A Brief Introduction to Electronic Music

Original Version

When thinking about electronic music, what most people picture in their minds is probably a massive neon-and-foam party, or maybe the last David Guetta single that sounds everywhere, from radio stations to television ads, or the catchy beat from a 90’s eurobeat hit. Nowadays, electronic music has become an umbrella term for all the above mentioned common places, but much more at the same time; if for a long time it was the core around which different distinguishable sub-cultures organized, these days, whether we notice it or not, almost everything that radio stations play has digitally-generated elements in it. In this essay I will briefly examine how a musical genre that firstly emerged as part of an avant-garde movement has reached such a widespread influence and has become so omnipresent that we hardly notice in its full extent how important it is for the current musical production.

The origins of electronic music can be traced back to the first decades of the twentieth century. In the 1920’s, musicians had already began exploring the possibilities of experimenting with different instruments to create synthetic sounds. However, these initiatives led to innovations that were more technological than musical, and even though later developments would have been impossible without these early enthusiasts’ contributions, the configuration of a proper electronic music scene would have to wait till the early seventies. Of course, this is nutshell history; especially if we acknowledge the amazing development of production techniques in the 60’s and how forward-thinking musicians and producers started incorporating the innovative studio techniques such as tape manipulation and sampling as one more instrument (see The Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows”).

It was in Germany, throughout the whole decade of the 70’s, where a group of artists of the so-called “krautrock” scene started experimenting with electronic sounds. Most of the bands associated with this avant-garde movement had little in common in terms of their sound, but all of them shared a taste for experimentation and the integration of technology in the creation of music. Faust, Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Neu! and Can, each of them with its own particular style, were pioneer bands that not only developed new sounds or innovative production techniques (many of this bands even crafted their own instruments), but they also changed the way in which people thought of music.

The influence of this first wave of electronic bands throughout Europe was huge during the next two decades, and it was not limited to a particular genre: Joy Division incorporated Kraftwerk-like robotic beats into punk music to create a menacing and martial sound (“Isolation”); New Order crafted atypical pop songs that people could dance to (“Blue Monday”), Pink Floyd mixed synthesizers with prog-rock (“On the Run”, “Any Colour You Like”); David Bowie’s art-rock prefigured many sub-genres of electronic music in his Berlin Trilogy; and Afrika Bambataa single-handedly set the foundations of rap culture (his classic hip-hop hit “Planet Rock” samples Kraftwerk’s  “Trans-Europe Express”). As many of the artists and bands that were influenced by the first-wavers become influential (sometimes genre-founders) themselves, the prominence of digitally-generated elements in the music of a variety of different musical scenes was greater and greater as time went by.

However, the popularization of a particular kind of electronic music, namely dance music, did not take place until the end of the 1980’s. By that time, electronic music had held sway over most of the music that the decade is remembered for, from Maddona to the Talking Heads, but it was always as the added element to an already existing musical style, whether it was pop, funk, or rock. What changed with the coming of the new decade was that dance music and all its different sub-genres, were a kind of music evidently and almost exclusively made up of synthetic sounds. The repetitive, trance-inducing patterns of the music, the appearance of the figure of the DJ (acronym for Disc Jockey), the clandestine celebration of massive underground parties in different urban and rural spaces, and the popularization of the so-called designer drugs were all factors that finally crystallized in the emergence in England of what would be known as rave culture.

Needless to say, this popular scene became a pop culture referent immediately identifiable and associable to a specific period of time (late 80’s and early 90’s), and was quickly exported to the rest of the world. The Love Parade, a massive street party that took place until 2010 in Germany and, on a number of occasions, in other countries such as Venezuela and Chile, is probably the most well-know of the rave-inspired electronic parties. Thus, the fact that dance music was the first contact of the general public with electronic music may explain why people often equate electronic music with dance music. Although electronic music had already become important within a considerable number of underground youth subcultures, it still remained part of specific niches and hadn’t had yet a great impact on mainstream culture.

The 1990’s saw the emergence of a series of acts that took the general public’s recent familiarization with electronic music as a starting point to create sounds that were essentially electronic, but that were not (necessarily) meant to be boogied away on the dancefloor. Björk, Portishead and Aphex Twins, to name a few, started blending different genres in order to find new possibilities and mediums for the creation of music, just like the former krautrock bands had done almost twenty years ago. Thus electronic music was revitalized through continuous experimentation in the search of originality, and new genres emerged: trip-hop, IDM (intelligent dance music), ambient, big beat, etc. Even classically trained avant-garde musicians such as John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen took elements from electronic music and incorporated them into their own pieces.

Nowadays, the influence of electronic music can be found almost everywhere in the current musical production. While the more radical and experimental styles remain unknown to the general public, the latest radio hits certainly owe a lot more to electronic music than one would notice at a first listening. Hits songs by best-seller acts such as The Black-Eyed Peace, Lady Gaga and Rihanna are all heavily indebted to electronic music.

