ISSUE I: THE EVOLUTION OF ELECTRONIC MUSIC. WHY IT IS FINALLY POPULAR AND WHAT THIS SAYS ABOUT THE MUSIC INDUSTRY. A PLAN II THESIS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AUSTIN.
TRANSCRIPT
EVOLUTION of
ELECTRONICm u s i c
the
d a n c e
why itrsquos finally popularamp what this says about
the music industry
WE LIVE for LIVE MUSIC
WE LIVE FOR LIVE MUSIC ISSUE 1THE EVOLUTION OF ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC
SAMANTHA HOFFER
TC 660HPLAN II HONORS PROGRAM
THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN
FALL 2012
DAVE GARLOCKSCHOOL OF JOURNALISMSUPERVISING PROFESSOR
DENNIS DARLINGSCHOOL OF JOURNALISM
SECOND READER
ON THE COVERBASSNECTAR
HALLOWEEN 2012AUSTIN
GHOSTLAND OBSERVATORYNOVEMBER 2012HOUSTON TEXAS
TIMELINE (20)
FESTIVAL FEVER (36)
LETrsquoS GET DIGITAL (62)
just give me the beat (68)
THE FINALE (75)
back to the future (34)
NOCTURNAL WONDERLAND (40)
FEATURES
A COMPLETE GUIDE TO THE EVOLUTION OF ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC
A LOOK AT ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSICrsquoS EARLY HISTORY
EDMS BOOMING SUCCESS IN THE FESTIVAL MARKET HAS HEADS TURNING FROM AROUND THE INDUSTRY TO INVEST IN LIVE MUSIC
AN INSIDE LOOK AT AN ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC FESTIVAL
HOW THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION AFFECTED THE MUSIC INDUSTRY AND PAVED THE WAY FOR EDMrsquoS SUCCESS
DJ VS PRODUCER AND UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
FINAL THOUGHTS
6 we live for live music
PRETTY LIGHTS WITH LIVE DRUMMER COREY EBERHARDNOVEMBER 2009AUSTIN TEXAS
7live live issue 1
small stuff
(10) LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
(9) GLOSSARY
(14) FROM THE FANS
ON THE ROAD(16) fall tours(18) new yearrsquos eve shows
(75) SOURCES
8 we live for live music
EDITORWRITER
PUBLISHERPHOTOGRAPHER amp
ART DIRECTOR
SAMANTHA HOFFER
INTERVIEWEESBOBBY CLAY
TYLER GOLDBERGMIKE ABB
SCOTT EISEMAN DAN ROSENWALD
DOZENS OF UNOFFICIAL INTERVIEWS AND DISCUSSIONS WITH FRIENDS
AND PEERS
NOTE THIS IS AN INTERACTIVE PDF AS YOU READ LOOK FOR THE CURSOR TO CHANGE TO A HAND SYMBOL AS AN INDICATOR OF INTERACTIVE FEATURES USE ADOBE READER TO ENSURE COMPATIBILITY IF YOU ARE READING ON ISSUUCOM IN-TERACTIVE FEATURES ARE UNAVAILABLEROTHBURY MUSIC FESTIVAL
JULY 2008ROTHBURY MICHIGAN
9live live issue 1
the Glossary
For my thesis I created this magazinemdashwe LIVE for LIVE musicmdashas an ode to one of the nationrsquos favorite pastimes live music This premier issue the thesis issue stands as a testimonial to the music phenomenon that has recently swept across the nation Electronic Dance Music (EDM) Although dance music is certainly not new a new life was breathed into it in the past couple of years Through this magazine I hope to display not only a picture of Electronic Dance Music past and present but also explain why after forty years of existence dance music is just now find-ing its place in America and further what this says about the music industry on the whole For years doom and gloom stories have sur-
rounded the music industry with woeful tales about the effects of piracy and copyright infringement on record sales and royalties While these are certainly valid concerns statements about the ldquodeath of the music industryrdquo are highly skewed towards the state of the major record labels and not the music industry on the whole This is due to the fact that for the past century for one to refer to the state of the music indus-try was more or less the equivalent of referring to just the major record labels With the Digital Age a quantum shift has occurred in the means by which music is created distributed found and acquired that allow artists to directly connect with consumers and bypass the traditional gate-keepers of the industry the record labels It is my hope in this magazine to use Electronic
Dance Musicrsquos new-found booming success in America and the underlying reasons behind it to show the new landscape of the modern music industry one in which success is no longer mea-
LETTER
FROM THE
EDITOR
sured by ldquogoing goldrdquo but rather by the number of tickets sold Another goal I have for this magazine is that it
serves as a guide to the layman wishing to under-stand more about Electronic Dance Music An umbrella-term for a multitude of genres (Black Widow Music just published this list of 230 sub-genres and counting) as well as a type of music that changes as rapidly as the technology that drives it EDM can be difficult for many to grasp As EDM has gone the way of pop it has become
the focus of much ridicule as an uncultured and un-artistic medium simply meant for mindless dancing and creatable by anyone who can push a computer button I hope that this magazine serve as a bridge between the average uninformed pop-listener and the anti-EDM music ldquopuristsrdquo by providing insight into the history and artistry of Electronic Dance Music I was inspired to create this magazine because I
was lucky enough to be a part of the EDM scene as it busted out from the underground and into mainstream music and culture Arriving in Austin in the fall of 2008 I could not have been more excited to explore what the Live Music Capital of the World had to offer me Although I enjoyed concerts of all genres I quickly found myself attending electronic shows more than the rest and becoming a part of one of the many tight -knit communities that makes Austin great a group of about 300 electronic music loving Austinites Attending on average one electronic show a week that first year I came to love the feeling of being able to look around the room at any one of these shows and have that sense of communitymdashthat I
was surrounded by friends in all directions I had a feeling at the time that we were a part of something that was new and going to be big but I had no idea the extent of it As my college years went on artists that I had seen play in a small bar overlooking Sixth Street for maybe 300 people were playing at Austin City Music Hall for 3000 people I no longer could turn around at a show and find my all my friends instead I was faced with a sea of unfamiliar faces I realized that my small community was not so small anymore and had broken out of our underground niche and into the mainstream Seeing this phenomenon happen in front of me inspired this thesis Originally when I began working my thesis ques-
tion was about whether or not this genre was just a bubble or had truly found its way into the mainstream Over this summer movements in the industry to invest in EDM confirmed that this was not a bubble and caused me to shift my focus why EDM was now becoming mainstream After nearly forty years of existence why was elec-tronic music just now finding its place in America and looking at the bigger picture what does this say about the direction the music industry is headed in on the wholeIn this magazine I reveal how electronic music
has finally solidified its place in America because the digital age harbors an environment that strays away from the confines of the traditional recorded music industry allowing EDM to flourish outside of the control of the major record labels While the ldquoindustryrdquo has spent the past ten years pointing fingers and looking to Washington for solutions to the piracy issue electronic artists many of whom were born into the generation
which caused the file-sharing problem embraced that factmdashthat piracy is going to happenmdashand shifted their focus instead to the format their music was created formdashthe live experiencemdashto be successful The booming success EDM artists and EDM
promoters have found in the live experience has heads turning from all over the industry as they realize that the recorded music industry will never rise to its former glory and it is time to focus on a new more diversified direction for the music industry that includes licensing mer-chandising and most of allmdashlive music
14 we live for live music
PICS FROM THE SHOW
FROM THE FANS
diplo bassnectar
NYCclublife
houseparty lightshow
ravebarbie
moderngogogirl
biggigantic
tiesto
k
yke
bc
n
msj
ek
ka
kan
dii
nsp
ira
tio
ns
b
rad
pe
ters
5
djd
oc-
sto
ne
jh
oc
ks
n
ick
yh
ilto
n
rave
ba
rbie
ty
lers
he
rrit
t
15live live issue 1
Photos from the fans for an inside look at the world of EDM
from the fans
barcelonaclublife
bennybenassi
prettylightssoundsystemmodestep
kandi
aoki edc
squarepusher
b
ec
kyg
on
z
ga
dg
ett
eke
le
brk
orm
an
k
yke
bc
n
ste
vea
ok
i
cra
ck
wo
od
je
rem
yp
mit
ch
ell
c
hri
stin
am
org
an
n
oli
vert
wis
ty
16 we live for live music
on the road on the road
Fall ToursComing soon to a city near you
17live live issue 1
Fall Tours
18 we live for live music
new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013
Pretty Lights | Roseland Ballroom | New York
Zedd amp Nicky Romero | Club Nokia | Los Angeles
Chromeo Ana Sia Gramatic Poolside Snowglobe Music Festival | South Lake Tahoe
ATB MiM0SA Zeds Dead Paul Basic Wolfgang Gartner Krewella Colorado Convention Center | Denver
Skrillex Boyz Noise FlosstradomusThe Palace of Auburn Hills | Milwaukee
Shpongle Glitch Mob Sea of Dreams | San Francisco
Tiesto | Revel Ovation Hall | Atlantic City
The Disco Biscuits | Madison Square Garden
Paper Diamond | Oregon Convention Center | Portland
Bassnectar | Bridgestone Arena | Nashville
Lights All Night | Fair Park | Dallas
Beats Antique | Paramount Theatre | Seattle
Rusko | WaMu Theatre | Seattle
Lotus amp Moon Hooch | Rams Head Live | Baltimore
on the road
19live live issue 1
Industry
genre
pop culture
technology
20 we live for live music
The term ldquoElectronic Musicrdquo is coined by Werner Meyer Eppler
Rock nrsquo Roll music is born
RCA Mark II the first programmable sound synthesizer is invented by
Olson and Belar
Motown becomes dance music classics
1949
1950s
timeline 1949 - 1970
1955
First time anyone
had used the word synthesizer for a
piece of equipment
Rock nrsquo Roll redefines music as something to be listened to not danced to
We begin the story here
1960s
(COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY)
(THE BEAT)
21live live issue 1
Bob Moogrsquos synthesizer brought electronic music out of the realm of academia and into
the hands of musicians
Rock nrsquo roll becomes the sound of modern life It continues to grow
until splits into factions in the 1970s
The Moog Company develops the first modular synthesizer
The Beach Boysrsquo Good Vibrations is the first pop hit to feature
electronic sounds
Etta James releases ldquoSomethingrsquos Got a Hold of Merdquo a sample of which resonates
through the EDM explosion of late
1962
timeline 1949 - 1970
1962
1960s
1967
1964
1960sYouth start to attend rock concerts
instead of going to sock hops
King Tubby of Jamaica births the dub which will later give rise to the remix
(CAPITOL RECORDS)
(MOOG MUSIC)
null
21222783
22 we live for live music
Disco makes streaming music continuously cool and
popularizes the club scene Jim Morrison predicts
the future of music
The Mini Moog is invented becoming the first portable synthesizer
Synth music and space age pop is starting to impact TV
film and commercials
Disco is born
Hot Butterrsquos Popcorn becomes the first electronic pop hit
DJ Herc invents BreakbeatItalo Disco becomes the
first complete EDM genre
1970s
EARLY1970s
1972-1974 1973
1970 1978
1978
1972
1970
the 1970sldquoI can envision one person with l ike a lot of machines tapes and electronic setups
singing or speaking and using machinesrdquo-Jim Morrison
The Technics 1200 Mark II is released and becomes the industry standard
(PBS)
(RCO RECORDS)
timeline
null
2677309
23live live issue 1
Saturday Night Fever
Kraftwerk releases Autobahn
David Bowie and Blondie bring in New Wave
Sugar Hill Gangrsquos ldquoRapperrsquos Delightrdquo brings hip hop into the Top 40
Brian Eno births ambient music
The first digital sampler the Fairlight CMI (Computer Musical Instrument) is released
Disco declines as sentiments such as ldquoDisco Sucksrdquo and ldquoDeath to
Discordquo become popular
1977
L AT E1970s
1978 1978
1979
1979
1975
the 1970s
These days many people falsly associate this iconic soundtrack with the
beginning of disco
Kraftwerk members are considered tobe the ldquogodfathersrdquo of electronic music
(UNKNOWN)
timeline
24 we live for live music
Disco is thought to be dead but it just went underground where it morphed into house and techno
Video game music is born as a genre
Computers video games and electronic equipment become more affordable
efficient and put to great use
Roland TR 808 Rhythm Machine
Frankie Knuckles invents house music at the
Warehouse in Chicago
E-mu Emulator becomes the first affordable
digital sampler
The Hacienda Club opens in Manchester
The rave scene grows from acid house music in the United Kingdom
the 1980rsquos
1981
1982 1987
1980
1980 1981
1980s 1980s
(UNKOWN)
In the 1980s a host of new instruments based on synthet-ic sounds and sampl ing technolo-gy contributed to the formation of new genres of electronic mu-sic and the electronic sound on the whole Whi le these days the sounds of most of these instruments can be repl icated on a computer outfit-ted with the proper audio software DJs sti l l seek the retro instruments for the unique characteristics that come from analog instruments
timeline
25live live issue 1
Sampling and breakbeat become important features for both
hip-hop and EDM
MIDI inventedRoland TB 303
Baseline released
Techno rises out of the industrial
sounds of Detroit
Roland TR 909 Drum Machine
Acid house is born at the Hacienda Club in
Manchester
Electronic Dance Music first Summer of Love begins as the free-party scene takes the sound out of the club and into the open
Ambient music becomes just as important as the dance floor during EDMrsquos second
Summer of Love
Trip Hop and other downtempo genres find success with acts like Massive Attack and Portishead
the 1980rsquos
19871983-1985
1989-1991
1988
1989
1982 19841983
1980
MIDI is a protocol not a hardware which provided a standard for electronic instrument manufacturers
(MASSIVE ATTACK)
London becomes the hub of
EDM
timeline
Computer-based production allows for DJs to recreate the sounds found in traditional analog instruments as
well as new sounds that have never been heard before (eg the Dubstep wob) It also opened up the realm of
EDM creation to anyone with the right software
Responsible for EDC Nocturnal and Wonderland Festivals
Rise of the super club and superstar DJs
The media dubs of all electronic music
ldquotechnordquo
Hardcore music begins to dominate the British
rave scene
Jungle forms out of hardcore
Paul Oakenfold Paul Van Dyk and DJ Tiesto bring trance
music to the forefront
Insomniac Events is established in Southern California
Tommy Boy Records releases the first Jock Jams album
timeline the 1990rsquos
MP3 digital audio format is introduced
1990s
1990s
1992
1990s 1990s
1993
1991
1995
Rave music sees slight mainstream success with artists such as C amp C Music Factory and
Snap and begins to infuence pop music
With the growth of personal computing electronic artists began to migrate from analog electronic
instruments to computer-based production
EARLY1990s
EARLY1990s
(TOMMY BOY RECORDS)
>
>
null
19304054
Although electronica failed to go main-stream its loops and textures find their
way into pop and hip hop
They are the developers of Ableton Live one of the premiere loop-based
sequencers used in modern production
EDC begins as a one day event
Drum and bass evolves out of jungle
Record companies try to market techno under a new namemdash
ldquoelectronicardquomdash but fail
Fatboy Slim makes $0 off of Rockafeller Skank after giving 25 of the royalties to each of
the four artists he used samples from
Moby licenses every track on his
Play album
timeline the 1990rsquos
Napster launchesAbleton is founded
19991994
1995
1991 19991999
1997 1998
1997In the UK raves are forced back underground with the passing of
the Criminal Justice Act
ProTools released at a price of $6000
LATE1990s
LATE1990s
As artists begin to use computers in production
glitch hop evolves
This new law defined gatherings of more than 20 people listening to
ldquorepetitive beatsrdquo as illegal
(SKINT RECORDS)
EDMrsquoS non-descript beats are perfect for marketing
28 we live for live music
In an interview with the New York Times David Bowie claims copyright and intellectual property
will cease to exist in the next ten years
Congress passes a law holding club owners responsible for their patronsrsquo actions and
affecting the whole industry
Tiesto DJs the Athens Olympic Opening Ceremonies
The GRAMMYs add a Best DanceElectronica
Album category
Dubstep nights begin to pop up in the underground music
scene around the USDubstep begins to grow
out of South London
timeline
Limewire introducedCD sales peak iTunes launchedThe iPod brings digital music players to the masses
2002
2000 2001 2001 2003
2003
20062001
2004 2005
ldquoYoursquod better be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation
thatrsquos going to be leftrdquo
Ruskorsquos ldquoCockney Thugrdquo i l lustrates the wob sound
2000-2009
(COURTESY OF RUSK0)
(DTSIABAIFLICKR CC)
null
24417967
29live live issue 1
Daft Punkrsquos pyramid setup at Coachella sets a
new bar for visuals
Kanye West spawns electro-rap with 808rsquos amp Heartbreak prominently fea-
turing the TR 808 drum machine
Lady Gaga and the Black Eyed Peas bring the Euro-house
sound to the Top 40
Guettarsquos ldquoWhen Love Take Overrdquo becomes an international pop hit and the Euro-house sound
starts to creep its way into popular music
timeline
2004 2004 2007
2008 2009
20072006
20092007-2009
Long-established one-day raves such as EDC and Ultra transform
into two-day festivals
Guetta co-wrote ldquoBoom Boom Powrdquo
Gagarsquos Bad Romance has nearly 05 bi l l ion YouTube views
Gary Richards starts Hard Events
Youtube launched Beatport launched
2000-2009
iPhone released
(KARL WALTERGETTY IMAGES)
(INTERSCOPE RECORDS)
2010-2011
Technics SL-1200 turntable the industry standard for thirty
years is discontinued
Limewire the top P2P file-sharing client
is shut downSpotify launches in the US
When an underage girl dies at EDC in LA EDM gets a lot backlash but this
also gives it a lot of exposure
EDC is forced out of LA and moves to Vegas which becomes the home of
EDM in the United States
Bassnectar plays Red Rocks where he incurs $100000 in noise violations
after bringing his own speakers
Skrillex is nominated for five Grammy Awards he
wins three
timeline
2010
2010
2010
2010 2010 2011
2011 2011
2011
2011
Black Eyed Peasrsquo house-based ldquoThe TimeDirty Bitrdquo tops the
charts in over 15 countries
Hip hop and EDM production styles have always mirrored one another now they are morphing
EDM finally has a home in America
Moombahton a fusion of house music and reggae is
born at a house party in DC
Skrillex explodes onto the main-stream music scene bringing the ldquodroprdquo and heavy bass with him
DJAY app
(COURTESY OF SKRILLEX)
2010-2011
Britneyrsquos Hold it Against Me acts as the catalyst for replacing the pop
bridge with the dubstep drop
EDC Vegas has over 230000 attendees in
three days
The Victoria Secret Fashion Show features rave-inspired
outfits for the final walk
timeline
2011 2011
2011 2011 2011
2011
Tiesto plays the biggest single headliner DJ show in US
history to 26000 in Carson CA
Nielsen Soundscan reports digital music sales in the US are larger than
physical sales for the first time
Absoulte Vodka sponsors Swedish House Mafiarsquos
sold out MSG show
According to Bil lboard this is considered a watershed moment
brands adopting EDM
EDM technology is large-ly based now around
software programs and
their coordinating hard-
ware--control lers for Ableton
Scratch decks for Serato
and more There is an entire
spectrum of modern DJ tech-
nology avai lable and the path
one takes depends on what
sound they are trying to achieve
(JIVE RECORDS)
(ZUMA PRESS)
(SAMANTHA HOFFER)
The neon colors associated with EDM can be found al l over
the fashion world
With the laptop as instrument EDM
producers constantly
blend and mix elements
of different genres lead-
ing to the prol iferation of
microgenres which are difficult to
distinguish
null
26177792
32 we live for live music
EDC Vegas sees 300000+ people
over 3 days
Family-friendly animated film Wreck It Ralph uses
dance music in trailer
Feature-length EDM documentary ldquoThe Drop The EDM Culture
Explosionrdquo enters production
A system of alerts are set up to notify users when they
infringe on copyright law
Night Culture Inc becomes the first EDM-oriented publicly
traded company
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline 2012
Queen Latifah sings the National Anthem at the opening game of
the NFL seasonover a beat
JAN
OCTJULY SEPT
SEPTAUG
JUNE JUNEMARUltra Music Festival in Miami
has 40000 viewers watching its online stream over YouTube
Universal closes on EMI becoming the largest of the remaining three
major record labels
(DANNY MOLOSHOK REUTERS)
(BIG MACHINE)
null
21255588
33live live issue 1
After exploding onto the mainstream music scene and pop culture in the past year the industry has set its signts on EDM ventures proved the genre has final ly conquered the final frontiermdashAmerica
Live Nation purchases Hard Events
Media mogul Robert FX Sillerman says he will spend
$1B on EDM enterprises
EDM artists get the spotlight at the Grammys for the 1st time with addi-tion of a dance music performance
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline
Taylor Swift adopts the dubstep drop with her single ldquoI Knew You
Were Troublerdquo
JUNEFEB JULY
JUNE JUNE
OCT OCT NOV
NOVOCT
Bieber drops his first dub-step-influenced track ldquoAs
Long as You Love Merdquo
Dance-based songs can be found all across the radio
The first professional media outlet for EDM is announced
NYU introduces a course on the Business of Electronic amp
Dance Music
Billboard hosts the 2nd Annual FutureSound conference to ad-dress the future of the industry
NOVEMBERBLACK WIDOW
MUSIC PUBLISHES A LIST OF 230+ EDM SUB-GENRESAND
COUNTING
(BIG MACHINE)
34 we live for live music
BACK TO THE
FUTUREThirty years after the ldquodeathrdquo of disco dance music is back in America and bigger than ever To understand
where it is going we must take a look at the past
35live live issue 1
The most recent main-stream movement to hit the United States
E l e c t r o n i c D a n c e M u s i c (EDM) did so as an explosion of lights neon and pulsating beats But dance music is nothing new Although EDM seems entirely novel to many of Amer icarsquos youth dance music has a long and storied history
In the beginning mus ic c r e a t e d v i a e l e c t r o n i c ins t r ument s was focused on academic pursuit s and high ar t The use of elec-t ron ic s i n popu la r mus ic c rea t ion b egan w i t h t he commerc ia l i z a t ion o f t he synthesizer in the 1960s As technology evolved so did experimentation with elec-tronic instruments
In the 1970s the days of disco led to the develop-ment of e lec t ronic dance mus ic when DJs invented the traditional two-turntable setup to continuously stream together music so that the dancing never had to stop U n f o r t u na te l y f o r d a n c e music just as quickly as disco was embraced ant i -d isco sentiments fueled by racism and fear of change pushed it into the underground
It was in this underground s p a c e d u r i n g t h e lsquo 8 0 s that modern dance music evo lved St r ides made in elec tronic ins trumentation developed the synthesizer machines that would form the backbones of house and techno music the Roland TB 303 baseline and Roland TR 909 drum machine
A c c o r d i n g t o T h e Guard ianrsquos recent l y pub -lished timeline A History of Modern Music DJ Frankie Knuckles is responsible for the development of house music characterized by its
44 beats Techno rose out of Detroit a few years later inspired by the indus tr ial sounds of the city
While wildly popular in the underground music scene techno and house did not find commercial success in Amer ica I t was not unt i l the lat ter par t of the lsquo80s when the sounds of house and techno found their way to t he UK and mor phed into a new sub-genre acid house that the commercial club culture was born albeit exclusively in Europe
While dance music took of f r unning on the other side of the pond in America a dif ferent s tor y began to unfold As rap and hip-hop took a s t ronghold of the music industr y in the late eighties and nineties dance music remained confined to the peripheries
A s d a n c e - m u s i c D J s w o r ke d t o e v o l v e t h e i r sound and keep up w i th technology hip -hop DJs who adopted the traditional turntable setup from the DJs of disco as well as their pro-duction techniques began to work in the record ing s tudios and inf luence the industr y especially in the realm of pop music
I n t h e 19 9 0 s i n s i d e r s thought EDM had f ina l l y hit the jackpot and found mainstream success In an inter v iew with PaperMag industry vet Gary Richards explains ldquothe f irst farewell to the undergroundrdquo
ldquoBy 1993 i t felt l ike the music wasnrsquot underground anymore so I threw a par ty c a l l e d R ave A m e r i c a a t Knot t s Ber r y Farm which i s an amusement par k in O r a n g e C o u n t y I t s o l d out with l ike 20000 peo-ple Rick Rubin came with
Anthony K ied is f rom the Red Hot Chili Peppers and a couple guys from ZZ Top and he asked me if I wanted to work in the record busi-ness and help them s ign some EDM ar t i s t s I sa id sure the Prodigy were super hot and it seemed like it was blowing up But we star ted signing all these techno art-ists thinking theyrsquod catch on too but nobody was buying it Nobodyrdquo
Jus t l i ke R ichards says n o b o d y w a s b u y i n g i t D a n c e m u s i c w a s n o t catching on in the way the industr y would have liked so in 1997 the entire music industry and press put their full force behind ldquoelectron-icardquo the new catch-all name they had given to the genre in an attempt to successfully market it
Despite the gl impses of success seen froma handful of artists the genre failed to succeed and the industr y distanced itself from dance music far ther than i t had when disco ldquodiedrdquo
T h i s f a i l u r e c a n b e accounted to EDM not f it-t i ng i n to t h e ma r ke t i ng machinery of the industr y The t radit ional setup was f ixed for four-minute rock and pop singles and album tour s not t he ex tended club mixes and residencies that were the basis of the EDM world Not only was the indus t r y i l l - equipped to market electronic music but many consumers also felt it abrasive and awkward attempting to listen to this machine-made glitch-based music that was so unfamiliar to their ears It was not until the digital revolution of the new millennium that elec-tronic dance music f inal ly found its place
36 we live for live music
Festival
MAJOR LAZER AT SUMMERFEST IN HOUSTON JUNE 2012
37live live issue 1
If music in 2012 could talk it would sound a lot like the Bill Orsquo Reillyrsquos blooper ldquoLetrsquos do it liverdquo While attending concerts has been popular since rock and roll shows in the 1950s the recent electronic music boom has made it exponentially more so
One reason accord ing to Forbes i s that as resource constraints have t ightened people are spending thei r money more on exper iences as opposed to manufactured products But it is more than that EDM has managed to ent i re ly t rans -form the concept of a concer t by blurring the lines between going out dancing and going out to see music These days one would pay the same amount to see superstar-DJ David Guetta in an arena that they would if they were simply dancing to him spin-ning in a club
But this popularity was not always the case As a genre born in the world of nightclubs EDMrsquos parties were lambasted for years as depraved raves Now many kids will go to a rave before they attend a rock concert Why the sudden change A major factor is rebranding
Raves became festivals Electronic became EDMOnce shed of the negative associations with raves
and the bad memories of the electronicarsquos failure EDM shows and festivals began to proliferate across the countr y No longer hiding in remote f ields or empt y warehouse e lec t ronic mus ic promoter s looked to book DJs in public arenas and concer t halls
Elec tr ic Daisy Carnival (EDC) 2010 a rave put on by one of the major EDM promoters Insomniac
Event s ser ved as a turning point for the genre when an underage gir l died at the event causing severe backlash against Insomniac but also giving the genre lots of exposure EDC was run out of Los Angeles but found refuge in the always-accepting city of Las Vegas It was here in Vegas that EDM finally found a homemdashnow playing the same role to America as Ibiza did to Europe when the rave scene star ted there in the 1980s Superstar DJs can be found any week as a resident DJ to Tao XS or one of the many other posh clubs and the landmark event of the year EDC Vegas is now one of the largest raves in the world with over 300000 attendees last year
EDC is not the only big festival on the market now though Festivals are becoming trendymdashan indicator of direction the music industry is headed in towards the live and away from the recorded According to Metrowizecom an online nightli fe guide in 2012 alone at leas t thir t y-two new fes t ivals began in Americamdashfif teen of them dedicated solely to EDM
Long-standing traditions in the music industry fes-tivals typically only attracted people who spent a lot of time at live music and concertshellipuntil recently
As EDM crossed over into pop music the l ines became blur red between a night of going out to dance at a club and night of going out to see your favorite ar tist at a concer t People who a few years ago never attended a concert beyond the major pop ar tists are now concer t-fiends as the ldquopoprdquo ar tists they love today are world-renowned DJs
Of course as any genre crosses into the main-stream it is going to become increasingly popular
FeverEDMS BOOMING SUCCESS IN THE FESTIVAL MARKET HAS HEADS
TURNING FROM AROUND THE INDUSTRY TO INVEST IN LIVE MUSIC
38 we live for live music
with the masses but EDMrsquos explosion is unparal-leled Hundreds of thousands of people attended EDC Vegas and that was just one of dozens of elec-tronic dance festivals and all-night events this year
Because the live experience is EDMrsquos native for-mat the genre is par ticularly nuanced to success on the road Matt Adell of Beatport the online mecca of the DJ community explains one of the reasons why
ldquoPer formers such as Skr illex are incredibly ef f i -cient touring operations compared to rock bands Itrsquos less expensive than a rock group because therersquos just one per former Therersquos much less gear and it rsquos easier to set up because therersquos no live micro-phones So the suppor t team required is so much smallerrdquo
Bobby Clay head of the electronic division at C3 Presents touches on another aspect of EDM that primes the genre for the road ldquoIt rsquos like you donrsquot need to have a full studio on your tour bus to create the next banger or the next huge club track or the next Rihanna remix You can do it from the comfort of a tour bus or the green room of whatever arena some of these big people are playing in nowrdquo EDM ar tists have the luxury of not having to break from tour to create new songs
Although EDM is pr imed for tour ing i t is only in the past couple of years that the genre took on this rock and roll mentality As shows star ted to be booked in rock and roll venues and DJproducers took to the road stopping in every middle town and college campus in America like a rock band would DJs became rock stars in their own right One ar tist in par ticular is noted for condensing the drawn out peaks and falls of dance music into four and a half minute radio-ready tracks the half-shaved goofy-glasses wearing kid known as Skrillex Love him or hate him his genre-fusing in your face style helped to launch EDM to the place it is at today
With mega-DJs such as Skrillex earning up to $1 million per festival appearance and groups such as Swedish House Mafia selling out Madison Square Garden in nine minutes it is no surprise that corpo-rate heads have turned to this once-ignored market Over the summer Live Nation bought Hard Events one of the original promoters of the genre whose brands of Hardfest Holy Ship and Haunted Hard Mansion have gone on to great success Shor t ly af ter media mogul Robert FX Sillerman pledged to invest $1 billion dollars in EDM ventures
As the money pours in 2013 is looking to be the biggest year yet for EDM Having finally solidified i t s place in the music industr y (and at the fore-front nevertheless) Electronic Dance Music is ready to guide the music industry in a new directionmdasha direction towards the future towards a more diver-sified music industry towards a music industry that lives for live music
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
39live live issue 1
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
AT LEAST 32 NEW FESTIVALS BEGAN IN THE UNITED STATES IN 2012 OF THESE FESTIVALS FIFTEEN OF THEM ARE DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC
40 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL WONDERLANDDowntown TexasApril 27-28 2012An inside look into the modern electronic music festival
41live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL WONDERLAND
42 we live for live music
43live live issue 1
A new generation neo-age hippies
44 we live for live musicWelcome to Wonderland
45live live issue 1
46 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
47live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Dillon Francis plays The Queenrsquos Ground
48 we live for live music
49live live issue 1
Visual explosions to coordinate with the
audio attack of a drop
50 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
51live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
EDM shows are known for their
high-impact visuals
52 we live for live music
53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
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WE LIVE FOR LIVE MUSIC ISSUE 1THE EVOLUTION OF ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC
SAMANTHA HOFFER
TC 660HPLAN II HONORS PROGRAM
THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN
FALL 2012
DAVE GARLOCKSCHOOL OF JOURNALISMSUPERVISING PROFESSOR
DENNIS DARLINGSCHOOL OF JOURNALISM
SECOND READER
ON THE COVERBASSNECTAR
HALLOWEEN 2012AUSTIN
GHOSTLAND OBSERVATORYNOVEMBER 2012HOUSTON TEXAS
TIMELINE (20)
FESTIVAL FEVER (36)
LETrsquoS GET DIGITAL (62)
just give me the beat (68)
THE FINALE (75)
back to the future (34)
NOCTURNAL WONDERLAND (40)
FEATURES
A COMPLETE GUIDE TO THE EVOLUTION OF ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC
A LOOK AT ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSICrsquoS EARLY HISTORY
EDMS BOOMING SUCCESS IN THE FESTIVAL MARKET HAS HEADS TURNING FROM AROUND THE INDUSTRY TO INVEST IN LIVE MUSIC
AN INSIDE LOOK AT AN ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC FESTIVAL
HOW THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION AFFECTED THE MUSIC INDUSTRY AND PAVED THE WAY FOR EDMrsquoS SUCCESS
DJ VS PRODUCER AND UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
FINAL THOUGHTS
6 we live for live music
PRETTY LIGHTS WITH LIVE DRUMMER COREY EBERHARDNOVEMBER 2009AUSTIN TEXAS
7live live issue 1
small stuff
(10) LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
(9) GLOSSARY
(14) FROM THE FANS
ON THE ROAD(16) fall tours(18) new yearrsquos eve shows
(75) SOURCES
8 we live for live music
EDITORWRITER
PUBLISHERPHOTOGRAPHER amp
ART DIRECTOR
SAMANTHA HOFFER
INTERVIEWEESBOBBY CLAY
TYLER GOLDBERGMIKE ABB
SCOTT EISEMAN DAN ROSENWALD
DOZENS OF UNOFFICIAL INTERVIEWS AND DISCUSSIONS WITH FRIENDS
AND PEERS
NOTE THIS IS AN INTERACTIVE PDF AS YOU READ LOOK FOR THE CURSOR TO CHANGE TO A HAND SYMBOL AS AN INDICATOR OF INTERACTIVE FEATURES USE ADOBE READER TO ENSURE COMPATIBILITY IF YOU ARE READING ON ISSUUCOM IN-TERACTIVE FEATURES ARE UNAVAILABLEROTHBURY MUSIC FESTIVAL
JULY 2008ROTHBURY MICHIGAN
9live live issue 1
the Glossary
For my thesis I created this magazinemdashwe LIVE for LIVE musicmdashas an ode to one of the nationrsquos favorite pastimes live music This premier issue the thesis issue stands as a testimonial to the music phenomenon that has recently swept across the nation Electronic Dance Music (EDM) Although dance music is certainly not new a new life was breathed into it in the past couple of years Through this magazine I hope to display not only a picture of Electronic Dance Music past and present but also explain why after forty years of existence dance music is just now find-ing its place in America and further what this says about the music industry on the whole For years doom and gloom stories have sur-
rounded the music industry with woeful tales about the effects of piracy and copyright infringement on record sales and royalties While these are certainly valid concerns statements about the ldquodeath of the music industryrdquo are highly skewed towards the state of the major record labels and not the music industry on the whole This is due to the fact that for the past century for one to refer to the state of the music indus-try was more or less the equivalent of referring to just the major record labels With the Digital Age a quantum shift has occurred in the means by which music is created distributed found and acquired that allow artists to directly connect with consumers and bypass the traditional gate-keepers of the industry the record labels It is my hope in this magazine to use Electronic
Dance Musicrsquos new-found booming success in America and the underlying reasons behind it to show the new landscape of the modern music industry one in which success is no longer mea-
LETTER
FROM THE
EDITOR
sured by ldquogoing goldrdquo but rather by the number of tickets sold Another goal I have for this magazine is that it
serves as a guide to the layman wishing to under-stand more about Electronic Dance Music An umbrella-term for a multitude of genres (Black Widow Music just published this list of 230 sub-genres and counting) as well as a type of music that changes as rapidly as the technology that drives it EDM can be difficult for many to grasp As EDM has gone the way of pop it has become
the focus of much ridicule as an uncultured and un-artistic medium simply meant for mindless dancing and creatable by anyone who can push a computer button I hope that this magazine serve as a bridge between the average uninformed pop-listener and the anti-EDM music ldquopuristsrdquo by providing insight into the history and artistry of Electronic Dance Music I was inspired to create this magazine because I
was lucky enough to be a part of the EDM scene as it busted out from the underground and into mainstream music and culture Arriving in Austin in the fall of 2008 I could not have been more excited to explore what the Live Music Capital of the World had to offer me Although I enjoyed concerts of all genres I quickly found myself attending electronic shows more than the rest and becoming a part of one of the many tight -knit communities that makes Austin great a group of about 300 electronic music loving Austinites Attending on average one electronic show a week that first year I came to love the feeling of being able to look around the room at any one of these shows and have that sense of communitymdashthat I
was surrounded by friends in all directions I had a feeling at the time that we were a part of something that was new and going to be big but I had no idea the extent of it As my college years went on artists that I had seen play in a small bar overlooking Sixth Street for maybe 300 people were playing at Austin City Music Hall for 3000 people I no longer could turn around at a show and find my all my friends instead I was faced with a sea of unfamiliar faces I realized that my small community was not so small anymore and had broken out of our underground niche and into the mainstream Seeing this phenomenon happen in front of me inspired this thesis Originally when I began working my thesis ques-
tion was about whether or not this genre was just a bubble or had truly found its way into the mainstream Over this summer movements in the industry to invest in EDM confirmed that this was not a bubble and caused me to shift my focus why EDM was now becoming mainstream After nearly forty years of existence why was elec-tronic music just now finding its place in America and looking at the bigger picture what does this say about the direction the music industry is headed in on the wholeIn this magazine I reveal how electronic music
has finally solidified its place in America because the digital age harbors an environment that strays away from the confines of the traditional recorded music industry allowing EDM to flourish outside of the control of the major record labels While the ldquoindustryrdquo has spent the past ten years pointing fingers and looking to Washington for solutions to the piracy issue electronic artists many of whom were born into the generation
which caused the file-sharing problem embraced that factmdashthat piracy is going to happenmdashand shifted their focus instead to the format their music was created formdashthe live experiencemdashto be successful The booming success EDM artists and EDM
promoters have found in the live experience has heads turning from all over the industry as they realize that the recorded music industry will never rise to its former glory and it is time to focus on a new more diversified direction for the music industry that includes licensing mer-chandising and most of allmdashlive music
14 we live for live music
PICS FROM THE SHOW
FROM THE FANS
diplo bassnectar
NYCclublife
houseparty lightshow
ravebarbie
moderngogogirl
biggigantic
tiesto
k
yke
bc
n
msj
ek
ka
kan
dii
nsp
ira
tio
ns
b
rad
pe
ters
5
djd
oc-
sto
ne
jh
oc
ks
n
ick
yh
ilto
n
rave
ba
rbie
ty
lers
he
rrit
t
15live live issue 1
Photos from the fans for an inside look at the world of EDM
from the fans
barcelonaclublife
bennybenassi
prettylightssoundsystemmodestep
kandi
aoki edc
squarepusher
b
ec
kyg
on
z
ga
dg
ett
eke
le
brk
orm
an
k
yke
bc
n
ste
vea
ok
i
cra
ck
wo
od
je
rem
yp
mit
ch
ell
c
hri
stin
am
org
an
n
oli
vert
wis
ty
16 we live for live music
on the road on the road
Fall ToursComing soon to a city near you
17live live issue 1
Fall Tours
18 we live for live music
new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013
Pretty Lights | Roseland Ballroom | New York
Zedd amp Nicky Romero | Club Nokia | Los Angeles
Chromeo Ana Sia Gramatic Poolside Snowglobe Music Festival | South Lake Tahoe
ATB MiM0SA Zeds Dead Paul Basic Wolfgang Gartner Krewella Colorado Convention Center | Denver
Skrillex Boyz Noise FlosstradomusThe Palace of Auburn Hills | Milwaukee
Shpongle Glitch Mob Sea of Dreams | San Francisco
Tiesto | Revel Ovation Hall | Atlantic City
The Disco Biscuits | Madison Square Garden
Paper Diamond | Oregon Convention Center | Portland
Bassnectar | Bridgestone Arena | Nashville
Lights All Night | Fair Park | Dallas
Beats Antique | Paramount Theatre | Seattle
Rusko | WaMu Theatre | Seattle
Lotus amp Moon Hooch | Rams Head Live | Baltimore
on the road
19live live issue 1
Industry
genre
pop culture
technology
20 we live for live music
The term ldquoElectronic Musicrdquo is coined by Werner Meyer Eppler
Rock nrsquo Roll music is born
RCA Mark II the first programmable sound synthesizer is invented by
Olson and Belar
Motown becomes dance music classics
1949
1950s
timeline 1949 - 1970
1955
First time anyone
had used the word synthesizer for a
piece of equipment
Rock nrsquo Roll redefines music as something to be listened to not danced to
We begin the story here
1960s
(COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY)
(THE BEAT)
21live live issue 1
Bob Moogrsquos synthesizer brought electronic music out of the realm of academia and into
the hands of musicians
Rock nrsquo roll becomes the sound of modern life It continues to grow
until splits into factions in the 1970s
The Moog Company develops the first modular synthesizer
The Beach Boysrsquo Good Vibrations is the first pop hit to feature
electronic sounds
Etta James releases ldquoSomethingrsquos Got a Hold of Merdquo a sample of which resonates
through the EDM explosion of late
1962
timeline 1949 - 1970
1962
1960s
1967
1964
1960sYouth start to attend rock concerts
instead of going to sock hops
