Coachella. Bonnaroo. Ultra. Electric Forest. Governor’s Ball. Holy Ship. These are all festivals. Yes – some are cut from a different cloth, but what unites them all within this context is that their lineups, at least in more recent years, express the ideology that dance music has impacted our culture in the most monumental way since the First Wave in the early 90’s.
The impact, however, is starting to become clearer as the dust has begun settling since the Second Wave approached U.S. shores a little more than 5 years ago. Dance music has been turned into “#EDM” by the mainstream press: a term that is both brilliant and blunt in its execution as it waters down an entire history for sake of easy consumption by a new generation of fans grown used to streamlined everything. And while it could be argued that the Internet has shaped this mentality of persistent gorging of what’s new and hot as soon as it drops, corporate America is also partially to blame as it not only caught on to the potential of dance music, but it fed billions of dollars into the industry. This was showcased in 2012 via the blatant advertisement for Absolut vodka that was Swedish House Mafia’s “Greyhound”: a music video and single designed around a product which could then be consumed by the very niche who enjoy the music in the very environment they enjoy it in i.e. the average clubgoer hanging out in the average club.
It is moves like “Greyhound” that have cemented #EDM into the mainstream consciousness and some have argued that this has ruined dance music culture. As it has become a product to be consumed, dance music has shifted into a culture that feeds off this aforementioned hyper activity and relentless need to go as hard and as fast as possible. And it’s starting to hit the ceiling. As mainstream audiences crave something newer and more exciting – while still participating in this megastructure of short blasts of high-octane rushes of music – the underground infrastructure of dance is beginning to get tapped into over major acts like Steve Aoki, David Guetta, or Deadmau5 (all of which had successful, but somewhat underwhelming years in 2014 despite previous successes in years prior). Some say that this is a sign that #EDM is dying; instead, it’s being renegotiated.
Sure, major headliners of years past like Sebastian Ingrosso or Afrojack are still a draw. However, the focus of the mainstream seems to have shifted towards acts like MK, Duke Dumont, and the like. And while their cache is still grounded in the underground market and they aren’t exactly Top 40 draws – at least here in the U.S. – names like these are beginning to get passed around more and more frequently as the Internet-obsessed, hungry youth are looking for something else. And that something else, the underground scene, happens to be rooted in traditions from music’s past which explains colossal hits like Mark Ronson’s “Uptown Funk” or Disclosure’s “Latch” which borrow heavily from dance music’s roots. But this could be harmful.
In a way, it’s good because it leads to exposure for new artists and curators that would have otherwise continued to stay at an acceptable, albeit stagnant, level of success. And for some artists, that’s more than okay considering the majority of underground DJs, like Seth Troxler, who is vehemently against capitalism’s perversion of dance culture, are more interested in the music being shared than the glamour of being on a main stage. However, with this level of exposure does comes unwarranted evolution and it can kill a culture.
Looking at festivals now, the majority of attendees are primarily a sea of faces that all match a certain pedigree of grass fed American i.e. social class, mentality, etc. However, the roots of dance music, particularly the underground scene, is known by some – but not the masses – as being more diverse than that picture. It’s potentially a sign of spinning the culture into something for those very masses; the masses, in this context, not being for everyone, but for the very circles the mass media markets products to; this is specifically the “white, middle class.” It could very well be one major marketing ploy. And that can be detrimental to the legacy dance music has and, more importantly, what the underground dance music community has been able to maintain at least until this point. And by marketing that talent in a manner like what you would get from a major festival, which is constructed out of the very fibers of capitalism and easy consumption of media, it takes the inclusivity of dance music and spins it into something exclusive and available only to those who have the means of obtaining said experience (especially considering the restrictions some festivals put on performers and DJs looking to play club dates in similar markets within certain time frames. Looking at you, Firefly).
It’s volatile, dangerous, and shows a blatant disregard to what dance music used to be able to achieve. In some ways, the movement can still capture that feeling for some, but it’s lost some of its punch and the scene is continuing to lose that punch. Festivals wash that identity away and our culture is feeding into that cleansing. And with the current identity of #EDM fading away in favor of these ‘newer’ talents, there could very well be nothing left other than a shell of what the culture used to be.
Festivals will have killed the underground stars.