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I'll be honest, I'm a dance music fanatic and when I picked up the DS10, it was with the intention of making dance music, not chiptunes.
Now this guy gets it. That's my goal.
Maybe this is an age thing, but if you study the history of electronic music, it's not hard to understand why the term "EDM" exists. "Dance" music has always existed, used to describe a style of music that had some kind of formal dance to go along with it (look at Sketchman3's list, almost all of those are also the names of a style of dance), while early electronic music started out as reinterpretations of classical music (see: Hooked on Bach), therefore, it was not dance music, just like most video game soundtracks are not dance music either.
digging deeper into actual genres, house and techno started out simultaneously with 2 very different directions, house being heavily influenced by disco and motown via samples, and techno being heavily influenced by early computer synthesis... but to be honest, early techno and house still had a lot in common, and it wasn't long before the two influenced each other.
more recently, even dubstep and its predecessors dub / garage were based on dance music that predated electronics. the history of jamaican dub is really interesting to study, as something that was originally entirely acoustic, producers started bringing synthesizers and drum machines into the studio for the purpose of recreating what was originally done acoustically, but also to unlock the almost limitless potential for sound design that these new devices offered.
most recently it's interesting seeing the evolution of brostep as a form of EDM, being that headbanging and skanking originated from rock music, and a lot of brostep producers have their roots in various styles of rock.
tl;dr yes, acoustic dance music has always been a thing
I like dance music, but it's not a genre that really connects with me, I find a bit too one sided in its approach (it is fulfilling a specific need after all) , and when it does connect it's usually a cheap thrill that dries up quickly. Though there are always exceptions to any rule, for an example, x|k's Nestek and Outra still get me like they did the first time I listened, and hundreds of listens later I still adore it.
Last edited by AndrewKilpatrick (Jun 27, 2012 8:00 pm)
I like music that sounds good, it doesn't matter if the melody is complex or if the instruments are whatever. It's all about how the song actually sounds.
This and I like most electronic music, EDM or not. I like old dubstep just as much as I like good brostep, drumstep, anythingstep. Again, as long as something is good (which means that everything in the song works together), I like it, regardless of genre. That's still pretty subjective, but I find a lot of new songs, artists, and styles that I never thought I'd like, specifically because I'm looking at content, not categories.
I do like certain genres more than others. I got really into Goa a few months ago, getting back into drum/brostep now. I've always liked House (Chicago and French), IDM has always just been a bit too...weird for me. I dunno, I could just never get into it. A few rare exceptions here and there, but mainly House, general Techno, (Goa) Trance, *step, breakbeat, gabber, hardcore, happy hardcore (like Renard), and other good music.
I'll rattle off some genres:
Techno,
house,
Jamaican Dancehall,
IDM,
Dubstep,
Dnb,
Disco,
Trance,
Industrial,
Hip-hop,
Pop,
etc.
I could go deeper into sub-genres and fusion-genres as well.
Also, to all you people talking about acoustic dance music, wouldn't things like waltz music count?
I like dance music, but it's not a genre that really connects with me
I feel the same way when it comes to most dance music. There's very few Gameboy artists who I think can pull it off. Abortifacient and BEASTMODE would be a couple, although I suppose it's spazzing jumping music more than dancing. I don't think any more popular dance artists appeal to me, except perhaps a bunch of IDM. Wish more Gameboy musicians would go the hardcore route.
Commodores and Ataris would be the only exceptions, they can go as fluffy as they want~<3
Also, to all you people talking about acoustic dance music, wouldn't things like waltz music count?
Jellica wrote:barn dance music
Waltz
But let's not get caught up on technicalities.
Has anybody here ever played an old Win95/98 game called "Scorcher"? I'm not a huge fan of repetitive four-beats-strong music that starts off with a cool syncopated beat in the intro then just falls back into the four-the-floor-for-the-most-part beat, but I love me that Scorcher soundtrack. The game was okay, too, but the OST has definitely out-lived it in terms of play-time.
Has anybody here ever played an old Win95/98 game called "Scorcher"? I'm not a huge fan of repetitive four-beats-strong music that starts off with a cool syncopated beat in the intro then just falls back into the four-the-floor-for-the-most-part beat, but I love me that Scorcher soundtrack. The game was okay, too, but the OST has definitely out-lived it in terms of play-time.
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFA85898EC777F0C4
man, that's from the golden years when trance was in all the game soundtracks. I wish those years never ended.
SketchMan3 wrote:Has anybody here ever played an old Win95/98 game called "Scorcher"? I'm not a huge fan of repetitive four-beats-strong music that starts off with a cool syncopated beat in the intro then just falls back into the four-the-floor-for-the-most-part beat, but I love me that Scorcher soundtrack. The game was okay, too, but the OST has definitely out-lived it in terms of play-time.
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFA85898EC777F0C4
man, that's from the golden years when trance was in all the game soundtracks. I wish those years never ended.
Trance is great in games, and this soundtrack is fantastic so far.
