Important Is The Emotion That Creates Music

   “EDM” has been popular in the music scene lately. EDM stands for “electronic dance music” and it’s a generic name for dance music like house music, dubstep, techno, trance and electro. In recent years, DJs from European countries like England that have a deep-rooted nightclub culture have begun to offer their music to American artists.

 That’s how EDM has begun gaining popularity in the United States. “I Gotta Feeling” by Black Eyed Peas released in 2009 was created by David Guetta reputed as the best DJ in the world. It became a big hit and topped the U.S. charts for 14 weeks running.

 Now 240,000 people attended Electric Daisy Carnival, an EDM festival, and some EDM artists were featured on the cover of famous music magazines like Rolling Stone and Billboard. Symbolic of the EDM rage is Skrillex, a 24 year-old American DJ who won the Grammy award.

 It is quite interesting that EDM is economically efficient and viable in the present recession-hit music business. EDM artists don’t need as much recording studio cost, instruments cost and time for recording as rock bands, for instance. And it’s easier for them to go on a tour. Skrillex once said, “My recording studio has only a laptop and headphone.”

 Another factor behind their growing popularity is that they release their songs for free on the Internet. This has allowed more people to listen to their music and led more fans to attend their gigs. The traditional way in which artists perform their music has now become almost pointless. The EDM scene is expanding in keeping with the burst of SNS (social networking service) like Twitter and Facebook.

 However, there are some criticisms against EDM. A typical critic says, “You must express music by singing and playing by yourselves.” But Skrillex hits back at such criticism. “Just as the Ramones use only four chords, it doesn’t matter whatever ways of expression you choose. More important is the emotion that creates music,” he said.

 Whether EDM is going to replace Rock, Pop and Hip-Hop needs to be watched with more attetion.

Written by: Riku Saito