King Tubby of Jamaica births the dub which will later give rise to the remix
(CAPITOL RECORDS)
(MOOG MUSIC)
null
21222783
22 we live for live music
Disco makes streaming music continuously cool and
popularizes the club scene Jim Morrison predicts
the future of music
The Mini Moog is invented becoming the first portable synthesizer
Synth music and space age pop is starting to impact TV
film and commercials
Disco is born
Hot Butterrsquos Popcorn becomes the first electronic pop hit
DJ Herc invents BreakbeatItalo Disco becomes the
first complete EDM genre
1970s
EARLY1970s
1972-1974 1973
1970 1978
1978
1972
1970
the 1970sldquoI can envision one person with l ike a lot of machines tapes and electronic setups
singing or speaking and using machinesrdquo-Jim Morrison
The Technics 1200 Mark II is released and becomes the industry standard
(PBS)
(RCO RECORDS)
timeline
null
2677309
23live live issue 1
Saturday Night Fever
Kraftwerk releases Autobahn
David Bowie and Blondie bring in New Wave
Sugar Hill Gangrsquos ldquoRapperrsquos Delightrdquo brings hip hop into the Top 40
Brian Eno births ambient music
The first digital sampler the Fairlight CMI (Computer Musical Instrument) is released
Disco declines as sentiments such as ldquoDisco Sucksrdquo and ldquoDeath to
Discordquo become popular
1977
L AT E1970s
1978 1978
1979
1979
1975
the 1970s
These days many people falsly associate this iconic soundtrack with the
beginning of disco
Kraftwerk members are considered tobe the ldquogodfathersrdquo of electronic music
(UNKNOWN)
timeline
24 we live for live music
Disco is thought to be dead but it just went underground where it morphed into house and techno
Video game music is born as a genre
Computers video games and electronic equipment become more affordable
efficient and put to great use
Roland TR 808 Rhythm Machine
Frankie Knuckles invents house music at the
Warehouse in Chicago
E-mu Emulator becomes the first affordable
digital sampler
The Hacienda Club opens in Manchester
The rave scene grows from acid house music in the United Kingdom
the 1980rsquos
1981
1982 1987
1980
1980 1981
1980s 1980s
(UNKOWN)
In the 1980s a host of new instruments based on synthet-ic sounds and sampl ing technolo-gy contributed to the formation of new genres of electronic mu-sic and the electronic sound on the whole Whi le these days the sounds of most of these instruments can be repl icated on a computer outfit-ted with the proper audio software DJs sti l l seek the retro instruments for the unique characteristics that come from analog instruments
timeline
25live live issue 1
Sampling and breakbeat become important features for both
hip-hop and EDM
MIDI inventedRoland TB 303
Baseline released
Techno rises out of the industrial
sounds of Detroit
Roland TR 909 Drum Machine
Acid house is born at the Hacienda Club in
Manchester
Electronic Dance Music first Summer of Love begins as the free-party scene takes the sound out of the club and into the open
Ambient music becomes just as important as the dance floor during EDMrsquos second
Summer of Love
Trip Hop and other downtempo genres find success with acts like Massive Attack and Portishead
the 1980rsquos
19871983-1985
1989-1991
1988
1989
1982 19841983
1980
MIDI is a protocol not a hardware which provided a standard for electronic instrument manufacturers
(MASSIVE ATTACK)
London becomes the hub of
EDM
timeline
Computer-based production allows for DJs to recreate the sounds found in traditional analog instruments as
well as new sounds that have never been heard before (eg the Dubstep wob) It also opened up the realm of
EDM creation to anyone with the right software
Responsible for EDC Nocturnal and Wonderland Festivals
Rise of the super club and superstar DJs
The media dubs of all electronic music
ldquotechnordquo
Hardcore music begins to dominate the British
rave scene
Jungle forms out of hardcore
Paul Oakenfold Paul Van Dyk and DJ Tiesto bring trance
music to the forefront
Insomniac Events is established in Southern California
Tommy Boy Records releases the first Jock Jams album
timeline the 1990rsquos
MP3 digital audio format is introduced
1990s
1990s
1992
1990s 1990s
1993
1991
1995
Rave music sees slight mainstream success with artists such as C amp C Music Factory and
Snap and begins to infuence pop music
With the growth of personal computing electronic artists began to migrate from analog electronic
instruments to computer-based production
EARLY1990s
EARLY1990s
(TOMMY BOY RECORDS)
>
>
null
19304054
Although electronica failed to go main-stream its loops and textures find their
way into pop and hip hop
They are the developers of Ableton Live one of the premiere loop-based
sequencers used in modern production
EDC begins as a one day event
Drum and bass evolves out of jungle
Record companies try to market techno under a new namemdash
ldquoelectronicardquomdash but fail
Fatboy Slim makes $0 off of Rockafeller Skank after giving 25 of the royalties to each of
the four artists he used samples from
Moby licenses every track on his
Play album
timeline the 1990rsquos
Napster launchesAbleton is founded
19991994
1995
1991 19991999
1997 1998
1997In the UK raves are forced back underground with the passing of
the Criminal Justice Act
ProTools released at a price of $6000
LATE1990s
LATE1990s
As artists begin to use computers in production
glitch hop evolves
This new law defined gatherings of more than 20 people listening to
ldquorepetitive beatsrdquo as illegal
(SKINT RECORDS)
EDMrsquoS non-descript beats are perfect for marketing
28 we live for live music
In an interview with the New York Times David Bowie claims copyright and intellectual property
will cease to exist in the next ten years
Congress passes a law holding club owners responsible for their patronsrsquo actions and
affecting the whole industry
Tiesto DJs the Athens Olympic Opening Ceremonies
The GRAMMYs add a Best DanceElectronica
Album category
Dubstep nights begin to pop up in the underground music
scene around the USDubstep begins to grow
out of South London
timeline
Limewire introducedCD sales peak iTunes launchedThe iPod brings digital music players to the masses
2002
2000 2001 2001 2003
2003
20062001
2004 2005
ldquoYoursquod better be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation
thatrsquos going to be leftrdquo
Ruskorsquos ldquoCockney Thugrdquo i l lustrates the wob sound
2000-2009
(COURTESY OF RUSK0)
(DTSIABAIFLICKR CC)
null
24417967
29live live issue 1
Daft Punkrsquos pyramid setup at Coachella sets a
new bar for visuals
Kanye West spawns electro-rap with 808rsquos amp Heartbreak prominently fea-
turing the TR 808 drum machine
Lady Gaga and the Black Eyed Peas bring the Euro-house
sound to the Top 40
Guettarsquos ldquoWhen Love Take Overrdquo becomes an international pop hit and the Euro-house sound
starts to creep its way into popular music
timeline
2004 2004 2007
2008 2009
20072006
20092007-2009
Long-established one-day raves such as EDC and Ultra transform
into two-day festivals
Guetta co-wrote ldquoBoom Boom Powrdquo
Gagarsquos Bad Romance has nearly 05 bi l l ion YouTube views
Gary Richards starts Hard Events
Youtube launched Beatport launched
2000-2009
iPhone released
(KARL WALTERGETTY IMAGES)
(INTERSCOPE RECORDS)
2010-2011
Technics SL-1200 turntable the industry standard for thirty
years is discontinued
Limewire the top P2P file-sharing client
is shut downSpotify launches in the US
When an underage girl dies at EDC in LA EDM gets a lot backlash but this
also gives it a lot of exposure
EDC is forced out of LA and moves to Vegas which becomes the home of
EDM in the United States
Bassnectar plays Red Rocks where he incurs $100000 in noise violations
after bringing his own speakers
Skrillex is nominated for five Grammy Awards he
wins three
timeline
2010
2010
2010
2010 2010 2011
2011 2011
2011
2011
Black Eyed Peasrsquo house-based ldquoThe TimeDirty Bitrdquo tops the
charts in over 15 countries
Hip hop and EDM production styles have always mirrored one another now they are morphing
EDM finally has a home in America
Moombahton a fusion of house music and reggae is
born at a house party in DC
Skrillex explodes onto the main-stream music scene bringing the ldquodroprdquo and heavy bass with him
DJAY app
(COURTESY OF SKRILLEX)
2010-2011
Britneyrsquos Hold it Against Me acts as the catalyst for replacing the pop
bridge with the dubstep drop
EDC Vegas has over 230000 attendees in
three days
The Victoria Secret Fashion Show features rave-inspired
outfits for the final walk
timeline
2011 2011
2011 2011 2011
2011
Tiesto plays the biggest single headliner DJ show in US
history to 26000 in Carson CA
Nielsen Soundscan reports digital music sales in the US are larger than
physical sales for the first time
Absoulte Vodka sponsors Swedish House Mafiarsquos
sold out MSG show
According to Bil lboard this is considered a watershed moment
brands adopting EDM
EDM technology is large-ly based now around
software programs and
their coordinating hard-
ware--control lers for Ableton
Scratch decks for Serato
and more There is an entire
spectrum of modern DJ tech-
nology avai lable and the path
one takes depends on what
sound they are trying to achieve
(JIVE RECORDS)
(ZUMA PRESS)
(SAMANTHA HOFFER)
The neon colors associated with EDM can be found al l over
the fashion world
With the laptop as instrument EDM
producers constantly
blend and mix elements
of different genres lead-
ing to the prol iferation of
microgenres which are difficult to
distinguish
null
26177792
32 we live for live music
EDC Vegas sees 300000+ people
over 3 days
Family-friendly animated film Wreck It Ralph uses
dance music in trailer
Feature-length EDM documentary ldquoThe Drop The EDM Culture
Explosionrdquo enters production
A system of alerts are set up to notify users when they
infringe on copyright law
Night Culture Inc becomes the first EDM-oriented publicly
traded company
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline 2012
Queen Latifah sings the National Anthem at the opening game of
the NFL seasonover a beat
JAN
OCTJULY SEPT
SEPTAUG
JUNE JUNEMARUltra Music Festival in Miami
has 40000 viewers watching its online stream over YouTube
Universal closes on EMI becoming the largest of the remaining three
major record labels
(DANNY MOLOSHOK REUTERS)
(BIG MACHINE)
null
21255588
33live live issue 1
After exploding onto the mainstream music scene and pop culture in the past year the industry has set its signts on EDM ventures proved the genre has final ly conquered the final frontiermdashAmerica
Live Nation purchases Hard Events
Media mogul Robert FX Sillerman says he will spend
$1B on EDM enterprises
EDM artists get the spotlight at the Grammys for the 1st time with addi-tion of a dance music performance
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline
Taylor Swift adopts the dubstep drop with her single ldquoI Knew You
Were Troublerdquo
JUNEFEB JULY
JUNE JUNE
OCT OCT NOV
NOVOCT
Bieber drops his first dub-step-influenced track ldquoAs
Long as You Love Merdquo
Dance-based songs can be found all across the radio
The first professional media outlet for EDM is announced
NYU introduces a course on the Business of Electronic amp
Dance Music
Billboard hosts the 2nd Annual FutureSound conference to ad-dress the future of the industry
NOVEMBERBLACK WIDOW
MUSIC PUBLISHES A LIST OF 230+ EDM SUB-GENRESAND
COUNTING
(BIG MACHINE)
34 we live for live music
BACK TO THE
FUTUREThirty years after the ldquodeathrdquo of disco dance music is back in America and bigger than ever To understand
where it is going we must take a look at the past
35live live issue 1
The most recent main-stream movement to hit the United States
E l e c t r o n i c D a n c e M u s i c (EDM) did so as an explosion of lights neon and pulsating beats But dance music is nothing new Although EDM seems entirely novel to many of Amer icarsquos youth dance music has a long and storied history
In the beginning mus ic c r e a t e d v i a e l e c t r o n i c ins t r ument s was focused on academic pursuit s and high ar t The use of elec-t ron ic s i n popu la r mus ic c rea t ion b egan w i t h t he commerc ia l i z a t ion o f t he synthesizer in the 1960s As technology evolved so did experimentation with elec-tronic instruments
In the 1970s the days of disco led to the develop-ment of e lec t ronic dance mus ic when DJs invented the traditional two-turntable setup to continuously stream together music so that the dancing never had to stop U n f o r t u na te l y f o r d a n c e music just as quickly as disco was embraced ant i -d isco sentiments fueled by racism and fear of change pushed it into the underground
It was in this underground s p a c e d u r i n g t h e lsquo 8 0 s that modern dance music evo lved St r ides made in elec tronic ins trumentation developed the synthesizer machines that would form the backbones of house and techno music the Roland TB 303 baseline and Roland TR 909 drum machine
A c c o r d i n g t o T h e Guard ianrsquos recent l y pub -lished timeline A History of Modern Music DJ Frankie Knuckles is responsible for the development of house music characterized by its
44 beats Techno rose out of Detroit a few years later inspired by the indus tr ial sounds of the city
While wildly popular in the underground music scene techno and house did not find commercial success in Amer ica I t was not unt i l the lat ter par t of the lsquo80s when the sounds of house and techno found their way to t he UK and mor phed into a new sub-genre acid house that the commercial club culture was born albeit exclusively in Europe
While dance music took of f r unning on the other side of the pond in America a dif ferent s tor y began to unfold As rap and hip-hop took a s t ronghold of the music industr y in the late eighties and nineties dance music remained confined to the peripheries
A s d a n c e - m u s i c D J s w o r ke d t o e v o l v e t h e i r sound and keep up w i th technology hip -hop DJs who adopted the traditional turntable setup from the DJs of disco as well as their pro-duction techniques began to work in the record ing s tudios and inf luence the industr y especially in the realm of pop music
I n t h e 19 9 0 s i n s i d e r s thought EDM had f ina l l y hit the jackpot and found mainstream success In an inter v iew with PaperMag industry vet Gary Richards explains ldquothe f irst farewell to the undergroundrdquo
ldquoBy 1993 i t felt l ike the music wasnrsquot underground anymore so I threw a par ty c a l l e d R ave A m e r i c a a t Knot t s Ber r y Farm which i s an amusement par k in O r a n g e C o u n t y I t s o l d out with l ike 20000 peo-ple Rick Rubin came with
Anthony K ied is f rom the Red Hot Chili Peppers and a couple guys from ZZ Top and he asked me if I wanted to work in the record busi-ness and help them s ign some EDM ar t i s t s I sa id sure the Prodigy were super hot and it seemed like it was blowing up But we star ted signing all these techno art-ists thinking theyrsquod catch on too but nobody was buying it Nobodyrdquo
Jus t l i ke R ichards says n o b o d y w a s b u y i n g i t D a n c e m u s i c w a s n o t catching on in the way the industr y would have liked so in 1997 the entire music industry and press put their full force behind ldquoelectron-icardquo the new catch-all name they had given to the genre in an attempt to successfully market it
Despite the gl impses of success seen froma handful of artists the genre failed to succeed and the industr y distanced itself from dance music far ther than i t had when disco ldquodiedrdquo
T h i s f a i l u r e c a n b e accounted to EDM not f it-t i ng i n to t h e ma r ke t i ng machinery of the industr y The t radit ional setup was f ixed for four-minute rock and pop singles and album tour s not t he ex tended club mixes and residencies that were the basis of the EDM world Not only was the indus t r y i l l - equipped to market electronic music but many consumers also felt it abrasive and awkward attempting to listen to this machine-made glitch-based music that was so unfamiliar to their ears It was not until the digital revolution of the new millennium that elec-tronic dance music f inal ly found its place
36 we live for live music
Festival
MAJOR LAZER AT SUMMERFEST IN HOUSTON JUNE 2012
37live live issue 1
If music in 2012 could talk it would sound a lot like the Bill Orsquo Reillyrsquos blooper ldquoLetrsquos do it liverdquo While attending concerts has been popular since rock and roll shows in the 1950s the recent electronic music boom has made it exponentially more so
One reason accord ing to Forbes i s that as resource constraints have t ightened people are spending thei r money more on exper iences as opposed to manufactured products But it is more than that EDM has managed to ent i re ly t rans -form the concept of a concer t by blurring the lines between going out dancing and going out to see music These days one would pay the same amount to see superstar-DJ David Guetta in an arena that they would if they were simply dancing to him spin-ning in a club
But this popularity was not always the case As a genre born in the world of nightclubs EDMrsquos parties were lambasted for years as depraved raves Now many kids will go to a rave before they attend a rock concert Why the sudden change A major factor is rebranding
Raves became festivals Electronic became EDMOnce shed of the negative associations with raves
and the bad memories of the electronicarsquos failure EDM shows and festivals began to proliferate across the countr y No longer hiding in remote f ields or empt y warehouse e lec t ronic mus ic promoter s looked to book DJs in public arenas and concer t halls
Elec tr ic Daisy Carnival (EDC) 2010 a rave put on by one of the major EDM promoters Insomniac
Event s ser ved as a turning point for the genre when an underage gir l died at the event causing severe backlash against Insomniac but also giving the genre lots of exposure EDC was run out of Los Angeles but found refuge in the always-accepting city of Las Vegas It was here in Vegas that EDM finally found a homemdashnow playing the same role to America as Ibiza did to Europe when the rave scene star ted there in the 1980s Superstar DJs can be found any week as a resident DJ to Tao XS or one of the many other posh clubs and the landmark event of the year EDC Vegas is now one of the largest raves in the world with over 300000 attendees last year
EDC is not the only big festival on the market now though Festivals are becoming trendymdashan indicator of direction the music industry is headed in towards the live and away from the recorded According to Metrowizecom an online nightli fe guide in 2012 alone at leas t thir t y-two new fes t ivals began in Americamdashfif teen of them dedicated solely to EDM
Long-standing traditions in the music industry fes-tivals typically only attracted people who spent a lot of time at live music and concertshellipuntil recently
As EDM crossed over into pop music the l ines became blur red between a night of going out to dance at a club and night of going out to see your favorite ar tist at a concer t People who a few years ago never attended a concert beyond the major pop ar tists are now concer t-fiends as the ldquopoprdquo ar tists they love today are world-renowned DJs
Of course as any genre crosses into the main-stream it is going to become increasingly popular
FeverEDMS BOOMING SUCCESS IN THE FESTIVAL MARKET HAS HEADS
TURNING FROM AROUND THE INDUSTRY TO INVEST IN LIVE MUSIC
38 we live for live music
with the masses but EDMrsquos explosion is unparal-leled Hundreds of thousands of people attended EDC Vegas and that was just one of dozens of elec-tronic dance festivals and all-night events this year
Because the live experience is EDMrsquos native for-mat the genre is par ticularly nuanced to success on the road Matt Adell of Beatport the online mecca of the DJ community explains one of the reasons why
ldquoPer formers such as Skr illex are incredibly ef f i -cient touring operations compared to rock bands Itrsquos less expensive than a rock group because therersquos just one per former Therersquos much less gear and it rsquos easier to set up because therersquos no live micro-phones So the suppor t team required is so much smallerrdquo
Bobby Clay head of the electronic division at C3 Presents touches on another aspect of EDM that primes the genre for the road ldquoIt rsquos like you donrsquot need to have a full studio on your tour bus to create the next banger or the next huge club track or the next Rihanna remix You can do it from the comfort of a tour bus or the green room of whatever arena some of these big people are playing in nowrdquo EDM ar tists have the luxury of not having to break from tour to create new songs
Although EDM is pr imed for tour ing i t is only in the past couple of years that the genre took on this rock and roll mentality As shows star ted to be booked in rock and roll venues and DJproducers took to the road stopping in every middle town and college campus in America like a rock band would DJs became rock stars in their own right One ar tist in par ticular is noted for condensing the drawn out peaks and falls of dance music into four and a half minute radio-ready tracks the half-shaved goofy-glasses wearing kid known as Skrillex Love him or hate him his genre-fusing in your face style helped to launch EDM to the place it is at today
With mega-DJs such as Skrillex earning up to $1 million per festival appearance and groups such as Swedish House Mafia selling out Madison Square Garden in nine minutes it is no surprise that corpo-rate heads have turned to this once-ignored market Over the summer Live Nation bought Hard Events one of the original promoters of the genre whose brands of Hardfest Holy Ship and Haunted Hard Mansion have gone on to great success Shor t ly af ter media mogul Robert FX Sillerman pledged to invest $1 billion dollars in EDM ventures
As the money pours in 2013 is looking to be the biggest year yet for EDM Having finally solidified i t s place in the music industr y (and at the fore-front nevertheless) Electronic Dance Music is ready to guide the music industry in a new directionmdasha direction towards the future towards a more diver-sified music industry towards a music industry that lives for live music
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
39live live issue 1
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
AT LEAST 32 NEW FESTIVALS BEGAN IN THE UNITED STATES IN 2012 OF THESE FESTIVALS FIFTEEN OF THEM ARE DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC
40 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL WONDERLANDDowntown TexasApril 27-28 2012An inside look into the modern electronic music festival
41live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL WONDERLAND
42 we live for live music
43live live issue 1
A new generation neo-age hippies
44 we live for live musicWelcome to Wonderland
45live live issue 1
46 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
47live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Dillon Francis plays The Queenrsquos Ground
48 we live for live music
49live live issue 1
Visual explosions to coordinate with the
audio attack of a drop
50 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
51live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
EDM shows are known for their
high-impact visuals
52 we live for live music
53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
Button 7
Button 8
Button 9
Button 10
Button 11
Button 12
button13
Button 52
Button 54
Button 56
Button 55
Button 43
Button 44
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Button 50
Button 48
ON THE COVERBASSNECTAR
HALLOWEEN 2012AUSTIN
GHOSTLAND OBSERVATORYNOVEMBER 2012HOUSTON TEXAS
TIMELINE (20)
FESTIVAL FEVER (36)
LETrsquoS GET DIGITAL (62)
just give me the beat (68)
THE FINALE (75)
back to the future (34)
NOCTURNAL WONDERLAND (40)
FEATURES
A COMPLETE GUIDE TO THE EVOLUTION OF ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC
A LOOK AT ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSICrsquoS EARLY HISTORY
EDMS BOOMING SUCCESS IN THE FESTIVAL MARKET HAS HEADS TURNING FROM AROUND THE INDUSTRY TO INVEST IN LIVE MUSIC
AN INSIDE LOOK AT AN ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC FESTIVAL
HOW THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION AFFECTED THE MUSIC INDUSTRY AND PAVED THE WAY FOR EDMrsquoS SUCCESS
DJ VS PRODUCER AND UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
FINAL THOUGHTS
6 we live for live music
PRETTY LIGHTS WITH LIVE DRUMMER COREY EBERHARDNOVEMBER 2009AUSTIN TEXAS
7live live issue 1
small stuff
(10) LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
(9) GLOSSARY
(14) FROM THE FANS
ON THE ROAD(16) fall tours(18) new yearrsquos eve shows
(75) SOURCES
8 we live for live music
EDITORWRITER
PUBLISHERPHOTOGRAPHER amp
ART DIRECTOR
SAMANTHA HOFFER
INTERVIEWEESBOBBY CLAY
TYLER GOLDBERGMIKE ABB
SCOTT EISEMAN DAN ROSENWALD
DOZENS OF UNOFFICIAL INTERVIEWS AND DISCUSSIONS WITH FRIENDS
AND PEERS
NOTE THIS IS AN INTERACTIVE PDF AS YOU READ LOOK FOR THE CURSOR TO CHANGE TO A HAND SYMBOL AS AN INDICATOR OF INTERACTIVE FEATURES USE ADOBE READER TO ENSURE COMPATIBILITY IF YOU ARE READING ON ISSUUCOM IN-TERACTIVE FEATURES ARE UNAVAILABLEROTHBURY MUSIC FESTIVAL
JULY 2008ROTHBURY MICHIGAN
9live live issue 1
the Glossary
For my thesis I created this magazinemdashwe LIVE for LIVE musicmdashas an ode to one of the nationrsquos favorite pastimes live music This premier issue the thesis issue stands as a testimonial to the music phenomenon that has recently swept across the nation Electronic Dance Music (EDM) Although dance music is certainly not new a new life was breathed into it in the past couple of years Through this magazine I hope to display not only a picture of Electronic Dance Music past and present but also explain why after forty years of existence dance music is just now find-ing its place in America and further what this says about the music industry on the whole For years doom and gloom stories have sur-
rounded the music industry with woeful tales about the effects of piracy and copyright infringement on record sales and royalties While these are certainly valid concerns statements about the ldquodeath of the music industryrdquo are highly skewed towards the state of the major record labels and not the music industry on the whole This is due to the fact that for the past century for one to refer to the state of the music indus-try was more or less the equivalent of referring to just the major record labels With the Digital Age a quantum shift has occurred in the means by which music is created distributed found and acquired that allow artists to directly connect with consumers and bypass the traditional gate-keepers of the industry the record labels It is my hope in this magazine to use Electronic
Dance Musicrsquos new-found booming success in America and the underlying reasons behind it to show the new landscape of the modern music industry one in which success is no longer mea-
LETTER
FROM THE
EDITOR
sured by ldquogoing goldrdquo but rather by the number of tickets sold Another goal I have for this magazine is that it
serves as a guide to the layman wishing to under-stand more about Electronic Dance Music An umbrella-term for a multitude of genres (Black Widow Music just published this list of 230 sub-genres and counting) as well as a type of music that changes as rapidly as the technology that drives it EDM can be difficult for many to grasp As EDM has gone the way of pop it has become
the focus of much ridicule as an uncultured and un-artistic medium simply meant for mindless dancing and creatable by anyone who can push a computer button I hope that this magazine serve as a bridge between the average uninformed pop-listener and the anti-EDM music ldquopuristsrdquo by providing insight into the history and artistry of Electronic Dance Music I was inspired to create this magazine because I
was lucky enough to be a part of the EDM scene as it busted out from the underground and into mainstream music and culture Arriving in Austin in the fall of 2008 I could not have been more excited to explore what the Live Music Capital of the World had to offer me Although I enjoyed concerts of all genres I quickly found myself attending electronic shows more than the rest and becoming a part of one of the many tight -knit communities that makes Austin great a group of about 300 electronic music loving Austinites Attending on average one electronic show a week that first year I came to love the feeling of being able to look around the room at any one of these shows and have that sense of communitymdashthat I
was surrounded by friends in all directions I had a feeling at the time that we were a part of something that was new and going to be big but I had no idea the extent of it As my college years went on artists that I had seen play in a small bar overlooking Sixth Street for maybe 300 people were playing at Austin City Music Hall for 3000 people I no longer could turn around at a show and find my all my friends instead I was faced with a sea of unfamiliar faces I realized that my small community was not so small anymore and had broken out of our underground niche and into the mainstream Seeing this phenomenon happen in front of me inspired this thesis Originally when I began working my thesis ques-
tion was about whether or not this genre was just a bubble or had truly found its way into the mainstream Over this summer movements in the industry to invest in EDM confirmed that this was not a bubble and caused me to shift my focus why EDM was now becoming mainstream After nearly forty years of existence why was elec-tronic music just now finding its place in America and looking at the bigger picture what does this say about the direction the music industry is headed in on the wholeIn this magazine I reveal how electronic music
has finally solidified its place in America because the digital age harbors an environment that strays away from the confines of the traditional recorded music industry allowing EDM to flourish outside of the control of the major record labels While the ldquoindustryrdquo has spent the past ten years pointing fingers and looking to Washington for solutions to the piracy issue electronic artists many of whom were born into the generation
which caused the file-sharing problem embraced that factmdashthat piracy is going to happenmdashand shifted their focus instead to the format their music was created formdashthe live experiencemdashto be successful The booming success EDM artists and EDM
promoters have found in the live experience has heads turning from all over the industry as they realize that the recorded music industry will never rise to its former glory and it is time to focus on a new more diversified direction for the music industry that includes licensing mer-chandising and most of allmdashlive music
14 we live for live music
PICS FROM THE SHOW
FROM THE FANS
diplo bassnectar
NYCclublife
houseparty lightshow
ravebarbie
moderngogogirl
biggigantic
tiesto
k
yke
bc
n
msj
ek
ka
kan
dii
nsp
ira
tio
ns
b
rad
pe
ters
5
djd
oc-
sto
ne
jh
oc
ks
n
ick
yh
ilto
n
rave
ba
rbie
ty
lers
he
rrit
t
15live live issue 1
Photos from the fans for an inside look at the world of EDM
from the fans
barcelonaclublife
bennybenassi
prettylightssoundsystemmodestep
kandi
aoki edc
squarepusher
b
ec
kyg
on
z
ga
dg
ett
eke
le
brk
orm
an
k
yke
bc
n
ste
vea
ok
i
cra
ck
wo
od
je
rem
yp
mit
ch
ell
c
hri
stin
am
org
an
n
oli
vert
wis
ty
16 we live for live music
on the road on the road
Fall ToursComing soon to a city near you
17live live issue 1
Fall Tours
18 we live for live music
new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013
Pretty Lights | Roseland Ballroom | New York
Zedd amp Nicky Romero | Club Nokia | Los Angeles
Chromeo Ana Sia Gramatic Poolside Snowglobe Music Festival | South Lake Tahoe
ATB MiM0SA Zeds Dead Paul Basic Wolfgang Gartner Krewella Colorado Convention Center | Denver
Skrillex Boyz Noise FlosstradomusThe Palace of Auburn Hills | Milwaukee
Shpongle Glitch Mob Sea of Dreams | San Francisco
Tiesto | Revel Ovation Hall | Atlantic City
The Disco Biscuits | Madison Square Garden
Paper Diamond | Oregon Convention Center | Portland
Bassnectar | Bridgestone Arena | Nashville
Lights All Night | Fair Park | Dallas
Beats Antique | Paramount Theatre | Seattle
Rusko | WaMu Theatre | Seattle
Lotus amp Moon Hooch | Rams Head Live | Baltimore
on the road
19live live issue 1
Industry
genre
pop culture
technology
20 we live for live music
The term ldquoElectronic Musicrdquo is coined by Werner Meyer Eppler
Rock nrsquo Roll music is born
RCA Mark II the first programmable sound synthesizer is invented by
Olson and Belar
Motown becomes dance music classics
1949
1950s
timeline 1949 - 1970
1955
First time anyone
had used the word synthesizer for a
piece of equipment
Rock nrsquo Roll redefines music as something to be listened to not danced to
We begin the story here
1960s
(COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY)
(THE BEAT)
21live live issue 1
Bob Moogrsquos synthesizer brought electronic music out of the realm of academia and into
the hands of musicians
Rock nrsquo roll becomes the sound of modern life It continues to grow
until splits into factions in the 1970s
The Moog Company develops the first modular synthesizer
The Beach Boysrsquo Good Vibrations is the first pop hit to feature
electronic sounds
Etta James releases ldquoSomethingrsquos Got a Hold of Merdquo a sample of which resonates
through the EDM explosion of late
1962
timeline 1949 - 1970
1962
1960s
1967
1964
1960sYouth start to attend rock concerts
instead of going to sock hops
King Tubby of Jamaica births the dub which will later give rise to the remix
(CAPITOL RECORDS)
(MOOG MUSIC)
null
21222783
22 we live for live music
Disco makes streaming music continuously cool and
popularizes the club scene Jim Morrison predicts
the future of music
The Mini Moog is invented becoming the first portable synthesizer
Synth music and space age pop is starting to impact TV
film and commercials
Disco is born
Hot Butterrsquos Popcorn becomes the first electronic pop hit
DJ Herc invents BreakbeatItalo Disco becomes the
first complete EDM genre
1970s
EARLY1970s
1972-1974 1973
1970 1978
1978
1972
1970
the 1970sldquoI can envision one person with l ike a lot of machines tapes and electronic setups
singing or speaking and using machinesrdquo-Jim Morrison
The Technics 1200 Mark II is released and becomes the industry standard
(PBS)
(RCO RECORDS)
timeline
null
2677309
23live live issue 1
Saturday Night Fever
Kraftwerk releases Autobahn
David Bowie and Blondie bring in New Wave
Sugar Hill Gangrsquos ldquoRapperrsquos Delightrdquo brings hip hop into the Top 40
Brian Eno births ambient music
The first digital sampler the Fairlight CMI (Computer Musical Instrument) is released
Disco declines as sentiments such as ldquoDisco Sucksrdquo and ldquoDeath to
Discordquo become popular
1977
L AT E1970s
1978 1978
1979
1979
1975
the 1970s
These days many people falsly associate this iconic soundtrack with the
beginning of disco
Kraftwerk members are considered tobe the ldquogodfathersrdquo of electronic music
(UNKNOWN)
timeline
24 we live for live music
Disco is thought to be dead but it just went underground where it morphed into house and techno
Video game music is born as a genre
Computers video games and electronic equipment become more affordable
efficient and put to great use
Roland TR 808 Rhythm Machine
Frankie Knuckles invents house music at the
Warehouse in Chicago
E-mu Emulator becomes the first affordable
digital sampler
The Hacienda Club opens in Manchester
The rave scene grows from acid house music in the United Kingdom
the 1980rsquos
1981
1982 1987
1980
1980 1981
1980s 1980s
(UNKOWN)
In the 1980s a host of new instruments based on synthet-ic sounds and sampl ing technolo-gy contributed to the formation of new genres of electronic mu-sic and the electronic sound on the whole Whi le these days the sounds of most of these instruments can be repl icated on a computer outfit-ted with the proper audio software DJs sti l l seek the retro instruments for the unique characteristics that come from analog instruments
timeline
25live live issue 1
Sampling and breakbeat become important features for both
hip-hop and EDM
MIDI inventedRoland TB 303
Baseline released
Techno rises out of the industrial
sounds of Detroit
Roland TR 909 Drum Machine
Acid house is born at the Hacienda Club in
Manchester
Electronic Dance Music first Summer of Love begins as the free-party scene takes the sound out of the club and into the open
Ambient music becomes just as important as the dance floor during EDMrsquos second
Summer of Love
Trip Hop and other downtempo genres find success with acts like Massive Attack and Portishead
the 1980rsquos
19871983-1985
1989-1991
1988
1989
1982 19841983
1980
MIDI is a protocol not a hardware which provided a standard for electronic instrument manufacturers
(MASSIVE ATTACK)
London becomes the hub of
EDM
timeline
Computer-based production allows for DJs to recreate the sounds found in traditional analog instruments as
well as new sounds that have never been heard before (eg the Dubstep wob) It also opened up the realm of
EDM creation to anyone with the right software
Responsible for EDC Nocturnal and Wonderland Festivals
Rise of the super club and superstar DJs
The media dubs of all electronic music
ldquotechnordquo
Hardcore music begins to dominate the British
rave scene
Jungle forms out of hardcore
Paul Oakenfold Paul Van Dyk and DJ Tiesto bring trance
music to the forefront
Insomniac Events is established in Southern California
Tommy Boy Records releases the first Jock Jams album
timeline the 1990rsquos
MP3 digital audio format is introduced
1990s
1990s
1992
1990s 1990s
1993
1991
1995
Rave music sees slight mainstream success with artists such as C amp C Music Factory and
Snap and begins to infuence pop music
With the growth of personal computing electronic artists began to migrate from analog electronic
instruments to computer-based production
EARLY1990s
EARLY1990s
(TOMMY BOY RECORDS)
>
>
null
19304054
Although electronica failed to go main-stream its loops and textures find their
way into pop and hip hop
They are the developers of Ableton Live one of the premiere loop-based
sequencers used in modern production
EDC begins as a one day event
Drum and bass evolves out of jungle
Record companies try to market techno under a new namemdash
ldquoelectronicardquomdash but fail
Fatboy Slim makes $0 off of Rockafeller Skank after giving 25 of the royalties to each of
the four artists he used samples from
Moby licenses every track on his
Play album
timeline the 1990rsquos
Napster launchesAbleton is founded
19991994
1995
1991 19991999
1997 1998
1997In the UK raves are forced back underground with the passing of
the Criminal Justice Act
ProTools released at a price of $6000
LATE1990s
LATE1990s
As artists begin to use computers in production
glitch hop evolves
This new law defined gatherings of more than 20 people listening to
ldquorepetitive beatsrdquo as illegal
(SKINT RECORDS)
EDMrsquoS non-descript beats are perfect for marketing
28 we live for live music
In an interview with the New York Times David Bowie claims copyright and intellectual property
will cease to exist in the next ten years
Congress passes a law holding club owners responsible for their patronsrsquo actions and
affecting the whole industry
Tiesto DJs the Athens Olympic Opening Ceremonies
The GRAMMYs add a Best DanceElectronica
Album category
Dubstep nights begin to pop up in the underground music
scene around the USDubstep begins to grow
out of South London
timeline
Limewire introducedCD sales peak iTunes launchedThe iPod brings digital music players to the masses
2002
2000 2001 2001 2003
2003
20062001
2004 2005
ldquoYoursquod better be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation
thatrsquos going to be leftrdquo
Ruskorsquos ldquoCockney Thugrdquo i l lustrates the wob sound
2000-2009
(COURTESY OF RUSK0)
(DTSIABAIFLICKR CC)
null
24417967
29live live issue 1
Daft Punkrsquos pyramid setup at Coachella sets a
new bar for visuals
Kanye West spawns electro-rap with 808rsquos amp Heartbreak prominently fea-
turing the TR 808 drum machine
Lady Gaga and the Black Eyed Peas bring the Euro-house
sound to the Top 40
Guettarsquos ldquoWhen Love Take Overrdquo becomes an international pop hit and the Euro-house sound
starts to creep its way into popular music
timeline
2004 2004 2007
2008 2009
20072006
20092007-2009
Long-established one-day raves such as EDC and Ultra transform
into two-day festivals
Guetta co-wrote ldquoBoom Boom Powrdquo
Gagarsquos Bad Romance has nearly 05 bi l l ion YouTube views
Gary Richards starts Hard Events
Youtube launched Beatport launched
2000-2009
iPhone released
(KARL WALTERGETTY IMAGES)
(INTERSCOPE RECORDS)
2010-2011
Technics SL-1200 turntable the industry standard for thirty
years is discontinued
Limewire the top P2P file-sharing client
is shut downSpotify launches in the US
When an underage girl dies at EDC in LA EDM gets a lot backlash but this
also gives it a lot of exposure
EDC is forced out of LA and moves to Vegas which becomes the home of
EDM in the United States
Bassnectar plays Red Rocks where he incurs $100000 in noise violations
after bringing his own speakers
Skrillex is nominated for five Grammy Awards he
wins three
timeline
2010
2010
2010
2010 2010 2011
2011 2011
2011
2011
Black Eyed Peasrsquo house-based ldquoThe TimeDirty Bitrdquo tops the
charts in over 15 countries
Hip hop and EDM production styles have always mirrored one another now they are morphing
EDM finally has a home in America
Moombahton a fusion of house music and reggae is
born at a house party in DC
Skrillex explodes onto the main-stream music scene bringing the ldquodroprdquo and heavy bass with him
DJAY app
(COURTESY OF SKRILLEX)
2010-2011
Britneyrsquos Hold it Against Me acts as the catalyst for replacing the pop
bridge with the dubstep drop
EDC Vegas has over 230000 attendees in
three days
The Victoria Secret Fashion Show features rave-inspired
outfits for the final walk
timeline
2011 2011
2011 2011 2011
2011
Tiesto plays the biggest single headliner DJ show in US
history to 26000 in Carson CA
Nielsen Soundscan reports digital music sales in the US are larger than
physical sales for the first time
Absoulte Vodka sponsors Swedish House Mafiarsquos
sold out MSG show
According to Bil lboard this is considered a watershed moment
brands adopting EDM
EDM technology is large-ly based now around
software programs and
their coordinating hard-
ware--control lers for Ableton
Scratch decks for Serato
and more There is an entire
spectrum of modern DJ tech-
nology avai lable and the path
one takes depends on what
sound they are trying to achieve
(JIVE RECORDS)
(ZUMA PRESS)
(SAMANTHA HOFFER)
The neon colors associated with EDM can be found al l over
the fashion world
With the laptop as instrument EDM
producers constantly
blend and mix elements
of different genres lead-
ing to the prol iferation of
microgenres which are difficult to
distinguish
null
26177792
32 we live for live music
EDC Vegas sees 300000+ people
over 3 days
Family-friendly animated film Wreck It Ralph uses
dance music in trailer
Feature-length EDM documentary ldquoThe Drop The EDM Culture
Explosionrdquo enters production
A system of alerts are set up to notify users when they
infringe on copyright law
Night Culture Inc becomes the first EDM-oriented publicly
traded company
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline 2012
Queen Latifah sings the National Anthem at the opening game of
the NFL seasonover a beat
JAN
OCTJULY SEPT
SEPTAUG
JUNE JUNEMARUltra Music Festival in Miami
has 40000 viewers watching its online stream over YouTube
Universal closes on EMI becoming the largest of the remaining three
major record labels
(DANNY MOLOSHOK REUTERS)
(BIG MACHINE)
null
21255588
33live live issue 1
After exploding onto the mainstream music scene and pop culture in the past year the industry has set its signts on EDM ventures proved the genre has final ly conquered the final frontiermdashAmerica
Live Nation purchases Hard Events
Media mogul Robert FX Sillerman says he will spend
$1B on EDM enterprises
EDM artists get the spotlight at the Grammys for the 1st time with addi-tion of a dance music performance
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline
Taylor Swift adopts the dubstep drop with her single ldquoI Knew You
Were Troublerdquo
JUNEFEB JULY
JUNE JUNE
