What is EDM?

Talk about these days music's genre aren't we?  

So, I've been listening to this music style for awhile and I love it A LOT. Let's share what I love and you can give some thoughts about it okay? and maybe become fan of it so we can be fawning together <3

 

According to wikipedia, Electronic dance music (also known as EDM, dance music, club music, or simply dance) is a broad range of percussive electronic music genres produced primarily for dance-based entertainment environments such as nightclubs, raves, and festivals. The music is largely produced for playback by disc jockeys (DJs) and is generally used in the context of a live DJ mixes where the DJ creates a seamless selection of tracks by segueing from one recording to the next.

The "electronic dance music" and the acronym "EDM" was adopted by the U.S. music industry and music press as a buzzword to describe the increasingly commercial American electronic music scene that developed in the 2000s. In this context, EDM does not refer to a specific genre, but is an umbrella term for a number of popular genres, including house, dubstep, techno, trance, and trap.

The term "electronic dance music" was used in the USA as early as 1985, although the term "dance music" didn't catch on as a blanket term for the genre(s) until the latter-1990s (when its acceptance by the U.S. music industry was signified by the creation of "Dance" music-charts [which continue to this day]; plus, the consistent use of the term "dance music" in reference to artists, in music-review articles). In July 1995, Nervous Records and Project X magazine held their first award ceremony, titled, "Electronic Dance Music Awards."

Writing for The Guardian, journalist Simon Reynolds noted that music industry adoption of the term "EDM" was part of an intentional effort to re-brand (and to sharply differentiate past eras of) "rave culture" in the U.S.—particularly, to "draw [a] line between today's EDM, and '90s Rave". While "EDM" has become the common blanket-term in the U.S., parts of Europe, and online for dance music genres, in the UK the terms, "dance music" or "dance", are more-commonly used.

What is widely perceived to be or defined as, "club music": changes over time; includes different genres, depending on the region and who's making the reference; and, may not always encompass electronic dance music. Similarly, electronic dance music sometimes means different things to different people. Both terms vaguely encompass multiple genres, and sometimes are used as if they were a distinct, unrelated, (respective) genre, unto itself. The distinction is, that club music is ultimately based on what's popular; whereas, electronic dance music is based on attributes of the music itself.

Just as rock, jazz and other musical genres have their own set of subgenres, so does electronic dance music. Continuing to evolve over the past 30 years dance music has splintered off into numerous subgenres often defined by their varying tempo (BPM), rhythm, instrumentation used and time period.

 

Typical tools for EDM production: computer, MIDI keyboard and mixer/sound recorder.

In an April 2014 interview with Tony Andrew, the owner and founder of the Funktion-One sound system explains the critical importance of bass to dance music: Dance music wouldn't be so successful without bass. If you think about it, we've really only had amplified bass for around 50 years. Big bass is only a couple of generations old. Before the invention of speakers that could project true bass frequencies, humans really only came across bass in hazardous situations—for example, when thunder struck, or an earthquake shook, or from explosions caused by dynamite or gunpowder. That is probably why it is by far the most adrenaline-inducing frequency that we have. Bass gets humans excited basically. Below 90 or 100 Hz, bass becomes more of a physical thing. It vibrates specific organs. It vibrates our bones. It causes minor molecular rearrangement, and that is what makes it so potent as a force in dance music. The molecular vibration caused by bass is what gives dance music its power. It is what makes dance music so pleasurable to hear through a proper sound system. Andrew also warns that too much bass, as well as too much sound overall, can be harmful and a "good sound engineer will understand that there is a window between enough sound to give excitement and so much that it is damaging."

 Notable U.S. electronic music festivals include the Ultra Music Festival in Miami, Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas, NYC's Electric zoo, and TomorrowWorld—a spin-off of Belgium's TomorrowLand festival held outside of Atlanta. Rawley Bornstein, an MTV music and talent programmer, described electronic music as "the new rock and roll," as has Lollapalooza organizer Perry Ferrell. Ray Waddell, touring editor at Billboard magazine, noted that festival promoters have done an excellent job at branding
The increasing mainstream prominence of electronic music has also led major multi-genre festivals, such as Lollapolozaa and Coachella, to add more electronic and dance acts to their lineups, along with dedicated, EDM-oriented stages. Even with these accommodations, some major electronic acts, such as Deadmau5 and Calvin Harris respectively, have made appearances on main stages during the final nights of Lollapalooza and Coachella respectively—spots traditionally reserved for prominent non-electronic genres, such as rock and alternative.
A growing number of deaths caused by drug usage—an element carried over from it—have occurred at major festivals in recent years. Following the death of a 15-year-old attendee from an MDMA overdose at EDC Los Angeles in 2010, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum refused to host EDC or any other Insomniac-organized electronic music events, forcing the festival to move to its current home of Las Vegas the following year. Festival founder Pasquale Rotella argued that the death was an isolated incident that did not reflect the experience had by the majority of attendees. In 2013, Electric Zoo's final day was cancelled outright after two attendees died from hyperthermia caused by an overdose of MDMA. In response to these and similar incidents, festivals have employed a larger health and security presence to ensure the safety of attendees, implemented zero tolerance policies, and have partnered with anti-drug advocacy groups.
Drug deaths and other incidents have forced local governments to evaluate whether the risks of hosting EDM events outweigh the economic impact that they can bring to a municipality and its surrounding area: the 2014 Ultra Music Festival brought 165,000 attendees—and over $223 million—to the Miami/ South Florida region's economy.The inaugural TomorrowWorld brought $85.1 million to the Atlanta area — as much revenue as its hosting of the NCAA Final Four earlier in the year..