Reader Question: What Genre of Dance Music Should Someone Who is Unfamiliar with EDM Listen To?
22, Oct, 2012
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For someone who is unfamiliar with EDM but wants to listen to it, finding the right gateway genre can feel like a difficult task. There are so many different genres to choose from like trance, dubstep, progressive house and hardcore. My suggestion for someone who wants to get into the genre is to listen to electro-house, as the genre has been on the most popular genres of dance music for the past four years or so and is hugely influential in pop music.
Today’s pop music market is saturated with dance-pop and electro-pop, both of which are influenced largely by electro-house. Songs like Ke$ha’s “Die Young“, RIhanna’s “We Found Love“, and Nicki Minaj’s “Pound the Alarm” are all successful pop songs, reaching the top ten on the music charts and are largely influence by electro-house as they all have a fast, steady beat accompanied by plenty of synthesizers, buildups and breakdowns. With such an influence in pop music, getting into electro-house will not be difficult because of the many similarities between the two genres.
Along with the influence electro-house has over pop music, several electro-house DJs are in-demand producers for pop artists. David Guetta produced the Black Eyed Peas smash hit “I Gotta Feeling“, Zedd is said to be working on Lady Gaga’s next album and co-produced Justin Bieber’s “Beauty and a Beat” and Afrojack produced Pitbull’s international No. 1 single “Give Me Everything.” Such demand for electro-house DJs displays the genre’s accessibility and compatibili
Electro-house songs mostly have vocalists that are either high or low profile, sing over the track rather than have the song be a purely instrumental piece. For instance Swedish House Mafia had one of the most successful hip-hop producers Pharrell Williams do vocals for their hit song “One (Your Name)“. Other high profile musicians such as Florence Welch, Nicki Minaj, Kelly Rowland, Ne-Yo, Akon, will.i.am and Fergie have provided vocals for tracks in the electro-house genre. Songs in other genres, such as trance, tend to not have any vocals at all and are purely instrumental, thus limiting its appeal for those who want vocals in their tracks.
Additionally, many electro-house songs have edited versions that play more like a top-40 song in terms of length. Other genres of dance music like deep house, progressive trance, and hardstyle tend to have their songs last longer than four minutes, which is too long for the casual listener of dance music or someone who wants to get into the genre itself.
I hope this helps anyone who is curious about dance music to get them interested and enjoy the what dance music has to offer.
Photo Source: WIkipedia Commons