OCT OCT NOV
NOVOCT
Bieber drops his first dub-step-influenced track ldquoAs
Long as You Love Merdquo
Dance-based songs can be found all across the radio
The first professional media outlet for EDM is announced
NYU introduces a course on the Business of Electronic amp
Dance Music
Billboard hosts the 2nd Annual FutureSound conference to ad-dress the future of the industry
NOVEMBERBLACK WIDOW
MUSIC PUBLISHES A LIST OF 230+ EDM SUB-GENRESAND
COUNTING
(BIG MACHINE)
34 we live for live music
BACK TO THE
FUTUREThirty years after the ldquodeathrdquo of disco dance music is back in America and bigger than ever To understand
where it is going we must take a look at the past
35live live issue 1
The most recent main-stream movement to hit the United States
E l e c t r o n i c D a n c e M u s i c (EDM) did so as an explosion of lights neon and pulsating beats But dance music is nothing new Although EDM seems entirely novel to many of Amer icarsquos youth dance music has a long and storied history
In the beginning mus ic c r e a t e d v i a e l e c t r o n i c ins t r ument s was focused on academic pursuit s and high ar t The use of elec-t ron ic s i n popu la r mus ic c rea t ion b egan w i t h t he commerc ia l i z a t ion o f t he synthesizer in the 1960s As technology evolved so did experimentation with elec-tronic instruments
In the 1970s the days of disco led to the develop-ment of e lec t ronic dance mus ic when DJs invented the traditional two-turntable setup to continuously stream together music so that the dancing never had to stop U n f o r t u na te l y f o r d a n c e music just as quickly as disco was embraced ant i -d isco sentiments fueled by racism and fear of change pushed it into the underground
It was in this underground s p a c e d u r i n g t h e lsquo 8 0 s that modern dance music evo lved St r ides made in elec tronic ins trumentation developed the synthesizer machines that would form the backbones of house and techno music the Roland TB 303 baseline and Roland TR 909 drum machine
A c c o r d i n g t o T h e Guard ianrsquos recent l y pub -lished timeline A History of Modern Music DJ Frankie Knuckles is responsible for the development of house music characterized by its
44 beats Techno rose out of Detroit a few years later inspired by the indus tr ial sounds of the city
While wildly popular in the underground music scene techno and house did not find commercial success in Amer ica I t was not unt i l the lat ter par t of the lsquo80s when the sounds of house and techno found their way to t he UK and mor phed into a new sub-genre acid house that the commercial club culture was born albeit exclusively in Europe
While dance music took of f r unning on the other side of the pond in America a dif ferent s tor y began to unfold As rap and hip-hop took a s t ronghold of the music industr y in the late eighties and nineties dance music remained confined to the peripheries
A s d a n c e - m u s i c D J s w o r ke d t o e v o l v e t h e i r sound and keep up w i th technology hip -hop DJs who adopted the traditional turntable setup from the DJs of disco as well as their pro-duction techniques began to work in the record ing s tudios and inf luence the industr y especially in the realm of pop music
I n t h e 19 9 0 s i n s i d e r s thought EDM had f ina l l y hit the jackpot and found mainstream success In an inter v iew with PaperMag industry vet Gary Richards explains ldquothe f irst farewell to the undergroundrdquo
ldquoBy 1993 i t felt l ike the music wasnrsquot underground anymore so I threw a par ty c a l l e d R ave A m e r i c a a t Knot t s Ber r y Farm which i s an amusement par k in O r a n g e C o u n t y I t s o l d out with l ike 20000 peo-ple Rick Rubin came with
Anthony K ied is f rom the Red Hot Chili Peppers and a couple guys from ZZ Top and he asked me if I wanted to work in the record busi-ness and help them s ign some EDM ar t i s t s I sa id sure the Prodigy were super hot and it seemed like it was blowing up But we star ted signing all these techno art-ists thinking theyrsquod catch on too but nobody was buying it Nobodyrdquo
Jus t l i ke R ichards says n o b o d y w a s b u y i n g i t D a n c e m u s i c w a s n o t catching on in the way the industr y would have liked so in 1997 the entire music industry and press put their full force behind ldquoelectron-icardquo the new catch-all name they had given to the genre in an attempt to successfully market it
Despite the gl impses of success seen froma handful of artists the genre failed to succeed and the industr y distanced itself from dance music far ther than i t had when disco ldquodiedrdquo
T h i s f a i l u r e c a n b e accounted to EDM not f it-t i ng i n to t h e ma r ke t i ng machinery of the industr y The t radit ional setup was f ixed for four-minute rock and pop singles and album tour s not t he ex tended club mixes and residencies that were the basis of the EDM world Not only was the indus t r y i l l - equipped to market electronic music but many consumers also felt it abrasive and awkward attempting to listen to this machine-made glitch-based music that was so unfamiliar to their ears It was not until the digital revolution of the new millennium that elec-tronic dance music f inal ly found its place
36 we live for live music
Festival
MAJOR LAZER AT SUMMERFEST IN HOUSTON JUNE 2012
37live live issue 1
If music in 2012 could talk it would sound a lot like the Bill Orsquo Reillyrsquos blooper ldquoLetrsquos do it liverdquo While attending concerts has been popular since rock and roll shows in the 1950s the recent electronic music boom has made it exponentially more so
One reason accord ing to Forbes i s that as resource constraints have t ightened people are spending thei r money more on exper iences as opposed to manufactured products But it is more than that EDM has managed to ent i re ly t rans -form the concept of a concer t by blurring the lines between going out dancing and going out to see music These days one would pay the same amount to see superstar-DJ David Guetta in an arena that they would if they were simply dancing to him spin-ning in a club
But this popularity was not always the case As a genre born in the world of nightclubs EDMrsquos parties were lambasted for years as depraved raves Now many kids will go to a rave before they attend a rock concert Why the sudden change A major factor is rebranding
Raves became festivals Electronic became EDMOnce shed of the negative associations with raves
and the bad memories of the electronicarsquos failure EDM shows and festivals began to proliferate across the countr y No longer hiding in remote f ields or empt y warehouse e lec t ronic mus ic promoter s looked to book DJs in public arenas and concer t halls
Elec tr ic Daisy Carnival (EDC) 2010 a rave put on by one of the major EDM promoters Insomniac
Event s ser ved as a turning point for the genre when an underage gir l died at the event causing severe backlash against Insomniac but also giving the genre lots of exposure EDC was run out of Los Angeles but found refuge in the always-accepting city of Las Vegas It was here in Vegas that EDM finally found a homemdashnow playing the same role to America as Ibiza did to Europe when the rave scene star ted there in the 1980s Superstar DJs can be found any week as a resident DJ to Tao XS or one of the many other posh clubs and the landmark event of the year EDC Vegas is now one of the largest raves in the world with over 300000 attendees last year
EDC is not the only big festival on the market now though Festivals are becoming trendymdashan indicator of direction the music industry is headed in towards the live and away from the recorded According to Metrowizecom an online nightli fe guide in 2012 alone at leas t thir t y-two new fes t ivals began in Americamdashfif teen of them dedicated solely to EDM
Long-standing traditions in the music industry fes-tivals typically only attracted people who spent a lot of time at live music and concertshellipuntil recently
As EDM crossed over into pop music the l ines became blur red between a night of going out to dance at a club and night of going out to see your favorite ar tist at a concer t People who a few years ago never attended a concert beyond the major pop ar tists are now concer t-fiends as the ldquopoprdquo ar tists they love today are world-renowned DJs
Of course as any genre crosses into the main-stream it is going to become increasingly popular
FeverEDMS BOOMING SUCCESS IN THE FESTIVAL MARKET HAS HEADS
TURNING FROM AROUND THE INDUSTRY TO INVEST IN LIVE MUSIC
38 we live for live music
with the masses but EDMrsquos explosion is unparal-leled Hundreds of thousands of people attended EDC Vegas and that was just one of dozens of elec-tronic dance festivals and all-night events this year
Because the live experience is EDMrsquos native for-mat the genre is par ticularly nuanced to success on the road Matt Adell of Beatport the online mecca of the DJ community explains one of the reasons why
ldquoPer formers such as Skr illex are incredibly ef f i -cient touring operations compared to rock bands Itrsquos less expensive than a rock group because therersquos just one per former Therersquos much less gear and it rsquos easier to set up because therersquos no live micro-phones So the suppor t team required is so much smallerrdquo
Bobby Clay head of the electronic division at C3 Presents touches on another aspect of EDM that primes the genre for the road ldquoIt rsquos like you donrsquot need to have a full studio on your tour bus to create the next banger or the next huge club track or the next Rihanna remix You can do it from the comfort of a tour bus or the green room of whatever arena some of these big people are playing in nowrdquo EDM ar tists have the luxury of not having to break from tour to create new songs
Although EDM is pr imed for tour ing i t is only in the past couple of years that the genre took on this rock and roll mentality As shows star ted to be booked in rock and roll venues and DJproducers took to the road stopping in every middle town and college campus in America like a rock band would DJs became rock stars in their own right One ar tist in par ticular is noted for condensing the drawn out peaks and falls of dance music into four and a half minute radio-ready tracks the half-shaved goofy-glasses wearing kid known as Skrillex Love him or hate him his genre-fusing in your face style helped to launch EDM to the place it is at today
With mega-DJs such as Skrillex earning up to $1 million per festival appearance and groups such as Swedish House Mafia selling out Madison Square Garden in nine minutes it is no surprise that corpo-rate heads have turned to this once-ignored market Over the summer Live Nation bought Hard Events one of the original promoters of the genre whose brands of Hardfest Holy Ship and Haunted Hard Mansion have gone on to great success Shor t ly af ter media mogul Robert FX Sillerman pledged to invest $1 billion dollars in EDM ventures
As the money pours in 2013 is looking to be the biggest year yet for EDM Having finally solidified i t s place in the music industr y (and at the fore-front nevertheless) Electronic Dance Music is ready to guide the music industry in a new directionmdasha direction towards the future towards a more diver-sified music industry towards a music industry that lives for live music
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
39live live issue 1
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
AT LEAST 32 NEW FESTIVALS BEGAN IN THE UNITED STATES IN 2012 OF THESE FESTIVALS FIFTEEN OF THEM ARE DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC
40 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL WONDERLANDDowntown TexasApril 27-28 2012An inside look into the modern electronic music festival
41live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL WONDERLAND
42 we live for live music
43live live issue 1
A new generation neo-age hippies
44 we live for live musicWelcome to Wonderland
45live live issue 1
46 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
47live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Dillon Francis plays The Queenrsquos Ground
48 we live for live music
49live live issue 1
Visual explosions to coordinate with the
audio attack of a drop
50 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
51live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
EDM shows are known for their
high-impact visuals
52 we live for live music
53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
Button 7
Button 8
Button 9
Button 10
Button 11
Button 12
button13
Button 52
Button 54
Button 56
Button 55
Button 43
Button 44
Button 49
Button 50
Button 48
GHOSTLAND OBSERVATORYNOVEMBER 2012HOUSTON TEXAS
TIMELINE (20)
FESTIVAL FEVER (36)
LETrsquoS GET DIGITAL (62)
just give me the beat (68)
THE FINALE (75)
back to the future (34)
NOCTURNAL WONDERLAND (40)
FEATURES
A COMPLETE GUIDE TO THE EVOLUTION OF ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC
A LOOK AT ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSICrsquoS EARLY HISTORY
EDMS BOOMING SUCCESS IN THE FESTIVAL MARKET HAS HEADS TURNING FROM AROUND THE INDUSTRY TO INVEST IN LIVE MUSIC
AN INSIDE LOOK AT AN ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC FESTIVAL
HOW THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION AFFECTED THE MUSIC INDUSTRY AND PAVED THE WAY FOR EDMrsquoS SUCCESS
DJ VS PRODUCER AND UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
FINAL THOUGHTS
6 we live for live music
PRETTY LIGHTS WITH LIVE DRUMMER COREY EBERHARDNOVEMBER 2009AUSTIN TEXAS
7live live issue 1
small stuff
(10) LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
(9) GLOSSARY
(14) FROM THE FANS
ON THE ROAD(16) fall tours(18) new yearrsquos eve shows
(75) SOURCES
8 we live for live music
EDITORWRITER
PUBLISHERPHOTOGRAPHER amp
ART DIRECTOR
SAMANTHA HOFFER
INTERVIEWEESBOBBY CLAY
TYLER GOLDBERGMIKE ABB
SCOTT EISEMAN DAN ROSENWALD
DOZENS OF UNOFFICIAL INTERVIEWS AND DISCUSSIONS WITH FRIENDS
AND PEERS
NOTE THIS IS AN INTERACTIVE PDF AS YOU READ LOOK FOR THE CURSOR TO CHANGE TO A HAND SYMBOL AS AN INDICATOR OF INTERACTIVE FEATURES USE ADOBE READER TO ENSURE COMPATIBILITY IF YOU ARE READING ON ISSUUCOM IN-TERACTIVE FEATURES ARE UNAVAILABLEROTHBURY MUSIC FESTIVAL
JULY 2008ROTHBURY MICHIGAN
9live live issue 1
the Glossary
For my thesis I created this magazinemdashwe LIVE for LIVE musicmdashas an ode to one of the nationrsquos favorite pastimes live music This premier issue the thesis issue stands as a testimonial to the music phenomenon that has recently swept across the nation Electronic Dance Music (EDM) Although dance music is certainly not new a new life was breathed into it in the past couple of years Through this magazine I hope to display not only a picture of Electronic Dance Music past and present but also explain why after forty years of existence dance music is just now find-ing its place in America and further what this says about the music industry on the whole For years doom and gloom stories have sur-
rounded the music industry with woeful tales about the effects of piracy and copyright infringement on record sales and royalties While these are certainly valid concerns statements about the ldquodeath of the music industryrdquo are highly skewed towards the state of the major record labels and not the music industry on the whole This is due to the fact that for the past century for one to refer to the state of the music indus-try was more or less the equivalent of referring to just the major record labels With the Digital Age a quantum shift has occurred in the means by which music is created distributed found and acquired that allow artists to directly connect with consumers and bypass the traditional gate-keepers of the industry the record labels It is my hope in this magazine to use Electronic
Dance Musicrsquos new-found booming success in America and the underlying reasons behind it to show the new landscape of the modern music industry one in which success is no longer mea-
LETTER
FROM THE
EDITOR
sured by ldquogoing goldrdquo but rather by the number of tickets sold Another goal I have for this magazine is that it
serves as a guide to the layman wishing to under-stand more about Electronic Dance Music An umbrella-term for a multitude of genres (Black Widow Music just published this list of 230 sub-genres and counting) as well as a type of music that changes as rapidly as the technology that drives it EDM can be difficult for many to grasp As EDM has gone the way of pop it has become
the focus of much ridicule as an uncultured and un-artistic medium simply meant for mindless dancing and creatable by anyone who can push a computer button I hope that this magazine serve as a bridge between the average uninformed pop-listener and the anti-EDM music ldquopuristsrdquo by providing insight into the history and artistry of Electronic Dance Music I was inspired to create this magazine because I
was lucky enough to be a part of the EDM scene as it busted out from the underground and into mainstream music and culture Arriving in Austin in the fall of 2008 I could not have been more excited to explore what the Live Music Capital of the World had to offer me Although I enjoyed concerts of all genres I quickly found myself attending electronic shows more than the rest and becoming a part of one of the many tight -knit communities that makes Austin great a group of about 300 electronic music loving Austinites Attending on average one electronic show a week that first year I came to love the feeling of being able to look around the room at any one of these shows and have that sense of communitymdashthat I
was surrounded by friends in all directions I had a feeling at the time that we were a part of something that was new and going to be big but I had no idea the extent of it As my college years went on artists that I had seen play in a small bar overlooking Sixth Street for maybe 300 people were playing at Austin City Music Hall for 3000 people I no longer could turn around at a show and find my all my friends instead I was faced with a sea of unfamiliar faces I realized that my small community was not so small anymore and had broken out of our underground niche and into the mainstream Seeing this phenomenon happen in front of me inspired this thesis Originally when I began working my thesis ques-
tion was about whether or not this genre was just a bubble or had truly found its way into the mainstream Over this summer movements in the industry to invest in EDM confirmed that this was not a bubble and caused me to shift my focus why EDM was now becoming mainstream After nearly forty years of existence why was elec-tronic music just now finding its place in America and looking at the bigger picture what does this say about the direction the music industry is headed in on the wholeIn this magazine I reveal how electronic music
has finally solidified its place in America because the digital age harbors an environment that strays away from the confines of the traditional recorded music industry allowing EDM to flourish outside of the control of the major record labels While the ldquoindustryrdquo has spent the past ten years pointing fingers and looking to Washington for solutions to the piracy issue electronic artists many of whom were born into the generation
which caused the file-sharing problem embraced that factmdashthat piracy is going to happenmdashand shifted their focus instead to the format their music was created formdashthe live experiencemdashto be successful The booming success EDM artists and EDM
promoters have found in the live experience has heads turning from all over the industry as they realize that the recorded music industry will never rise to its former glory and it is time to focus on a new more diversified direction for the music industry that includes licensing mer-chandising and most of allmdashlive music
14 we live for live music
PICS FROM THE SHOW
FROM THE FANS
diplo bassnectar
NYCclublife
houseparty lightshow
ravebarbie
moderngogogirl
biggigantic
tiesto
k
yke
bc
n
msj
ek
ka
kan
dii
nsp
ira
tio
ns
b
rad
pe
ters
5
djd
oc-
sto
ne
jh
oc
ks
n
ick
yh
ilto
n
rave
ba
rbie
ty
lers
he
rrit
t
15live live issue 1
Photos from the fans for an inside look at the world of EDM
from the fans
barcelonaclublife
bennybenassi
prettylightssoundsystemmodestep
kandi
aoki edc
squarepusher
b
ec
kyg
on
z
ga
dg
ett
eke
le
brk
orm
an
k
yke
bc
n
ste
vea
ok
i
cra
ck
wo
od
je
rem
yp
mit
ch
ell
c
hri
stin
am
org
an
n
oli
vert
wis
ty
16 we live for live music
on the road on the road
Fall ToursComing soon to a city near you
17live live issue 1
Fall Tours
18 we live for live music
new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013
Pretty Lights | Roseland Ballroom | New York
Zedd amp Nicky Romero | Club Nokia | Los Angeles
Chromeo Ana Sia Gramatic Poolside Snowglobe Music Festival | South Lake Tahoe
ATB MiM0SA Zeds Dead Paul Basic Wolfgang Gartner Krewella Colorado Convention Center | Denver
Skrillex Boyz Noise FlosstradomusThe Palace of Auburn Hills | Milwaukee
Shpongle Glitch Mob Sea of Dreams | San Francisco
Tiesto | Revel Ovation Hall | Atlantic City
The Disco Biscuits | Madison Square Garden
Paper Diamond | Oregon Convention Center | Portland
Bassnectar | Bridgestone Arena | Nashville
Lights All Night | Fair Park | Dallas
Beats Antique | Paramount Theatre | Seattle
Rusko | WaMu Theatre | Seattle
Lotus amp Moon Hooch | Rams Head Live | Baltimore
on the road
19live live issue 1
Industry
genre
pop culture
technology
20 we live for live music
The term ldquoElectronic Musicrdquo is coined by Werner Meyer Eppler
Rock nrsquo Roll music is born
RCA Mark II the first programmable sound synthesizer is invented by
Olson and Belar
Motown becomes dance music classics
1949
1950s
timeline 1949 - 1970
1955
First time anyone
had used the word synthesizer for a
piece of equipment
Rock nrsquo Roll redefines music as something to be listened to not danced to
We begin the story here
1960s
(COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY)
(THE BEAT)
21live live issue 1
Bob Moogrsquos synthesizer brought electronic music out of the realm of academia and into
the hands of musicians
Rock nrsquo roll becomes the sound of modern life It continues to grow
until splits into factions in the 1970s
The Moog Company develops the first modular synthesizer
The Beach Boysrsquo Good Vibrations is the first pop hit to feature
electronic sounds
Etta James releases ldquoSomethingrsquos Got a Hold of Merdquo a sample of which resonates
through the EDM explosion of late
1962
timeline 1949 - 1970
1962
1960s
1967
1964
1960sYouth start to attend rock concerts
instead of going to sock hops
King Tubby of Jamaica births the dub which will later give rise to the remix
(CAPITOL RECORDS)
(MOOG MUSIC)
null
21222783
22 we live for live music
Disco makes streaming music continuously cool and
popularizes the club scene Jim Morrison predicts
the future of music
The Mini Moog is invented becoming the first portable synthesizer
Synth music and space age pop is starting to impact TV
film and commercials
Disco is born
Hot Butterrsquos Popcorn becomes the first electronic pop hit
DJ Herc invents BreakbeatItalo Disco becomes the
first complete EDM genre
1970s
EARLY1970s
1972-1974 1973
1970 1978
1978
1972
1970
the 1970sldquoI can envision one person with l ike a lot of machines tapes and electronic setups
singing or speaking and using machinesrdquo-Jim Morrison
The Technics 1200 Mark II is released and becomes the industry standard
(PBS)
(RCO RECORDS)
timeline
null
2677309
23live live issue 1
Saturday Night Fever
Kraftwerk releases Autobahn
David Bowie and Blondie bring in New Wave
Sugar Hill Gangrsquos ldquoRapperrsquos Delightrdquo brings hip hop into the Top 40
Brian Eno births ambient music
The first digital sampler the Fairlight CMI (Computer Musical Instrument) is released
Disco declines as sentiments such as ldquoDisco Sucksrdquo and ldquoDeath to
Discordquo become popular
1977
L AT E1970s
1978 1978
1979
1979
1975
the 1970s
These days many people falsly associate this iconic soundtrack with the
beginning of disco
Kraftwerk members are considered tobe the ldquogodfathersrdquo of electronic music
(UNKNOWN)
timeline
24 we live for live music
Disco is thought to be dead but it just went underground where it morphed into house and techno
Video game music is born as a genre
Computers video games and electronic equipment become more affordable
efficient and put to great use
Roland TR 808 Rhythm Machine
Frankie Knuckles invents house music at the
Warehouse in Chicago
E-mu Emulator becomes the first affordable
digital sampler
The Hacienda Club opens in Manchester
The rave scene grows from acid house music in the United Kingdom
the 1980rsquos
1981
1982 1987
1980
1980 1981
1980s 1980s
(UNKOWN)
In the 1980s a host of new instruments based on synthet-ic sounds and sampl ing technolo-gy contributed to the formation of new genres of electronic mu-sic and the electronic sound on the whole Whi le these days the sounds of most of these instruments can be repl icated on a computer outfit-ted with the proper audio software DJs sti l l seek the retro instruments for the unique characteristics that come from analog instruments
timeline
25live live issue 1
Sampling and breakbeat become important features for both
hip-hop and EDM
MIDI inventedRoland TB 303
Baseline released
Techno rises out of the industrial
sounds of Detroit
Roland TR 909 Drum Machine
Acid house is born at the Hacienda Club in
Manchester
Electronic Dance Music first Summer of Love begins as the free-party scene takes the sound out of the club and into the open
Ambient music becomes just as important as the dance floor during EDMrsquos second
Summer of Love
Trip Hop and other downtempo genres find success with acts like Massive Attack and Portishead
the 1980rsquos
19871983-1985
1989-1991
1988
1989
1982 19841983
1980
MIDI is a protocol not a hardware which provided a standard for electronic instrument manufacturers
(MASSIVE ATTACK)
London becomes the hub of
EDM
timeline
Computer-based production allows for DJs to recreate the sounds found in traditional analog instruments as
well as new sounds that have never been heard before (eg the Dubstep wob) It also opened up the realm of
EDM creation to anyone with the right software
Responsible for EDC Nocturnal and Wonderland Festivals
Rise of the super club and superstar DJs
The media dubs of all electronic music
ldquotechnordquo
Hardcore music begins to dominate the British
rave scene
Jungle forms out of hardcore
Paul Oakenfold Paul Van Dyk and DJ Tiesto bring trance
music to the forefront
Insomniac Events is established in Southern California
Tommy Boy Records releases the first Jock Jams album
timeline the 1990rsquos
MP3 digital audio format is introduced
1990s
1990s
1992
1990s 1990s
1993
1991
1995
Rave music sees slight mainstream success with artists such as C amp C Music Factory and
Snap and begins to infuence pop music
With the growth of personal computing electronic artists began to migrate from analog electronic
instruments to computer-based production
EARLY1990s
EARLY1990s
(TOMMY BOY RECORDS)
>
>
null
19304054
Although electronica failed to go main-stream its loops and textures find their
way into pop and hip hop
They are the developers of Ableton Live one of the premiere loop-based
sequencers used in modern production
EDC begins as a one day event
Drum and bass evolves out of jungle
Record companies try to market techno under a new namemdash
ldquoelectronicardquomdash but fail
Fatboy Slim makes $0 off of Rockafeller Skank after giving 25 of the royalties to each of
the four artists he used samples from
Moby licenses every track on his
Play album
timeline the 1990rsquos
Napster launchesAbleton is founded
19991994
1995
1991 19991999
1997 1998
1997In the UK raves are forced back underground with the passing of
the Criminal Justice Act
ProTools released at a price of $6000
LATE1990s
LATE1990s
As artists begin to use computers in production
glitch hop evolves
This new law defined gatherings of more than 20 people listening to
ldquorepetitive beatsrdquo as illegal
(SKINT RECORDS)
EDMrsquoS non-descript beats are perfect for marketing
28 we live for live music
In an interview with the New York Times David Bowie claims copyright and intellectual property
will cease to exist in the next ten years
Congress passes a law holding club owners responsible for their patronsrsquo actions and
affecting the whole industry
Tiesto DJs the Athens Olympic Opening Ceremonies
The GRAMMYs add a Best DanceElectronica
Album category
Dubstep nights begin to pop up in the underground music
scene around the USDubstep begins to grow
out of South London
timeline
Limewire introducedCD sales peak iTunes launchedThe iPod brings digital music players to the masses
2002
2000 2001 2001 2003
2003
20062001
2004 2005
ldquoYoursquod better be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation
thatrsquos going to be leftrdquo
Ruskorsquos ldquoCockney Thugrdquo i l lustrates the wob sound
2000-2009
(COURTESY OF RUSK0)
(DTSIABAIFLICKR CC)
null
24417967
29live live issue 1
Daft Punkrsquos pyramid setup at Coachella sets a
new bar for visuals
Kanye West spawns electro-rap with 808rsquos amp Heartbreak prominently fea-
turing the TR 808 drum machine
Lady Gaga and the Black Eyed Peas bring the Euro-house
sound to the Top 40
Guettarsquos ldquoWhen Love Take Overrdquo becomes an international pop hit and the Euro-house sound
starts to creep its way into popular music
timeline
2004 2004 2007
2008 2009
20072006
20092007-2009
Long-established one-day raves such as EDC and Ultra transform
into two-day festivals
Guetta co-wrote ldquoBoom Boom Powrdquo
Gagarsquos Bad Romance has nearly 05 bi l l ion YouTube views
Gary Richards starts Hard Events
Youtube launched Beatport launched
2000-2009
iPhone released
(KARL WALTERGETTY IMAGES)
(INTERSCOPE RECORDS)
2010-2011
Technics SL-1200 turntable the industry standard for thirty
years is discontinued
Limewire the top P2P file-sharing client
is shut downSpotify launches in the US
When an underage girl dies at EDC in LA EDM gets a lot backlash but this
also gives it a lot of exposure
EDC is forced out of LA and moves to Vegas which becomes the home of
EDM in the United States
Bassnectar plays Red Rocks where he incurs $100000 in noise violations
after bringing his own speakers
Skrillex is nominated for five Grammy Awards he
wins three
timeline
2010
2010
2010
2010 2010 2011
2011 2011
2011
2011
Black Eyed Peasrsquo house-based ldquoThe TimeDirty Bitrdquo tops the
charts in over 15 countries
Hip hop and EDM production styles have always mirrored one another now they are morphing
EDM finally has a home in America
Moombahton a fusion of house music and reggae is
born at a house party in DC
Skrillex explodes onto the main-stream music scene bringing the ldquodroprdquo and heavy bass with him
DJAY app
(COURTESY OF SKRILLEX)
2010-2011
Britneyrsquos Hold it Against Me acts as the catalyst for replacing the pop
bridge with the dubstep drop
EDC Vegas has over 230000 attendees in
three days
The Victoria Secret Fashion Show features rave-inspired
outfits for the final walk
timeline
2011 2011
2011 2011 2011
2011
Tiesto plays the biggest single headliner DJ show in US
history to 26000 in Carson CA
Nielsen Soundscan reports digital music sales in the US are larger than
physical sales for the first time
Absoulte Vodka sponsors Swedish House Mafiarsquos
sold out MSG show
According to Bil lboard this is considered a watershed moment
brands adopting EDM
EDM technology is large-ly based now around
software programs and
their coordinating hard-
ware--control lers for Ableton
Scratch decks for Serato
and more There is an entire
spectrum of modern DJ tech-
nology avai lable and the path
one takes depends on what
sound they are trying to achieve
(JIVE RECORDS)
(ZUMA PRESS)
(SAMANTHA HOFFER)
The neon colors associated with EDM can be found al l over
the fashion world
With the laptop as instrument EDM
producers constantly
blend and mix elements
of different genres lead-
ing to the prol iferation of
microgenres which are difficult to
distinguish
null
26177792
32 we live for live music
EDC Vegas sees 300000+ people
over 3 days
Family-friendly animated film Wreck It Ralph uses
dance music in trailer
Feature-length EDM documentary ldquoThe Drop The EDM Culture
Explosionrdquo enters production
A system of alerts are set up to notify users when they
infringe on copyright law
Night Culture Inc becomes the first EDM-oriented publicly
traded company
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline 2012
Queen Latifah sings the National Anthem at the opening game of
the NFL seasonover a beat
JAN
OCTJULY SEPT
SEPTAUG
JUNE JUNEMARUltra Music Festival in Miami
has 40000 viewers watching its online stream over YouTube
Universal closes on EMI becoming the largest of the remaining three
major record labels
(DANNY MOLOSHOK REUTERS)
(BIG MACHINE)
null
21255588
33live live issue 1
After exploding onto the mainstream music scene and pop culture in the past year the industry has set its signts on EDM ventures proved the genre has final ly conquered the final frontiermdashAmerica
Live Nation purchases Hard Events
Media mogul Robert FX Sillerman says he will spend
$1B on EDM enterprises
EDM artists get the spotlight at the Grammys for the 1st time with addi-tion of a dance music performance
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline
Taylor Swift adopts the dubstep drop with her single ldquoI Knew You
Were Troublerdquo
JUNEFEB JULY
JUNE JUNE
OCT OCT NOV
NOVOCT
Bieber drops his first dub-step-influenced track ldquoAs
Long as You Love Merdquo
Dance-based songs can be found all across the radio
The first professional media outlet for EDM is announced
NYU introduces a course on the Business of Electronic amp
Dance Music
Billboard hosts the 2nd Annual FutureSound conference to ad-dress the future of the industry
NOVEMBERBLACK WIDOW
MUSIC PUBLISHES A LIST OF 230+ EDM SUB-GENRESAND
COUNTING
(BIG MACHINE)
34 we live for live music
BACK TO THE
FUTUREThirty years after the ldquodeathrdquo of disco dance music is back in America and bigger than ever To understand
where it is going we must take a look at the past
35live live issue 1
The most recent main-stream movement to hit the United States
E l e c t r o n i c D a n c e M u s i c (EDM) did so as an explosion of lights neon and pulsating beats But dance music is nothing new Although EDM seems entirely novel to many of Amer icarsquos youth dance music has a long and storied history
In the beginning mus ic c r e a t e d v i a e l e c t r o n i c ins t r ument s was focused on academic pursuit s and high ar t The use of elec-t ron ic s i n popu la r mus ic c rea t ion b egan w i t h t he commerc ia l i z a t ion o f t he synthesizer in the 1960s As technology evolved so did experimentation with elec-tronic instruments
In the 1970s the days of disco led to the develop-ment of e lec t ronic dance mus ic when DJs invented the traditional two-turntable setup to continuously stream together music so that the dancing never had to stop U n f o r t u na te l y f o r d a n c e music just as quickly as disco was embraced ant i -d isco sentiments fueled by racism and fear of change pushed it into the underground
It was in this underground s p a c e d u r i n g t h e lsquo 8 0 s that modern dance music evo lved St r ides made in elec tronic ins trumentation developed the synthesizer machines that would form the backbones of house and techno music the Roland TB 303 baseline and Roland TR 909 drum machine
A c c o r d i n g t o T h e Guard ianrsquos recent l y pub -lished timeline A History of Modern Music DJ Frankie Knuckles is responsible for the development of house music characterized by its
44 beats Techno rose out of Detroit a few years later inspired by the indus tr ial sounds of the city
While wildly popular in the underground music scene techno and house did not find commercial success in Amer ica I t was not unt i l the lat ter par t of the lsquo80s when the sounds of house and techno found their way to t he UK and mor phed into a new sub-genre acid house that the commercial club culture was born albeit exclusively in Europe
While dance music took of f r unning on the other side of the pond in America a dif ferent s tor y began to unfold As rap and hip-hop took a s t ronghold of the music industr y in the late eighties and nineties dance music remained confined to the peripheries
A s d a n c e - m u s i c D J s w o r ke d t o e v o l v e t h e i r sound and keep up w i th technology hip -hop DJs who adopted the traditional turntable setup from the DJs of disco as well as their pro-duction techniques began to work in the record ing s tudios and inf luence the industr y especially in the realm of pop music
I n t h e 19 9 0 s i n s i d e r s thought EDM had f ina l l y hit the jackpot and found mainstream success In an inter v iew with PaperMag industry vet Gary Richards explains ldquothe f irst farewell to the undergroundrdquo
ldquoBy 1993 i t felt l ike the music wasnrsquot underground anymore so I threw a par ty c a l l e d R ave A m e r i c a a t Knot t s Ber r y Farm which i s an amusement par k in O r a n g e C o u n t y I t s o l d out with l ike 20000 peo-ple Rick Rubin came with
Anthony K ied is f rom the Red Hot Chili Peppers and a couple guys from ZZ Top and he asked me if I wanted to work in the record busi-ness and help them s ign some EDM ar t i s t s I sa id sure the Prodigy were super hot and it seemed like it was blowing up But we star ted signing all these techno art-ists thinking theyrsquod catch on too but nobody was buying it Nobodyrdquo
Jus t l i ke R ichards says n o b o d y w a s b u y i n g i t D a n c e m u s i c w a s n o t catching on in the way the industr y would have liked so in 1997 the entire music industry and press put their full force behind ldquoelectron-icardquo the new catch-all name they had given to the genre in an attempt to successfully market it
Despite the gl impses of success seen froma handful of artists the genre failed to succeed and the industr y distanced itself from dance music far ther than i t had when disco ldquodiedrdquo
T h i s f a i l u r e c a n b e accounted to EDM not f it-t i ng i n to t h e ma r ke t i ng machinery of the industr y The t radit ional setup was f ixed for four-minute rock and pop singles and album tour s not t he ex tended club mixes and residencies that were the basis of the EDM world Not only was the indus t r y i l l - equipped to market electronic music but many consumers also felt it abrasive and awkward attempting to listen to this machine-made glitch-based music that was so unfamiliar to their ears It was not until the digital revolution of the new millennium that elec-tronic dance music f inal ly found its place
36 we live for live music
Festival
MAJOR LAZER AT SUMMERFEST IN HOUSTON JUNE 2012
37live live issue 1
If music in 2012 could talk it would sound a lot like the Bill Orsquo Reillyrsquos blooper ldquoLetrsquos do it liverdquo While attending concerts has been popular since rock and roll shows in the 1950s the recent electronic music boom has made it exponentially more so
One reason accord ing to Forbes i s that as resource constraints have t ightened people are spending thei r money more on exper iences as opposed to manufactured products But it is more than that EDM has managed to ent i re ly t rans -form the concept of a concer t by blurring the lines between going out dancing and going out to see music These days one would pay the same amount to see superstar-DJ David Guetta in an arena that they would if they were simply dancing to him spin-ning in a club
But this popularity was not always the case As a genre born in the world of nightclubs EDMrsquos parties were lambasted for years as depraved raves Now many kids will go to a rave before they attend a rock concert Why the sudden change A major factor is rebranding
Raves became festivals Electronic became EDMOnce shed of the negative associations with raves
and the bad memories of the electronicarsquos failure EDM shows and festivals began to proliferate across the countr y No longer hiding in remote f ields or empt y warehouse e lec t ronic mus ic promoter s looked to book DJs in public arenas and concer t halls
Elec tr ic Daisy Carnival (EDC) 2010 a rave put on by one of the major EDM promoters Insomniac
Event s ser ved as a turning point for the genre when an underage gir l died at the event causing severe backlash against Insomniac but also giving the genre lots of exposure EDC was run out of Los Angeles but found refuge in the always-accepting city of Las Vegas It was here in Vegas that EDM finally found a homemdashnow playing the same role to America as Ibiza did to Europe when the rave scene star ted there in the 1980s Superstar DJs can be found any week as a resident DJ to Tao XS or one of the many other posh clubs and the landmark event of the year EDC Vegas is now one of the largest raves in the world with over 300000 attendees last year
EDC is not the only big festival on the market now though Festivals are becoming trendymdashan indicator of direction the music industry is headed in towards the live and away from the recorded According to Metrowizecom an online nightli fe guide in 2012 alone at leas t thir t y-two new fes t ivals began in Americamdashfif teen of them dedicated solely to EDM
Long-standing traditions in the music industry fes-tivals typically only attracted people who spent a lot of time at live music and concertshellipuntil recently
As EDM crossed over into pop music the l ines became blur red between a night of going out to dance at a club and night of going out to see your favorite ar tist at a concer t People who a few years ago never attended a concert beyond the major pop ar tists are now concer t-fiends as the ldquopoprdquo ar tists they love today are world-renowned DJs
Of course as any genre crosses into the main-stream it is going to become increasingly popular
FeverEDMS BOOMING SUCCESS IN THE FESTIVAL MARKET HAS HEADS
TURNING FROM AROUND THE INDUSTRY TO INVEST IN LIVE MUSIC
38 we live for live music
with the masses but EDMrsquos explosion is unparal-leled Hundreds of thousands of people attended EDC Vegas and that was just one of dozens of elec-tronic dance festivals and all-night events this year
Because the live experience is EDMrsquos native for-mat the genre is par ticularly nuanced to success on the road Matt Adell of Beatport the online mecca of the DJ community explains one of the reasons why
ldquoPer formers such as Skr illex are incredibly ef f i -cient touring operations compared to rock bands Itrsquos less expensive than a rock group because therersquos just one per former Therersquos much less gear and it rsquos easier to set up because therersquos no live micro-phones So the suppor t team required is so much smallerrdquo
Bobby Clay head of the electronic division at C3 Presents touches on another aspect of EDM that primes the genre for the road ldquoIt rsquos like you donrsquot need to have a full studio on your tour bus to create the next banger or the next huge club track or the next Rihanna remix You can do it from the comfort of a tour bus or the green room of whatever arena some of these big people are playing in nowrdquo EDM ar tists have the luxury of not having to break from tour to create new songs
Although EDM is pr imed for tour ing i t is only in the past couple of years that the genre took on this rock and roll mentality As shows star ted to be booked in rock and roll venues and DJproducers took to the road stopping in every middle town and college campus in America like a rock band would DJs became rock stars in their own right One ar tist in par ticular is noted for condensing the drawn out peaks and falls of dance music into four and a half minute radio-ready tracks the half-shaved goofy-glasses wearing kid known as Skrillex Love him or hate him his genre-fusing in your face style helped to launch EDM to the place it is at today
With mega-DJs such as Skrillex earning up to $1 million per festival appearance and groups such as Swedish House Mafia selling out Madison Square Garden in nine minutes it is no surprise that corpo-rate heads have turned to this once-ignored market Over the summer Live Nation bought Hard Events one of the original promoters of the genre whose brands of Hardfest Holy Ship and Haunted Hard Mansion have gone on to great success Shor t ly af ter media mogul Robert FX Sillerman pledged to invest $1 billion dollars in EDM ventures
