Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Electronic Music: Welcome, Enjoy Your Stay



America is weird. (As if you didn't know that.) In fact, it's REALLY weird. What makes it so weird is that it's the only industrialized country that hasn't consciously embraced electronic music yet. Elsewhere, club music dominates the media, and club music tends to be Electronic Dance Music (EDM). Each culture has local flavors: Germans like techno, Israelis like Middle-eastern flavored dance, and everybody enjoys a good house set. The common element is that the music is electronic -- fed to the masses by DJs instead of performed by bands -- and designed specifically for dancing.

America has, however, subconsciously embraced electronic music. Car commercials, movie action scenes... hell, I even heard someone play Paul Oakenfold at a hockey game to pump up the crowd -- and they loved it!

Electronic music is a genre as amazing and diverse an any other. My intent, with this series (hell yes, it's a series!!) is to lead you gentle yet irreversibly down the electronic path. Because, when it boils down to it, there's tons of good stuff. Furthermore, EDM gives me something different, fulfills me in a different way than rock or classical music. My hope in the short term is to get you to appreciate EDM, but the long-term project is to encourage you to become more aware of your own wants and needs as a listener.

Before I make any true recommendations, we need to give you a primer. EDM 101, if you will.

Here it is, Ishkur's guide to electronic music.
Clear your schedule.

If you're hungry for some track recommendations, here's a few gems from the first artist I plan on profiling in the next installment: BT.

BT:
Flaming June (bt vs pvd edit)
Remember
Dreaming
Running Down the Way Up
Never Gonna Come Back Down

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