As it usually happens with ahead-of-their-time movements, the avant-garde impulse that fuelled the creation of the first pieces of electronic music has been assimilated into mass culture to an extent that nowadays we almost do not notice its presence. What little more than forty years ago was a radical initiative to break new paths that would push musical language to its limits (making music with machines?) has become part of our everyday musical landscape.

Aplying the Lanham Method

When thinking about electronic music, what most people picture in their minds is probably a massive neon-and-foam party, or maybe the last David Guetta single that sounds everywhere, from radio stations to television ads, or the catchy beat from a 90’s eurobeat hit. Nowadays, electronic music has become an umbrella term, but much more: the core around which different distinguishable sub-cultures are organized. In this essay I will briefly examine how a musical genre that firstly emerged as part of an avant-garde movement has reached such a widespread influence and has become so omnipresent that we hardly notice in its full extent how important it is for the current musical production.

In the 1920’s, electronic music appeared and musicians began exploring the possibilities of experimenting with different instruments to create synthetic sounds. However, these initiatives led to innovations that were more technological than musical, and even though later developments would have been impossible without these early enthusiasts’ contributions, the configuration of a proper electronic music scene would have to wait till the early seventies. Of course, this is nutshell history; especially if we acknowledge the amazing development of production techniques in the 60’s and how forward-thinking musicians and producers started incorporating the innovative studio techniques such as tape manipulation and sampling as one more instrument (see The Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows”).

It was in Germany, throughout the whole decade of the 70’s, where a group of artists of the so-called “krautrock” scene started experimenting with electronic sounds. Most of the bands associated with this avant-garde movement had little in common in terms of their sound, but all of them shared a taste for experimentation and the integration of technology in the creation of music. Faust, Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Neu! and Can, each of them with its own particular style, were pioneer bands that not only developed new sounds or innovative production techniques (many of this bands even crafted their own instruments), but they also changed the way in which people thought of music.

The influence of first wave of electronic bands throughout Europe was huge during the next two decades, and it was not limited to a particular genre: Joy Division incorporated Kraftwerk-like robotic beats into punk music to create a menacing and martial sound (“Isolation”); New Order crafted atypical pop songs that people could dance to (“Blue Monday”), Pink Floyd mixed synthesizers with prog-rock (“On the Run”, “Any Colour You Like”); David Bowie’s art-rock prefigured many sub-genres of electronic music in his Berlin Trilogy; and Afrika Bambataa single-handedly set the foundations of rap culture (his classic hip-hop hit “Planet Rock” samples Kraftwerk’s  “Trans-Europe Express”). First-wavers influenced many artists and bands—the prominence of digitally-generated elements in the music became greater as time went by. However, the popularization of a particular kind of electronic music, namely dance music, did not take place until the end of the 1980’s. By that time, electronic music had held sway over most of the music that the decade is remembered for, from Maddona to the Talking Heads, but it was always as the added element to an already existing musical style, whether it was pop, funk, or rock. Dance music and all its different sub-genres changed and exclusively presented synthetic sounds. The repetitive, trance-inducing patterns of the music, the appearance of the figure of the DJ (acronym for Disc Jockey), the clandestine celebration of massive underground parties, and the popularization of the so-called designer drugs were all factors in the emergence of the rave culture in England.

Needless to say, this popular scene became a pop culture referent immediately identifiable and associable to a specific period of time (late 80’s and early 90’s), and was quickly exported to the rest of the world. The Love Parade, a massive street party that took place until 2010 in Germany and, on a number of occasions, in other countries such as Venezuela and Chile, is probably the most well-know of the rave-inspired electronic parties. Thus, the fact that dance music was the first contact of the general public with electronic music may explain why people often equate electronic music with dance music. Although electronic music had already become important within a considerable number of underground youth subcultures, it still remained part of specific niches and hadn’t had yet a great impact on mainstream culture.

The 1990’s saw the emergence of a series of acts that took the general public’s recent familiarization with electronic music as a starting point to create sounds that were essentially electronic, but were not boogie. Björk, Portishead and Aphex Twins, to name a few, started blending different genres in order to find new possibilities and mediums for the creation of music, just like the former krautrock bands had done almost twenty years ago. Thus electronic music was revitalized through continuous experimentation in the search of originality, and new genres emerged: trip-hop, IDM (intelligent dance music), ambient, big beat, etc. Even classically trained avant-garde musicians such as John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen took elements from electronic music and incorporated them into their own pieces.

Electronic music is almost everywhere; while the more radical and experimental styles remain unknown to the general public, the latest radio hits certainly owe a lot more to electronic music than one would imagine. Hits songs by best-seller acts such as The Black-Eyed Peace, Lady Gaga and Rihanna are all heavily indebted to electronic music.

As it usually happens with ahead-of-their-time movements, the avant-garde impulse that fuelled the creation of the first pieces of electronic music has been assimilated into mass culture to an extent that nowadays we almost do not notice its presence. What little more than forty years ago was a radical initiative to break new paths that would push musical language to its limits has become part of our everyday musical landscape.