As the money pours in 2013 is looking to be the biggest year yet for EDM Having finally solidified i t s place in the music industr y (and at the fore-front nevertheless) Electronic Dance Music is ready to guide the music industry in a new directionmdasha direction towards the future towards a more diver-sified music industry towards a music industry that lives for live music
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
39live live issue 1
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
AT LEAST 32 NEW FESTIVALS BEGAN IN THE UNITED STATES IN 2012 OF THESE FESTIVALS FIFTEEN OF THEM ARE DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC
40 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL WONDERLANDDowntown TexasApril 27-28 2012An inside look into the modern electronic music festival
41live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL WONDERLAND
42 we live for live music
43live live issue 1
A new generation neo-age hippies
44 we live for live musicWelcome to Wonderland
45live live issue 1
46 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
47live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Dillon Francis plays The Queenrsquos Ground
48 we live for live music
49live live issue 1
Visual explosions to coordinate with the
audio attack of a drop
50 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
51live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
EDM shows are known for their
high-impact visuals
52 we live for live music
53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
Button 7
Button 8
Button 9
Button 10
Button 11
Button 12
button13
Button 52
Button 54
Button 56
Button 55
Button 43
Button 44
Button 49
Button 50
Button 48
TIMELINE (20)
FESTIVAL FEVER (36)
LETrsquoS GET DIGITAL (62)
just give me the beat (68)
THE FINALE (75)
back to the future (34)
NOCTURNAL WONDERLAND (40)
FEATURES
A COMPLETE GUIDE TO THE EVOLUTION OF ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC
A LOOK AT ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSICrsquoS EARLY HISTORY
EDMS BOOMING SUCCESS IN THE FESTIVAL MARKET HAS HEADS TURNING FROM AROUND THE INDUSTRY TO INVEST IN LIVE MUSIC
AN INSIDE LOOK AT AN ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC FESTIVAL
HOW THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION AFFECTED THE MUSIC INDUSTRY AND PAVED THE WAY FOR EDMrsquoS SUCCESS
DJ VS PRODUCER AND UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
FINAL THOUGHTS
6 we live for live music
PRETTY LIGHTS WITH LIVE DRUMMER COREY EBERHARDNOVEMBER 2009AUSTIN TEXAS
7live live issue 1
small stuff
(10) LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
(9) GLOSSARY
(14) FROM THE FANS
ON THE ROAD(16) fall tours(18) new yearrsquos eve shows
(75) SOURCES
8 we live for live music
EDITORWRITER
PUBLISHERPHOTOGRAPHER amp
ART DIRECTOR
SAMANTHA HOFFER
INTERVIEWEESBOBBY CLAY
TYLER GOLDBERGMIKE ABB
SCOTT EISEMAN DAN ROSENWALD
DOZENS OF UNOFFICIAL INTERVIEWS AND DISCUSSIONS WITH FRIENDS
AND PEERS
NOTE THIS IS AN INTERACTIVE PDF AS YOU READ LOOK FOR THE CURSOR TO CHANGE TO A HAND SYMBOL AS AN INDICATOR OF INTERACTIVE FEATURES USE ADOBE READER TO ENSURE COMPATIBILITY IF YOU ARE READING ON ISSUUCOM IN-TERACTIVE FEATURES ARE UNAVAILABLEROTHBURY MUSIC FESTIVAL
JULY 2008ROTHBURY MICHIGAN
9live live issue 1
the Glossary
For my thesis I created this magazinemdashwe LIVE for LIVE musicmdashas an ode to one of the nationrsquos favorite pastimes live music This premier issue the thesis issue stands as a testimonial to the music phenomenon that has recently swept across the nation Electronic Dance Music (EDM) Although dance music is certainly not new a new life was breathed into it in the past couple of years Through this magazine I hope to display not only a picture of Electronic Dance Music past and present but also explain why after forty years of existence dance music is just now find-ing its place in America and further what this says about the music industry on the whole For years doom and gloom stories have sur-
rounded the music industry with woeful tales about the effects of piracy and copyright infringement on record sales and royalties While these are certainly valid concerns statements about the ldquodeath of the music industryrdquo are highly skewed towards the state of the major record labels and not the music industry on the whole This is due to the fact that for the past century for one to refer to the state of the music indus-try was more or less the equivalent of referring to just the major record labels With the Digital Age a quantum shift has occurred in the means by which music is created distributed found and acquired that allow artists to directly connect with consumers and bypass the traditional gate-keepers of the industry the record labels It is my hope in this magazine to use Electronic
Dance Musicrsquos new-found booming success in America and the underlying reasons behind it to show the new landscape of the modern music industry one in which success is no longer mea-
LETTER
FROM THE
EDITOR
sured by ldquogoing goldrdquo but rather by the number of tickets sold Another goal I have for this magazine is that it
serves as a guide to the layman wishing to under-stand more about Electronic Dance Music An umbrella-term for a multitude of genres (Black Widow Music just published this list of 230 sub-genres and counting) as well as a type of music that changes as rapidly as the technology that drives it EDM can be difficult for many to grasp As EDM has gone the way of pop it has become
the focus of much ridicule as an uncultured and un-artistic medium simply meant for mindless dancing and creatable by anyone who can push a computer button I hope that this magazine serve as a bridge between the average uninformed pop-listener and the anti-EDM music ldquopuristsrdquo by providing insight into the history and artistry of Electronic Dance Music I was inspired to create this magazine because I
was lucky enough to be a part of the EDM scene as it busted out from the underground and into mainstream music and culture Arriving in Austin in the fall of 2008 I could not have been more excited to explore what the Live Music Capital of the World had to offer me Although I enjoyed concerts of all genres I quickly found myself attending electronic shows more than the rest and becoming a part of one of the many tight -knit communities that makes Austin great a group of about 300 electronic music loving Austinites Attending on average one electronic show a week that first year I came to love the feeling of being able to look around the room at any one of these shows and have that sense of communitymdashthat I
was surrounded by friends in all directions I had a feeling at the time that we were a part of something that was new and going to be big but I had no idea the extent of it As my college years went on artists that I had seen play in a small bar overlooking Sixth Street for maybe 300 people were playing at Austin City Music Hall for 3000 people I no longer could turn around at a show and find my all my friends instead I was faced with a sea of unfamiliar faces I realized that my small community was not so small anymore and had broken out of our underground niche and into the mainstream Seeing this phenomenon happen in front of me inspired this thesis Originally when I began working my thesis ques-
tion was about whether or not this genre was just a bubble or had truly found its way into the mainstream Over this summer movements in the industry to invest in EDM confirmed that this was not a bubble and caused me to shift my focus why EDM was now becoming mainstream After nearly forty years of existence why was elec-tronic music just now finding its place in America and looking at the bigger picture what does this say about the direction the music industry is headed in on the wholeIn this magazine I reveal how electronic music
has finally solidified its place in America because the digital age harbors an environment that strays away from the confines of the traditional recorded music industry allowing EDM to flourish outside of the control of the major record labels While the ldquoindustryrdquo has spent the past ten years pointing fingers and looking to Washington for solutions to the piracy issue electronic artists many of whom were born into the generation
which caused the file-sharing problem embraced that factmdashthat piracy is going to happenmdashand shifted their focus instead to the format their music was created formdashthe live experiencemdashto be successful The booming success EDM artists and EDM
promoters have found in the live experience has heads turning from all over the industry as they realize that the recorded music industry will never rise to its former glory and it is time to focus on a new more diversified direction for the music industry that includes licensing mer-chandising and most of allmdashlive music
14 we live for live music
PICS FROM THE SHOW
FROM THE FANS
diplo bassnectar
NYCclublife
houseparty lightshow
ravebarbie
moderngogogirl
biggigantic
tiesto
k
yke
bc
n
msj
ek
ka
kan
dii
nsp
ira
tio
ns
b
rad
pe
ters
5
djd
oc-
sto
ne
jh
oc
ks
n
ick
yh
ilto
n
rave
ba
rbie
ty
lers
he
rrit
t
15live live issue 1
Photos from the fans for an inside look at the world of EDM
from the fans
barcelonaclublife
bennybenassi
prettylightssoundsystemmodestep
kandi
aoki edc
squarepusher
b
ec
kyg
on
z
ga
dg
ett
eke
le
brk
orm
an
k
yke
bc
n
ste
vea
ok
i
cra
ck
wo
od
je
rem
yp
mit
ch
ell
c
hri
stin
am
org
an
n
oli
vert
wis
ty
16 we live for live music
on the road on the road
Fall ToursComing soon to a city near you
17live live issue 1
Fall Tours
18 we live for live music
new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013
Pretty Lights | Roseland Ballroom | New York
Zedd amp Nicky Romero | Club Nokia | Los Angeles
Chromeo Ana Sia Gramatic Poolside Snowglobe Music Festival | South Lake Tahoe
ATB MiM0SA Zeds Dead Paul Basic Wolfgang Gartner Krewella Colorado Convention Center | Denver
Skrillex Boyz Noise FlosstradomusThe Palace of Auburn Hills | Milwaukee
Shpongle Glitch Mob Sea of Dreams | San Francisco
Tiesto | Revel Ovation Hall | Atlantic City
The Disco Biscuits | Madison Square Garden
Paper Diamond | Oregon Convention Center | Portland
Bassnectar | Bridgestone Arena | Nashville
Lights All Night | Fair Park | Dallas
Beats Antique | Paramount Theatre | Seattle
Rusko | WaMu Theatre | Seattle
Lotus amp Moon Hooch | Rams Head Live | Baltimore
on the road
19live live issue 1
Industry
genre
pop culture
technology
20 we live for live music
The term ldquoElectronic Musicrdquo is coined by Werner Meyer Eppler
Rock nrsquo Roll music is born
RCA Mark II the first programmable sound synthesizer is invented by
Olson and Belar
Motown becomes dance music classics
1949
1950s
timeline 1949 - 1970
1955
First time anyone
had used the word synthesizer for a
piece of equipment
Rock nrsquo Roll redefines music as something to be listened to not danced to
We begin the story here
1960s
(COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY)
(THE BEAT)
21live live issue 1
Bob Moogrsquos synthesizer brought electronic music out of the realm of academia and into
the hands of musicians
Rock nrsquo roll becomes the sound of modern life It continues to grow
until splits into factions in the 1970s
The Moog Company develops the first modular synthesizer
The Beach Boysrsquo Good Vibrations is the first pop hit to feature
electronic sounds
Etta James releases ldquoSomethingrsquos Got a Hold of Merdquo a sample of which resonates
through the EDM explosion of late
1962
timeline 1949 - 1970
1962
1960s
1967
1964
1960sYouth start to attend rock concerts
instead of going to sock hops
King Tubby of Jamaica births the dub which will later give rise to the remix
(CAPITOL RECORDS)
(MOOG MUSIC)
null
21222783
22 we live for live music
Disco makes streaming music continuously cool and
popularizes the club scene Jim Morrison predicts
the future of music
The Mini Moog is invented becoming the first portable synthesizer
Synth music and space age pop is starting to impact TV
film and commercials
Disco is born
Hot Butterrsquos Popcorn becomes the first electronic pop hit
DJ Herc invents BreakbeatItalo Disco becomes the
first complete EDM genre
1970s
EARLY1970s
1972-1974 1973
1970 1978
1978
1972
1970
the 1970sldquoI can envision one person with l ike a lot of machines tapes and electronic setups
singing or speaking and using machinesrdquo-Jim Morrison
The Technics 1200 Mark II is released and becomes the industry standard
(PBS)
(RCO RECORDS)
timeline
null
2677309
23live live issue 1
Saturday Night Fever
Kraftwerk releases Autobahn
David Bowie and Blondie bring in New Wave
Sugar Hill Gangrsquos ldquoRapperrsquos Delightrdquo brings hip hop into the Top 40
Brian Eno births ambient music
The first digital sampler the Fairlight CMI (Computer Musical Instrument) is released
Disco declines as sentiments such as ldquoDisco Sucksrdquo and ldquoDeath to
Discordquo become popular
1977
L AT E1970s
1978 1978
1979
1979
1975
the 1970s
These days many people falsly associate this iconic soundtrack with the
beginning of disco
Kraftwerk members are considered tobe the ldquogodfathersrdquo of electronic music
(UNKNOWN)
timeline
24 we live for live music
Disco is thought to be dead but it just went underground where it morphed into house and techno
Video game music is born as a genre
Computers video games and electronic equipment become more affordable
efficient and put to great use
Roland TR 808 Rhythm Machine
Frankie Knuckles invents house music at the
Warehouse in Chicago
E-mu Emulator becomes the first affordable
digital sampler
The Hacienda Club opens in Manchester
The rave scene grows from acid house music in the United Kingdom
the 1980rsquos
1981
1982 1987
1980
1980 1981
1980s 1980s
(UNKOWN)
In the 1980s a host of new instruments based on synthet-ic sounds and sampl ing technolo-gy contributed to the formation of new genres of electronic mu-sic and the electronic sound on the whole Whi le these days the sounds of most of these instruments can be repl icated on a computer outfit-ted with the proper audio software DJs sti l l seek the retro instruments for the unique characteristics that come from analog instruments
timeline
25live live issue 1
Sampling and breakbeat become important features for both
hip-hop and EDM
MIDI inventedRoland TB 303
Baseline released
Techno rises out of the industrial
sounds of Detroit
Roland TR 909 Drum Machine
Acid house is born at the Hacienda Club in
Manchester
Electronic Dance Music first Summer of Love begins as the free-party scene takes the sound out of the club and into the open
Ambient music becomes just as important as the dance floor during EDMrsquos second
Summer of Love
Trip Hop and other downtempo genres find success with acts like Massive Attack and Portishead
the 1980rsquos
19871983-1985
1989-1991
1988
1989
1982 19841983
1980
MIDI is a protocol not a hardware which provided a standard for electronic instrument manufacturers
(MASSIVE ATTACK)
London becomes the hub of
EDM
timeline
Computer-based production allows for DJs to recreate the sounds found in traditional analog instruments as
well as new sounds that have never been heard before (eg the Dubstep wob) It also opened up the realm of
EDM creation to anyone with the right software
Responsible for EDC Nocturnal and Wonderland Festivals
Rise of the super club and superstar DJs
The media dubs of all electronic music
ldquotechnordquo
Hardcore music begins to dominate the British
rave scene
Jungle forms out of hardcore
Paul Oakenfold Paul Van Dyk and DJ Tiesto bring trance
music to the forefront
Insomniac Events is established in Southern California
Tommy Boy Records releases the first Jock Jams album
timeline the 1990rsquos
MP3 digital audio format is introduced
1990s
1990s
1992
1990s 1990s
1993
1991
1995
Rave music sees slight mainstream success with artists such as C amp C Music Factory and
Snap and begins to infuence pop music
With the growth of personal computing electronic artists began to migrate from analog electronic
instruments to computer-based production
EARLY1990s
EARLY1990s
(TOMMY BOY RECORDS)
>
>
null
19304054
Although electronica failed to go main-stream its loops and textures find their
way into pop and hip hop
They are the developers of Ableton Live one of the premiere loop-based
sequencers used in modern production
EDC begins as a one day event
Drum and bass evolves out of jungle
Record companies try to market techno under a new namemdash
ldquoelectronicardquomdash but fail
Fatboy Slim makes $0 off of Rockafeller Skank after giving 25 of the royalties to each of
the four artists he used samples from
Moby licenses every track on his
Play album
timeline the 1990rsquos
Napster launchesAbleton is founded
19991994
1995
1991 19991999
1997 1998
1997In the UK raves are forced back underground with the passing of
the Criminal Justice Act
ProTools released at a price of $6000
LATE1990s
LATE1990s
As artists begin to use computers in production
glitch hop evolves
This new law defined gatherings of more than 20 people listening to
ldquorepetitive beatsrdquo as illegal
(SKINT RECORDS)
EDMrsquoS non-descript beats are perfect for marketing
28 we live for live music
In an interview with the New York Times David Bowie claims copyright and intellectual property
will cease to exist in the next ten years
Congress passes a law holding club owners responsible for their patronsrsquo actions and
affecting the whole industry
Tiesto DJs the Athens Olympic Opening Ceremonies
The GRAMMYs add a Best DanceElectronica
Album category
Dubstep nights begin to pop up in the underground music
scene around the USDubstep begins to grow
out of South London
timeline
Limewire introducedCD sales peak iTunes launchedThe iPod brings digital music players to the masses
2002
2000 2001 2001 2003
2003
20062001
2004 2005
ldquoYoursquod better be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation
thatrsquos going to be leftrdquo
Ruskorsquos ldquoCockney Thugrdquo i l lustrates the wob sound
2000-2009
(COURTESY OF RUSK0)
(DTSIABAIFLICKR CC)
null
24417967
29live live issue 1
Daft Punkrsquos pyramid setup at Coachella sets a
new bar for visuals
Kanye West spawns electro-rap with 808rsquos amp Heartbreak prominently fea-
turing the TR 808 drum machine
Lady Gaga and the Black Eyed Peas bring the Euro-house
sound to the Top 40
Guettarsquos ldquoWhen Love Take Overrdquo becomes an international pop hit and the Euro-house sound
starts to creep its way into popular music
timeline
2004 2004 2007
2008 2009
20072006
20092007-2009
Long-established one-day raves such as EDC and Ultra transform
into two-day festivals
Guetta co-wrote ldquoBoom Boom Powrdquo
Gagarsquos Bad Romance has nearly 05 bi l l ion YouTube views
Gary Richards starts Hard Events
Youtube launched Beatport launched
2000-2009
iPhone released
(KARL WALTERGETTY IMAGES)
(INTERSCOPE RECORDS)
2010-2011
Technics SL-1200 turntable the industry standard for thirty
years is discontinued
Limewire the top P2P file-sharing client
is shut downSpotify launches in the US
When an underage girl dies at EDC in LA EDM gets a lot backlash but this
also gives it a lot of exposure
EDC is forced out of LA and moves to Vegas which becomes the home of
EDM in the United States
Bassnectar plays Red Rocks where he incurs $100000 in noise violations
after bringing his own speakers
Skrillex is nominated for five Grammy Awards he
wins three
timeline
2010
2010
2010
2010 2010 2011
2011 2011
2011
2011
Black Eyed Peasrsquo house-based ldquoThe TimeDirty Bitrdquo tops the
charts in over 15 countries
Hip hop and EDM production styles have always mirrored one another now they are morphing
EDM finally has a home in America
Moombahton a fusion of house music and reggae is
born at a house party in DC
Skrillex explodes onto the main-stream music scene bringing the ldquodroprdquo and heavy bass with him
DJAY app
(COURTESY OF SKRILLEX)
2010-2011
Britneyrsquos Hold it Against Me acts as the catalyst for replacing the pop
bridge with the dubstep drop
EDC Vegas has over 230000 attendees in
three days
The Victoria Secret Fashion Show features rave-inspired
outfits for the final walk
timeline
2011 2011
2011 2011 2011
2011
Tiesto plays the biggest single headliner DJ show in US
history to 26000 in Carson CA
Nielsen Soundscan reports digital music sales in the US are larger than
physical sales for the first time
Absoulte Vodka sponsors Swedish House Mafiarsquos
sold out MSG show
According to Bil lboard this is considered a watershed moment
brands adopting EDM
EDM technology is large-ly based now around
software programs and
their coordinating hard-
ware--control lers for Ableton
Scratch decks for Serato
and more There is an entire
spectrum of modern DJ tech-
nology avai lable and the path
one takes depends on what
sound they are trying to achieve
(JIVE RECORDS)
(ZUMA PRESS)
(SAMANTHA HOFFER)
The neon colors associated with EDM can be found al l over
the fashion world
With the laptop as instrument EDM
producers constantly
blend and mix elements
of different genres lead-
ing to the prol iferation of
microgenres which are difficult to
distinguish
null
26177792
32 we live for live music
EDC Vegas sees 300000+ people
over 3 days
Family-friendly animated film Wreck It Ralph uses
dance music in trailer
Feature-length EDM documentary ldquoThe Drop The EDM Culture
Explosionrdquo enters production
A system of alerts are set up to notify users when they
infringe on copyright law
Night Culture Inc becomes the first EDM-oriented publicly
traded company
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline 2012
Queen Latifah sings the National Anthem at the opening game of
the NFL seasonover a beat
JAN
OCTJULY SEPT
SEPTAUG
JUNE JUNEMARUltra Music Festival in Miami
has 40000 viewers watching its online stream over YouTube
Universal closes on EMI becoming the largest of the remaining three
major record labels
(DANNY MOLOSHOK REUTERS)
(BIG MACHINE)
null
21255588
33live live issue 1
After exploding onto the mainstream music scene and pop culture in the past year the industry has set its signts on EDM ventures proved the genre has final ly conquered the final frontiermdashAmerica
Live Nation purchases Hard Events
Media mogul Robert FX Sillerman says he will spend
$1B on EDM enterprises
EDM artists get the spotlight at the Grammys for the 1st time with addi-tion of a dance music performance
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline
Taylor Swift adopts the dubstep drop with her single ldquoI Knew You
Were Troublerdquo
JUNEFEB JULY
JUNE JUNE
OCT OCT NOV
NOVOCT
Bieber drops his first dub-step-influenced track ldquoAs
Long as You Love Merdquo
Dance-based songs can be found all across the radio
The first professional media outlet for EDM is announced
NYU introduces a course on the Business of Electronic amp
Dance Music
Billboard hosts the 2nd Annual FutureSound conference to ad-dress the future of the industry
NOVEMBERBLACK WIDOW
MUSIC PUBLISHES A LIST OF 230+ EDM SUB-GENRESAND
COUNTING
(BIG MACHINE)
34 we live for live music
BACK TO THE
FUTUREThirty years after the ldquodeathrdquo of disco dance music is back in America and bigger than ever To understand
where it is going we must take a look at the past
35live live issue 1
The most recent main-stream movement to hit the United States
E l e c t r o n i c D a n c e M u s i c (EDM) did so as an explosion of lights neon and pulsating beats But dance music is nothing new Although EDM seems entirely novel to many of Amer icarsquos youth dance music has a long and storied history
In the beginning mus ic c r e a t e d v i a e l e c t r o n i c ins t r ument s was focused on academic pursuit s and high ar t The use of elec-t ron ic s i n popu la r mus ic c rea t ion b egan w i t h t he commerc ia l i z a t ion o f t he synthesizer in the 1960s As technology evolved so did experimentation with elec-tronic instruments
In the 1970s the days of disco led to the develop-ment of e lec t ronic dance mus ic when DJs invented the traditional two-turntable setup to continuously stream together music so that the dancing never had to stop U n f o r t u na te l y f o r d a n c e music just as quickly as disco was embraced ant i -d isco sentiments fueled by racism and fear of change pushed it into the underground
It was in this underground s p a c e d u r i n g t h e lsquo 8 0 s that modern dance music evo lved St r ides made in elec tronic ins trumentation developed the synthesizer machines that would form the backbones of house and techno music the Roland TB 303 baseline and Roland TR 909 drum machine
A c c o r d i n g t o T h e Guard ianrsquos recent l y pub -lished timeline A History of Modern Music DJ Frankie Knuckles is responsible for the development of house music characterized by its
44 beats Techno rose out of Detroit a few years later inspired by the indus tr ial sounds of the city
While wildly popular in the underground music scene techno and house did not find commercial success in Amer ica I t was not unt i l the lat ter par t of the lsquo80s when the sounds of house and techno found their way to t he UK and mor phed into a new sub-genre acid house that the commercial club culture was born albeit exclusively in Europe
While dance music took of f r unning on the other side of the pond in America a dif ferent s tor y began to unfold As rap and hip-hop took a s t ronghold of the music industr y in the late eighties and nineties dance music remained confined to the peripheries
A s d a n c e - m u s i c D J s w o r ke d t o e v o l v e t h e i r sound and keep up w i th technology hip -hop DJs who adopted the traditional turntable setup from the DJs of disco as well as their pro-duction techniques began to work in the record ing s tudios and inf luence the industr y especially in the realm of pop music
I n t h e 19 9 0 s i n s i d e r s thought EDM had f ina l l y hit the jackpot and found mainstream success In an inter v iew with PaperMag industry vet Gary Richards explains ldquothe f irst farewell to the undergroundrdquo
ldquoBy 1993 i t felt l ike the music wasnrsquot underground anymore so I threw a par ty c a l l e d R ave A m e r i c a a t Knot t s Ber r y Farm which i s an amusement par k in O r a n g e C o u n t y I t s o l d out with l ike 20000 peo-ple Rick Rubin came with
Anthony K ied is f rom the Red Hot Chili Peppers and a couple guys from ZZ Top and he asked me if I wanted to work in the record busi-ness and help them s ign some EDM ar t i s t s I sa id sure the Prodigy were super hot and it seemed like it was blowing up But we star ted signing all these techno art-ists thinking theyrsquod catch on too but nobody was buying it Nobodyrdquo
Jus t l i ke R ichards says n o b o d y w a s b u y i n g i t D a n c e m u s i c w a s n o t catching on in the way the industr y would have liked so in 1997 the entire music industry and press put their full force behind ldquoelectron-icardquo the new catch-all name they had given to the genre in an attempt to successfully market it
Despite the gl impses of success seen froma handful of artists the genre failed to succeed and the industr y distanced itself from dance music far ther than i t had when disco ldquodiedrdquo
T h i s f a i l u r e c a n b e accounted to EDM not f it-t i ng i n to t h e ma r ke t i ng machinery of the industr y The t radit ional setup was f ixed for four-minute rock and pop singles and album tour s not t he ex tended club mixes and residencies that were the basis of the EDM world Not only was the indus t r y i l l - equipped to market electronic music but many consumers also felt it abrasive and awkward attempting to listen to this machine-made glitch-based music that was so unfamiliar to their ears It was not until the digital revolution of the new millennium that elec-tronic dance music f inal ly found its place
36 we live for live music
Festival
MAJOR LAZER AT SUMMERFEST IN HOUSTON JUNE 2012
37live live issue 1
If music in 2012 could talk it would sound a lot like the Bill Orsquo Reillyrsquos blooper ldquoLetrsquos do it liverdquo While attending concerts has been popular since rock and roll shows in the 1950s the recent electronic music boom has made it exponentially more so
One reason accord ing to Forbes i s that as resource constraints have t ightened people are spending thei r money more on exper iences as opposed to manufactured products But it is more than that EDM has managed to ent i re ly t rans -form the concept of a concer t by blurring the lines between going out dancing and going out to see music These days one would pay the same amount to see superstar-DJ David Guetta in an arena that they would if they were simply dancing to him spin-ning in a club
But this popularity was not always the case As a genre born in the world of nightclubs EDMrsquos parties were lambasted for years as depraved raves Now many kids will go to a rave before they attend a rock concert Why the sudden change A major factor is rebranding
Raves became festivals Electronic became EDMOnce shed of the negative associations with raves
and the bad memories of the electronicarsquos failure EDM shows and festivals began to proliferate across the countr y No longer hiding in remote f ields or empt y warehouse e lec t ronic mus ic promoter s looked to book DJs in public arenas and concer t halls
Elec tr ic Daisy Carnival (EDC) 2010 a rave put on by one of the major EDM promoters Insomniac
Event s ser ved as a turning point for the genre when an underage gir l died at the event causing severe backlash against Insomniac but also giving the genre lots of exposure EDC was run out of Los Angeles but found refuge in the always-accepting city of Las Vegas It was here in Vegas that EDM finally found a homemdashnow playing the same role to America as Ibiza did to Europe when the rave scene star ted there in the 1980s Superstar DJs can be found any week as a resident DJ to Tao XS or one of the many other posh clubs and the landmark event of the year EDC Vegas is now one of the largest raves in the world with over 300000 attendees last year
EDC is not the only big festival on the market now though Festivals are becoming trendymdashan indicator of direction the music industry is headed in towards the live and away from the recorded According to Metrowizecom an online nightli fe guide in 2012 alone at leas t thir t y-two new fes t ivals began in Americamdashfif teen of them dedicated solely to EDM
Long-standing traditions in the music industry fes-tivals typically only attracted people who spent a lot of time at live music and concertshellipuntil recently
As EDM crossed over into pop music the l ines became blur red between a night of going out to dance at a club and night of going out to see your favorite ar tist at a concer t People who a few years ago never attended a concert beyond the major pop ar tists are now concer t-fiends as the ldquopoprdquo ar tists they love today are world-renowned DJs
Of course as any genre crosses into the main-stream it is going to become increasingly popular
FeverEDMS BOOMING SUCCESS IN THE FESTIVAL MARKET HAS HEADS
TURNING FROM AROUND THE INDUSTRY TO INVEST IN LIVE MUSIC
38 we live for live music
with the masses but EDMrsquos explosion is unparal-leled Hundreds of thousands of people attended EDC Vegas and that was just one of dozens of elec-tronic dance festivals and all-night events this year
Because the live experience is EDMrsquos native for-mat the genre is par ticularly nuanced to success on the road Matt Adell of Beatport the online mecca of the DJ community explains one of the reasons why
ldquoPer formers such as Skr illex are incredibly ef f i -cient touring operations compared to rock bands Itrsquos less expensive than a rock group because therersquos just one per former Therersquos much less gear and it rsquos easier to set up because therersquos no live micro-phones So the suppor t team required is so much smallerrdquo
Bobby Clay head of the electronic division at C3 Presents touches on another aspect of EDM that primes the genre for the road ldquoIt rsquos like you donrsquot need to have a full studio on your tour bus to create the next banger or the next huge club track or the next Rihanna remix You can do it from the comfort of a tour bus or the green room of whatever arena some of these big people are playing in nowrdquo EDM ar tists have the luxury of not having to break from tour to create new songs
Although EDM is pr imed for tour ing i t is only in the past couple of years that the genre took on this rock and roll mentality As shows star ted to be booked in rock and roll venues and DJproducers took to the road stopping in every middle town and college campus in America like a rock band would DJs became rock stars in their own right One ar tist in par ticular is noted for condensing the drawn out peaks and falls of dance music into four and a half minute radio-ready tracks the half-shaved goofy-glasses wearing kid known as Skrillex Love him or hate him his genre-fusing in your face style helped to launch EDM to the place it is at today
With mega-DJs such as Skrillex earning up to $1 million per festival appearance and groups such as Swedish House Mafia selling out Madison Square Garden in nine minutes it is no surprise that corpo-rate heads have turned to this once-ignored market Over the summer Live Nation bought Hard Events one of the original promoters of the genre whose brands of Hardfest Holy Ship and Haunted Hard Mansion have gone on to great success Shor t ly af ter media mogul Robert FX Sillerman pledged to invest $1 billion dollars in EDM ventures
As the money pours in 2013 is looking to be the biggest year yet for EDM Having finally solidified i t s place in the music industr y (and at the fore-front nevertheless) Electronic Dance Music is ready to guide the music industry in a new directionmdasha direction towards the future towards a more diver-sified music industry towards a music industry that lives for live music
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
39live live issue 1
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
AT LEAST 32 NEW FESTIVALS BEGAN IN THE UNITED STATES IN 2012 OF THESE FESTIVALS FIFTEEN OF THEM ARE DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC
40 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL WONDERLANDDowntown TexasApril 27-28 2012An inside look into the modern electronic music festival
41live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL WONDERLAND
42 we live for live music
43live live issue 1
A new generation neo-age hippies
44 we live for live musicWelcome to Wonderland
45live live issue 1
46 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
47live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Dillon Francis plays The Queenrsquos Ground
48 we live for live music
49live live issue 1
Visual explosions to coordinate with the
audio attack of a drop
50 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
51live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
EDM shows are known for their
high-impact visuals
52 we live for live music
53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
Button 7
Button 8
Button 9
Button 10
Button 11
Button 12
button13
Button 52
Button 54
Button 56
Button 55
Button 43
Button 44
Button 49
Button 50
Button 48
6 we live for live music
PRETTY LIGHTS WITH LIVE DRUMMER COREY EBERHARDNOVEMBER 2009AUSTIN TEXAS
7live live issue 1
small stuff
(10) LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
(9) GLOSSARY
(14) FROM THE FANS
ON THE ROAD(16) fall tours(18) new yearrsquos eve shows
(75) SOURCES
8 we live for live music
EDITORWRITER
PUBLISHERPHOTOGRAPHER amp
ART DIRECTOR
SAMANTHA HOFFER
INTERVIEWEESBOBBY CLAY
TYLER GOLDBERGMIKE ABB
SCOTT EISEMAN DAN ROSENWALD
DOZENS OF UNOFFICIAL INTERVIEWS AND DISCUSSIONS WITH FRIENDS
AND PEERS
NOTE THIS IS AN INTERACTIVE PDF AS YOU READ LOOK FOR THE CURSOR TO CHANGE TO A HAND SYMBOL AS AN INDICATOR OF INTERACTIVE FEATURES USE ADOBE READER TO ENSURE COMPATIBILITY IF YOU ARE READING ON ISSUUCOM IN-TERACTIVE FEATURES ARE UNAVAILABLEROTHBURY MUSIC FESTIVAL
JULY 2008ROTHBURY MICHIGAN
9live live issue 1
the Glossary
For my thesis I created this magazinemdashwe LIVE for LIVE musicmdashas an ode to one of the nationrsquos favorite pastimes live music This premier issue the thesis issue stands as a testimonial to the music phenomenon that has recently swept across the nation Electronic Dance Music (EDM) Although dance music is certainly not new a new life was breathed into it in the past couple of years Through this magazine I hope to display not only a picture of Electronic Dance Music past and present but also explain why after forty years of existence dance music is just now find-ing its place in America and further what this says about the music industry on the whole For years doom and gloom stories have sur-
rounded the music industry with woeful tales about the effects of piracy and copyright infringement on record sales and royalties While these are certainly valid concerns statements about the ldquodeath of the music industryrdquo are highly skewed towards the state of the major record labels and not the music industry on the whole This is due to the fact that for the past century for one to refer to the state of the music indus-try was more or less the equivalent of referring to just the major record labels With the Digital Age a quantum shift has occurred in the means by which music is created distributed found and acquired that allow artists to directly connect with consumers and bypass the traditional gate-keepers of the industry the record labels It is my hope in this magazine to use Electronic
Dance Musicrsquos new-found booming success in America and the underlying reasons behind it to show the new landscape of the modern music industry one in which success is no longer mea-
LETTER
FROM THE
EDITOR
sured by ldquogoing goldrdquo but rather by the number of tickets sold Another goal I have for this magazine is that it
serves as a guide to the layman wishing to under-stand more about Electronic Dance Music An umbrella-term for a multitude of genres (Black Widow Music just published this list of 230 sub-genres and counting) as well as a type of music that changes as rapidly as the technology that drives it EDM can be difficult for many to grasp As EDM has gone the way of pop it has become
the focus of much ridicule as an uncultured and un-artistic medium simply meant for mindless dancing and creatable by anyone who can push a computer button I hope that this magazine serve as a bridge between the average uninformed pop-listener and the anti-EDM music ldquopuristsrdquo by providing insight into the history and artistry of Electronic Dance Music I was inspired to create this magazine because I
was lucky enough to be a part of the EDM scene as it busted out from the underground and into mainstream music and culture Arriving in Austin in the fall of 2008 I could not have been more excited to explore what the Live Music Capital of the World had to offer me Although I enjoyed concerts of all genres I quickly found myself attending electronic shows more than the rest and becoming a part of one of the many tight -knit communities that makes Austin great a group of about 300 electronic music loving Austinites Attending on average one electronic show a week that first year I came to love the feeling of being able to look around the room at any one of these shows and have that sense of communitymdashthat I
was surrounded by friends in all directions I had a feeling at the time that we were a part of something that was new and going to be big but I had no idea the extent of it As my college years went on artists that I had seen play in a small bar overlooking Sixth Street for maybe 300 people were playing at Austin City Music Hall for 3000 people I no longer could turn around at a show and find my all my friends instead I was faced with a sea of unfamiliar faces I realized that my small community was not so small anymore and had broken out of our underground niche and into the mainstream Seeing this phenomenon happen in front of me inspired this thesis Originally when I began working my thesis ques-
tion was about whether or not this genre was just a bubble or had truly found its way into the mainstream Over this summer movements in the industry to invest in EDM confirmed that this was not a bubble and caused me to shift my focus why EDM was now becoming mainstream After nearly forty years of existence why was elec-tronic music just now finding its place in America and looking at the bigger picture what does this say about the direction the music industry is headed in on the wholeIn this magazine I reveal how electronic music
has finally solidified its place in America because the digital age harbors an environment that strays away from the confines of the traditional recorded music industry allowing EDM to flourish outside of the control of the major record labels While the ldquoindustryrdquo has spent the past ten years pointing fingers and looking to Washington for solutions to the piracy issue electronic artists many of whom were born into the generation
which caused the file-sharing problem embraced that factmdashthat piracy is going to happenmdashand shifted their focus instead to the format their music was created formdashthe live experiencemdashto be successful The booming success EDM artists and EDM
promoters have found in the live experience has heads turning from all over the industry as they realize that the recorded music industry will never rise to its former glory and it is time to focus on a new more diversified direction for the music industry that includes licensing mer-chandising and most of allmdashlive music
14 we live for live music
PICS FROM THE SHOW
FROM THE FANS
diplo bassnectar
NYCclublife
houseparty lightshow
ravebarbie
moderngogogirl
biggigantic
tiesto
k
yke
bc
n
msj
ek
ka
kan
dii
nsp
ira
tio
ns
b
rad
pe
ters
5
djd
oc-
sto
ne
jh
oc
ks
n
ick
yh
ilto
n
rave
ba
rbie
ty
lers
he
rrit
t
15live live issue 1
Photos from the fans for an inside look at the world of EDM
from the fans
barcelonaclublife
bennybenassi
prettylightssoundsystemmodestep
kandi
aoki edc
squarepusher
b
ec
kyg
on
z
ga
dg
ett
eke
le
brk
orm
an
k
yke
bc
n
ste
vea
ok
i
cra
ck
wo
od
je
rem
yp
mit
ch
ell
c
hri
stin
am
org
an
n
oli
vert
wis
ty
16 we live for live music
on the road on the road
Fall ToursComing soon to a city near you
17live live issue 1
Fall Tours
18 we live for live music
new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013
Pretty Lights | Roseland Ballroom | New York
Zedd amp Nicky Romero | Club Nokia | Los Angeles
Chromeo Ana Sia Gramatic Poolside Snowglobe Music Festival | South Lake Tahoe
ATB MiM0SA Zeds Dead Paul Basic Wolfgang Gartner Krewella Colorado Convention Center | Denver
Skrillex Boyz Noise FlosstradomusThe Palace of Auburn Hills | Milwaukee
Shpongle Glitch Mob Sea of Dreams | San Francisco
Tiesto | Revel Ovation Hall | Atlantic City
The Disco Biscuits | Madison Square Garden
Paper Diamond | Oregon Convention Center | Portland
Bassnectar | Bridgestone Arena | Nashville
Lights All Night | Fair Park | Dallas
Beats Antique | Paramount Theatre | Seattle
Rusko | WaMu Theatre | Seattle
Lotus amp Moon Hooch | Rams Head Live | Baltimore
on the road
19live live issue 1
Industry
genre
pop culture
technology
20 we live for live music
The term ldquoElectronic Musicrdquo is coined by Werner Meyer Eppler
Rock nrsquo Roll music is born
RCA Mark II the first programmable sound synthesizer is invented by
Olson and Belar
Motown becomes dance music classics
1949
1950s
timeline 1949 - 1970
1955
First time anyone
had used the word synthesizer for a
piece of equipment
Rock nrsquo Roll redefines music as something to be listened to not danced to
We begin the story here
1960s
(COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY)
(THE BEAT)
21live live issue 1
Bob Moogrsquos synthesizer brought electronic music out of the realm of academia and into
the hands of musicians
Rock nrsquo roll becomes the sound of modern life It continues to grow
until splits into factions in the 1970s
The Moog Company develops the first modular synthesizer
The Beach Boysrsquo Good Vibrations is the first pop hit to feature
electronic sounds
Etta James releases ldquoSomethingrsquos Got a Hold of Merdquo a sample of which resonates
through the EDM explosion of late
1962
timeline 1949 - 1970
1962
1960s
1967
1964
1960sYouth start to attend rock concerts
instead of going to sock hops
King Tubby of Jamaica births the dub which will later give rise to the remix
