DJ-driven acts are becoming a big force on the U.S. scene after winning huge fan base in Europe
Swedish House Mafia
Thousands of fans stare at a concert stage, rapt — even though it holds
no singer, rapper, guitarist, bassist, drummer or dancer.
They're entranced by just a guy or two mucking around with knobs, wires and turntables.
Occasionally, blinding flashes of lights and lasers obscure them entirely.
A setup like this — the norm in the shadowy world of electronic dance music — used to limit an act's ability to achieve mainstream success and fame in America.
Now it's becoming a selling point.
In the last few months, the electro-band Swedish House Mafia became the first deejay-driven act to headline the 20,000-capacity Madison Square Garden, the dial-twisting deadmau5 (pronounced dead mouse) broke all records selling out Roseland (six, in all) and "dub-step" artist Skrillex became the first electro-star to bag a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist. It's one of five Grammy bids for the deejay.
This year, dance music's biggest live event, the Electric Daisy Carnival, which took place over three days in Las Vegas last June, drew its most robust numbers ever: more than 223,000 fans. That's nearly three times the numbers drawn by far higher-profile, pan-genre festivals like Coachella and Bonnaroo.
Such numbers used to be possible only in the U.K. or Europe, which hosts long-running, super-size dance events like the multicity Love Parade, Amsterdam's Dance Valley and Britain's Cocoon in the Park Festival.
"Finally, it's become an explosion over here," says Patrick Moxey, head of Ultra Music, for whom deadmau5 records. "I've been doing this since 1996 and watching it grow. It's similar to the birth of disco."
Remarkably, much of the music snapping at the heels of super-fame today has a far more radical sound than its disco antecedent.
In fact, one of the most radical branches of club music has been earning the highest profile — the Americanized version of dub-step. While that style began a full decade ago in South London as a more nuanced, bass-heavy style, the migration to the U.S. greatly butched up its sound. (This explains why some refer to it, snidely, as "bro-step.")
"It's a far more testosterone-fueled sound over here," says Jim Tremayne, longtime editor of DJ Times. "It's far more over-the-top."
Yet that very quality provided the bridge for American rock fans, who recognized in it a parallel level of force. In fact, dub-step artist DJ Skrillex (who plays Pacha on Thursday, Roseland Friday and Webster Hall Saturday) started his career as a rocker. It's those snarling dynamics he brought to the world of dance.
They're entranced by just a guy or two mucking around with knobs, wires and turntables.
Occasionally, blinding flashes of lights and lasers obscure them entirely.
A setup like this — the norm in the shadowy world of electronic dance music — used to limit an act's ability to achieve mainstream success and fame in America.
Now it's becoming a selling point.
In the last few months, the electro-band Swedish House Mafia became the first deejay-driven act to headline the 20,000-capacity Madison Square Garden, the dial-twisting deadmau5 (pronounced dead mouse) broke all records selling out Roseland (six, in all) and "dub-step" artist Skrillex became the first electro-star to bag a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist. It's one of five Grammy bids for the deejay.
This year, dance music's biggest live event, the Electric Daisy Carnival, which took place over three days in Las Vegas last June, drew its most robust numbers ever: more than 223,000 fans. That's nearly three times the numbers drawn by far higher-profile, pan-genre festivals like Coachella and Bonnaroo.
Such numbers used to be possible only in the U.K. or Europe, which hosts long-running, super-size dance events like the multicity Love Parade, Amsterdam's Dance Valley and Britain's Cocoon in the Park Festival.
"Finally, it's become an explosion over here," says Patrick Moxey, head of Ultra Music, for whom deadmau5 records. "I've been doing this since 1996 and watching it grow. It's similar to the birth of disco."
Remarkably, much of the music snapping at the heels of super-fame today has a far more radical sound than its disco antecedent.
In fact, one of the most radical branches of club music has been earning the highest profile — the Americanized version of dub-step. While that style began a full decade ago in South London as a more nuanced, bass-heavy style, the migration to the U.S. greatly butched up its sound. (This explains why some refer to it, snidely, as "bro-step.")
"It's a far more testosterone-fueled sound over here," says Jim Tremayne, longtime editor of DJ Times. "It's far more over-the-top."
Yet that very quality provided the bridge for American rock fans, who recognized in it a parallel level of force. In fact, dub-step artist DJ Skrillex (who plays Pacha on Thursday, Roseland Friday and Webster Hall Saturday) started his career as a rocker. It's those snarling dynamics he brought to the world of dance.
Then again, a similar connection promised to bring a crossover
dance-music trend in the past — only to fizzle out fast. After the
collapse of grunge in the late '90s, so-called electronica was meant to
be the "new rock." While pummeling and synth-happy acts of that era,
like the Chemical Brothers, Fat Boy Slim and Prodigy, enjoyed mainstream hits for a while, they soon slunk back to the dance demimonde.
Promoters like Moxey see a big difference between then and now. "Back then, dance music was still so much on the outside," he says. "We were fighting to get it on radio and on video stations. Nobody wanted to know."
Things got worse, says Tremayne, after 9/11, when law enforcement increased on all fronts, cracking down on the
often drug-fueled world of raves.
‘They made it difficult to throw the larger rave parties," he says, "so it went back underground to the clubs."
In the meantime, a revolution happened: the Internet,
"It was the perfect place for our videos to go viral," Moxey says.
That meant companies didn't have to force the music on people. It could take on a life of its own.
"With the Internet, tastes are being shared in an unfiltered way," says Tremayne. "It wasn't a matter of corporate force-feeding. It grew organically."
At the same time, promoters began to find they had an easier time booking one-off, gigantic electro festivals than sustaining regular nights at scores of clubs.
