The mainstream electronic dance music of the second half of the 90’s and early 2000’s is, despite its more than occasional awkwardness, something close to my heart due to nostalgia, and it being around that time I got musically interested to begin with. As a more or less socially retarded kid I spent a lot of time in front of the TV, and much of the time watching MTV, waiting for all the boy and girl groups to shut up for awhile to give room for the EDM around, or what’s popularly known as just techno. Not sure why this style of music held a particular appeal to me, but with it came a childish dream about having full access to any musical record of choice, having fun all day looking for beats/loops/samples etc in a large variety of musical styles and getting and endless stream of aesthetical experiences in the process. Had no idea this would actually pretty soon turn out to be the case.
But enough with the self-indulged nostalgia, where did the whole EDM craze come from to begin with, what was around those days and how well does it stand up to the test of time? The boom in the mid-90’s was really just the peak of a process that had been going on since the rise of electronic disco/new wave in the late 70’s, gradually generating subscenes with a more repetitive and ‘’futuristically de-humanized’’ sound, which apart from individual hits remained mostly an underground phenomena until the boom of rave and house music in the last breath of the 80’s. A large variety of EDM styles went from underground to mainstream, but the two most notable styles of era I’m referring to were
1) Eurodance, feather-light go-lucky pop songs with some structural and sonical foundations of techno. Famous examples are Aqua, Rednex and Venga Boys.
2) Big beat, anthemic, instrumentally/loop-oriented but straight forward and rather heavy sounding dance music. Famous examples are The Prodigy, Fatboy Slim and The Chemical Brothers
Both EDM styles had in their own way been polished throughout years to what appeared to be commercial perfection. In the case of eurodance they rode on the explosion of the prepubescent musical consumer group created pretty much entirely as a result of spice girls releasing their bouncy, colorful and ever so annoying Wannabee single, and took its childishness to the absolute maximum. Most eurodance acts were pure one-hit-per-album studio products created by painfully cynical producers, and the ‘’band members’’ were usually actors who did nothing but act childish/cartoony on music videos. However, despite all childishness it managed to attract a teenage audience by (1 hiding the catchy pop song behind electronic rhythm and sound production which would open up for the singles being played at dance parties and (2 just like in regular pop hiring photo-model looking singers/actors and make them spout sexuality in both music videos and lyrics, sometimes subtle and sometimes blatantly obvious (but of course they passed over the kids head anyway). One more golden rule of producing eurodance was to never, never change a concept that sells. Created a winning concept? Great, reuse it with minimal variation. And just use someone else’s if you can’t come up with one of your own.
As for big beat, you can in short say the style got popular for being EDMs equivalence to blockbusters. Unlike eurodance which tried to please everyone under 18, big beat tried to please insanely large mass of teens and young adults who had turned into electronic dance club enthusiasts at the time, and did just that by using top-notch production values to create big, dumb, anthemic breakbeats/loops which in the minds of the public easily outshine the more mellow forms of EDM (to much annoyance of pseudo-intellectual EDM fans). This ‘’cool’’ bravado also shined through in the genres music videos as demonstrated by the link above. But to be fair, big beat as a scene wasn’t a laboratory product of a team of slicked producers like eurodance. Instead it came out of individual DJs from underground rave scenes who had spent years trying to get noticed and acquiring ‘’the ear’’ necessary to understand what a really addictive beat consists of.
Also from the same era there was trip hop, which is down tempo (sometimes almost ambient) EDM with more experimental breakbeats. Despite being popular it remained mostly the mellow alternative to the even more popular and seemingly more commercially slick party-styled EDM. However (while not being as popular making today), trip hop is the only material from electronic dance music's commercial peak which most people still can listen to with a straight face, and which most popular tracks are still used in commercial contexts. Why is this? Let’s start off with what trip hop didn’t do, as in not shamelessly throwing itself into all of its times trendy aesthetical expressions (speaking both on a visual and musical plane), doomed to forever be associated with an outdated era. Stone death of once-really popular music is the norm. What trip hop did do, though probably unintentionally, was to create a style of music which goes perfectly hand in hand with high-tech products and ‘’mature, moody and serious’’ entertainment media. Perhaps the best example is Teardrop from 1998 by Massive Attack which among other things frequently serves as theme and background music for top-rated American drama shows, non-fiction documentary/news/debate shows and a seemingly endless stream of commercials. Eple by Royksopp is a similar example. These two tracks are just commercial atomic bombs for these clients; They’ve got a polished professional coldness which still has a very warm, welcoming touch which is very hard to achieve but is something trustworthy people feel comfortable around once it’s pulled off well , they put you at ease yet activates your attention at the same time, and perhaps most of all it’s their combination of style and simplicity.
So even though trip hop got silenced by it’s big, dumb brother and sister during it’s prime time, now almost ten years after the mainstream EDM era ended, you can be pretty sure that the most popular trip hop songs has been more financially successful than the most popular eurodance and big beat songs. Slow and steady wins the race after all.
So even though trip hop got silenced by it’s big, dumb brother and sister during it’s prime time, now almost ten years after the mainstream EDM era ended, you can be pretty sure that the most popular trip hop songs has been more financially successful than the most popular eurodance and big beat songs. Slow and steady wins the race after all.