(CAPITOL RECORDS)
(MOOG MUSIC)
null
21222783
22 we live for live music
Disco makes streaming music continuously cool and
popularizes the club scene Jim Morrison predicts
the future of music
The Mini Moog is invented becoming the first portable synthesizer
Synth music and space age pop is starting to impact TV
film and commercials
Disco is born
Hot Butterrsquos Popcorn becomes the first electronic pop hit
DJ Herc invents BreakbeatItalo Disco becomes the
first complete EDM genre
1970s
EARLY1970s
1972-1974 1973
1970 1978
1978
1972
1970
the 1970sldquoI can envision one person with l ike a lot of machines tapes and electronic setups
singing or speaking and using machinesrdquo-Jim Morrison
The Technics 1200 Mark II is released and becomes the industry standard
(PBS)
(RCO RECORDS)
timeline
null
2677309
23live live issue 1
Saturday Night Fever
Kraftwerk releases Autobahn
David Bowie and Blondie bring in New Wave
Sugar Hill Gangrsquos ldquoRapperrsquos Delightrdquo brings hip hop into the Top 40
Brian Eno births ambient music
The first digital sampler the Fairlight CMI (Computer Musical Instrument) is released
Disco declines as sentiments such as ldquoDisco Sucksrdquo and ldquoDeath to
Discordquo become popular
1977
L AT E1970s
1978 1978
1979
1979
1975
the 1970s
These days many people falsly associate this iconic soundtrack with the
beginning of disco
Kraftwerk members are considered tobe the ldquogodfathersrdquo of electronic music
(UNKNOWN)
timeline
24 we live for live music
Disco is thought to be dead but it just went underground where it morphed into house and techno
Video game music is born as a genre
Computers video games and electronic equipment become more affordable
efficient and put to great use
Roland TR 808 Rhythm Machine
Frankie Knuckles invents house music at the
Warehouse in Chicago
E-mu Emulator becomes the first affordable
digital sampler
The Hacienda Club opens in Manchester
The rave scene grows from acid house music in the United Kingdom
the 1980rsquos
1981
1982 1987
1980
1980 1981
1980s 1980s
(UNKOWN)
In the 1980s a host of new instruments based on synthet-ic sounds and sampl ing technolo-gy contributed to the formation of new genres of electronic mu-sic and the electronic sound on the whole Whi le these days the sounds of most of these instruments can be repl icated on a computer outfit-ted with the proper audio software DJs sti l l seek the retro instruments for the unique characteristics that come from analog instruments
timeline
25live live issue 1
Sampling and breakbeat become important features for both
hip-hop and EDM
MIDI inventedRoland TB 303
Baseline released
Techno rises out of the industrial
sounds of Detroit
Roland TR 909 Drum Machine
Acid house is born at the Hacienda Club in
Manchester
Electronic Dance Music first Summer of Love begins as the free-party scene takes the sound out of the club and into the open
Ambient music becomes just as important as the dance floor during EDMrsquos second
Summer of Love
Trip Hop and other downtempo genres find success with acts like Massive Attack and Portishead
the 1980rsquos
19871983-1985
1989-1991
1988
1989
1982 19841983
1980
MIDI is a protocol not a hardware which provided a standard for electronic instrument manufacturers
(MASSIVE ATTACK)
London becomes the hub of
EDM
timeline
Computer-based production allows for DJs to recreate the sounds found in traditional analog instruments as
well as new sounds that have never been heard before (eg the Dubstep wob) It also opened up the realm of
EDM creation to anyone with the right software
Responsible for EDC Nocturnal and Wonderland Festivals
Rise of the super club and superstar DJs
The media dubs of all electronic music
ldquotechnordquo
Hardcore music begins to dominate the British
rave scene
Jungle forms out of hardcore
Paul Oakenfold Paul Van Dyk and DJ Tiesto bring trance
music to the forefront
Insomniac Events is established in Southern California
Tommy Boy Records releases the first Jock Jams album
timeline the 1990rsquos
MP3 digital audio format is introduced
1990s
1990s
1992
1990s 1990s
1993
1991
1995
Rave music sees slight mainstream success with artists such as C amp C Music Factory and
Snap and begins to infuence pop music
With the growth of personal computing electronic artists began to migrate from analog electronic
instruments to computer-based production
EARLY1990s
EARLY1990s
(TOMMY BOY RECORDS)
>
>
null
19304054
Although electronica failed to go main-stream its loops and textures find their
way into pop and hip hop
They are the developers of Ableton Live one of the premiere loop-based
sequencers used in modern production
EDC begins as a one day event
Drum and bass evolves out of jungle
Record companies try to market techno under a new namemdash
ldquoelectronicardquomdash but fail
Fatboy Slim makes $0 off of Rockafeller Skank after giving 25 of the royalties to each of
the four artists he used samples from
Moby licenses every track on his
Play album
timeline the 1990rsquos
Napster launchesAbleton is founded
19991994
1995
1991 19991999
1997 1998
1997In the UK raves are forced back underground with the passing of
the Criminal Justice Act
ProTools released at a price of $6000
LATE1990s
LATE1990s
As artists begin to use computers in production
glitch hop evolves
This new law defined gatherings of more than 20 people listening to
ldquorepetitive beatsrdquo as illegal
(SKINT RECORDS)
EDMrsquoS non-descript beats are perfect for marketing
28 we live for live music
In an interview with the New York Times David Bowie claims copyright and intellectual property
will cease to exist in the next ten years
Congress passes a law holding club owners responsible for their patronsrsquo actions and
affecting the whole industry
Tiesto DJs the Athens Olympic Opening Ceremonies
The GRAMMYs add a Best DanceElectronica
Album category
Dubstep nights begin to pop up in the underground music
scene around the USDubstep begins to grow
out of South London
timeline
Limewire introducedCD sales peak iTunes launchedThe iPod brings digital music players to the masses
2002
2000 2001 2001 2003
2003
20062001
2004 2005
ldquoYoursquod better be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation
thatrsquos going to be leftrdquo
Ruskorsquos ldquoCockney Thugrdquo i l lustrates the wob sound
2000-2009
(COURTESY OF RUSK0)
(DTSIABAIFLICKR CC)
null
24417967
29live live issue 1
Daft Punkrsquos pyramid setup at Coachella sets a
new bar for visuals
Kanye West spawns electro-rap with 808rsquos amp Heartbreak prominently fea-
turing the TR 808 drum machine
Lady Gaga and the Black Eyed Peas bring the Euro-house
sound to the Top 40
Guettarsquos ldquoWhen Love Take Overrdquo becomes an international pop hit and the Euro-house sound
starts to creep its way into popular music
timeline
2004 2004 2007
2008 2009
20072006
20092007-2009
Long-established one-day raves such as EDC and Ultra transform
into two-day festivals
Guetta co-wrote ldquoBoom Boom Powrdquo
Gagarsquos Bad Romance has nearly 05 bi l l ion YouTube views
Gary Richards starts Hard Events
Youtube launched Beatport launched
2000-2009
iPhone released
(KARL WALTERGETTY IMAGES)
(INTERSCOPE RECORDS)
2010-2011
Technics SL-1200 turntable the industry standard for thirty
years is discontinued
Limewire the top P2P file-sharing client
is shut downSpotify launches in the US
When an underage girl dies at EDC in LA EDM gets a lot backlash but this
also gives it a lot of exposure
EDC is forced out of LA and moves to Vegas which becomes the home of
EDM in the United States
Bassnectar plays Red Rocks where he incurs $100000 in noise violations
after bringing his own speakers
Skrillex is nominated for five Grammy Awards he
wins three
timeline
2010
2010
2010
2010 2010 2011
2011 2011
2011
2011
Black Eyed Peasrsquo house-based ldquoThe TimeDirty Bitrdquo tops the
charts in over 15 countries
Hip hop and EDM production styles have always mirrored one another now they are morphing
EDM finally has a home in America
Moombahton a fusion of house music and reggae is
born at a house party in DC
Skrillex explodes onto the main-stream music scene bringing the ldquodroprdquo and heavy bass with him
DJAY app
(COURTESY OF SKRILLEX)
2010-2011
Britneyrsquos Hold it Against Me acts as the catalyst for replacing the pop
bridge with the dubstep drop
EDC Vegas has over 230000 attendees in
three days
The Victoria Secret Fashion Show features rave-inspired
outfits for the final walk
timeline
2011 2011
2011 2011 2011
2011
Tiesto plays the biggest single headliner DJ show in US
history to 26000 in Carson CA
Nielsen Soundscan reports digital music sales in the US are larger than
physical sales for the first time
Absoulte Vodka sponsors Swedish House Mafiarsquos
sold out MSG show
According to Bil lboard this is considered a watershed moment
brands adopting EDM
EDM technology is large-ly based now around
software programs and
their coordinating hard-
ware--control lers for Ableton
Scratch decks for Serato
and more There is an entire
spectrum of modern DJ tech-
nology avai lable and the path
one takes depends on what
sound they are trying to achieve
(JIVE RECORDS)
(ZUMA PRESS)
(SAMANTHA HOFFER)
The neon colors associated with EDM can be found al l over
the fashion world
With the laptop as instrument EDM
producers constantly
blend and mix elements
of different genres lead-
ing to the prol iferation of
microgenres which are difficult to
distinguish
null
26177792
32 we live for live music
EDC Vegas sees 300000+ people
over 3 days
Family-friendly animated film Wreck It Ralph uses
dance music in trailer
Feature-length EDM documentary ldquoThe Drop The EDM Culture
Explosionrdquo enters production
A system of alerts are set up to notify users when they
infringe on copyright law
Night Culture Inc becomes the first EDM-oriented publicly
traded company
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline 2012
Queen Latifah sings the National Anthem at the opening game of
the NFL seasonover a beat
JAN
OCTJULY SEPT
SEPTAUG
JUNE JUNEMARUltra Music Festival in Miami
has 40000 viewers watching its online stream over YouTube
Universal closes on EMI becoming the largest of the remaining three
major record labels
(DANNY MOLOSHOK REUTERS)
(BIG MACHINE)
null
21255588
33live live issue 1
After exploding onto the mainstream music scene and pop culture in the past year the industry has set its signts on EDM ventures proved the genre has final ly conquered the final frontiermdashAmerica
Live Nation purchases Hard Events
Media mogul Robert FX Sillerman says he will spend
$1B on EDM enterprises
EDM artists get the spotlight at the Grammys for the 1st time with addi-tion of a dance music performance
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline
Taylor Swift adopts the dubstep drop with her single ldquoI Knew You
Were Troublerdquo
JUNEFEB JULY
JUNE JUNE
OCT OCT NOV
NOVOCT
Bieber drops his first dub-step-influenced track ldquoAs
Long as You Love Merdquo
Dance-based songs can be found all across the radio
The first professional media outlet for EDM is announced
NYU introduces a course on the Business of Electronic amp
Dance Music
Billboard hosts the 2nd Annual FutureSound conference to ad-dress the future of the industry
NOVEMBERBLACK WIDOW
MUSIC PUBLISHES A LIST OF 230+ EDM SUB-GENRESAND
COUNTING
(BIG MACHINE)
34 we live for live music
BACK TO THE
FUTUREThirty years after the ldquodeathrdquo of disco dance music is back in America and bigger than ever To understand
where it is going we must take a look at the past
35live live issue 1
The most recent main-stream movement to hit the United States
E l e c t r o n i c D a n c e M u s i c (EDM) did so as an explosion of lights neon and pulsating beats But dance music is nothing new Although EDM seems entirely novel to many of Amer icarsquos youth dance music has a long and storied history
In the beginning mus ic c r e a t e d v i a e l e c t r o n i c ins t r ument s was focused on academic pursuit s and high ar t The use of elec-t ron ic s i n popu la r mus ic c rea t ion b egan w i t h t he commerc ia l i z a t ion o f t he synthesizer in the 1960s As technology evolved so did experimentation with elec-tronic instruments
In the 1970s the days of disco led to the develop-ment of e lec t ronic dance mus ic when DJs invented the traditional two-turntable setup to continuously stream together music so that the dancing never had to stop U n f o r t u na te l y f o r d a n c e music just as quickly as disco was embraced ant i -d isco sentiments fueled by racism and fear of change pushed it into the underground
It was in this underground s p a c e d u r i n g t h e lsquo 8 0 s that modern dance music evo lved St r ides made in elec tronic ins trumentation developed the synthesizer machines that would form the backbones of house and techno music the Roland TB 303 baseline and Roland TR 909 drum machine
A c c o r d i n g t o T h e Guard ianrsquos recent l y pub -lished timeline A History of Modern Music DJ Frankie Knuckles is responsible for the development of house music characterized by its
44 beats Techno rose out of Detroit a few years later inspired by the indus tr ial sounds of the city
While wildly popular in the underground music scene techno and house did not find commercial success in Amer ica I t was not unt i l the lat ter par t of the lsquo80s when the sounds of house and techno found their way to t he UK and mor phed into a new sub-genre acid house that the commercial club culture was born albeit exclusively in Europe
While dance music took of f r unning on the other side of the pond in America a dif ferent s tor y began to unfold As rap and hip-hop took a s t ronghold of the music industr y in the late eighties and nineties dance music remained confined to the peripheries
A s d a n c e - m u s i c D J s w o r ke d t o e v o l v e t h e i r sound and keep up w i th technology hip -hop DJs who adopted the traditional turntable setup from the DJs of disco as well as their pro-duction techniques began to work in the record ing s tudios and inf luence the industr y especially in the realm of pop music
I n t h e 19 9 0 s i n s i d e r s thought EDM had f ina l l y hit the jackpot and found mainstream success In an inter v iew with PaperMag industry vet Gary Richards explains ldquothe f irst farewell to the undergroundrdquo
ldquoBy 1993 i t felt l ike the music wasnrsquot underground anymore so I threw a par ty c a l l e d R ave A m e r i c a a t Knot t s Ber r y Farm which i s an amusement par k in O r a n g e C o u n t y I t s o l d out with l ike 20000 peo-ple Rick Rubin came with
Anthony K ied is f rom the Red Hot Chili Peppers and a couple guys from ZZ Top and he asked me if I wanted to work in the record busi-ness and help them s ign some EDM ar t i s t s I sa id sure the Prodigy were super hot and it seemed like it was blowing up But we star ted signing all these techno art-ists thinking theyrsquod catch on too but nobody was buying it Nobodyrdquo
Jus t l i ke R ichards says n o b o d y w a s b u y i n g i t D a n c e m u s i c w a s n o t catching on in the way the industr y would have liked so in 1997 the entire music industry and press put their full force behind ldquoelectron-icardquo the new catch-all name they had given to the genre in an attempt to successfully market it
Despite the gl impses of success seen froma handful of artists the genre failed to succeed and the industr y distanced itself from dance music far ther than i t had when disco ldquodiedrdquo
T h i s f a i l u r e c a n b e accounted to EDM not f it-t i ng i n to t h e ma r ke t i ng machinery of the industr y The t radit ional setup was f ixed for four-minute rock and pop singles and album tour s not t he ex tended club mixes and residencies that were the basis of the EDM world Not only was the indus t r y i l l - equipped to market electronic music but many consumers also felt it abrasive and awkward attempting to listen to this machine-made glitch-based music that was so unfamiliar to their ears It was not until the digital revolution of the new millennium that elec-tronic dance music f inal ly found its place
36 we live for live music
Festival
MAJOR LAZER AT SUMMERFEST IN HOUSTON JUNE 2012
37live live issue 1
If music in 2012 could talk it would sound a lot like the Bill Orsquo Reillyrsquos blooper ldquoLetrsquos do it liverdquo While attending concerts has been popular since rock and roll shows in the 1950s the recent electronic music boom has made it exponentially more so
One reason accord ing to Forbes i s that as resource constraints have t ightened people are spending thei r money more on exper iences as opposed to manufactured products But it is more than that EDM has managed to ent i re ly t rans -form the concept of a concer t by blurring the lines between going out dancing and going out to see music These days one would pay the same amount to see superstar-DJ David Guetta in an arena that they would if they were simply dancing to him spin-ning in a club
But this popularity was not always the case As a genre born in the world of nightclubs EDMrsquos parties were lambasted for years as depraved raves Now many kids will go to a rave before they attend a rock concert Why the sudden change A major factor is rebranding
Raves became festivals Electronic became EDMOnce shed of the negative associations with raves
and the bad memories of the electronicarsquos failure EDM shows and festivals began to proliferate across the countr y No longer hiding in remote f ields or empt y warehouse e lec t ronic mus ic promoter s looked to book DJs in public arenas and concer t halls
Elec tr ic Daisy Carnival (EDC) 2010 a rave put on by one of the major EDM promoters Insomniac
Event s ser ved as a turning point for the genre when an underage gir l died at the event causing severe backlash against Insomniac but also giving the genre lots of exposure EDC was run out of Los Angeles but found refuge in the always-accepting city of Las Vegas It was here in Vegas that EDM finally found a homemdashnow playing the same role to America as Ibiza did to Europe when the rave scene star ted there in the 1980s Superstar DJs can be found any week as a resident DJ to Tao XS or one of the many other posh clubs and the landmark event of the year EDC Vegas is now one of the largest raves in the world with over 300000 attendees last year
EDC is not the only big festival on the market now though Festivals are becoming trendymdashan indicator of direction the music industry is headed in towards the live and away from the recorded According to Metrowizecom an online nightli fe guide in 2012 alone at leas t thir t y-two new fes t ivals began in Americamdashfif teen of them dedicated solely to EDM
Long-standing traditions in the music industry fes-tivals typically only attracted people who spent a lot of time at live music and concertshellipuntil recently
As EDM crossed over into pop music the l ines became blur red between a night of going out to dance at a club and night of going out to see your favorite ar tist at a concer t People who a few years ago never attended a concert beyond the major pop ar tists are now concer t-fiends as the ldquopoprdquo ar tists they love today are world-renowned DJs
Of course as any genre crosses into the main-stream it is going to become increasingly popular
FeverEDMS BOOMING SUCCESS IN THE FESTIVAL MARKET HAS HEADS
TURNING FROM AROUND THE INDUSTRY TO INVEST IN LIVE MUSIC
38 we live for live music
with the masses but EDMrsquos explosion is unparal-leled Hundreds of thousands of people attended EDC Vegas and that was just one of dozens of elec-tronic dance festivals and all-night events this year
Because the live experience is EDMrsquos native for-mat the genre is par ticularly nuanced to success on the road Matt Adell of Beatport the online mecca of the DJ community explains one of the reasons why
ldquoPer formers such as Skr illex are incredibly ef f i -cient touring operations compared to rock bands Itrsquos less expensive than a rock group because therersquos just one per former Therersquos much less gear and it rsquos easier to set up because therersquos no live micro-phones So the suppor t team required is so much smallerrdquo
Bobby Clay head of the electronic division at C3 Presents touches on another aspect of EDM that primes the genre for the road ldquoIt rsquos like you donrsquot need to have a full studio on your tour bus to create the next banger or the next huge club track or the next Rihanna remix You can do it from the comfort of a tour bus or the green room of whatever arena some of these big people are playing in nowrdquo EDM ar tists have the luxury of not having to break from tour to create new songs
Although EDM is pr imed for tour ing i t is only in the past couple of years that the genre took on this rock and roll mentality As shows star ted to be booked in rock and roll venues and DJproducers took to the road stopping in every middle town and college campus in America like a rock band would DJs became rock stars in their own right One ar tist in par ticular is noted for condensing the drawn out peaks and falls of dance music into four and a half minute radio-ready tracks the half-shaved goofy-glasses wearing kid known as Skrillex Love him or hate him his genre-fusing in your face style helped to launch EDM to the place it is at today
With mega-DJs such as Skrillex earning up to $1 million per festival appearance and groups such as Swedish House Mafia selling out Madison Square Garden in nine minutes it is no surprise that corpo-rate heads have turned to this once-ignored market Over the summer Live Nation bought Hard Events one of the original promoters of the genre whose brands of Hardfest Holy Ship and Haunted Hard Mansion have gone on to great success Shor t ly af ter media mogul Robert FX Sillerman pledged to invest $1 billion dollars in EDM ventures
As the money pours in 2013 is looking to be the biggest year yet for EDM Having finally solidified i t s place in the music industr y (and at the fore-front nevertheless) Electronic Dance Music is ready to guide the music industry in a new directionmdasha direction towards the future towards a more diver-sified music industry towards a music industry that lives for live music
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
39live live issue 1
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
AT LEAST 32 NEW FESTIVALS BEGAN IN THE UNITED STATES IN 2012 OF THESE FESTIVALS FIFTEEN OF THEM ARE DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC
40 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL WONDERLANDDowntown TexasApril 27-28 2012An inside look into the modern electronic music festival
41live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL WONDERLAND
42 we live for live music
43live live issue 1
A new generation neo-age hippies
44 we live for live musicWelcome to Wonderland
45live live issue 1
46 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
47live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Dillon Francis plays The Queenrsquos Ground
48 we live for live music
49live live issue 1
Visual explosions to coordinate with the
audio attack of a drop
50 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
51live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
EDM shows are known for their
high-impact visuals
52 we live for live music
53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
Button 7
Button 8
Button 9
Button 10
Button 11
Button 12
button13
Button 52
Button 54
Button 56
Button 55
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Button 44
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Button 50
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7live live issue 1
small stuff
(10) LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
(9) GLOSSARY
(14) FROM THE FANS
ON THE ROAD(16) fall tours(18) new yearrsquos eve shows
(75) SOURCES
8 we live for live music
EDITORWRITER
PUBLISHERPHOTOGRAPHER amp
ART DIRECTOR
SAMANTHA HOFFER
INTERVIEWEESBOBBY CLAY
TYLER GOLDBERGMIKE ABB
SCOTT EISEMAN DAN ROSENWALD
DOZENS OF UNOFFICIAL INTERVIEWS AND DISCUSSIONS WITH FRIENDS
AND PEERS
NOTE THIS IS AN INTERACTIVE PDF AS YOU READ LOOK FOR THE CURSOR TO CHANGE TO A HAND SYMBOL AS AN INDICATOR OF INTERACTIVE FEATURES USE ADOBE READER TO ENSURE COMPATIBILITY IF YOU ARE READING ON ISSUUCOM IN-TERACTIVE FEATURES ARE UNAVAILABLEROTHBURY MUSIC FESTIVAL
JULY 2008ROTHBURY MICHIGAN
9live live issue 1
the Glossary
For my thesis I created this magazinemdashwe LIVE for LIVE musicmdashas an ode to one of the nationrsquos favorite pastimes live music This premier issue the thesis issue stands as a testimonial to the music phenomenon that has recently swept across the nation Electronic Dance Music (EDM) Although dance music is certainly not new a new life was breathed into it in the past couple of years Through this magazine I hope to display not only a picture of Electronic Dance Music past and present but also explain why after forty years of existence dance music is just now find-ing its place in America and further what this says about the music industry on the whole For years doom and gloom stories have sur-
rounded the music industry with woeful tales about the effects of piracy and copyright infringement on record sales and royalties While these are certainly valid concerns statements about the ldquodeath of the music industryrdquo are highly skewed towards the state of the major record labels and not the music industry on the whole This is due to the fact that for the past century for one to refer to the state of the music indus-try was more or less the equivalent of referring to just the major record labels With the Digital Age a quantum shift has occurred in the means by which music is created distributed found and acquired that allow artists to directly connect with consumers and bypass the traditional gate-keepers of the industry the record labels It is my hope in this magazine to use Electronic
Dance Musicrsquos new-found booming success in America and the underlying reasons behind it to show the new landscape of the modern music industry one in which success is no longer mea-
LETTER
FROM THE
EDITOR
sured by ldquogoing goldrdquo but rather by the number of tickets sold Another goal I have for this magazine is that it
serves as a guide to the layman wishing to under-stand more about Electronic Dance Music An umbrella-term for a multitude of genres (Black Widow Music just published this list of 230 sub-genres and counting) as well as a type of music that changes as rapidly as the technology that drives it EDM can be difficult for many to grasp As EDM has gone the way of pop it has become
the focus of much ridicule as an uncultured and un-artistic medium simply meant for mindless dancing and creatable by anyone who can push a computer button I hope that this magazine serve as a bridge between the average uninformed pop-listener and the anti-EDM music ldquopuristsrdquo by providing insight into the history and artistry of Electronic Dance Music I was inspired to create this magazine because I
was lucky enough to be a part of the EDM scene as it busted out from the underground and into mainstream music and culture Arriving in Austin in the fall of 2008 I could not have been more excited to explore what the Live Music Capital of the World had to offer me Although I enjoyed concerts of all genres I quickly found myself attending electronic shows more than the rest and becoming a part of one of the many tight -knit communities that makes Austin great a group of about 300 electronic music loving Austinites Attending on average one electronic show a week that first year I came to love the feeling of being able to look around the room at any one of these shows and have that sense of communitymdashthat I
was surrounded by friends in all directions I had a feeling at the time that we were a part of something that was new and going to be big but I had no idea the extent of it As my college years went on artists that I had seen play in a small bar overlooking Sixth Street for maybe 300 people were playing at Austin City Music Hall for 3000 people I no longer could turn around at a show and find my all my friends instead I was faced with a sea of unfamiliar faces I realized that my small community was not so small anymore and had broken out of our underground niche and into the mainstream Seeing this phenomenon happen in front of me inspired this thesis Originally when I began working my thesis ques-
tion was about whether or not this genre was just a bubble or had truly found its way into the mainstream Over this summer movements in the industry to invest in EDM confirmed that this was not a bubble and caused me to shift my focus why EDM was now becoming mainstream After nearly forty years of existence why was elec-tronic music just now finding its place in America and looking at the bigger picture what does this say about the direction the music industry is headed in on the wholeIn this magazine I reveal how electronic music
has finally solidified its place in America because the digital age harbors an environment that strays away from the confines of the traditional recorded music industry allowing EDM to flourish outside of the control of the major record labels While the ldquoindustryrdquo has spent the past ten years pointing fingers and looking to Washington for solutions to the piracy issue electronic artists many of whom were born into the generation
which caused the file-sharing problem embraced that factmdashthat piracy is going to happenmdashand shifted their focus instead to the format their music was created formdashthe live experiencemdashto be successful The booming success EDM artists and EDM
promoters have found in the live experience has heads turning from all over the industry as they realize that the recorded music industry will never rise to its former glory and it is time to focus on a new more diversified direction for the music industry that includes licensing mer-chandising and most of allmdashlive music
14 we live for live music
PICS FROM THE SHOW
FROM THE FANS
diplo bassnectar
NYCclublife
houseparty lightshow
ravebarbie
moderngogogirl
biggigantic
tiesto
k
yke
bc
n
msj
ek
ka
kan
dii
nsp
ira
tio
ns
b
rad
pe
ters
5
djd
oc-
sto
ne
jh
oc
ks
n
ick
yh
ilto
n
rave
ba
rbie
ty
lers
he
rrit
t
15live live issue 1
Photos from the fans for an inside look at the world of EDM
from the fans
barcelonaclublife
bennybenassi
prettylightssoundsystemmodestep
kandi
aoki edc
squarepusher
b
ec
kyg
on
z
ga
dg
ett
eke
le
brk
orm
an
k
yke
bc
n
ste
vea
ok
i
cra
ck
wo
od
je
rem
yp
mit
ch
ell
c
hri
stin
am
org
an
n
oli
vert
wis
ty
16 we live for live music
on the road on the road
Fall ToursComing soon to a city near you
17live live issue 1
Fall Tours
18 we live for live music
new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013
Pretty Lights | Roseland Ballroom | New York
Zedd amp Nicky Romero | Club Nokia | Los Angeles
Chromeo Ana Sia Gramatic Poolside Snowglobe Music Festival | South Lake Tahoe
ATB MiM0SA Zeds Dead Paul Basic Wolfgang Gartner Krewella Colorado Convention Center | Denver
Skrillex Boyz Noise FlosstradomusThe Palace of Auburn Hills | Milwaukee
Shpongle Glitch Mob Sea of Dreams | San Francisco
Tiesto | Revel Ovation Hall | Atlantic City
The Disco Biscuits | Madison Square Garden
Paper Diamond | Oregon Convention Center | Portland
Bassnectar | Bridgestone Arena | Nashville
Lights All Night | Fair Park | Dallas
Beats Antique | Paramount Theatre | Seattle
Rusko | WaMu Theatre | Seattle
Lotus amp Moon Hooch | Rams Head Live | Baltimore
on the road
19live live issue 1
Industry
genre
pop culture
technology
20 we live for live music
The term ldquoElectronic Musicrdquo is coined by Werner Meyer Eppler
Rock nrsquo Roll music is born
RCA Mark II the first programmable sound synthesizer is invented by
Olson and Belar
Motown becomes dance music classics
1949
1950s
timeline 1949 - 1970
1955
First time anyone
had used the word synthesizer for a
piece of equipment
Rock nrsquo Roll redefines music as something to be listened to not danced to
We begin the story here
1960s
(COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY)
(THE BEAT)
21live live issue 1
Bob Moogrsquos synthesizer brought electronic music out of the realm of academia and into
the hands of musicians
Rock nrsquo roll becomes the sound of modern life It continues to grow
until splits into factions in the 1970s
The Moog Company develops the first modular synthesizer
The Beach Boysrsquo Good Vibrations is the first pop hit to feature
electronic sounds
Etta James releases ldquoSomethingrsquos Got a Hold of Merdquo a sample of which resonates
through the EDM explosion of late
1962
timeline 1949 - 1970
1962
1960s
1967
1964
1960sYouth start to attend rock concerts
instead of going to sock hops
King Tubby of Jamaica births the dub which will later give rise to the remix
(CAPITOL RECORDS)
(MOOG MUSIC)
null
21222783
22 we live for live music
Disco makes streaming music continuously cool and
popularizes the club scene Jim Morrison predicts
the future of music
The Mini Moog is invented becoming the first portable synthesizer
Synth music and space age pop is starting to impact TV
film and commercials
Disco is born
Hot Butterrsquos Popcorn becomes the first electronic pop hit
DJ Herc invents BreakbeatItalo Disco becomes the
first complete EDM genre
1970s
EARLY1970s
1972-1974 1973
1970 1978
1978
1972
1970
the 1970sldquoI can envision one person with l ike a lot of machines tapes and electronic setups
singing or speaking and using machinesrdquo-Jim Morrison
The Technics 1200 Mark II is released and becomes the industry standard
(PBS)
(RCO RECORDS)
timeline
null
2677309
23live live issue 1
Saturday Night Fever
Kraftwerk releases Autobahn
David Bowie and Blondie bring in New Wave
Sugar Hill Gangrsquos ldquoRapperrsquos Delightrdquo brings hip hop into the Top 40
Brian Eno births ambient music
The first digital sampler the Fairlight CMI (Computer Musical Instrument) is released
Disco declines as sentiments such as ldquoDisco Sucksrdquo and ldquoDeath to
Discordquo become popular
1977
L AT E1970s
1978 1978
1979
1979
1975
the 1970s
These days many people falsly associate this iconic soundtrack with the
beginning of disco
Kraftwerk members are considered tobe the ldquogodfathersrdquo of electronic music
(UNKNOWN)
timeline
24 we live for live music
Disco is thought to be dead but it just went underground where it morphed into house and techno
Video game music is born as a genre
Computers video games and electronic equipment become more affordable
efficient and put to great use
Roland TR 808 Rhythm Machine
Frankie Knuckles invents house music at the
Warehouse in Chicago
E-mu Emulator becomes the first affordable
digital sampler
The Hacienda Club opens in Manchester
The rave scene grows from acid house music in the United Kingdom
the 1980rsquos
1981
1982 1987
1980
1980 1981
1980s 1980s
(UNKOWN)
In the 1980s a host of new instruments based on synthet-ic sounds and sampl ing technolo-gy contributed to the formation of new genres of electronic mu-sic and the electronic sound on the whole Whi le these days the sounds of most of these instruments can be repl icated on a computer outfit-ted with the proper audio software DJs sti l l seek the retro instruments for the unique characteristics that come from analog instruments
timeline
25live live issue 1
Sampling and breakbeat become important features for both
hip-hop and EDM
MIDI inventedRoland TB 303
Baseline released
Techno rises out of the industrial
sounds of Detroit
Roland TR 909 Drum Machine
Acid house is born at the Hacienda Club in
Manchester
Electronic Dance Music first Summer of Love begins as the free-party scene takes the sound out of the club and into the open
Ambient music becomes just as important as the dance floor during EDMrsquos second
Summer of Love
Trip Hop and other downtempo genres find success with acts like Massive Attack and Portishead
the 1980rsquos
19871983-1985
1989-1991
1988
1989
1982 19841983
1980
MIDI is a protocol not a hardware which provided a standard for electronic instrument manufacturers
(MASSIVE ATTACK)
London becomes the hub of
EDM
timeline
Computer-based production allows for DJs to recreate the sounds found in traditional analog instruments as
well as new sounds that have never been heard before (eg the Dubstep wob) It also opened up the realm of
EDM creation to anyone with the right software
Responsible for EDC Nocturnal and Wonderland Festivals
Rise of the super club and superstar DJs
The media dubs of all electronic music
ldquotechnordquo
Hardcore music begins to dominate the British
rave scene
Jungle forms out of hardcore
Paul Oakenfold Paul Van Dyk and DJ Tiesto bring trance
music to the forefront
Insomniac Events is established in Southern California
Tommy Boy Records releases the first Jock Jams album
timeline the 1990rsquos
MP3 digital audio format is introduced
1990s
1990s
1992
1990s 1990s
1993
1991
1995
Rave music sees slight mainstream success with artists such as C amp C Music Factory and
Snap and begins to infuence pop music
With the growth of personal computing electronic artists began to migrate from analog electronic
instruments to computer-based production
EARLY1990s
EARLY1990s
(TOMMY BOY RECORDS)
>
>
null
19304054
Although electronica failed to go main-stream its loops and textures find their
way into pop and hip hop
They are the developers of Ableton Live one of the premiere loop-based
sequencers used in modern production
EDC begins as a one day event
Drum and bass evolves out of jungle
Record companies try to market techno under a new namemdash
ldquoelectronicardquomdash but fail
Fatboy Slim makes $0 off of Rockafeller Skank after giving 25 of the royalties to each of
the four artists he used samples from
Moby licenses every track on his
Play album
timeline the 1990rsquos
Napster launchesAbleton is founded
19991994
1995
1991 19991999
1997 1998
1997In the UK raves are forced back underground with the passing of
the Criminal Justice Act
ProTools released at a price of $6000
LATE1990s
LATE1990s
As artists begin to use computers in production
glitch hop evolves
This new law defined gatherings of more than 20 people listening to
ldquorepetitive beatsrdquo as illegal
(SKINT RECORDS)
EDMrsquoS non-descript beats are perfect for marketing
28 we live for live music
In an interview with the New York Times David Bowie claims copyright and intellectual property
will cease to exist in the next ten years
Congress passes a law holding club owners responsible for their patronsrsquo actions and
affecting the whole industry
Tiesto DJs the Athens Olympic Opening Ceremonies
The GRAMMYs add a Best DanceElectronica
Album category
Dubstep nights begin to pop up in the underground music
scene around the USDubstep begins to grow
out of South London
timeline
Limewire introducedCD sales peak iTunes launchedThe iPod brings digital music players to the masses
2002
2000 2001 2001 2003
2003
20062001
2004 2005
ldquoYoursquod better be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation
thatrsquos going to be leftrdquo
Ruskorsquos ldquoCockney Thugrdquo i l lustrates the wob sound
2000-2009
(COURTESY OF RUSK0)
(DTSIABAIFLICKR CC)
null
24417967
29live live issue 1
Daft Punkrsquos pyramid setup at Coachella sets a
new bar for visuals
Kanye West spawns electro-rap with 808rsquos amp Heartbreak prominently fea-
turing the TR 808 drum machine
Lady Gaga and the Black Eyed Peas bring the Euro-house
sound to the Top 40
Guettarsquos ldquoWhen Love Take Overrdquo becomes an international pop hit and the Euro-house sound
starts to creep its way into popular music
timeline
2004 2004 2007
2008 2009
20072006
20092007-2009
Long-established one-day raves such as EDC and Ultra transform
into two-day festivals
Guetta co-wrote ldquoBoom Boom Powrdquo
Gagarsquos Bad Romance has nearly 05 bi l l ion YouTube views
Gary Richards starts Hard Events
Youtube launched Beatport launched
2000-2009
iPhone released
(KARL WALTERGETTY IMAGES)
(INTERSCOPE RECORDS)
2010-2011
Technics SL-1200 turntable the industry standard for thirty
years is discontinued
Limewire the top P2P file-sharing client
is shut downSpotify launches in the US
When an underage girl dies at EDC in LA EDM gets a lot backlash but this
also gives it a lot of exposure
EDC is forced out of LA and moves to Vegas which becomes the home of
EDM in the United States
Bassnectar plays Red Rocks where he incurs $100000 in noise violations
after bringing his own speakers
Skrillex is nominated for five Grammy Awards he
wins three
timeline
2010
2010
2010
2010 2010 2011
2011 2011
2011
2011
Black Eyed Peasrsquo house-based ldquoThe TimeDirty Bitrdquo tops the
charts in over 15 countries
Hip hop and EDM production styles have always mirrored one another now they are morphing
EDM finally has a home in America
Moombahton a fusion of house music and reggae is
born at a house party in DC
Skrillex explodes onto the main-stream music scene bringing the ldquodroprdquo and heavy bass with him
DJAY app
(COURTESY OF SKRILLEX)
2010-2011
Britneyrsquos Hold it Against Me acts as the catalyst for replacing the pop
bridge with the dubstep drop
EDC Vegas has over 230000 attendees in
three days
The Victoria Secret Fashion Show features rave-inspired
outfits for the final walk
timeline
2011 2011
2011 2011 2011
2011
Tiesto plays the biggest single headliner DJ show in US
history to 26000 in Carson CA
Nielsen Soundscan reports digital music sales in the US are larger than
physical sales for the first time
Absoulte Vodka sponsors Swedish House Mafiarsquos
sold out MSG show
According to Bil lboard this is considered a watershed moment
brands adopting EDM
EDM technology is large-ly based now around
software programs and
their coordinating hard-
ware--control lers for Ableton
Scratch decks for Serato
and more There is an entire
spectrum of modern DJ tech-
nology avai lable and the path
one takes depends on what
sound they are trying to achieve
(JIVE RECORDS)
(ZUMA PRESS)
(SAMANTHA HOFFER)
The neon colors associated with EDM can be found al l over
the fashion world
With the laptop as instrument EDM
producers constantly
blend and mix elements
of different genres lead-
ing to the prol iferation of
microgenres which are difficult to
distinguish
null
26177792
32 we live for live music
EDC Vegas sees 300000+ people
over 3 days
Family-friendly animated film Wreck It Ralph uses
dance music in trailer
Feature-length EDM documentary ldquoThe Drop The EDM Culture
Explosionrdquo enters production
A system of alerts are set up to notify users when they
infringe on copyright law
Night Culture Inc becomes the first EDM-oriented publicly
traded company
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline 2012
Queen Latifah sings the National Anthem at the opening game of
the NFL seasonover a beat
JAN
OCTJULY SEPT
SEPTAUG
JUNE JUNEMARUltra Music Festival in Miami
has 40000 viewers watching its online stream over YouTube
Universal closes on EMI becoming the largest of the remaining three
major record labels
(DANNY MOLOSHOK REUTERS)
(BIG MACHINE)
null
21255588
33live live issue 1
After exploding onto the mainstream music scene and pop culture in the past year the industry has set its signts on EDM ventures proved the genre has final ly conquered the final frontiermdashAmerica
Live Nation purchases Hard Events
Media mogul Robert FX Sillerman says he will spend
$1B on EDM enterprises
EDM artists get the spotlight at the Grammys for the 1st time with addi-tion of a dance music performance
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline
Taylor Swift adopts the dubstep drop with her single ldquoI Knew You
Were Troublerdquo
JUNEFEB JULY
JUNE JUNE
OCT OCT NOV
NOVOCT
Bieber drops his first dub-step-influenced track ldquoAs
Long as You Love Merdquo
Dance-based songs can be found all across the radio
The first professional media outlet for EDM is announced
NYU introduces a course on the Business of Electronic amp
Dance Music
Billboard hosts the 2nd Annual FutureSound conference to ad-dress the future of the industry
NOVEMBERBLACK WIDOW
MUSIC PUBLISHES A LIST OF 230+ EDM SUB-GENRESAND
COUNTING
(BIG MACHINE)
34 we live for live music
BACK TO THE
FUTUREThirty years after the ldquodeathrdquo of disco dance music is back in America and bigger than ever To understand
where it is going we must take a look at the past
35live live issue 1
The most recent main-stream movement to hit the United States
E l e c t r o n i c D a n c e M u s i c (EDM) did so as an explosion of lights neon and pulsating beats But dance music is nothing new Although EDM seems entirely novel to many of Amer icarsquos youth dance music has a long and storied history