"It takes as much energy to organize one giant show as to try to do 300 nights," says Jen Lyon, who books deejays around the city as well as the annual Brooklyn Electronic Festival.
The shift from clubs to fests boosted big shows, like Hard in Los Angeles (which spawned a U.S. tour), Ultra in Miami (which went from two to three days this year, drawing more than 100,000) and the Electric Daisy in Vegas. Such events made electro's reach easier to measure.
A new documentary about the scope of the phenomenon, "Re-Generation Music Project," will play at 170 theaters across the country on Feb. 16 (at the Clearview Chelsea and the AMC Empire 25 Theaters in NYC). It features big names in this world from Skrillex to Mark Ronson to the Crystal Method.
"Ten or 15 years ago, raves were seen as dirty, underground and hidden," says Lyon. "But those who grew up with Twitter and Facebook are more comfortable about making their edginess public. They accept every element of their lives and their flaws, so they're quicker to the party."
The rise of video games, which usually boast electro soundtracks, also upped the profile of this sound. But a stronger boost came when mainstream R&B and hip hop started moving in a more club-friendly direction.
Promoters like Moxey see a big difference between then and now. "Back then, dance music was still so much on the outside," he says. "We were fighting to get it on radio and on video stations. Nobody wanted to know."
Things got worse, says Tremayne, after 9/11, when law enforcement increased on all fronts, cracking down on the
often drug-fueled world of raves.
‘They made it difficult to throw the larger rave parties," he says, "so it went back underground to the clubs."
In the meantime, a revolution happened: the Internet,
"It was the perfect place for our videos to go viral," Moxey says.
That meant companies didn't have to force the music on people. It could take on a life of its own.
"With the Internet, tastes are being shared in an unfiltered way," says Tremayne. "It wasn't a matter of corporate force-feeding. It grew organically."
At the same time, promoters began to find they had an easier time booking one-off, gigantic electro festivals than sustaining regular nights at scores of clubs.
"It takes as much energy to organize one giant show as to try to do 300 nights," says Jen Lyon, who books deejays around the city as well as the annual Brooklyn Electronic Festival.
The shift from clubs to fests boosted big shows, like Hard in Los Angeles (which spawned a U.S. tour), Ultra in Miami (which went from two to three days this year, drawing more than 100,000) and the Electric Daisy in Vegas. Such events made electro's reach easier to measure.
A new documentary about the scope of the phenomenon, "Re-Generation Music Project," will play at 170 theaters across the country on Feb. 16 (at the Clearview Chelsea and the AMC Empire 25 Theaters in NYC). It features big names in this world from Skrillex to Mark Ronson to the Crystal Method.
"Ten or 15 years ago, raves were seen as dirty, underground and hidden," says Lyon. "But those who grew up with Twitter and Facebook are more comfortable about making their edginess public. They accept every element of their lives and their flaws, so they're quicker to the party."
The rise of video games, which usually boast electro soundtracks, also upped the profile of this sound. But a stronger boost came when mainstream R&B and hip hop started moving in a more club-friendly direction.
That began with the dance-pop hits of the Black Eyed Peas (boosted by their association with French club maven David Guetta). In the time since, pop stars like Rihanna, Pitbull and Lady Gaga
have put booty-shaking beats all over the radio. Right now, Guetta has a
No. 1 digital hit in the U.S. with "Turn Me On." (He headlines Roseland
Feb. 9).
"Hip hop and R&B felt the energy coming out of the dance world and they adopted it," Moxey says. "All other genres started feeding into this, like a metal band like Korn [which worked with Skrillex]. That let the whole thing grow faster."
Then again, Korn's dub-step-influenced album, released in November, bombed. In general, album sales for hard-core electronic music haven't kept pace with their pop brethren. Though Nielsen-SoundScan figures put the genre's sales up 15% over 2010, a large part of that increase comes not from arch deejays like Skrillex but cover girls like Lady Gaga. Even top stars like deadmau5 sell only in the low hundred thousands in the U.S.
The genre does far better with single sales, moving millions for artists like Yolanda Be Cool, Edward Maya and Alexandra Stan.
Despite all the rah-rah talk for its live shows (the form's real draw), Lyon sees a ceiling to it. "This is still specific music," she says. "It will grow in the next couple of years, but we'll max out."
Boosters like Moxey, however, remain stalwart.
"This music has captured the 16-to-20-year-olds," he says. "It's their rock 'n' roll, their revolution. And that cannot be stopped."
Credit : NY Daily News
"Hip hop and R&B felt the energy coming out of the dance world and they adopted it," Moxey says. "All other genres started feeding into this, like a metal band like Korn [which worked with Skrillex]. That let the whole thing grow faster."
Then again, Korn's dub-step-influenced album, released in November, bombed. In general, album sales for hard-core electronic music haven't kept pace with their pop brethren. Though Nielsen-SoundScan figures put the genre's sales up 15% over 2010, a large part of that increase comes not from arch deejays like Skrillex but cover girls like Lady Gaga. Even top stars like deadmau5 sell only in the low hundred thousands in the U.S.
The genre does far better with single sales, moving millions for artists like Yolanda Be Cool, Edward Maya and Alexandra Stan.
Despite all the rah-rah talk for its live shows (the form's real draw), Lyon sees a ceiling to it. "This is still specific music," she says. "It will grow in the next couple of years, but we'll max out."
Boosters like Moxey, however, remain stalwart.
"This music has captured the 16-to-20-year-olds," he says. "It's their rock 'n' roll, their revolution. And that cannot be stopped."
Credit : NY Daily News
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