecorded music that lasts more than three-and-a-half hours. Possible punishments include a $10,000 fine, or twice the revenue generated by the event — whichever is more (Anti-Rave Legislation Creates a Stir in the Electronic Dance Community, Rachel Swan).”  There’s already a contradiction in the proposed bill. Although many of these DJ’s are playing prerecorded songs, they are mixing songs together and adding effects on top of them to create a unique live experience thus asking the question; what is considered an event with prerecorded music? Its bills like this that further alienates the government and the generation that attends these festivities. It’s important to note that concert goers of EDM are more often than not going for the uplifting music and good times rather than to abuse drugs and commit bad acts. Pasquale Rotella, the founder and chief executive of Insomniac productions took to the opinion section of the LA Times to voice their view.  “Insomniac creates multimillion-dollar productions with top artists like Tiesto (who performed at the opening of the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens) and Will.i.am (who performed for President Obama). Don't know them? Your kids certainly do. Both have also performed at Electric Daisy Carnival, an event that until last year had been held in Los Angeles for 15 years without major incident (Don't trample the Electric Daisy, Rotella).”  For fifteen years this company has produced legal events in America, and it’s only because electronic music is new and unknown too many American’s that it’s under such public scrutiny.  Just from pass experience America should know not to try to block subcultures as they grow, and instead should embrace it. Dance Safe is one such organization that volunteers at festivals all over America, both EDM based and not, in order to determine and raise public awareness in mystery drugs that some patrons would take with or without their help. Rotella later went on to say in the LA Times, “The strenuous objections to our events should sound familiar to anyone who remembers early reactions to rock 'n' roll or hip-hop music. But to suggest, as this newspaper and Coliseum officials have done, that an event such as the Electric Daisy Carnival has no place in Los Angeles is like saying rock concerts should have been banned in California after violence erupted at the Rolling Stones concert in Altamont in 1969 (LA Times, Rotella).”

            For those that argue electronic music doesn’t have the aggression rock n’ roll does, look no further then the outburst of the American dubstep scene. Dubstep is a subgenre of electronic music and is a combination of deep bass and wild sounds. It’s inspiration in American could be metal rock n’ roll. The music sounds as if robots are waging war with each other, while bass is so thick it could knock a house off of its foundation. Just like any genre of music there’s “good” artists and “bad”, but to older parent’s ears it all unintelligible crap, despite the technological know-how it takes to produces this new type of music. Some dubstep is even being thought of as the evolution of hip-hop as the bass is directly inspired by rap and hip-hop production. As the music is reaching more ears it is appealing to more individual tastes.

            Electronic music is most certainly on the rise in popularity and musical status in America. Rock festivals are giving electro acts headlining slots and dive bars across the country are hosting their own individual nights for this music.  Daft Punk just scored the soundtrack for the recently released Tron motion picture.  It can be said that people of all nationality and orientation of this current generation are coming together in finding what they like about this bursting new music scene. Ultra Music Festival 2012 and Electric Daisy Carnival 2012 already have tickets available and are claiming to be selling tickets at an extremely fast rate.  Popular electronic act Pretty Lights has chosen Nashville of all places in America to host his always popular Halloween concert. At this same time more proposed “anti-rave” acts are popping up across the country and city officials are prone to shutting down events just because electronic music will be played at that event. As electronic music will continue to grow in America, to its unknown future, the government will have to decide on what type of role they will want to take in the events produced for this music. It’s all a bit like rock n’ roll when it first sprang up and enveloped the country, and it’s making the youth crazy and the government even crazier.

Works Cited

Books/Magazine Articles

Haden-Guest, Anthony. The Last Party: Studio 54, Disco, and the Culture of the Night. New York: William Morrow, 1997. Print.

Sherburne, Phillip. "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger." Spin Magazine Oct. 2011: 42-53. Web.

Internet Articles

"Anti-Rave Legislation Creates a Stir in the Electronic Dance Community | Ear Bud." Oakland, Berkeley & East Bay Events, Restaurants, Music, Arts & News. 23 Dec. 2010. Web. 20 Sept. 2011. <http://www.eastbayexpress.com/EarBud/archives/2010/12/23/anti-rave-legislation-creates-a-stir-in-the-electronic-dance-community>.

Byrd, Jordy. "More Than a Party." Inlander. 16 Feb. 2011. Web. 20 Sept. 2011. <http://www.inlander.com/spokane/article-16214-more-than-a-party.html>.

Johnny. "Anti-Raves Act Of 2011 Introduced in California State Assembly." Johnny California. 22 Dec. 2010. Web. 20 Sept. 2011. <http://johnnycalifornia.com/2010/12/22/anti-raves-act-of-2011-introduced-in-california-state-assembly/>.

"Lady Gaga Has Made Dance Music Mainstream, DJ Tommie Sunshine Says | News | VH1.com." VH1. 25 Mar. 2010. Web. 09 Oct. 2011. <http://www.vh1.com/news/articles/1634676/20100325/index.jhtml>.

Lewis, Steve. "Five Easy Pieces: The Best Nightclubs in the History of New York City." Blackbook Mag. 26 Aug. 2009. Web. 7 Oct. 2011. <http://www.blackbookmag.com/article/good-night-mr-lewis-five-easy-pieces-the-best-nightclubs-in-the-history-of-/10368>.

Port, Ian S. "Petition To Stop Rave Ban Questions Meaning of 'Prerecorded' Music - San Francisco Music - All Shook Down." The SF Weekly Blogs. 27 Dec. 2010. Web. 20 Sept. 2011. <http://blogs.sfweekly.com/shookdown/2010/12/petition_to_stop_rave_ban_ques.php>.

Rotella, Pasquale. "Electric Daisy Carnival Has Been Unfairly Singled out - Los Angeles Times." Featured Articles From The Los Angeles Times. LA Times, 22 Aug. 2011. Web. 20 Sept. 2011. <http://articles.latimes.com/2011/aug/22/opinion/la-oe-pasquale-electricdaisy-20110822>.

Wiley, Judy. "One Dead, One Critical After Electric Daisy Carnival in Dallas | Billboard.com." Music News, Reviews, Articles, Information, News Online & Free Music | Billboard.com. Billboard, 20 June