In the beginning mus ic c r e a t e d v i a e l e c t r o n i c ins t r ument s was focused on academic pursuit s and high ar t The use of elec-t ron ic s i n popu la r mus ic c rea t ion b egan w i t h t he commerc ia l i z a t ion o f t he synthesizer in the 1960s As technology evolved so did experimentation with elec-tronic instruments
In the 1970s the days of disco led to the develop-ment of e lec t ronic dance mus ic when DJs invented the traditional two-turntable setup to continuously stream together music so that the dancing never had to stop U n f o r t u na te l y f o r d a n c e music just as quickly as disco was embraced ant i -d isco sentiments fueled by racism and fear of change pushed it into the underground
It was in this underground s p a c e d u r i n g t h e lsquo 8 0 s that modern dance music evo lved St r ides made in elec tronic ins trumentation developed the synthesizer machines that would form the backbones of house and techno music the Roland TB 303 baseline and Roland TR 909 drum machine
A c c o r d i n g t o T h e Guard ianrsquos recent l y pub -lished timeline A History of Modern Music DJ Frankie Knuckles is responsible for the development of house music characterized by its
44 beats Techno rose out of Detroit a few years later inspired by the indus tr ial sounds of the city
While wildly popular in the underground music scene techno and house did not find commercial success in Amer ica I t was not unt i l the lat ter par t of the lsquo80s when the sounds of house and techno found their way to t he UK and mor phed into a new sub-genre acid house that the commercial club culture was born albeit exclusively in Europe
While dance music took of f r unning on the other side of the pond in America a dif ferent s tor y began to unfold As rap and hip-hop took a s t ronghold of the music industr y in the late eighties and nineties dance music remained confined to the peripheries
A s d a n c e - m u s i c D J s w o r ke d t o e v o l v e t h e i r sound and keep up w i th technology hip -hop DJs who adopted the traditional turntable setup from the DJs of disco as well as their pro-duction techniques began to work in the record ing s tudios and inf luence the industr y especially in the realm of pop music
I n t h e 19 9 0 s i n s i d e r s thought EDM had f ina l l y hit the jackpot and found mainstream success In an inter v iew with PaperMag industry vet Gary Richards explains ldquothe f irst farewell to the undergroundrdquo
ldquoBy 1993 i t felt l ike the music wasnrsquot underground anymore so I threw a par ty c a l l e d R ave A m e r i c a a t Knot t s Ber r y Farm which i s an amusement par k in O r a n g e C o u n t y I t s o l d out with l ike 20000 peo-ple Rick Rubin came with
Anthony K ied is f rom the Red Hot Chili Peppers and a couple guys from ZZ Top and he asked me if I wanted to work in the record busi-ness and help them s ign some EDM ar t i s t s I sa id sure the Prodigy were super hot and it seemed like it was blowing up But we star ted signing all these techno art-ists thinking theyrsquod catch on too but nobody was buying it Nobodyrdquo
Jus t l i ke R ichards says n o b o d y w a s b u y i n g i t D a n c e m u s i c w a s n o t catching on in the way the industr y would have liked so in 1997 the entire music industry and press put their full force behind ldquoelectron-icardquo the new catch-all name they had given to the genre in an attempt to successfully market it
Despite the gl impses of success seen froma handful of artists the genre failed to succeed and the industr y distanced itself from dance music far ther than i t had when disco ldquodiedrdquo
T h i s f a i l u r e c a n b e accounted to EDM not f it-t i ng i n to t h e ma r ke t i ng machinery of the industr y The t radit ional setup was f ixed for four-minute rock and pop singles and album tour s not t he ex tended club mixes and residencies that were the basis of the EDM world Not only was the indus t r y i l l - equipped to market electronic music but many consumers also felt it abrasive and awkward attempting to listen to this machine-made glitch-based music that was so unfamiliar to their ears It was not until the digital revolution of the new millennium that elec-tronic dance music f inal ly found its place
36 we live for live music
Festival
MAJOR LAZER AT SUMMERFEST IN HOUSTON JUNE 2012
37live live issue 1
If music in 2012 could talk it would sound a lot like the Bill Orsquo Reillyrsquos blooper ldquoLetrsquos do it liverdquo While attending concerts has been popular since rock and roll shows in the 1950s the recent electronic music boom has made it exponentially more so
One reason accord ing to Forbes i s that as resource constraints have t ightened people are spending thei r money more on exper iences as opposed to manufactured products But it is more than that EDM has managed to ent i re ly t rans -form the concept of a concer t by blurring the lines between going out dancing and going out to see music These days one would pay the same amount to see superstar-DJ David Guetta in an arena that they would if they were simply dancing to him spin-ning in a club
But this popularity was not always the case As a genre born in the world of nightclubs EDMrsquos parties were lambasted for years as depraved raves Now many kids will go to a rave before they attend a rock concert Why the sudden change A major factor is rebranding
Raves became festivals Electronic became EDMOnce shed of the negative associations with raves
and the bad memories of the electronicarsquos failure EDM shows and festivals began to proliferate across the countr y No longer hiding in remote f ields or empt y warehouse e lec t ronic mus ic promoter s looked to book DJs in public arenas and concer t halls
Elec tr ic Daisy Carnival (EDC) 2010 a rave put on by one of the major EDM promoters Insomniac
Event s ser ved as a turning point for the genre when an underage gir l died at the event causing severe backlash against Insomniac but also giving the genre lots of exposure EDC was run out of Los Angeles but found refuge in the always-accepting city of Las Vegas It was here in Vegas that EDM finally found a homemdashnow playing the same role to America as Ibiza did to Europe when the rave scene star ted there in the 1980s Superstar DJs can be found any week as a resident DJ to Tao XS or one of the many other posh clubs and the landmark event of the year EDC Vegas is now one of the largest raves in the world with over 300000 attendees last year
EDC is not the only big festival on the market now though Festivals are becoming trendymdashan indicator of direction the music industry is headed in towards the live and away from the recorded According to Metrowizecom an online nightli fe guide in 2012 alone at leas t thir t y-two new fes t ivals began in Americamdashfif teen of them dedicated solely to EDM
Long-standing traditions in the music industry fes-tivals typically only attracted people who spent a lot of time at live music and concertshellipuntil recently
As EDM crossed over into pop music the l ines became blur red between a night of going out to dance at a club and night of going out to see your favorite ar tist at a concer t People who a few years ago never attended a concert beyond the major pop ar tists are now concer t-fiends as the ldquopoprdquo ar tists they love today are world-renowned DJs
Of course as any genre crosses into the main-stream it is going to become increasingly popular
FeverEDMS BOOMING SUCCESS IN THE FESTIVAL MARKET HAS HEADS
TURNING FROM AROUND THE INDUSTRY TO INVEST IN LIVE MUSIC
38 we live for live music
with the masses but EDMrsquos explosion is unparal-leled Hundreds of thousands of people attended EDC Vegas and that was just one of dozens of elec-tronic dance festivals and all-night events this year
Because the live experience is EDMrsquos native for-mat the genre is par ticularly nuanced to success on the road Matt Adell of Beatport the online mecca of the DJ community explains one of the reasons why
ldquoPer formers such as Skr illex are incredibly ef f i -cient touring operations compared to rock bands Itrsquos less expensive than a rock group because therersquos just one per former Therersquos much less gear and it rsquos easier to set up because therersquos no live micro-phones So the suppor t team required is so much smallerrdquo
Bobby Clay head of the electronic division at C3 Presents touches on another aspect of EDM that primes the genre for the road ldquoIt rsquos like you donrsquot need to have a full studio on your tour bus to create the next banger or the next huge club track or the next Rihanna remix You can do it from the comfort of a tour bus or the green room of whatever arena some of these big people are playing in nowrdquo EDM ar tists have the luxury of not having to break from tour to create new songs
Although EDM is pr imed for tour ing i t is only in the past couple of years that the genre took on this rock and roll mentality As shows star ted to be booked in rock and roll venues and DJproducers took to the road stopping in every middle town and college campus in America like a rock band would DJs became rock stars in their own right One ar tist in par ticular is noted for condensing the drawn out peaks and falls of dance music into four and a half minute radio-ready tracks the half-shaved goofy-glasses wearing kid known as Skrillex Love him or hate him his genre-fusing in your face style helped to launch EDM to the place it is at today
With mega-DJs such as Skrillex earning up to $1 million per festival appearance and groups such as Swedish House Mafia selling out Madison Square Garden in nine minutes it is no surprise that corpo-rate heads have turned to this once-ignored market Over the summer Live Nation bought Hard Events one of the original promoters of the genre whose brands of Hardfest Holy Ship and Haunted Hard Mansion have gone on to great success Shor t ly af ter media mogul Robert FX Sillerman pledged to invest $1 billion dollars in EDM ventures
As the money pours in 2013 is looking to be the biggest year yet for EDM Having finally solidified i t s place in the music industr y (and at the fore-front nevertheless) Electronic Dance Music is ready to guide the music industry in a new directionmdasha direction towards the future towards a more diver-sified music industry towards a music industry that lives for live music
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
39live live issue 1
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
AT LEAST 32 NEW FESTIVALS BEGAN IN THE UNITED STATES IN 2012 OF THESE FESTIVALS FIFTEEN OF THEM ARE DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC
40 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL WONDERLANDDowntown TexasApril 27-28 2012An inside look into the modern electronic music festival
41live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL WONDERLAND
42 we live for live music
43live live issue 1
A new generation neo-age hippies
44 we live for live musicWelcome to Wonderland
45live live issue 1
46 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
47live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Dillon Francis plays The Queenrsquos Ground
48 we live for live music
49live live issue 1
Visual explosions to coordinate with the
audio attack of a drop
50 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
51live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
EDM shows are known for their
high-impact visuals
52 we live for live music
53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
Button 7
Button 8
Button 9
Button 10
Button 11
Button 12
button13
Button 52
Button 54
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Button 44
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Button 50
Button 48
8 we live for live music
EDITORWRITER
PUBLISHERPHOTOGRAPHER amp
ART DIRECTOR
SAMANTHA HOFFER
INTERVIEWEESBOBBY CLAY
TYLER GOLDBERGMIKE ABB
SCOTT EISEMAN DAN ROSENWALD
DOZENS OF UNOFFICIAL INTERVIEWS AND DISCUSSIONS WITH FRIENDS
AND PEERS
NOTE THIS IS AN INTERACTIVE PDF AS YOU READ LOOK FOR THE CURSOR TO CHANGE TO A HAND SYMBOL AS AN INDICATOR OF INTERACTIVE FEATURES USE ADOBE READER TO ENSURE COMPATIBILITY IF YOU ARE READING ON ISSUUCOM IN-TERACTIVE FEATURES ARE UNAVAILABLEROTHBURY MUSIC FESTIVAL
JULY 2008ROTHBURY MICHIGAN
9live live issue 1
the Glossary
For my thesis I created this magazinemdashwe LIVE for LIVE musicmdashas an ode to one of the nationrsquos favorite pastimes live music This premier issue the thesis issue stands as a testimonial to the music phenomenon that has recently swept across the nation Electronic Dance Music (EDM) Although dance music is certainly not new a new life was breathed into it in the past couple of years Through this magazine I hope to display not only a picture of Electronic Dance Music past and present but also explain why after forty years of existence dance music is just now find-ing its place in America and further what this says about the music industry on the whole For years doom and gloom stories have sur-
rounded the music industry with woeful tales about the effects of piracy and copyright infringement on record sales and royalties While these are certainly valid concerns statements about the ldquodeath of the music industryrdquo are highly skewed towards the state of the major record labels and not the music industry on the whole This is due to the fact that for the past century for one to refer to the state of the music indus-try was more or less the equivalent of referring to just the major record labels With the Digital Age a quantum shift has occurred in the means by which music is created distributed found and acquired that allow artists to directly connect with consumers and bypass the traditional gate-keepers of the industry the record labels It is my hope in this magazine to use Electronic
Dance Musicrsquos new-found booming success in America and the underlying reasons behind it to show the new landscape of the modern music industry one in which success is no longer mea-
LETTER
FROM THE
EDITOR
sured by ldquogoing goldrdquo but rather by the number of tickets sold Another goal I have for this magazine is that it
serves as a guide to the layman wishing to under-stand more about Electronic Dance Music An umbrella-term for a multitude of genres (Black Widow Music just published this list of 230 sub-genres and counting) as well as a type of music that changes as rapidly as the technology that drives it EDM can be difficult for many to grasp As EDM has gone the way of pop it has become
the focus of much ridicule as an uncultured and un-artistic medium simply meant for mindless dancing and creatable by anyone who can push a computer button I hope that this magazine serve as a bridge between the average uninformed pop-listener and the anti-EDM music ldquopuristsrdquo by providing insight into the history and artistry of Electronic Dance Music I was inspired to create this magazine because I
was lucky enough to be a part of the EDM scene as it busted out from the underground and into mainstream music and culture Arriving in Austin in the fall of 2008 I could not have been more excited to explore what the Live Music Capital of the World had to offer me Although I enjoyed concerts of all genres I quickly found myself attending electronic shows more than the rest and becoming a part of one of the many tight -knit communities that makes Austin great a group of about 300 electronic music loving Austinites Attending on average one electronic show a week that first year I came to love the feeling of being able to look around the room at any one of these shows and have that sense of communitymdashthat I
was surrounded by friends in all directions I had a feeling at the time that we were a part of something that was new and going to be big but I had no idea the extent of it As my college years went on artists that I had seen play in a small bar overlooking Sixth Street for maybe 300 people were playing at Austin City Music Hall for 3000 people I no longer could turn around at a show and find my all my friends instead I was faced with a sea of unfamiliar faces I realized that my small community was not so small anymore and had broken out of our underground niche and into the mainstream Seeing this phenomenon happen in front of me inspired this thesis Originally when I began working my thesis ques-
tion was about whether or not this genre was just a bubble or had truly found its way into the mainstream Over this summer movements in the industry to invest in EDM confirmed that this was not a bubble and caused me to shift my focus why EDM was now becoming mainstream After nearly forty years of existence why was elec-tronic music just now finding its place in America and looking at the bigger picture what does this say about the direction the music industry is headed in on the wholeIn this magazine I reveal how electronic music
has finally solidified its place in America because the digital age harbors an environment that strays away from the confines of the traditional recorded music industry allowing EDM to flourish outside of the control of the major record labels While the ldquoindustryrdquo has spent the past ten years pointing fingers and looking to Washington for solutions to the piracy issue electronic artists many of whom were born into the generation
which caused the file-sharing problem embraced that factmdashthat piracy is going to happenmdashand shifted their focus instead to the format their music was created formdashthe live experiencemdashto be successful The booming success EDM artists and EDM
promoters have found in the live experience has heads turning from all over the industry as they realize that the recorded music industry will never rise to its former glory and it is time to focus on a new more diversified direction for the music industry that includes licensing mer-chandising and most of allmdashlive music
14 we live for live music
PICS FROM THE SHOW
FROM THE FANS
diplo bassnectar
NYCclublife
houseparty lightshow
ravebarbie
moderngogogirl
biggigantic
tiesto
k
yke
bc
n
msj
ek
ka
kan
dii
nsp
ira
tio
ns
b
rad
pe
ters
5
djd
oc-
sto
ne
jh
oc
ks
n
ick
yh
ilto
n
rave
ba
rbie
ty
lers
he
rrit
t
15live live issue 1
Photos from the fans for an inside look at the world of EDM
from the fans
barcelonaclublife
bennybenassi
prettylightssoundsystemmodestep
kandi
aoki edc
squarepusher
b
ec
kyg
on
z
ga
dg
ett
eke
le
brk
orm
an
k
yke
bc
n
ste
vea
ok
i
cra
ck
wo
od
je
rem
yp
mit
ch
ell
c
hri
stin
am
org
an
n
oli
vert
wis
ty
16 we live for live music
on the road on the road
Fall ToursComing soon to a city near you
17live live issue 1
Fall Tours
18 we live for live music
new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013
Pretty Lights | Roseland Ballroom | New York
Zedd amp Nicky Romero | Club Nokia | Los Angeles
Chromeo Ana Sia Gramatic Poolside Snowglobe Music Festival | South Lake Tahoe
ATB MiM0SA Zeds Dead Paul Basic Wolfgang Gartner Krewella Colorado Convention Center | Denver
Skrillex Boyz Noise FlosstradomusThe Palace of Auburn Hills | Milwaukee
Shpongle Glitch Mob Sea of Dreams | San Francisco
Tiesto | Revel Ovation Hall | Atlantic City
The Disco Biscuits | Madison Square Garden
Paper Diamond | Oregon Convention Center | Portland
Bassnectar | Bridgestone Arena | Nashville
Lights All Night | Fair Park | Dallas
Beats Antique | Paramount Theatre | Seattle
Rusko | WaMu Theatre | Seattle
Lotus amp Moon Hooch | Rams Head Live | Baltimore
on the road
19live live issue 1
Industry
genre
pop culture
technology
20 we live for live music
The term ldquoElectronic Musicrdquo is coined by Werner Meyer Eppler
Rock nrsquo Roll music is born
RCA Mark II the first programmable sound synthesizer is invented by
Olson and Belar
Motown becomes dance music classics
1949
1950s
timeline 1949 - 1970
1955
First time anyone
had used the word synthesizer for a
piece of equipment
Rock nrsquo Roll redefines music as something to be listened to not danced to
We begin the story here
1960s
(COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY)
(THE BEAT)
21live live issue 1
Bob Moogrsquos synthesizer brought electronic music out of the realm of academia and into
the hands of musicians
Rock nrsquo roll becomes the sound of modern life It continues to grow
until splits into factions in the 1970s
The Moog Company develops the first modular synthesizer
The Beach Boysrsquo Good Vibrations is the first pop hit to feature
electronic sounds
Etta James releases ldquoSomethingrsquos Got a Hold of Merdquo a sample of which resonates
through the EDM explosion of late
1962
timeline 1949 - 1970
1962
1960s
1967
1964
1960sYouth start to attend rock concerts
instead of going to sock hops
King Tubby of Jamaica births the dub which will later give rise to the remix
(CAPITOL RECORDS)
(MOOG MUSIC)
null
21222783
22 we live for live music
Disco makes streaming music continuously cool and
popularizes the club scene Jim Morrison predicts
the future of music
The Mini Moog is invented becoming the first portable synthesizer
Synth music and space age pop is starting to impact TV
film and commercials
Disco is born
Hot Butterrsquos Popcorn becomes the first electronic pop hit
DJ Herc invents BreakbeatItalo Disco becomes the
first complete EDM genre
1970s
EARLY1970s
1972-1974 1973
1970 1978
1978
1972
1970
the 1970sldquoI can envision one person with l ike a lot of machines tapes and electronic setups
singing or speaking and using machinesrdquo-Jim Morrison
The Technics 1200 Mark II is released and becomes the industry standard
(PBS)
(RCO RECORDS)
timeline
null
2677309
23live live issue 1
Saturday Night Fever
Kraftwerk releases Autobahn
David Bowie and Blondie bring in New Wave
Sugar Hill Gangrsquos ldquoRapperrsquos Delightrdquo brings hip hop into the Top 40
Brian Eno births ambient music
The first digital sampler the Fairlight CMI (Computer Musical Instrument) is released
Disco declines as sentiments such as ldquoDisco Sucksrdquo and ldquoDeath to
Discordquo become popular
1977
L AT E1970s
1978 1978
1979
1979
1975
the 1970s
These days many people falsly associate this iconic soundtrack with the
beginning of disco
Kraftwerk members are considered tobe the ldquogodfathersrdquo of electronic music
(UNKNOWN)
timeline
24 we live for live music
Disco is thought to be dead but it just went underground where it morphed into house and techno
Video game music is born as a genre
Computers video games and electronic equipment become more affordable
efficient and put to great use
Roland TR 808 Rhythm Machine
Frankie Knuckles invents house music at the
Warehouse in Chicago
E-mu Emulator becomes the first affordable
digital sampler
The Hacienda Club opens in Manchester
The rave scene grows from acid house music in the United Kingdom
the 1980rsquos
1981
1982 1987
1980
1980 1981
1980s 1980s
(UNKOWN)
In the 1980s a host of new instruments based on synthet-ic sounds and sampl ing technolo-gy contributed to the formation of new genres of electronic mu-sic and the electronic sound on the whole Whi le these days the sounds of most of these instruments can be repl icated on a computer outfit-ted with the proper audio software DJs sti l l seek the retro instruments for the unique characteristics that come from analog instruments
timeline
25live live issue 1
Sampling and breakbeat become important features for both
hip-hop and EDM
MIDI inventedRoland TB 303
Baseline released
Techno rises out of the industrial
sounds of Detroit
Roland TR 909 Drum Machine
Acid house is born at the Hacienda Club in
Manchester
Electronic Dance Music first Summer of Love begins as the free-party scene takes the sound out of the club and into the open
Ambient music becomes just as important as the dance floor during EDMrsquos second
Summer of Love
Trip Hop and other downtempo genres find success with acts like Massive Attack and Portishead
the 1980rsquos
19871983-1985
1989-1991
1988
1989
1982 19841983
1980
MIDI is a protocol not a hardware which provided a standard for electronic instrument manufacturers
(MASSIVE ATTACK)
London becomes the hub of
EDM
timeline
Computer-based production allows for DJs to recreate the sounds found in traditional analog instruments as
well as new sounds that have never been heard before (eg the Dubstep wob) It also opened up the realm of
EDM creation to anyone with the right software
Responsible for EDC Nocturnal and Wonderland Festivals
Rise of the super club and superstar DJs
The media dubs of all electronic music
ldquotechnordquo
Hardcore music begins to dominate the British
rave scene
Jungle forms out of hardcore
Paul Oakenfold Paul Van Dyk and DJ Tiesto bring trance
music to the forefront
Insomniac Events is established in Southern California
Tommy Boy Records releases the first Jock Jams album
timeline the 1990rsquos
MP3 digital audio format is introduced
1990s
1990s
1992
1990s 1990s
1993
1991
1995
Rave music sees slight mainstream success with artists such as C amp C Music Factory and
Snap and begins to infuence pop music
With the growth of personal computing electronic artists began to migrate from analog electronic
instruments to computer-based production
EARLY1990s
EARLY1990s
(TOMMY BOY RECORDS)
>
>
null
19304054
Although electronica failed to go main-stream its loops and textures find their
way into pop and hip hop
They are the developers of Ableton Live one of the premiere loop-based
sequencers used in modern production
EDC begins as a one day event
Drum and bass evolves out of jungle
Record companies try to market techno under a new namemdash
ldquoelectronicardquomdash but fail
Fatboy Slim makes $0 off of Rockafeller Skank after giving 25 of the royalties to each of
the four artists he used samples from
Moby licenses every track on his
Play album
timeline the 1990rsquos
Napster launchesAbleton is founded
19991994
1995
1991 19991999
1997 1998
1997In the UK raves are forced back underground with the passing of
the Criminal Justice Act
ProTools released at a price of $6000
LATE1990s
LATE1990s
As artists begin to use computers in production
glitch hop evolves
This new law defined gatherings of more than 20 people listening to
ldquorepetitive beatsrdquo as illegal
(SKINT RECORDS)
EDMrsquoS non-descript beats are perfect for marketing
28 we live for live music
In an interview with the New York Times David Bowie claims copyright and intellectual property
will cease to exist in the next ten years
Congress passes a law holding club owners responsible for their patronsrsquo actions and
affecting the whole industry
Tiesto DJs the Athens Olympic Opening Ceremonies
The GRAMMYs add a Best DanceElectronica
Album category
Dubstep nights begin to pop up in the underground music
scene around the USDubstep begins to grow
out of South London
timeline
Limewire introducedCD sales peak iTunes launchedThe iPod brings digital music players to the masses
2002
2000 2001 2001 2003
2003
20062001
2004 2005
ldquoYoursquod better be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation
thatrsquos going to be leftrdquo
Ruskorsquos ldquoCockney Thugrdquo i l lustrates the wob sound
2000-2009
(COURTESY OF RUSK0)
(DTSIABAIFLICKR CC)
null
24417967
29live live issue 1
Daft Punkrsquos pyramid setup at Coachella sets a
new bar for visuals
Kanye West spawns electro-rap with 808rsquos amp Heartbreak prominently fea-
turing the TR 808 drum machine
Lady Gaga and the Black Eyed Peas bring the Euro-house
sound to the Top 40
Guettarsquos ldquoWhen Love Take Overrdquo becomes an international pop hit and the Euro-house sound
starts to creep its way into popular music
timeline
2004 2004 2007
2008 2009
20072006
20092007-2009
Long-established one-day raves such as EDC and Ultra transform
into two-day festivals
Guetta co-wrote ldquoBoom Boom Powrdquo
Gagarsquos Bad Romance has nearly 05 bi l l ion YouTube views
Gary Richards starts Hard Events
Youtube launched Beatport launched
2000-2009
iPhone released
(KARL WALTERGETTY IMAGES)
(INTERSCOPE RECORDS)
2010-2011
Technics SL-1200 turntable the industry standard for thirty
years is discontinued
Limewire the top P2P file-sharing client
is shut downSpotify launches in the US
When an underage girl dies at EDC in LA EDM gets a lot backlash but this
also gives it a lot of exposure
EDC is forced out of LA and moves to Vegas which becomes the home of
EDM in the United States
Bassnectar plays Red Rocks where he incurs $100000 in noise violations
after bringing his own speakers
Skrillex is nominated for five Grammy Awards he
wins three
timeline
2010
2010
2010
2010 2010 2011
2011 2011
2011
2011
Black Eyed Peasrsquo house-based ldquoThe TimeDirty Bitrdquo tops the
charts in over 15 countries
Hip hop and EDM production styles have always mirrored one another now they are morphing
EDM finally has a home in America
Moombahton a fusion of house music and reggae is
born at a house party in DC
Skrillex explodes onto the main-stream music scene bringing the ldquodroprdquo and heavy bass with him
DJAY app
(COURTESY OF SKRILLEX)
2010-2011
Britneyrsquos Hold it Against Me acts as the catalyst for replacing the pop
bridge with the dubstep drop
EDC Vegas has over 230000 attendees in
three days
The Victoria Secret Fashion Show features rave-inspired
outfits for the final walk
timeline
2011 2011
2011 2011 2011
2011
Tiesto plays the biggest single headliner DJ show in US
history to 26000 in Carson CA
Nielsen Soundscan reports digital music sales in the US are larger than
physical sales for the first time
Absoulte Vodka sponsors Swedish House Mafiarsquos
sold out MSG show
According to Bil lboard this is considered a watershed moment
brands adopting EDM
EDM technology is large-ly based now around
software programs and
their coordinating hard-
ware--control lers for Ableton
Scratch decks for Serato
and more There is an entire
spectrum of modern DJ tech-
nology avai lable and the path
one takes depends on what
sound they are trying to achieve
(JIVE RECORDS)
(ZUMA PRESS)
(SAMANTHA HOFFER)
The neon colors associated with EDM can be found al l over
the fashion world
With the laptop as instrument EDM
producers constantly
blend and mix elements
of different genres lead-
ing to the prol iferation of
microgenres which are difficult to
distinguish
null
26177792
32 we live for live music
EDC Vegas sees 300000+ people
over 3 days
Family-friendly animated film Wreck It Ralph uses
dance music in trailer
Feature-length EDM documentary ldquoThe Drop The EDM Culture
Explosionrdquo enters production
A system of alerts are set up to notify users when they
infringe on copyright law
Night Culture Inc becomes the first EDM-oriented publicly
traded company
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline 2012
Queen Latifah sings the National Anthem at the opening game of
the NFL seasonover a beat
JAN
OCTJULY SEPT
SEPTAUG
JUNE JUNEMARUltra Music Festival in Miami
has 40000 viewers watching its online stream over YouTube
Universal closes on EMI becoming the largest of the remaining three
major record labels
(DANNY MOLOSHOK REUTERS)
(BIG MACHINE)
null
21255588
33live live issue 1
After exploding onto the mainstream music scene and pop culture in the past year the industry has set its signts on EDM ventures proved the genre has final ly conquered the final frontiermdashAmerica
Live Nation purchases Hard Events
Media mogul Robert FX Sillerman says he will spend
$1B on EDM enterprises
EDM artists get the spotlight at the Grammys for the 1st time with addi-tion of a dance music performance
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline
Taylor Swift adopts the dubstep drop with her single ldquoI Knew You
Were Troublerdquo
JUNEFEB JULY
JUNE JUNE
OCT OCT NOV
NOVOCT
Bieber drops his first dub-step-influenced track ldquoAs
Long as You Love Merdquo
Dance-based songs can be found all across the radio
The first professional media outlet for EDM is announced
NYU introduces a course on the Business of Electronic amp
Dance Music
Billboard hosts the 2nd Annual FutureSound conference to ad-dress the future of the industry
NOVEMBERBLACK WIDOW
MUSIC PUBLISHES A LIST OF 230+ EDM SUB-GENRESAND
COUNTING
(BIG MACHINE)
34 we live for live music
BACK TO THE
FUTUREThirty years after the ldquodeathrdquo of disco dance music is back in America and bigger than ever To understand
where it is going we must take a look at the past
35live live issue 1
The most recent main-stream movement to hit the United States
E l e c t r o n i c D a n c e M u s i c (EDM) did so as an explosion of lights neon and pulsating beats But dance music is nothing new Although EDM seems entirely novel to many of Amer icarsquos youth dance music has a long and storied history
In the beginning mus ic c r e a t e d v i a e l e c t r o n i c ins t r ument s was focused on academic pursuit s and high ar t The use of elec-t ron ic s i n popu la r mus ic c rea t ion b egan w i t h t he commerc ia l i z a t ion o f t he synthesizer in the 1960s As technology evolved so did experimentation with elec-tronic instruments
In the 1970s the days of disco led to the develop-ment of e lec t ronic dance mus ic when DJs invented the traditional two-turntable setup to continuously stream together music so that the dancing never had to stop U n f o r t u na te l y f o r d a n c e music just as quickly as disco was embraced ant i -d isco sentiments fueled by racism and fear of change pushed it into the underground
It was in this underground s p a c e d u r i n g t h e lsquo 8 0 s that modern dance music evo lved St r ides made in elec tronic ins trumentation developed the synthesizer machines that would form the backbones of house and techno music the Roland TB 303 baseline and Roland TR 909 drum machine
A c c o r d i n g t o T h e Guard ianrsquos recent l y pub -lished timeline A History of Modern Music DJ Frankie Knuckles is responsible for the development of house music characterized by its
44 beats Techno rose out of Detroit a few years later inspired by the indus tr ial sounds of the city
While wildly popular in the underground music scene techno and house did not find commercial success in Amer ica I t was not unt i l the lat ter par t of the lsquo80s when the sounds of house and techno found their way to t he UK and mor phed into a new sub-genre acid house that the commercial club culture was born albeit exclusively in Europe
While dance music took of f r unning on the other side of the pond in America a dif ferent s tor y began to unfold As rap and hip-hop took a s t ronghold of the music industr y in the late eighties and nineties dance music remained confined to the peripheries
A s d a n c e - m u s i c D J s w o r ke d t o e v o l v e t h e i r sound and keep up w i th technology hip -hop DJs who adopted the traditional turntable setup from the DJs of disco as well as their pro-duction techniques began to work in the record ing s tudios and inf luence the industr y especially in the realm of pop music
I n t h e 19 9 0 s i n s i d e r s thought EDM had f ina l l y hit the jackpot and found mainstream success In an inter v iew with PaperMag industry vet Gary Richards explains ldquothe f irst farewell to the undergroundrdquo
ldquoBy 1993 i t felt l ike the music wasnrsquot underground anymore so I threw a par ty c a l l e d R ave A m e r i c a a t Knot t s Ber r y Farm which i s an amusement par k in O r a n g e C o u n t y I t s o l d out with l ike 20000 peo-ple Rick Rubin came with
Anthony K ied is f rom the Red Hot Chili Peppers and a couple guys from ZZ Top and he asked me if I wanted to work in the record busi-ness and help them s ign some EDM ar t i s t s I sa id sure the Prodigy were super hot and it seemed like it was blowing up But we star ted signing all these techno art-ists thinking theyrsquod catch on too but nobody was buying it Nobodyrdquo
Jus t l i ke R ichards says n o b o d y w a s b u y i n g i t D a n c e m u s i c w a s n o t catching on in the way the industr y would have liked so in 1997 the entire music industry and press put their full force behind ldquoelectron-icardquo the new catch-all name they had given to the genre in an attempt to successfully market it
Despite the gl impses of success seen froma handful of artists the genre failed to succeed and the industr y distanced itself from dance music far ther than i t had when disco ldquodiedrdquo
T h i s f a i l u r e c a n b e accounted to EDM not f it-t i ng i n to t h e ma r ke t i ng machinery of the industr y The t radit ional setup was f ixed for four-minute rock and pop singles and album tour s not t he ex tended club mixes and residencies that were the basis of the EDM world Not only was the indus t r y i l l - equipped to market electronic music but many consumers also felt it abrasive and awkward attempting to listen to this machine-made glitch-based music that was so unfamiliar to their ears It was not until the digital revolution of the new millennium that elec-tronic dance music f inal ly found its place
36 we live for live music
Festival
MAJOR LAZER AT SUMMERFEST IN HOUSTON JUNE 2012
37live live issue 1
If music in 2012 could talk it would sound a lot like the Bill Orsquo Reillyrsquos blooper ldquoLetrsquos do it liverdquo While attending concerts has been popular since rock and roll shows in the 1950s the recent electronic music boom has made it exponentially more so
One reason accord ing to Forbes i s that as resource constraints have t ightened people are spending thei r money more on exper iences as opposed to manufactured products But it is more than that EDM has managed to ent i re ly t rans -form the concept of a concer t by blurring the lines between going out dancing and going out to see music These days one would pay the same amount to see superstar-DJ David Guetta in an arena that they would if they were simply dancing to him spin-ning in a club
But this popularity was not always the case As a genre born in the world of nightclubs EDMrsquos parties were lambasted for years as depraved raves Now many kids will go to a rave before they attend a rock concert Why the sudden change A major factor is rebranding
Raves became festivals Electronic became EDMOnce shed of the negative associations with raves
and the bad memories of the electronicarsquos failure EDM shows and festivals began to proliferate across the countr y No longer hiding in remote f ields or empt y warehouse e lec t ronic mus ic promoter s looked to book DJs in public arenas and concer t halls
Elec tr ic Daisy Carnival (EDC) 2010 a rave put on by one of the major EDM promoters Insomniac
Event s ser ved as a turning point for the genre when an underage gir l died at the event causing severe backlash against Insomniac but also giving the genre lots of exposure EDC was run out of Los Angeles but found refuge in the always-accepting city of Las Vegas It was here in Vegas that EDM finally found a homemdashnow playing the same role to America as Ibiza did to Europe when the rave scene star ted there in the 1980s Superstar DJs can be found any week as a resident DJ to Tao XS or one of the many other posh clubs and the landmark event of the year EDC Vegas is now one of the largest raves in the world with over 300000 attendees last year
EDC is not the only big festival on the market now though Festivals are becoming trendymdashan indicator of direction the music industry is headed in towards the live and away from the recorded According to Metrowizecom an online nightli fe guide in 2012 alone at leas t thir t y-two new fes t ivals began in Americamdashfif teen of them dedicated solely to EDM
Long-standing traditions in the music industry fes-tivals typically only attracted people who spent a lot of time at live music and concertshellipuntil recently
As EDM crossed over into pop music the l ines became blur red between a night of going out to dance at a club and night of going out to see your favorite ar tist at a concer t People who a few years ago never attended a concert beyond the major pop ar tists are now concer t-fiends as the ldquopoprdquo ar tists they love today are world-renowned DJs
Of course as any genre crosses into the main-stream it is going to become increasingly popular
FeverEDMS BOOMING SUCCESS IN THE FESTIVAL MARKET HAS HEADS
TURNING FROM AROUND THE INDUSTRY TO INVEST IN LIVE MUSIC
38 we live for live music
with the masses but EDMrsquos explosion is unparal-leled Hundreds of thousands of people attended EDC Vegas and that was just one of dozens of elec-tronic dance festivals and all-night events this year
Because the live experience is EDMrsquos native for-mat the genre is par ticularly nuanced to success on the road Matt Adell of Beatport the online mecca of the DJ community explains one of the reasons why
ldquoPer formers such as Skr illex are incredibly ef f i -cient touring operations compared to rock bands Itrsquos less expensive than a rock group because therersquos just one per former Therersquos much less gear and it rsquos easier to set up because therersquos no live micro-phones So the suppor t team required is so much smallerrdquo
Bobby Clay head of the electronic division at C3 Presents touches on another aspect of EDM that primes the genre for the road ldquoIt rsquos like you donrsquot need to have a full studio on your tour bus to create the next banger or the next huge club track or the next Rihanna remix You can do it from the comfort of a tour bus or the green room of whatever arena some of these big people are playing in nowrdquo EDM ar tists have the luxury of not having to break from tour to create new songs
Although EDM is pr imed for tour ing i t is only in the past couple of years that the genre took on this rock and roll mentality As shows star ted to be booked in rock and roll venues and DJproducers took to the road stopping in every middle town and college campus in America like a rock band would DJs became rock stars in their own right One ar tist in par ticular is noted for condensing the drawn out peaks and falls of dance music into four and a half minute radio-ready tracks the half-shaved goofy-glasses wearing kid known as Skrillex Love him or hate him his genre-fusing in your face style helped to launch EDM to the place it is at today
With mega-DJs such as Skrillex earning up to $1 million per festival appearance and groups such as Swedish House Mafia selling out Madison Square Garden in nine minutes it is no surprise that corpo-rate heads have turned to this once-ignored market Over the summer Live Nation bought Hard Events one of the original promoters of the genre whose brands of Hardfest Holy Ship and Haunted Hard Mansion have gone on to great success Shor t ly af ter media mogul Robert FX Sillerman pledged to invest $1 billion dollars in EDM ventures
As the money pours in 2013 is looking to be the biggest year yet for EDM Having finally solidified i t s place in the music industr y (and at the fore-front nevertheless) Electronic Dance Music is ready to guide the music industry in a new directionmdasha direction towards the future towards a more diver-sified music industry towards a music industry that lives for live music
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
39live live issue 1
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
AT LEAST 32 NEW FESTIVALS BEGAN IN THE UNITED STATES IN 2012 OF THESE FESTIVALS FIFTEEN OF THEM ARE DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC
40 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL WONDERLANDDowntown TexasApril 27-28 2012An inside look into the modern electronic music festival
41live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL WONDERLAND
42 we live for live music
43live live issue 1
A new generation neo-age hippies
44 we live for live musicWelcome to Wonderland
45live live issue 1
46 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
47live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Dillon Francis plays The Queenrsquos Ground
48 we live for live music
49live live issue 1
Visual explosions to coordinate with the
audio attack of a drop
50 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
51live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
EDM shows are known for their
high-impact visuals
52 we live for live music
53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
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Button 1
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9live live issue 1
the Glossary