The only reason I used the term EDM was to kind of narrow the talk from dance music (which is technically all music depending on how you want to talk about it) to what is considered mainstream dance music today. I mean I fsking love The Rapture, !!!, and the rest of them dancepunk goons but I wanted to talk about the way we think about stuff like electro house, trance, prog house, dubstep, etc. I don't really want to get into semantics about what "dance music" entails so that's why I'm trying to narrow it down to what we (admittedly unfortunately) call EDM. Basically -- we should step away from labels and talk about EDM as a form and aesthetic.
What about Daft Punk's "Discovery" or the Glitch Mob's "Drink the Sea"?
I haven't listened to the Glitch Mob album, but I'm going to say that I really can't get through a full listen of Discovery without skipping a few songs. There are albums that I can just sit down and put on and listen to all the way through, but Discovery definitely isn't one of them. I have this weird hypothesis that it has to do with authorship and how dance music approaches it differently than rock music but that's for another time. Daft Punk is a very singles-driven group and while they have basically made the perfect pop song, they can't really cut it when it comes to an entire album for me 
I'm going to answer with the I like music that sounds good approach. < This is of foremost importance to me, it doesn't matter if the melody is complex or if the instruments are whatever. It's all about how the song actually sounds.
I agree with you, but I feel like it's valuable to talk about the specific techniques to distill a form out of the huge amount of music we're barraged with so then we can talk about new music in terms of whether it is ACTUALLY boundary-breaking or if it's just a really well-executed statement of form. I think the reason why Skrillex is a taboo subject around here is because he doesn't do anything with the "form" of dubstep, however, he executes REALLY well in his little niche of brostep...which is a niche that none of us are interested in, it seems like. He's just not very complex if your approach in analyzing him is from the perspective of aesthetic value -- "wub wub wub" is cool for about 3 minutes before it gets grating. But from a sound design perspective, looking from the outside in (I'm not good at sound design by any means) Skrillex is pretty interesting, just in the sense that he is able to operate almost atonally and still be called dance music. (Though Huoratron does what Skrillex is trying to do like a million times better)
I like dance music, but it's not a genre that really connects with me, I find a bit too one sided in its approach (it is fulfilling a specific need after all) , and when it does connect it's usually a cheap thrill that dries up quickly.
What do you think is "one sided" about the approach? I'm genuinely interested, because I think that a lot of modern EDM these days is "one-sided," as you say -- however, I think it's hard to justify an entire form as one-sided, mostly because in order to do that you have to 1. Define where dance music is trying to get and then 2. Define the approach to that aesthetic space as "one-sided." It's true that mainstream EDM lacks complexity most of the time, but I think that has to do with the "popification" of dance music (or the "dancification" of pop music) more than the form itself.
@Scorcher OST:
Wait... that's Trance? Wow, all this time I thought Trance was just that LFO heavy synth-choir "dika-duu-dika-duu-dika-duu-dika-duu" stuff. I didn't realize Trance was so multi-faceted. Cool.
I remember reading the manual and seeing the composer's notes on the soundtrack. I thought it was pretty cool that they gave him the space to say a few words about it.
Last edited by SketchMan3 (Jun 27, 2012 8:42 pm)
Somebody must inform me about Electro Swing with breakbeats
@spacetownsavio
So Skrillex is a kind of dubstep/brostep Mozart? Interesting.
For what it's worth, I really like the two songs I've heard from Skrillex. They have cool melodies, and the wubs have interesting rhythms. I prefer the "live" covers by Pinpanel, though.
I don't prefer music that is solely based off of sound design though tbh. Great for dance parties;which are fun. Non confrontational and choice to get mindlessly physical to, but as a producer just not my thing. I love themes, and when people use different styles as just an element.
Most people( mainly non-musicians) just want something that sounds good so they can dance, which I totally get.
If I were to end up at a rave I'd choose Gabber, Breakcore, because i like hyper active distorted garbage. Acid hits home for me, crawly synth lines with filter automation gives me a boner; and braindance which i feel derives from acid. Its like acid on acid
Wait... that's Trance? Wow, all this time I thought Trance was just that LFO heavy synth-choir "dika-duu-dika-duu-dika-duu-dika-duu" stuff. I didn't realize Trance was so multi-faceted. Cool.
Yeah, it seems like this misunderstanding is the problem with a lot of the discussion being had about dance music these days, much more so than in any other kind of music. The style you're talking about is what I like to call "TRANCE-AS-FUCK," whereas a lot of artists that would normally be labeled trance are doing way more interesting stuff than that. That's probably the official term for the style, btw
The thing is that people only seem to be willing to talk about these forms on the terms of their most prominent artists, which is why so many people dismiss dubstep out of hand, but then Burial exists: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlEkvbRmfrA
(ironically, Burial is probably the person that cares the least about what dubstep is or isn't)
I'm just really interested in why this is -- like when did artists embody a form SO WELL that other people will dismiss the entire form on the basis of a handful of artists? Or even a single technique? I mean, I think a lot of it has to do with the function that dance music serves -- it's meant to move people to explore their physicality in different ways, so a person will explore a physical space differently when dancing to trance than when dancing to dubstep, and a rejection of a form of this music is similar to rejecting a form of physicality, which is easy to do when listening to dance music because it's easy to imagine yourself dancing to said music? That's just a guess, and it doesn't take into account the music that's separated from dance, like modern interpretive dance often is.