For my thesis I created this magazinemdashwe LIVE for LIVE musicmdashas an ode to one of the nationrsquos favorite pastimes live music This premier issue the thesis issue stands as a testimonial to the music phenomenon that has recently swept across the nation Electronic Dance Music (EDM) Although dance music is certainly not new a new life was breathed into it in the past couple of years Through this magazine I hope to display not only a picture of Electronic Dance Music past and present but also explain why after forty years of existence dance music is just now find-ing its place in America and further what this says about the music industry on the whole For years doom and gloom stories have sur-
rounded the music industry with woeful tales about the effects of piracy and copyright infringement on record sales and royalties While these are certainly valid concerns statements about the ldquodeath of the music industryrdquo are highly skewed towards the state of the major record labels and not the music industry on the whole This is due to the fact that for the past century for one to refer to the state of the music indus-try was more or less the equivalent of referring to just the major record labels With the Digital Age a quantum shift has occurred in the means by which music is created distributed found and acquired that allow artists to directly connect with consumers and bypass the traditional gate-keepers of the industry the record labels It is my hope in this magazine to use Electronic
Dance Musicrsquos new-found booming success in America and the underlying reasons behind it to show the new landscape of the modern music industry one in which success is no longer mea-
LETTER
FROM THE
EDITOR
sured by ldquogoing goldrdquo but rather by the number of tickets sold Another goal I have for this magazine is that it
serves as a guide to the layman wishing to under-stand more about Electronic Dance Music An umbrella-term for a multitude of genres (Black Widow Music just published this list of 230 sub-genres and counting) as well as a type of music that changes as rapidly as the technology that drives it EDM can be difficult for many to grasp As EDM has gone the way of pop it has become
the focus of much ridicule as an uncultured and un-artistic medium simply meant for mindless dancing and creatable by anyone who can push a computer button I hope that this magazine serve as a bridge between the average uninformed pop-listener and the anti-EDM music ldquopuristsrdquo by providing insight into the history and artistry of Electronic Dance Music I was inspired to create this magazine because I
was lucky enough to be a part of the EDM scene as it busted out from the underground and into mainstream music and culture Arriving in Austin in the fall of 2008 I could not have been more excited to explore what the Live Music Capital of the World had to offer me Although I enjoyed concerts of all genres I quickly found myself attending electronic shows more than the rest and becoming a part of one of the many tight -knit communities that makes Austin great a group of about 300 electronic music loving Austinites Attending on average one electronic show a week that first year I came to love the feeling of being able to look around the room at any one of these shows and have that sense of communitymdashthat I
was surrounded by friends in all directions I had a feeling at the time that we were a part of something that was new and going to be big but I had no idea the extent of it As my college years went on artists that I had seen play in a small bar overlooking Sixth Street for maybe 300 people were playing at Austin City Music Hall for 3000 people I no longer could turn around at a show and find my all my friends instead I was faced with a sea of unfamiliar faces I realized that my small community was not so small anymore and had broken out of our underground niche and into the mainstream Seeing this phenomenon happen in front of me inspired this thesis Originally when I began working my thesis ques-
tion was about whether or not this genre was just a bubble or had truly found its way into the mainstream Over this summer movements in the industry to invest in EDM confirmed that this was not a bubble and caused me to shift my focus why EDM was now becoming mainstream After nearly forty years of existence why was elec-tronic music just now finding its place in America and looking at the bigger picture what does this say about the direction the music industry is headed in on the wholeIn this magazine I reveal how electronic music
has finally solidified its place in America because the digital age harbors an environment that strays away from the confines of the traditional recorded music industry allowing EDM to flourish outside of the control of the major record labels While the ldquoindustryrdquo has spent the past ten years pointing fingers and looking to Washington for solutions to the piracy issue electronic artists many of whom were born into the generation
which caused the file-sharing problem embraced that factmdashthat piracy is going to happenmdashand shifted their focus instead to the format their music was created formdashthe live experiencemdashto be successful The booming success EDM artists and EDM
promoters have found in the live experience has heads turning from all over the industry as they realize that the recorded music industry will never rise to its former glory and it is time to focus on a new more diversified direction for the music industry that includes licensing mer-chandising and most of allmdashlive music
14 we live for live music
PICS FROM THE SHOW
FROM THE FANS
diplo bassnectar
NYCclublife
houseparty lightshow
ravebarbie
moderngogogirl
biggigantic
tiesto
k
yke
bc
n
msj
ek
ka
kan
dii
nsp
ira
tio
ns
b
rad
pe
ters
5
djd
oc-
sto
ne
jh
oc
ks
n
ick
yh
ilto
n
rave
ba
rbie
ty
lers
he
rrit
t
15live live issue 1
Photos from the fans for an inside look at the world of EDM
from the fans
barcelonaclublife
bennybenassi
prettylightssoundsystemmodestep
kandi
aoki edc
squarepusher
b
ec
kyg
on
z
ga
dg
ett
eke
le
brk
orm
an
k
yke
bc
n
ste
vea
ok
i
cra
ck
wo
od
je
rem
yp
mit
ch
ell
c
hri
stin
am
org
an
n
oli
vert
wis
ty
16 we live for live music
on the road on the road
Fall ToursComing soon to a city near you
17live live issue 1
Fall Tours
18 we live for live music
new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013
Pretty Lights | Roseland Ballroom | New York
Zedd amp Nicky Romero | Club Nokia | Los Angeles
Chromeo Ana Sia Gramatic Poolside Snowglobe Music Festival | South Lake Tahoe
ATB MiM0SA Zeds Dead Paul Basic Wolfgang Gartner Krewella Colorado Convention Center | Denver
Skrillex Boyz Noise FlosstradomusThe Palace of Auburn Hills | Milwaukee
Shpongle Glitch Mob Sea of Dreams | San Francisco
Tiesto | Revel Ovation Hall | Atlantic City
The Disco Biscuits | Madison Square Garden
Paper Diamond | Oregon Convention Center | Portland
Bassnectar | Bridgestone Arena | Nashville
Lights All Night | Fair Park | Dallas
Beats Antique | Paramount Theatre | Seattle
Rusko | WaMu Theatre | Seattle
Lotus amp Moon Hooch | Rams Head Live | Baltimore
on the road
19live live issue 1
Industry
genre
pop culture
technology
20 we live for live music
The term ldquoElectronic Musicrdquo is coined by Werner Meyer Eppler
Rock nrsquo Roll music is born
RCA Mark II the first programmable sound synthesizer is invented by
Olson and Belar
Motown becomes dance music classics
1949
1950s
timeline 1949 - 1970
1955
First time anyone
had used the word synthesizer for a
piece of equipment
Rock nrsquo Roll redefines music as something to be listened to not danced to
We begin the story here
1960s
(COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY)
(THE BEAT)
21live live issue 1
Bob Moogrsquos synthesizer brought electronic music out of the realm of academia and into
the hands of musicians
Rock nrsquo roll becomes the sound of modern life It continues to grow
until splits into factions in the 1970s
The Moog Company develops the first modular synthesizer
The Beach Boysrsquo Good Vibrations is the first pop hit to feature
electronic sounds
Etta James releases ldquoSomethingrsquos Got a Hold of Merdquo a sample of which resonates
through the EDM explosion of late
1962
timeline 1949 - 1970
1962
1960s
1967
1964
1960sYouth start to attend rock concerts
instead of going to sock hops
King Tubby of Jamaica births the dub which will later give rise to the remix
(CAPITOL RECORDS)
(MOOG MUSIC)
null
21222783
22 we live for live music
Disco makes streaming music continuously cool and
popularizes the club scene Jim Morrison predicts
the future of music
The Mini Moog is invented becoming the first portable synthesizer
Synth music and space age pop is starting to impact TV
film and commercials
Disco is born
Hot Butterrsquos Popcorn becomes the first electronic pop hit
DJ Herc invents BreakbeatItalo Disco becomes the
first complete EDM genre
1970s
EARLY1970s
1972-1974 1973
1970 1978
1978
1972
1970
the 1970sldquoI can envision one person with l ike a lot of machines tapes and electronic setups
singing or speaking and using machinesrdquo-Jim Morrison
The Technics 1200 Mark II is released and becomes the industry standard
(PBS)
(RCO RECORDS)
timeline
null
2677309
23live live issue 1
Saturday Night Fever
Kraftwerk releases Autobahn
David Bowie and Blondie bring in New Wave
Sugar Hill Gangrsquos ldquoRapperrsquos Delightrdquo brings hip hop into the Top 40
Brian Eno births ambient music
The first digital sampler the Fairlight CMI (Computer Musical Instrument) is released
Disco declines as sentiments such as ldquoDisco Sucksrdquo and ldquoDeath to
Discordquo become popular
1977
L AT E1970s
1978 1978
1979
1979
1975
the 1970s
These days many people falsly associate this iconic soundtrack with the
beginning of disco
Kraftwerk members are considered tobe the ldquogodfathersrdquo of electronic music
(UNKNOWN)
timeline
24 we live for live music
Disco is thought to be dead but it just went underground where it morphed into house and techno
Video game music is born as a genre
Computers video games and electronic equipment become more affordable
efficient and put to great use
Roland TR 808 Rhythm Machine
Frankie Knuckles invents house music at the
Warehouse in Chicago
E-mu Emulator becomes the first affordable
digital sampler
The Hacienda Club opens in Manchester
The rave scene grows from acid house music in the United Kingdom
the 1980rsquos
1981
1982 1987
1980
1980 1981
1980s 1980s
(UNKOWN)
In the 1980s a host of new instruments based on synthet-ic sounds and sampl ing technolo-gy contributed to the formation of new genres of electronic mu-sic and the electronic sound on the whole Whi le these days the sounds of most of these instruments can be repl icated on a computer outfit-ted with the proper audio software DJs sti l l seek the retro instruments for the unique characteristics that come from analog instruments
timeline
25live live issue 1
Sampling and breakbeat become important features for both
hip-hop and EDM
MIDI inventedRoland TB 303
Baseline released
Techno rises out of the industrial
sounds of Detroit
Roland TR 909 Drum Machine
Acid house is born at the Hacienda Club in
Manchester
Electronic Dance Music first Summer of Love begins as the free-party scene takes the sound out of the club and into the open
Ambient music becomes just as important as the dance floor during EDMrsquos second
Summer of Love
Trip Hop and other downtempo genres find success with acts like Massive Attack and Portishead
the 1980rsquos
19871983-1985
1989-1991
1988
1989
1982 19841983
1980
MIDI is a protocol not a hardware which provided a standard for electronic instrument manufacturers
(MASSIVE ATTACK)
London becomes the hub of
EDM
timeline
Computer-based production allows for DJs to recreate the sounds found in traditional analog instruments as
well as new sounds that have never been heard before (eg the Dubstep wob) It also opened up the realm of
EDM creation to anyone with the right software
Responsible for EDC Nocturnal and Wonderland Festivals
Rise of the super club and superstar DJs
The media dubs of all electronic music
ldquotechnordquo
Hardcore music begins to dominate the British
rave scene
Jungle forms out of hardcore
Paul Oakenfold Paul Van Dyk and DJ Tiesto bring trance
music to the forefront
Insomniac Events is established in Southern California
Tommy Boy Records releases the first Jock Jams album
timeline the 1990rsquos
MP3 digital audio format is introduced
1990s
1990s
1992
1990s 1990s
1993
1991
1995
Rave music sees slight mainstream success with artists such as C amp C Music Factory and
Snap and begins to infuence pop music
With the growth of personal computing electronic artists began to migrate from analog electronic
instruments to computer-based production
EARLY1990s
EARLY1990s
(TOMMY BOY RECORDS)
>
>
null
19304054
Although electronica failed to go main-stream its loops and textures find their
way into pop and hip hop
They are the developers of Ableton Live one of the premiere loop-based
sequencers used in modern production
EDC begins as a one day event
Drum and bass evolves out of jungle
Record companies try to market techno under a new namemdash
ldquoelectronicardquomdash but fail
Fatboy Slim makes $0 off of Rockafeller Skank after giving 25 of the royalties to each of
the four artists he used samples from
Moby licenses every track on his
Play album
timeline the 1990rsquos
Napster launchesAbleton is founded
19991994
1995
1991 19991999
1997 1998
1997In the UK raves are forced back underground with the passing of
the Criminal Justice Act
ProTools released at a price of $6000
LATE1990s
LATE1990s
As artists begin to use computers in production
glitch hop evolves
This new law defined gatherings of more than 20 people listening to
ldquorepetitive beatsrdquo as illegal
(SKINT RECORDS)
EDMrsquoS non-descript beats are perfect for marketing
28 we live for live music
In an interview with the New York Times David Bowie claims copyright and intellectual property
will cease to exist in the next ten years
Congress passes a law holding club owners responsible for their patronsrsquo actions and
affecting the whole industry
Tiesto DJs the Athens Olympic Opening Ceremonies
The GRAMMYs add a Best DanceElectronica
Album category
Dubstep nights begin to pop up in the underground music
scene around the USDubstep begins to grow
out of South London
timeline
Limewire introducedCD sales peak iTunes launchedThe iPod brings digital music players to the masses
2002
2000 2001 2001 2003
2003
20062001
2004 2005
ldquoYoursquod better be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation
thatrsquos going to be leftrdquo
Ruskorsquos ldquoCockney Thugrdquo i l lustrates the wob sound
2000-2009
(COURTESY OF RUSK0)
(DTSIABAIFLICKR CC)
null
24417967
29live live issue 1
Daft Punkrsquos pyramid setup at Coachella sets a
new bar for visuals
Kanye West spawns electro-rap with 808rsquos amp Heartbreak prominently fea-
turing the TR 808 drum machine
Lady Gaga and the Black Eyed Peas bring the Euro-house
sound to the Top 40
Guettarsquos ldquoWhen Love Take Overrdquo becomes an international pop hit and the Euro-house sound
starts to creep its way into popular music
timeline
2004 2004 2007
2008 2009
20072006
20092007-2009
Long-established one-day raves such as EDC and Ultra transform
into two-day festivals
Guetta co-wrote ldquoBoom Boom Powrdquo
Gagarsquos Bad Romance has nearly 05 bi l l ion YouTube views
Gary Richards starts Hard Events
Youtube launched Beatport launched
2000-2009
iPhone released
(KARL WALTERGETTY IMAGES)
(INTERSCOPE RECORDS)
2010-2011
Technics SL-1200 turntable the industry standard for thirty
years is discontinued
Limewire the top P2P file-sharing client
is shut downSpotify launches in the US
When an underage girl dies at EDC in LA EDM gets a lot backlash but this
also gives it a lot of exposure
EDC is forced out of LA and moves to Vegas which becomes the home of
EDM in the United States
Bassnectar plays Red Rocks where he incurs $100000 in noise violations
after bringing his own speakers
Skrillex is nominated for five Grammy Awards he
wins three
timeline
2010
2010
2010
2010 2010 2011
2011 2011
2011
2011
Black Eyed Peasrsquo house-based ldquoThe TimeDirty Bitrdquo tops the
charts in over 15 countries
Hip hop and EDM production styles have always mirrored one another now they are morphing
EDM finally has a home in America
Moombahton a fusion of house music and reggae is
born at a house party in DC
Skrillex explodes onto the main-stream music scene bringing the ldquodroprdquo and heavy bass with him
DJAY app
(COURTESY OF SKRILLEX)
2010-2011
Britneyrsquos Hold it Against Me acts as the catalyst for replacing the pop
bridge with the dubstep drop
EDC Vegas has over 230000 attendees in
three days
The Victoria Secret Fashion Show features rave-inspired
outfits for the final walk
timeline
2011 2011
2011 2011 2011
2011
Tiesto plays the biggest single headliner DJ show in US
history to 26000 in Carson CA
Nielsen Soundscan reports digital music sales in the US are larger than
physical sales for the first time
Absoulte Vodka sponsors Swedish House Mafiarsquos
sold out MSG show
According to Bil lboard this is considered a watershed moment
brands adopting EDM
EDM technology is large-ly based now around
software programs and
their coordinating hard-
ware--control lers for Ableton
Scratch decks for Serato
and more There is an entire
spectrum of modern DJ tech-
nology avai lable and the path
one takes depends on what
sound they are trying to achieve
(JIVE RECORDS)
(ZUMA PRESS)
(SAMANTHA HOFFER)
The neon colors associated with EDM can be found al l over
the fashion world
With the laptop as instrument EDM
producers constantly
blend and mix elements
of different genres lead-
ing to the prol iferation of
microgenres which are difficult to
distinguish
null
26177792
32 we live for live music
EDC Vegas sees 300000+ people
over 3 days
Family-friendly animated film Wreck It Ralph uses
dance music in trailer
Feature-length EDM documentary ldquoThe Drop The EDM Culture
Explosionrdquo enters production
A system of alerts are set up to notify users when they
infringe on copyright law
Night Culture Inc becomes the first EDM-oriented publicly
traded company
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline 2012
Queen Latifah sings the National Anthem at the opening game of
the NFL seasonover a beat
JAN
OCTJULY SEPT
SEPTAUG
JUNE JUNEMARUltra Music Festival in Miami
has 40000 viewers watching its online stream over YouTube
Universal closes on EMI becoming the largest of the remaining three
major record labels
(DANNY MOLOSHOK REUTERS)
(BIG MACHINE)
null
21255588
33live live issue 1
After exploding onto the mainstream music scene and pop culture in the past year the industry has set its signts on EDM ventures proved the genre has final ly conquered the final frontiermdashAmerica
Live Nation purchases Hard Events
Media mogul Robert FX Sillerman says he will spend
$1B on EDM enterprises
EDM artists get the spotlight at the Grammys for the 1st time with addi-tion of a dance music performance
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline
Taylor Swift adopts the dubstep drop with her single ldquoI Knew You
Were Troublerdquo
JUNEFEB JULY
JUNE JUNE
OCT OCT NOV
NOVOCT
Bieber drops his first dub-step-influenced track ldquoAs
Long as You Love Merdquo
Dance-based songs can be found all across the radio
The first professional media outlet for EDM is announced
NYU introduces a course on the Business of Electronic amp
Dance Music
Billboard hosts the 2nd Annual FutureSound conference to ad-dress the future of the industry
NOVEMBERBLACK WIDOW
MUSIC PUBLISHES A LIST OF 230+ EDM SUB-GENRESAND
COUNTING
(BIG MACHINE)
34 we live for live music
BACK TO THE
FUTUREThirty years after the ldquodeathrdquo of disco dance music is back in America and bigger than ever To understand
where it is going we must take a look at the past
35live live issue 1
The most recent main-stream movement to hit the United States
E l e c t r o n i c D a n c e M u s i c (EDM) did so as an explosion of lights neon and pulsating beats But dance music is nothing new Although EDM seems entirely novel to many of Amer icarsquos youth dance music has a long and storied history
In the beginning mus ic c r e a t e d v i a e l e c t r o n i c ins t r ument s was focused on academic pursuit s and high ar t The use of elec-t ron ic s i n popu la r mus ic c rea t ion b egan w i t h t he commerc ia l i z a t ion o f t he synthesizer in the 1960s As technology evolved so did experimentation with elec-tronic instruments
In the 1970s the days of disco led to the develop-ment of e lec t ronic dance mus ic when DJs invented the traditional two-turntable setup to continuously stream together music so that the dancing never had to stop U n f o r t u na te l y f o r d a n c e music just as quickly as disco was embraced ant i -d isco sentiments fueled by racism and fear of change pushed it into the underground
It was in this underground s p a c e d u r i n g t h e lsquo 8 0 s that modern dance music evo lved St r ides made in elec tronic ins trumentation developed the synthesizer machines that would form the backbones of house and techno music the Roland TB 303 baseline and Roland TR 909 drum machine
A c c o r d i n g t o T h e Guard ianrsquos recent l y pub -lished timeline A History of Modern Music DJ Frankie Knuckles is responsible for the development of house music characterized by its
44 beats Techno rose out of Detroit a few years later inspired by the indus tr ial sounds of the city
While wildly popular in the underground music scene techno and house did not find commercial success in Amer ica I t was not unt i l the lat ter par t of the lsquo80s when the sounds of house and techno found their way to t he UK and mor phed into a new sub-genre acid house that the commercial club culture was born albeit exclusively in Europe
While dance music took of f r unning on the other side of the pond in America a dif ferent s tor y began to unfold As rap and hip-hop took a s t ronghold of the music industr y in the late eighties and nineties dance music remained confined to the peripheries
A s d a n c e - m u s i c D J s w o r ke d t o e v o l v e t h e i r sound and keep up w i th technology hip -hop DJs who adopted the traditional turntable setup from the DJs of disco as well as their pro-duction techniques began to work in the record ing s tudios and inf luence the industr y especially in the realm of pop music
I n t h e 19 9 0 s i n s i d e r s thought EDM had f ina l l y hit the jackpot and found mainstream success In an inter v iew with PaperMag industry vet Gary Richards explains ldquothe f irst farewell to the undergroundrdquo
ldquoBy 1993 i t felt l ike the music wasnrsquot underground anymore so I threw a par ty c a l l e d R ave A m e r i c a a t Knot t s Ber r y Farm which i s an amusement par k in O r a n g e C o u n t y I t s o l d out with l ike 20000 peo-ple Rick Rubin came with
Anthony K ied is f rom the Red Hot Chili Peppers and a couple guys from ZZ Top and he asked me if I wanted to work in the record busi-ness and help them s ign some EDM ar t i s t s I sa id sure the Prodigy were super hot and it seemed like it was blowing up But we star ted signing all these techno art-ists thinking theyrsquod catch on too but nobody was buying it Nobodyrdquo
Jus t l i ke R ichards says n o b o d y w a s b u y i n g i t D a n c e m u s i c w a s n o t catching on in the way the industr y would have liked so in 1997 the entire music industry and press put their full force behind ldquoelectron-icardquo the new catch-all name they had given to the genre in an attempt to successfully market it
Despite the gl impses of success seen froma handful of artists the genre failed to succeed and the industr y distanced itself from dance music far ther than i t had when disco ldquodiedrdquo
T h i s f a i l u r e c a n b e accounted to EDM not f it-t i ng i n to t h e ma r ke t i ng machinery of the industr y The t radit ional setup was f ixed for four-minute rock and pop singles and album tour s not t he ex tended club mixes and residencies that were the basis of the EDM world Not only was the indus t r y i l l - equipped to market electronic music but many consumers also felt it abrasive and awkward attempting to listen to this machine-made glitch-based music that was so unfamiliar to their ears It was not until the digital revolution of the new millennium that elec-tronic dance music f inal ly found its place
36 we live for live music
Festival
MAJOR LAZER AT SUMMERFEST IN HOUSTON JUNE 2012
37live live issue 1
If music in 2012 could talk it would sound a lot like the Bill Orsquo Reillyrsquos blooper ldquoLetrsquos do it liverdquo While attending concerts has been popular since rock and roll shows in the 1950s the recent electronic music boom has made it exponentially more so
One reason accord ing to Forbes i s that as resource constraints have t ightened people are spending thei r money more on exper iences as opposed to manufactured products But it is more than that EDM has managed to ent i re ly t rans -form the concept of a concer t by blurring the lines between going out dancing and going out to see music These days one would pay the same amount to see superstar-DJ David Guetta in an arena that they would if they were simply dancing to him spin-ning in a club
But this popularity was not always the case As a genre born in the world of nightclubs EDMrsquos parties were lambasted for years as depraved raves Now many kids will go to a rave before they attend a rock concert Why the sudden change A major factor is rebranding
Raves became festivals Electronic became EDMOnce shed of the negative associations with raves
and the bad memories of the electronicarsquos failure EDM shows and festivals began to proliferate across the countr y No longer hiding in remote f ields or empt y warehouse e lec t ronic mus ic promoter s looked to book DJs in public arenas and concer t halls
Elec tr ic Daisy Carnival (EDC) 2010 a rave put on by one of the major EDM promoters Insomniac
Event s ser ved as a turning point for the genre when an underage gir l died at the event causing severe backlash against Insomniac but also giving the genre lots of exposure EDC was run out of Los Angeles but found refuge in the always-accepting city of Las Vegas It was here in Vegas that EDM finally found a homemdashnow playing the same role to America as Ibiza did to Europe when the rave scene star ted there in the 1980s Superstar DJs can be found any week as a resident DJ to Tao XS or one of the many other posh clubs and the landmark event of the year EDC Vegas is now one of the largest raves in the world with over 300000 attendees last year
EDC is not the only big festival on the market now though Festivals are becoming trendymdashan indicator of direction the music industry is headed in towards the live and away from the recorded According to Metrowizecom an online nightli fe guide in 2012 alone at leas t thir t y-two new fes t ivals began in Americamdashfif teen of them dedicated solely to EDM
Long-standing traditions in the music industry fes-tivals typically only attracted people who spent a lot of time at live music and concertshellipuntil recently
As EDM crossed over into pop music the l ines became blur red between a night of going out to dance at a club and night of going out to see your favorite ar tist at a concer t People who a few years ago never attended a concert beyond the major pop ar tists are now concer t-fiends as the ldquopoprdquo ar tists they love today are world-renowned DJs
Of course as any genre crosses into the main-stream it is going to become increasingly popular
FeverEDMS BOOMING SUCCESS IN THE FESTIVAL MARKET HAS HEADS
TURNING FROM AROUND THE INDUSTRY TO INVEST IN LIVE MUSIC
38 we live for live music
with the masses but EDMrsquos explosion is unparal-leled Hundreds of thousands of people attended EDC Vegas and that was just one of dozens of elec-tronic dance festivals and all-night events this year
Because the live experience is EDMrsquos native for-mat the genre is par ticularly nuanced to success on the road Matt Adell of Beatport the online mecca of the DJ community explains one of the reasons why
ldquoPer formers such as Skr illex are incredibly ef f i -cient touring operations compared to rock bands Itrsquos less expensive than a rock group because therersquos just one per former Therersquos much less gear and it rsquos easier to set up because therersquos no live micro-phones So the suppor t team required is so much smallerrdquo
Bobby Clay head of the electronic division at C3 Presents touches on another aspect of EDM that primes the genre for the road ldquoIt rsquos like you donrsquot need to have a full studio on your tour bus to create the next banger or the next huge club track or the next Rihanna remix You can do it from the comfort of a tour bus or the green room of whatever arena some of these big people are playing in nowrdquo EDM ar tists have the luxury of not having to break from tour to create new songs
Although EDM is pr imed for tour ing i t is only in the past couple of years that the genre took on this rock and roll mentality As shows star ted to be booked in rock and roll venues and DJproducers took to the road stopping in every middle town and college campus in America like a rock band would DJs became rock stars in their own right One ar tist in par ticular is noted for condensing the drawn out peaks and falls of dance music into four and a half minute radio-ready tracks the half-shaved goofy-glasses wearing kid known as Skrillex Love him or hate him his genre-fusing in your face style helped to launch EDM to the place it is at today
With mega-DJs such as Skrillex earning up to $1 million per festival appearance and groups such as Swedish House Mafia selling out Madison Square Garden in nine minutes it is no surprise that corpo-rate heads have turned to this once-ignored market Over the summer Live Nation bought Hard Events one of the original promoters of the genre whose brands of Hardfest Holy Ship and Haunted Hard Mansion have gone on to great success Shor t ly af ter media mogul Robert FX Sillerman pledged to invest $1 billion dollars in EDM ventures
As the money pours in 2013 is looking to be the biggest year yet for EDM Having finally solidified i t s place in the music industr y (and at the fore-front nevertheless) Electronic Dance Music is ready to guide the music industry in a new directionmdasha direction towards the future towards a more diver-sified music industry towards a music industry that lives for live music
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
39live live issue 1
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
AT LEAST 32 NEW FESTIVALS BEGAN IN THE UNITED STATES IN 2012 OF THESE FESTIVALS FIFTEEN OF THEM ARE DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC
40 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL WONDERLANDDowntown TexasApril 27-28 2012An inside look into the modern electronic music festival
41live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL WONDERLAND
42 we live for live music
43live live issue 1
A new generation neo-age hippies
44 we live for live musicWelcome to Wonderland
45live live issue 1
46 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
47live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Dillon Francis plays The Queenrsquos Ground
48 we live for live music
49live live issue 1
Visual explosions to coordinate with the
audio attack of a drop
50 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
51live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
EDM shows are known for their
high-impact visuals
52 we live for live music
53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
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Button 34
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Button 36
Button 37
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Button 39
Button 40
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Button 42
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Button 48
For my thesis I created this magazinemdashwe LIVE for LIVE musicmdashas an ode to one of the nationrsquos favorite pastimes live music This premier issue the thesis issue stands as a testimonial to the music phenomenon that has recently swept across the nation Electronic Dance Music (EDM) Although dance music is certainly not new a new life was breathed into it in the past couple of years Through this magazine I hope to display not only a picture of Electronic Dance Music past and present but also explain why after forty years of existence dance music is just now find-ing its place in America and further what this says about the music industry on the whole For years doom and gloom stories have sur-
rounded the music industry with woeful tales about the effects of piracy and copyright infringement on record sales and royalties While these are certainly valid concerns statements about the ldquodeath of the music industryrdquo are highly skewed towards the state of the major record labels and not the music industry on the whole This is due to the fact that for the past century for one to refer to the state of the music indus-try was more or less the equivalent of referring to just the major record labels With the Digital Age a quantum shift has occurred in the means by which music is created distributed found and acquired that allow artists to directly connect with consumers and bypass the traditional gate-keepers of the industry the record labels It is my hope in this magazine to use Electronic
Dance Musicrsquos new-found booming success in America and the underlying reasons behind it to show the new landscape of the modern music industry one in which success is no longer mea-
LETTER
FROM THE
EDITOR
sured by ldquogoing goldrdquo but rather by the number of tickets sold Another goal I have for this magazine is that it
serves as a guide to the layman wishing to under-stand more about Electronic Dance Music An umbrella-term for a multitude of genres (Black Widow Music just published this list of 230 sub-genres and counting) as well as a type of music that changes as rapidly as the technology that drives it EDM can be difficult for many to grasp As EDM has gone the way of pop it has become
the focus of much ridicule as an uncultured and un-artistic medium simply meant for mindless dancing and creatable by anyone who can push a computer button I hope that this magazine serve as a bridge between the average uninformed pop-listener and the anti-EDM music ldquopuristsrdquo by providing insight into the history and artistry of Electronic Dance Music I was inspired to create this magazine because I
was lucky enough to be a part of the EDM scene as it busted out from the underground and into mainstream music and culture Arriving in Austin in the fall of 2008 I could not have been more excited to explore what the Live Music Capital of the World had to offer me Although I enjoyed concerts of all genres I quickly found myself attending electronic shows more than the rest and becoming a part of one of the many tight -knit communities that makes Austin great a group of about 300 electronic music loving Austinites Attending on average one electronic show a week that first year I came to love the feeling of being able to look around the room at any one of these shows and have that sense of communitymdashthat I
was surrounded by friends in all directions I had a feeling at the time that we were a part of something that was new and going to be big but I had no idea the extent of it As my college years went on artists that I had seen play in a small bar overlooking Sixth Street for maybe 300 people were playing at Austin City Music Hall for 3000 people I no longer could turn around at a show and find my all my friends instead I was faced with a sea of unfamiliar faces I realized that my small community was not so small anymore and had broken out of our underground niche and into the mainstream Seeing this phenomenon happen in front of me inspired this thesis Originally when I began working my thesis ques-
tion was about whether or not this genre was just a bubble or had truly found its way into the mainstream Over this summer movements in the industry to invest in EDM confirmed that this was not a bubble and caused me to shift my focus why EDM was now becoming mainstream After nearly forty years of existence why was elec-tronic music just now finding its place in America and looking at the bigger picture what does this say about the direction the music industry is headed in on the wholeIn this magazine I reveal how electronic music
has finally solidified its place in America because the digital age harbors an environment that strays away from the confines of the traditional recorded music industry allowing EDM to flourish outside of the control of the major record labels While the ldquoindustryrdquo has spent the past ten years pointing fingers and looking to Washington for solutions to the piracy issue electronic artists many of whom were born into the generation
which caused the file-sharing problem embraced that factmdashthat piracy is going to happenmdashand shifted their focus instead to the format their music was created formdashthe live experiencemdashto be successful The booming success EDM artists and EDM
promoters have found in the live experience has heads turning from all over the industry as they realize that the recorded music industry will never rise to its former glory and it is time to focus on a new more diversified direction for the music industry that includes licensing mer-chandising and most of allmdashlive music
14 we live for live music
PICS FROM THE SHOW
FROM THE FANS
diplo bassnectar
NYCclublife
houseparty lightshow
ravebarbie
moderngogogirl
biggigantic
tiesto
k
yke
bc
n
msj
ek
ka
kan
dii
nsp
ira
tio
ns
b
rad
pe
ters
5
djd
oc-
sto
ne
jh
oc
ks
n
ick
yh
ilto
n
rave
ba
rbie
ty
lers
he
rrit
t
15live live issue 1
Photos from the fans for an inside look at the world of EDM
from the fans
barcelonaclublife
bennybenassi
prettylightssoundsystemmodestep
kandi
aoki edc
squarepusher
b
ec
kyg
on
z
ga
dg
ett
eke
le
brk
orm
an
k
yke
bc
n
ste
vea
ok
i
cra
ck
wo
od
je
rem
yp
mit
ch
ell
c
hri
stin
am
org
an
n
oli
vert
wis
ty
16 we live for live music
on the road on the road
Fall ToursComing soon to a city near you
17live live issue 1
Fall Tours
18 we live for live music
new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013
Pretty Lights | Roseland Ballroom | New York
Zedd amp Nicky Romero | Club Nokia | Los Angeles
Chromeo Ana Sia Gramatic Poolside Snowglobe Music Festival | South Lake Tahoe
ATB MiM0SA Zeds Dead Paul Basic Wolfgang Gartner Krewella Colorado Convention Center | Denver
Skrillex Boyz Noise FlosstradomusThe Palace of Auburn Hills | Milwaukee
Shpongle Glitch Mob Sea of Dreams | San Francisco
Tiesto | Revel Ovation Hall | Atlantic City
The Disco Biscuits | Madison Square Garden
Paper Diamond | Oregon Convention Center | Portland
Bassnectar | Bridgestone Arena | Nashville
Lights All Night | Fair Park | Dallas
Beats Antique | Paramount Theatre | Seattle
Rusko | WaMu Theatre | Seattle
Lotus amp Moon Hooch | Rams Head Live | Baltimore
on the road
19live live issue 1
Industry
genre
pop culture
technology
20 we live for live music
The term ldquoElectronic Musicrdquo is coined by Werner Meyer Eppler
Rock nrsquo Roll music is born
RCA Mark II the first programmable sound synthesizer is invented by
Olson and Belar
Motown becomes dance music classics
1949
1950s
timeline 1949 - 1970
1955
First time anyone
had used the word synthesizer for a
piece of equipment
Rock nrsquo Roll redefines music as something to be listened to not danced to
We begin the story here
1960s
(COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY)
(THE BEAT)
21live live issue 1
Bob Moogrsquos synthesizer brought electronic music out of the realm of academia and into
the hands of musicians
Rock nrsquo roll becomes the sound of modern life It continues to grow
until splits into factions in the 1970s
The Moog Company develops the first modular synthesizer
The Beach Boysrsquo Good Vibrations is the first pop hit to feature
electronic sounds
Etta James releases ldquoSomethingrsquos Got a Hold of Merdquo a sample of which resonates
through the EDM explosion of late
1962
timeline 1949 - 1970
1962
1960s
1967
1964
1960sYouth start to attend rock concerts
instead of going to sock hops
King Tubby of Jamaica births the dub which will later give rise to the remix
(CAPITOL RECORDS)
(MOOG MUSIC)
null
21222783
22 we live for live music
Disco makes streaming music continuously cool and
popularizes the club scene Jim Morrison predicts
the future of music
The Mini Moog is invented becoming the first portable synthesizer
Synth music and space age pop is starting to impact TV
film and commercials
Disco is born
Hot Butterrsquos Popcorn becomes the first electronic pop hit
DJ Herc invents BreakbeatItalo Disco becomes the
first complete EDM genre
1970s
EARLY1970s
1972-1974 1973
1970 1978
1978
1972
1970
the 1970sldquoI can envision one person with l ike a lot of machines tapes and electronic setups
singing or speaking and using machinesrdquo-Jim Morrison
The Technics 1200 Mark II is released and becomes the industry standard
(PBS)
(RCO RECORDS)
timeline
null
2677309
23live live issue 1
Saturday Night Fever
Kraftwerk releases Autobahn
David Bowie and Blondie bring in New Wave
Sugar Hill Gangrsquos ldquoRapperrsquos Delightrdquo brings hip hop into the Top 40
Brian Eno births ambient music
The first digital sampler the Fairlight CMI (Computer Musical Instrument) is released
Disco declines as sentiments such as ldquoDisco Sucksrdquo and ldquoDeath to
Discordquo become popular
1977
L AT E1970s
1978 1978
1979
1979
1975
the 1970s
These days many people falsly associate this iconic soundtrack with the
beginning of disco
Kraftwerk members are considered tobe the ldquogodfathersrdquo of electronic music
(UNKNOWN)
timeline
24 we live for live music
Disco is thought to be dead but it just went underground where it morphed into house and techno
Video game music is born as a genre
Computers video games and electronic equipment become more affordable
efficient and put to great use
Roland TR 808 Rhythm Machine
Frankie Knuckles invents house music at the
Warehouse in Chicago
E-mu Emulator becomes the first affordable
digital sampler
The Hacienda Club opens in Manchester
The rave scene grows from acid house music in the United Kingdom
the 1980rsquos
1981
1982 1987
1980
1980 1981
1980s 1980s
(UNKOWN)
In the 1980s a host of new instruments based on synthet-ic sounds and sampl ing technolo-gy contributed to the formation of new genres of electronic mu-sic and the electronic sound on the whole Whi le these days the sounds of most of these instruments can be repl icated on a computer outfit-ted with the proper audio software DJs sti l l seek the retro instruments for the unique characteristics that come from analog instruments
timeline
25live live issue 1
Sampling and breakbeat become important features for both
hip-hop and EDM
MIDI inventedRoland TB 303
Baseline released
Techno rises out of the industrial
sounds of Detroit
Roland TR 909 Drum Machine
Acid house is born at the Hacienda Club in
Manchester
Electronic Dance Music first Summer of Love begins as the free-party scene takes the sound out of the club and into the open
Ambient music becomes just as important as the dance floor during EDMrsquos second
Summer of Love
Trip Hop and other downtempo genres find success with acts like Massive Attack and Portishead
the 1980rsquos
19871983-1985
1989-1991
1988
1989
1982 19841983
1980
MIDI is a protocol not a hardware which provided a standard for electronic instrument manufacturers
(MASSIVE ATTACK)
London becomes the hub of
EDM
timeline
Computer-based production allows for DJs to recreate the sounds found in traditional analog instruments as
well as new sounds that have never been heard before (eg the Dubstep wob) It also opened up the realm of
EDM creation to anyone with the right software
Responsible for EDC Nocturnal and Wonderland Festivals
Rise of the super club and superstar DJs
The media dubs of all electronic music
ldquotechnordquo
Hardcore music begins to dominate the British
rave scene
Jungle forms out of hardcore
Paul Oakenfold Paul Van Dyk and DJ Tiesto bring trance
music to the forefront
Insomniac Events is established in Southern California
Tommy Boy Records releases the first Jock Jams album
timeline the 1990rsquos
MP3 digital audio format is introduced
1990s
1990s
1992
1990s 1990s
1993
1991
1995
Rave music sees slight mainstream success with artists such as C amp C Music Factory and
Snap and begins to infuence pop music
With the growth of personal computing electronic artists began to migrate from analog electronic
instruments to computer-based production
EARLY1990s
EARLY1990s
(TOMMY BOY RECORDS)
>
>
null
19304054
Although electronica failed to go main-stream its loops and textures find their
way into pop and hip hop
They are the developers of Ableton Live one of the premiere loop-based
sequencers used in modern production
EDC begins as a one day event
Drum and bass evolves out of jungle
Record companies try to market techno under a new namemdash
ldquoelectronicardquomdash but fail
Fatboy Slim makes $0 off of Rockafeller Skank after giving 25 of the royalties to each of
the four artists he used samples from
Moby licenses every track on his
Play album
timeline the 1990rsquos
Napster launchesAbleton is founded
19991994
1995
1991 19991999
1997 1998
1997In the UK raves are forced back underground with the passing of
the Criminal Justice Act
ProTools released at a price of $6000
LATE1990s
LATE1990s
As artists begin to use computers in production
glitch hop evolves
This new law defined gatherings of more than 20 people listening to
ldquorepetitive beatsrdquo as illegal
(SKINT RECORDS)
EDMrsquoS non-descript beats are perfect for marketing
28 we live for live music
In an interview with the New York Times David Bowie claims copyright and intellectual property
will cease to exist in the next ten years
Congress passes a law holding club owners responsible for their patronsrsquo actions and
affecting the whole industry
Tiesto DJs the Athens Olympic Opening Ceremonies
The GRAMMYs add a Best DanceElectronica
Album category
Dubstep nights begin to pop up in the underground music
scene around the USDubstep begins to grow
out of South London
timeline
Limewire introducedCD sales peak iTunes launchedThe iPod brings digital music players to the masses
2002
2000 2001 2001 2003
2003
20062001
2004 2005
ldquoYoursquod better be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation
thatrsquos going to be leftrdquo
Ruskorsquos ldquoCockney Thugrdquo i l lustrates the wob sound
2000-2009
(COURTESY OF RUSK0)
(DTSIABAIFLICKR CC)
null
24417967
29live live issue 1
Daft Punkrsquos pyramid setup at Coachella sets a
new bar for visuals
Kanye West spawns electro-rap with 808rsquos amp Heartbreak prominently fea-
turing the TR 808 drum machine
Lady Gaga and the Black Eyed Peas bring the Euro-house
sound to the Top 40
Guettarsquos ldquoWhen Love Take Overrdquo becomes an international pop hit and the Euro-house sound
starts to creep its way into popular music
timeline
2004 2004 2007
2008 2009
20072006
20092007-2009
Long-established one-day raves such as EDC and Ultra transform
into two-day festivals
Guetta co-wrote ldquoBoom Boom Powrdquo
Gagarsquos Bad Romance has nearly 05 bi l l ion YouTube views
Gary Richards starts Hard Events
Youtube launched Beatport launched
2000-2009
iPhone released
(KARL WALTERGETTY IMAGES)
(INTERSCOPE RECORDS)
2010-2011
Technics SL-1200 turntable the industry standard for thirty
years is discontinued
Limewire the top P2P file-sharing client
is shut downSpotify launches in the US
When an underage girl dies at EDC in LA EDM gets a lot backlash but this
also gives it a lot of exposure
EDC is forced out of LA and moves to Vegas which becomes the home of
EDM in the United States
Bassnectar plays Red Rocks where he incurs $100000 in noise violations
after bringing his own speakers
Skrillex is nominated for five Grammy Awards he
wins three
timeline
2010
2010
2010
2010 2010 2011
2011 2011
2011
2011
Black Eyed Peasrsquo house-based ldquoThe TimeDirty Bitrdquo tops the
charts in over 15 countries
Hip hop and EDM production styles have always mirrored one another now they are morphing
EDM finally has a home in America
Moombahton a fusion of house music and reggae is
born at a house party in DC
Skrillex explodes onto the main-stream music scene bringing the ldquodroprdquo and heavy bass with him
DJAY app
(COURTESY OF SKRILLEX)
2010-2011
Britneyrsquos Hold it Against Me acts as the catalyst for replacing the pop
bridge with the dubstep drop
EDC Vegas has over 230000 attendees in
three days
The Victoria Secret Fashion Show features rave-inspired
outfits for the final walk
timeline
2011 2011
2011 2011 2011
2011
Tiesto plays the biggest single headliner DJ show in US
history to 26000 in Carson CA
Nielsen Soundscan reports digital music sales in the US are larger than
physical sales for the first time
Absoulte Vodka sponsors Swedish House Mafiarsquos
sold out MSG show
According to Bil lboard this is considered a watershed moment
brands adopting EDM
EDM technology is large-ly based now around
software programs and
their coordinating hard-
ware--control lers for Ableton
Scratch decks for Serato
and more There is an entire
spectrum of modern DJ tech-
nology avai lable and the path
one takes depends on what
sound they are trying to achieve
(JIVE RECORDS)
(ZUMA PRESS)
(SAMANTHA HOFFER)
The neon colors associated with EDM can be found al l over
the fashion world
With the laptop as instrument EDM
producers constantly
blend and mix elements
of different genres lead-
ing to the prol iferation of
microgenres which are difficult to
distinguish
null
26177792
32 we live for live music
EDC Vegas sees 300000+ people
over 3 days
Family-friendly animated film Wreck It Ralph uses
dance music in trailer
Feature-length EDM documentary ldquoThe Drop The EDM Culture
Explosionrdquo enters production
A system of alerts are set up to notify users when they
infringe on copyright law
Night Culture Inc becomes the first EDM-oriented publicly
traded company
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline 2012
Queen Latifah sings the National Anthem at the opening game of
the NFL seasonover a beat
JAN
OCTJULY SEPT
SEPTAUG
JUNE JUNEMARUltra Music Festival in Miami
has 40000 viewers watching its online stream over YouTube
Universal closes on EMI becoming the largest of the remaining three
major record labels
(DANNY MOLOSHOK REUTERS)
(BIG MACHINE)
null
21255588
33live live issue 1
After exploding onto the mainstream music scene and pop culture in the past year the industry has set its signts on EDM ventures proved the genre has final ly conquered the final frontiermdashAmerica
Live Nation purchases Hard Events
Media mogul Robert FX Sillerman says he will spend
$1B on EDM enterprises
EDM artists get the spotlight at the Grammys for the 1st time with addi-tion of a dance music performance
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline
Taylor Swift adopts the dubstep drop with her single ldquoI Knew You
Were Troublerdquo
JUNEFEB JULY
JUNE JUNE
OCT OCT NOV
NOVOCT
Bieber drops his first dub-step-influenced track ldquoAs
Long as You Love Merdquo
Dance-based songs can be found all across the radio
The first professional media outlet for EDM is announced
NYU introduces a course on the Business of Electronic amp
Dance Music
Billboard hosts the 2nd Annual FutureSound conference to ad-dress the future of the industry
NOVEMBERBLACK WIDOW
MUSIC PUBLISHES A LIST OF 230+ EDM SUB-GENRESAND
COUNTING
(BIG MACHINE)
34 we live for live music
BACK TO THE
FUTUREThirty years after the ldquodeathrdquo of disco dance music is back in America and bigger than ever To understand
where it is going we must take a look at the past
35live live issue 1
The most recent main-stream movement to hit the United States
E l e c t r o n i c D a n c e M u s i c (EDM) did so as an explosion of lights neon and pulsating beats But dance music is nothing new Although EDM seems entirely novel to many of Amer icarsquos youth dance music has a long and storied history
In the beginning mus ic c r e a t e d v i a e l e c t r o n i c ins t r ument s was focused on academic pursuit s and high ar t The use of elec-t ron ic s i n popu la r mus ic c rea t ion b egan w i t h t he commerc ia l i z a t ion o f t he synthesizer in the 1960s As technology evolved so did experimentation with elec-tronic instruments
In the 1970s the days of disco led to the develop-ment of e lec t ronic dance mus ic when DJs invented the traditional two-turntable setup to continuously stream together music so that the dancing never had to stop U n f o r t u na te l y f o r d a n c e music just as quickly as disco was embraced ant i -d isco sentiments fueled by racism and fear of change pushed it into the underground
It was in this underground s p a c e d u r i n g t h e lsquo 8 0 s that modern dance music evo lved St r ides made in elec tronic ins trumentation developed the synthesizer machines that would form the backbones of house and techno music the Roland TB 303 baseline and Roland TR 909 drum machine
A c c o r d i n g t o T h e Guard ianrsquos recent l y pub -lished timeline A History of Modern Music DJ Frankie Knuckles is responsible for the development of house music characterized by its
44 beats Techno rose out of Detroit a few years later inspired by the indus tr ial sounds of the city
While wildly popular in the underground music scene techno and house did not find commercial success in Amer ica I t was not unt i l the lat ter par t of the lsquo80s when the sounds of house and techno found their way to t he UK and mor phed into a new sub-genre acid house that the commercial club culture was born albeit exclusively in Europe
While dance music took of f r unning on the other side of the pond in America a dif ferent s tor y began to unfold As rap and hip-hop took a s t ronghold of the music industr y in the late eighties and nineties dance music remained confined to the peripheries
A s d a n c e - m u s i c D J s w o r ke d t o e v o l v e t h e i r sound and keep up w i th technology hip -hop DJs who adopted the traditional turntable setup from the DJs of disco as well as their pro-duction techniques began to work in the record ing s tudios and inf luence the industr y especially in the realm of pop music
I n t h e 19 9 0 s i n s i d e r s thought EDM had f ina l l y hit the jackpot and found mainstream success In an inter v iew with PaperMag industry vet Gary Richards explains ldquothe f irst farewell to the undergroundrdquo
ldquoBy 1993 i t felt l ike the music wasnrsquot underground anymore so I threw a par ty c a l l e d R ave A m e r i c a a t Knot t s Ber r y Farm which i s an amusement par k in O r a n g e C o u n t y I t s o l d out with l ike 20000 peo-ple Rick Rubin came with
Anthony K ied is f rom the Red Hot Chili Peppers and a couple guys from ZZ Top and he asked me if I wanted to work in the record busi-ness and help them s ign some EDM ar t i s t s I sa id sure the Prodigy were super hot and it seemed like it was blowing up But we star ted signing all these techno art-ists thinking theyrsquod catch on too but nobody was buying it Nobodyrdquo
Jus t l i ke R ichards says n o b o d y w a s b u y i n g i t D a n c e m u s i c w a s n o t catching on in the way the industr y would have liked so in 1997 the entire music industry and press put their full force behind ldquoelectron-icardquo the new catch-all name they had given to the genre in an attempt to successfully market it
Despite the gl impses of success seen froma handful of artists the genre failed to succeed and the industr y distanced itself from dance music far ther than i t had when disco ldquodiedrdquo
T h i s f a i l u r e c a n b e accounted to EDM not f it-t i ng i n to t h e ma r ke t i ng machinery of the industr y The t radit ional setup was f ixed for four-minute rock and pop singles and album tour s not t he ex tended club mixes and residencies that were the basis of the EDM world Not only was the indus t r y i l l - equipped to market electronic music but many consumers also felt it abrasive and awkward attempting to listen to this machine-made glitch-based music that was so unfamiliar to their ears It was not until the digital revolution of the new millennium that elec-tronic dance music f inal ly found its place
36 we live for live music
Festival
MAJOR LAZER AT SUMMERFEST IN HOUSTON JUNE 2012
37live live issue 1
If music in 2012 could talk it would sound a lot like the Bill Orsquo Reillyrsquos blooper ldquoLetrsquos do it liverdquo While attending concerts has been popular since rock and roll shows in the 1950s the recent electronic music boom has made it exponentially more so
One reason accord ing to Forbes i s that as resource constraints have t ightened people are spending thei r money more on exper iences as opposed to manufactured products But it is more than that EDM has managed to ent i re ly t rans -form the concept of a concer t by blurring the lines between going out dancing and going out to see music These days one would pay the same amount to see superstar-DJ David Guetta in an arena that they would if they were simply dancing to him spin-ning in a club
But this popularity was not always the case As a genre born in the world of nightclubs EDMrsquos parties were lambasted for years as depraved raves Now many kids will go to a rave before they attend a rock concert Why the sudden change A major factor is rebranding
Raves became festivals Electronic became EDMOnce shed of the negative associations with raves
and the bad memories of the electronicarsquos failure EDM shows and festivals began to proliferate across the countr y No longer hiding in remote f ields or empt y warehouse e lec t ronic mus ic promoter s looked to book DJs in public arenas and concer t halls
Elec tr ic Daisy Carnival (EDC) 2010 a rave put on by one of the major EDM promoters Insomniac
Event s ser ved as a turning point for the genre when an underage gir l died at the event causing severe backlash against Insomniac but also giving the genre lots of exposure EDC was run out of Los Angeles but found refuge in the always-accepting city of Las Vegas It was here in Vegas that EDM finally found a homemdashnow playing the same role to America as Ibiza did to Europe when the rave scene star ted there in the 1980s Superstar DJs can be found any week as a resident DJ to Tao XS or one of the many other posh clubs and the landmark event of the year EDC Vegas is now one of the largest raves in the world with over 300000 attendees last year
EDC is not the only big festival on the market now though Festivals are becoming trendymdashan indicator of direction the music industry is headed in towards the live and away from the recorded According to Metrowizecom an online nightli fe guide in 2012 alone at leas t thir t y-two new fes t ivals began in Americamdashfif teen of them dedicated solely to EDM
Long-standing traditions in the music industry fes-tivals typically only attracted people who spent a lot of time at live music and concertshellipuntil recently
As EDM crossed over into pop music the l ines became blur red between a night of going out to dance at a club and night of going out to see your favorite ar tist at a concer t People who a few years ago never attended a concert beyond the major pop ar tists are now concer t-fiends as the ldquopoprdquo ar tists they love today are world-renowned DJs
Of course as any genre crosses into the main-stream it is going to become increasingly popular
FeverEDMS BOOMING SUCCESS IN THE FESTIVAL MARKET HAS HEADS
TURNING FROM AROUND THE INDUSTRY TO INVEST IN LIVE MUSIC
38 we live for live music
with the masses but EDMrsquos explosion is unparal-leled Hundreds of thousands of people attended EDC Vegas and that was just one of dozens of elec-tronic dance festivals and all-night events this year
Because the live experience is EDMrsquos native for-mat the genre is par ticularly nuanced to success on the road Matt Adell of Beatport the online mecca of the DJ community explains one of the reasons why
ldquoPer formers such as Skr illex are incredibly ef f i -cient touring operations compared to rock bands Itrsquos less expensive than a rock group because therersquos just one per former Therersquos much less gear and it rsquos easier to set up because therersquos no live micro-phones So the suppor t team required is so much smallerrdquo
Bobby Clay head of the electronic division at C3 Presents touches on another aspect of EDM that primes the genre for the road ldquoIt rsquos like you donrsquot need to have a full studio on your tour bus to create the next banger or the next huge club track or the next Rihanna remix You can do it from the comfort of a tour bus or the green room of whatever arena some of these big people are playing in nowrdquo EDM ar tists have the luxury of not having to break from tour to create new songs
Although EDM is pr imed for tour ing i t is only in the past couple of years that the genre took on this rock and roll mentality As shows star ted to be booked in rock and roll venues and DJproducers took to the road stopping in every middle town and college campus in America like a rock band would DJs became rock stars in their own right One ar tist in par ticular is noted for condensing the drawn out peaks and falls of dance music into four and a half minute radio-ready tracks the half-shaved goofy-glasses wearing kid known as Skrillex Love him or hate him his genre-fusing in your face style helped to launch EDM to the place it is at today
With mega-DJs such as Skrillex earning up to $1 million per festival appearance and groups such as Swedish House Mafia selling out Madison Square Garden in nine minutes it is no surprise that corpo-rate heads have turned to this once-ignored market Over the summer Live Nation bought Hard Events one of the original promoters of the genre whose brands of Hardfest Holy Ship and Haunted Hard Mansion have gone on to great success Shor t ly af ter media mogul Robert FX Sillerman pledged to invest $1 billion dollars in EDM ventures
As the money pours in 2013 is looking to be the biggest year yet for EDM Having finally solidified i t s place in the music industr y (and at the fore-front nevertheless) Electronic Dance Music is ready to guide the music industry in a new directionmdasha direction towards the future towards a more diver-sified music industry towards a music industry that lives for live music
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
39live live issue 1
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
AT LEAST 32 NEW FESTIVALS BEGAN IN THE UNITED STATES IN 2012 OF THESE FESTIVALS FIFTEEN OF THEM ARE DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC
40 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL WONDERLANDDowntown TexasApril 27-28 2012An inside look into the modern electronic music festival
41live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL WONDERLAND
42 we live for live music
43live live issue 1
A new generation neo-age hippies
44 we live for live musicWelcome to Wonderland
45live live issue 1
46 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
47live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Dillon Francis plays The Queenrsquos Ground
48 we live for live music
49live live issue 1
Visual explosions to coordinate with the
audio attack of a drop
50 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
51live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
EDM shows are known for their
high-impact visuals
52 we live for live music
53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
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Button 36
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Button 52
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Button 48
sured by ldquogoing goldrdquo but rather by the number of tickets sold Another goal I have for this magazine is that it
serves as a guide to the layman wishing to under-stand more about Electronic Dance Music An umbrella-term for a multitude of genres (Black Widow Music just published this list of 230 sub-genres and counting) as well as a type of music that changes as rapidly as the technology that drives it EDM can be difficult for many to grasp As EDM has gone the way of pop it has become
the focus of much ridicule as an uncultured and un-artistic medium simply meant for mindless dancing and creatable by anyone who can push a computer button I hope that this magazine serve as a bridge between the average uninformed pop-listener and the anti-EDM music ldquopuristsrdquo by providing insight into the history and artistry of Electronic Dance Music I was inspired to create this magazine because I
was lucky enough to be a part of the EDM scene as it busted out from the underground and into mainstream music and culture Arriving in Austin in the fall of 2008 I could not have been more excited to explore what the Live Music Capital of the World had to offer me Although I enjoyed concerts of all genres I quickly found myself attending electronic shows more than the rest and becoming a part of one of the many tight -knit communities that makes Austin great a group of about 300 electronic music loving Austinites Attending on average one electronic show a week that first year I came to love the feeling of being able to look around the room at any one of these shows and have that sense of communitymdashthat I
was surrounded by friends in all directions I had a feeling at the time that we were a part of something that was new and going to be big but I had no idea the extent of it As my college years went on artists that I had seen play in a small bar overlooking Sixth Street for maybe 300 people were playing at Austin City Music Hall for 3000 people I no longer could turn around at a show and find my all my friends instead I was faced with a sea of unfamiliar faces I realized that my small community was not so small anymore and had broken out of our underground niche and into the mainstream Seeing this phenomenon happen in front of me inspired this thesis Originally when I began working my thesis ques-
tion was about whether or not this genre was just a bubble or had truly found its way into the mainstream Over this summer movements in the industry to invest in EDM confirmed that this was not a bubble and caused me to shift my focus why EDM was now becoming mainstream After nearly forty years of existence why was elec-tronic music just now finding its place in America and looking at the bigger picture what does this say about the direction the music industry is headed in on the wholeIn this magazine I reveal how electronic music
has finally solidified its place in America because the digital age harbors an environment that strays away from the confines of the traditional recorded music industry allowing EDM to flourish outside of the control of the major record labels While the ldquoindustryrdquo has spent the past ten years pointing fingers and looking to Washington for solutions to the piracy issue electronic artists many of whom were born into the generation
which caused the file-sharing problem embraced that factmdashthat piracy is going to happenmdashand shifted their focus instead to the format their music was created formdashthe live experiencemdashto be successful The booming success EDM artists and EDM
promoters have found in the live experience has heads turning from all over the industry as they realize that the recorded music industry will never rise to its former glory and it is time to focus on a new more diversified direction for the music industry that includes licensing mer-chandising and most of allmdashlive music
14 we live for live music
PICS FROM THE SHOW
FROM THE FANS
diplo bassnectar
NYCclublife
houseparty lightshow
ravebarbie
moderngogogirl
biggigantic
tiesto
k
yke
bc
n
msj
ek
ka
kan
dii
nsp
ira
tio
ns
b
rad
pe
ters
5
djd
oc-
sto
ne
jh
oc
ks
n
ick
yh
ilto
n
rave
ba
rbie
ty
lers
he
rrit
t
15live live issue 1
Photos from the fans for an inside look at the world of EDM
from the fans
barcelonaclublife
bennybenassi
prettylightssoundsystemmodestep
kandi
aoki edc
squarepusher
b
ec
kyg
on
z
ga
dg
ett
eke
le
brk
orm
an
k
yke
bc
n
ste
vea
ok
i
cra
ck
wo
od
je
rem
yp
mit
ch
ell
c
hri
stin
am
org
an
n
oli
vert
wis
ty
16 we live for live music
on the road on the road
Fall ToursComing soon to a city near you
17live live issue 1
Fall Tours
18 we live for live music
new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013
Pretty Lights | Roseland Ballroom | New York
Zedd amp Nicky Romero | Club Nokia | Los Angeles
Chromeo Ana Sia Gramatic Poolside Snowglobe Music Festival | South Lake Tahoe
ATB MiM0SA Zeds Dead Paul Basic Wolfgang Gartner Krewella Colorado Convention Center | Denver
Skrillex Boyz Noise FlosstradomusThe Palace of Auburn Hills | Milwaukee
Shpongle Glitch Mob Sea of Dreams | San Francisco
Tiesto | Revel Ovation Hall | Atlantic City
The Disco Biscuits | Madison Square Garden
Paper Diamond | Oregon Convention Center | Portland
Bassnectar | Bridgestone Arena | Nashville
Lights All Night | Fair Park | Dallas
Beats Antique | Paramount Theatre | Seattle
Rusko | WaMu Theatre | Seattle
Lotus amp Moon Hooch | Rams Head Live | Baltimore
on the road
19live live issue 1
Industry
genre
pop culture
technology
20 we live for live music
The term ldquoElectronic Musicrdquo is coined by Werner Meyer Eppler
Rock nrsquo Roll music is born
RCA Mark II the first programmable sound synthesizer is invented by
Olson and Belar
Motown becomes dance music classics
1949
1950s
timeline 1949 - 1970
1955
First time anyone
had used the word synthesizer for a
piece of equipment
Rock nrsquo Roll redefines music as something to be listened to not danced to
We begin the story here
1960s
(COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY)
(THE BEAT)
21live live issue 1
Bob Moogrsquos synthesizer brought electronic music out of the realm of academia and into
the hands of musicians
Rock nrsquo roll becomes the sound of modern life It continues to grow
until splits into factions in the 1970s
The Moog Company develops the first modular synthesizer
The Beach Boysrsquo Good Vibrations is the first pop hit to feature
electronic sounds
Etta James releases ldquoSomethingrsquos Got a Hold of Merdquo a sample of which resonates
through the EDM explosion of late
1962
timeline 1949 - 1970
1962
1960s
1967
1964
1960sYouth start to attend rock concerts
instead of going to sock hops
King Tubby of Jamaica births the dub which will later give rise to the remix
(CAPITOL RECORDS)
(MOOG MUSIC)
null
21222783
22 we live for live music
Disco makes streaming music continuously cool and
popularizes the club scene Jim Morrison predicts
the future of music
The Mini Moog is invented becoming the first portable synthesizer
Synth music and space age pop is starting to impact TV
film and commercials
Disco is born
Hot Butterrsquos Popcorn becomes the first electronic pop hit
DJ Herc invents BreakbeatItalo Disco becomes the
first complete EDM genre
1970s
EARLY1970s
1972-1974 1973
1970 1978
1978
1972
1970
the 1970sldquoI can envision one person with l ike a lot of machines tapes and electronic setups
singing or speaking and using machinesrdquo-Jim Morrison
The Technics 1200 Mark II is released and becomes the industry standard
(PBS)
(RCO RECORDS)
timeline
null
2677309
23live live issue 1
Saturday Night Fever
Kraftwerk releases Autobahn
David Bowie and Blondie bring in New Wave
Sugar Hill Gangrsquos ldquoRapperrsquos Delightrdquo brings hip hop into the Top 40
Brian Eno births ambient music
The first digital sampler the Fairlight CMI (Computer Musical Instrument) is released
Disco declines as sentiments such as ldquoDisco Sucksrdquo and ldquoDeath to
Discordquo become popular
1977
L AT E1970s
1978 1978
1979
1979
1975
the 1970s
These days many people falsly associate this iconic soundtrack with the
beginning of disco
Kraftwerk members are considered tobe the ldquogodfathersrdquo of electronic music
(UNKNOWN)
timeline
24 we live for live music
Disco is thought to be dead but it just went underground where it morphed into house and techno
Video game music is born as a genre
Computers video games and electronic equipment become more affordable
efficient and put to great use
Roland TR 808 Rhythm Machine
Frankie Knuckles invents house music at the
Warehouse in Chicago
E-mu Emulator becomes the first affordable
digital sampler
The Hacienda Club opens in Manchester
The rave scene grows from acid house music in the United Kingdom
the 1980rsquos
1981
1982 1987
1980
1980 1981
1980s 1980s
(UNKOWN)
In the 1980s a host of new instruments based on synthet-ic sounds and sampl ing technolo-gy contributed to the formation of new genres of electronic mu-sic and the electronic sound on the whole Whi le these days the sounds of most of these instruments can be repl icated on a computer outfit-ted with the proper audio software DJs sti l l seek the retro instruments for the unique characteristics that come from analog instruments
timeline
25live live issue 1
Sampling and breakbeat become important features for both
hip-hop and EDM
MIDI inventedRoland TB 303
Baseline released
Techno rises out of the industrial
sounds of Detroit
Roland TR 909 Drum Machine
Acid house is born at the Hacienda Club in
Manchester
Electronic Dance Music first Summer of Love begins as the free-party scene takes the sound out of the club and into the open
Ambient music becomes just as important as the dance floor during EDMrsquos second
Summer of Love
Trip Hop and other downtempo genres find success with acts like Massive Attack and Portishead
the 1980rsquos
19871983-1985
1989-1991
1988
1989
1982 19841983
1980
MIDI is a protocol not a hardware which provided a standard for electronic instrument manufacturers
(MASSIVE ATTACK)
London becomes the hub of
EDM
timeline
Computer-based production allows for DJs to recreate the sounds found in traditional analog instruments as
well as new sounds that have never been heard before (eg the Dubstep wob) It also opened up the realm of
EDM creation to anyone with the right software
Responsible for EDC Nocturnal and Wonderland Festivals
Rise of the super club and superstar DJs
The media dubs of all electronic music
ldquotechnordquo
Hardcore music begins to dominate the British
rave scene
Jungle forms out of hardcore
Paul Oakenfold Paul Van Dyk and DJ Tiesto bring trance
music to the forefront
Insomniac Events is established in Southern California
Tommy Boy Records releases the first Jock Jams album
timeline the 1990rsquos
MP3 digital audio format is introduced
1990s
1990s
1992
1990s 1990s
1993
1991
1995
Rave music sees slight mainstream success with artists such as C amp C Music Factory and
Snap and begins to infuence pop music
With the growth of personal computing electronic artists began to migrate from analog electronic
instruments to computer-based production
EARLY1990s
EARLY1990s
(TOMMY BOY RECORDS)
>
>
null
19304054
Although electronica failed to go main-stream its loops and textures find their
way into pop and hip hop
They are the developers of Ableton Live one of the premiere loop-based
sequencers used in modern production
EDC begins as a one day event
Drum and bass evolves out of jungle
Record companies try to market techno under a new namemdash
ldquoelectronicardquomdash but fail
Fatboy Slim makes $0 off of Rockafeller Skank after giving 25 of the royalties to each of
the four artists he used samples from
Moby licenses every track on his
Play album
timeline the 1990rsquos
Napster launchesAbleton is founded
19991994
1995
1991 19991999
1997 1998
1997In the UK raves are forced back underground with the passing of
the Criminal Justice Act
ProTools released at a price of $6000
LATE1990s
LATE1990s
As artists begin to use computers in production
glitch hop evolves
This new law defined gatherings of more than 20 people listening to
ldquorepetitive beatsrdquo as illegal
(SKINT RECORDS)
EDMrsquoS non-descript beats are perfect for marketing
28 we live for live music
In an interview with the New York Times David Bowie claims copyright and intellectual property
will cease to exist in the next ten years
Congress passes a law holding club owners responsible for their patronsrsquo actions and
affecting the whole industry
Tiesto DJs the Athens Olympic Opening Ceremonies
The GRAMMYs add a Best DanceElectronica
Album category
Dubstep nights begin to pop up in the underground music
scene around the USDubstep begins to grow
out of South London
timeline
Limewire introducedCD sales peak iTunes launchedThe iPod brings digital music players to the masses
2002
2000 2001 2001 2003
2003
20062001
2004 2005
ldquoYoursquod better be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation
thatrsquos going to be leftrdquo
Ruskorsquos ldquoCockney Thugrdquo i l lustrates the wob sound
2000-2009
(COURTESY OF RUSK0)
(DTSIABAIFLICKR CC)
null
24417967
29live live issue 1
Daft Punkrsquos pyramid setup at Coachella sets a
new bar for visuals
Kanye West spawns electro-rap with 808rsquos amp Heartbreak prominently fea-
turing the TR 808 drum machine
Lady Gaga and the Black Eyed Peas bring the Euro-house
sound to the Top 40
Guettarsquos ldquoWhen Love Take Overrdquo becomes an international pop hit and the Euro-house sound
starts to creep its way into popular music
timeline
2004 2004 2007
2008 2009
20072006
20092007-2009
Long-established one-day raves such as EDC and Ultra transform
into two-day festivals
Guetta co-wrote ldquoBoom Boom Powrdquo
Gagarsquos Bad Romance has nearly 05 bi l l ion YouTube views
Gary Richards starts Hard Events
Youtube launched Beatport launched
2000-2009
iPhone released
(KARL WALTERGETTY IMAGES)
(INTERSCOPE RECORDS)
2010-2011
Technics SL-1200 turntable the industry standard for thirty
years is discontinued
Limewire the top P2P file-sharing client
is shut downSpotify launches in the US
When an underage girl dies at EDC in LA EDM gets a lot backlash but this
also gives it a lot of exposure
EDC is forced out of LA and moves to Vegas which becomes the home of
EDM in the United States
Bassnectar plays Red Rocks where he incurs $100000 in noise violations
after bringing his own speakers
Skrillex is nominated for five Grammy Awards he
wins three
timeline
2010
2010
2010
2010 2010 2011
2011 2011
2011
2011
Black Eyed Peasrsquo house-based ldquoThe TimeDirty Bitrdquo tops the
charts in over 15 countries
Hip hop and EDM production styles have always mirrored one another now they are morphing
EDM finally has a home in America
Moombahton a fusion of house music and reggae is
born at a house party in DC
Skrillex explodes onto the main-stream music scene bringing the ldquodroprdquo and heavy bass with him
DJAY app
(COURTESY OF SKRILLEX)
2010-2011
Britneyrsquos Hold it Against Me acts as the catalyst for replacing the pop
bridge with the dubstep drop
EDC Vegas has over 230000 attendees in
three days
The Victoria Secret Fashion Show features rave-inspired
outfits for the final walk
timeline
2011 2011
2011 2011 2011
2011
Tiesto plays the biggest single headliner DJ show in US
history to 26000 in Carson CA
Nielsen Soundscan reports digital music sales in the US are larger than
physical sales for the first time
Absoulte Vodka sponsors Swedish House Mafiarsquos
sold out MSG show
According to Bil lboard this is considered a watershed moment
brands adopting EDM
EDM technology is large-ly based now around
software programs and
their coordinating hard-
ware--control lers for Ableton
Scratch decks for Serato
and more There is an entire
spectrum of modern DJ tech-
nology avai lable and the path
one takes depends on what
sound they are trying to achieve
(JIVE RECORDS)
(ZUMA PRESS)
(SAMANTHA HOFFER)
The neon colors associated with EDM can be found al l over
the fashion world
With the laptop as instrument EDM
producers constantly
blend and mix elements
of different genres lead-
ing to the prol iferation of
microgenres which are difficult to
distinguish
null
26177792
32 we live for live music
EDC Vegas sees 300000+ people
over 3 days
Family-friendly animated film Wreck It Ralph uses
dance music in trailer
Feature-length EDM documentary ldquoThe Drop The EDM Culture
Explosionrdquo enters production
A system of alerts are set up to notify users when they
infringe on copyright law
Night Culture Inc becomes the first EDM-oriented publicly
traded company
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline 2012
Queen Latifah sings the National Anthem at the opening game of
the NFL seasonover a beat
JAN
OCTJULY SEPT
SEPTAUG
JUNE JUNEMARUltra Music Festival in Miami
has 40000 viewers watching its online stream over YouTube
Universal closes on EMI becoming the largest of the remaining three
major record labels
(DANNY MOLOSHOK REUTERS)
(BIG MACHINE)
null
21255588
33live live issue 1
After exploding onto the mainstream music scene and pop culture in the past year the industry has set its signts on EDM ventures proved the genre has final ly conquered the final frontiermdashAmerica
Live Nation purchases Hard Events
Media mogul Robert FX Sillerman says he will spend
$1B on EDM enterprises
EDM artists get the spotlight at the Grammys for the 1st time with addi-tion of a dance music performance
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline
Taylor Swift adopts the dubstep drop with her single ldquoI Knew You
Were Troublerdquo
JUNEFEB JULY
JUNE JUNE
OCT OCT NOV
NOVOCT
Bieber drops his first dub-step-influenced track ldquoAs
Long as You Love Merdquo
Dance-based songs can be found all across the radio
The first professional media outlet for EDM is announced
NYU introduces a course on the Business of Electronic amp
Dance Music
Billboard hosts the 2nd Annual FutureSound conference to ad-dress the future of the industry
NOVEMBERBLACK WIDOW
MUSIC PUBLISHES A LIST OF 230+ EDM SUB-GENRESAND
COUNTING
(BIG MACHINE)
34 we live for live music
BACK TO THE
FUTUREThirty years after the ldquodeathrdquo of disco dance music is back in America and bigger than ever To understand
where it is going we must take a look at the past
35live live issue 1
The most recent main-stream movement to hit the United States
E l e c t r o n i c D a n c e M u s i c (EDM) did so as an explosion of lights neon and pulsating beats But dance music is nothing new Although EDM seems entirely novel to many of Amer icarsquos youth dance music has a long and storied history
In the beginning mus ic c r e a t e d v i a e l e c t r o n i c ins t r ument s was focused on academic pursuit s and high ar t The use of elec-t ron ic s i n popu la r mus ic c rea t ion b egan w i t h t he commerc ia l i z a t ion o f t he synthesizer in the 1960s As technology evolved so did experimentation with elec-tronic instruments
In the 1970s the days of disco led to the develop-ment of e lec t ronic dance mus ic when DJs invented the traditional two-turntable setup to continuously stream together music so that the dancing never had to stop U n f o r t u na te l y f o r d a n c e music just as quickly as disco was embraced ant i -d isco sentiments fueled by racism and fear of change pushed it into the underground
It was in this underground s p a c e d u r i n g t h e lsquo 8 0 s that modern dance music evo lved St r ides made in elec tronic ins trumentation developed the synthesizer machines that would form the backbones of house and techno music the Roland TB 303 baseline and Roland TR 909 drum machine
A c c o r d i n g t o T h e Guard ianrsquos recent l y pub -lished timeline A History of Modern Music DJ Frankie Knuckles is responsible for the development of house music characterized by its
44 beats Techno rose out of Detroit a few years later inspired by the indus tr ial sounds of the city
While wildly popular in the underground music scene techno and house did not find commercial success in Amer ica I t was not unt i l the lat ter par t of the lsquo80s when the sounds of house and techno found their way to t he UK and mor phed into a new sub-genre acid house that the commercial club culture was born albeit exclusively in Europe
While dance music took of f r unning on the other side of the pond in America a dif ferent s tor y began to unfold As rap and hip-hop took a s t ronghold of the music industr y in the late eighties and nineties dance music remained confined to the peripheries
A s d a n c e - m u s i c D J s w o r ke d t o e v o l v e t h e i r sound and keep up w i th technology hip -hop DJs who adopted the traditional turntable setup from the DJs of disco as well as their pro-duction techniques began to work in the record ing s tudios and inf luence the industr y especially in the realm of pop music
I n t h e 19 9 0 s i n s i d e r s thought EDM had f ina l l y hit the jackpot and found mainstream success In an inter v iew with PaperMag industry vet Gary Richards explains ldquothe f irst farewell to the undergroundrdquo
ldquoBy 1993 i t felt l ike the music wasnrsquot underground anymore so I threw a par ty c a l l e d R ave A m e r i c a a t Knot t s Ber r y Farm which i s an amusement par k in O r a n g e C o u n t y I t s o l d out with l ike 20000 peo-ple Rick Rubin came with
Anthony K ied is f rom the Red Hot Chili Peppers and a couple guys from ZZ Top and he asked me if I wanted to work in the record busi-ness and help them s ign some EDM ar t i s t s I sa id sure the Prodigy were super hot and it seemed like it was blowing up But we star ted signing all these techno art-ists thinking theyrsquod catch on too but nobody was buying it Nobodyrdquo
Jus t l i ke R ichards says n o b o d y w a s b u y i n g i t D a n c e m u s i c w a s n o t catching on in the way the industr y would have liked so in 1997 the entire music industry and press put their full force behind ldquoelectron-icardquo the new catch-all name they had given to the genre in an attempt to successfully market it
Despite the gl impses of success seen froma handful of artists the genre failed to succeed and the industr y distanced itself from dance music far ther than i t had when disco ldquodiedrdquo
T h i s f a i l u r e c a n b e accounted to EDM not f it-t i ng i n to t h e ma r ke t i ng machinery of the industr y The t radit ional setup was f ixed for four-minute rock and pop singles and album tour s not t he ex tended club mixes and residencies that were the basis of the EDM world Not only was the indus t r y i l l - equipped to market electronic music but many consumers also felt it abrasive and awkward attempting to listen to this machine-made glitch-based music that was so unfamiliar to their ears It was not until the digital revolution of the new millennium that elec-tronic dance music f inal ly found its place
36 we live for live music
Festival
MAJOR LAZER AT SUMMERFEST IN HOUSTON JUNE 2012
37live live issue 1
If music in 2012 could talk it would sound a lot like the Bill Orsquo Reillyrsquos blooper ldquoLetrsquos do it liverdquo While attending concerts has been popular since rock and roll shows in the 1950s the recent electronic music boom has made it exponentially more so
One reason accord ing to Forbes i s that as resource constraints have t ightened people are spending thei r money more on exper iences as opposed to manufactured products But it is more than that EDM has managed to ent i re ly t rans -form the concept of a concer t by blurring the lines between going out dancing and going out to see music These days one would pay the same amount to see superstar-DJ David Guetta in an arena that they would if they were simply dancing to him spin-ning in a club
But this popularity was not always the case As a genre born in the world of nightclubs EDMrsquos parties were lambasted for years as depraved raves Now many kids will go to a rave before they attend a rock concert Why the sudden change A major factor is rebranding
Raves became festivals Electronic became EDMOnce shed of the negative associations with raves
and the bad memories of the electronicarsquos failure EDM shows and festivals began to proliferate across the countr y No longer hiding in remote f ields or empt y warehouse e lec t ronic mus ic promoter s looked to book DJs in public arenas and concer t halls
Elec tr ic Daisy Carnival (EDC) 2010 a rave put on by one of the major EDM promoters Insomniac
Event s ser ved as a turning point for the genre when an underage gir l died at the event causing severe backlash against Insomniac but also giving the genre lots of exposure EDC was run out of Los Angeles but found refuge in the always-accepting city of Las Vegas It was here in Vegas that EDM finally found a homemdashnow playing the same role to America as Ibiza did to Europe when the rave scene star ted there in the 1980s Superstar DJs can be found any week as a resident DJ to Tao XS or one of the many other posh clubs and the landmark event of the year EDC Vegas is now one of the largest raves in the world with over 300000 attendees last year
EDC is not the only big festival on the market now though Festivals are becoming trendymdashan indicator of direction the music industry is headed in towards the live and away from the recorded According to Metrowizecom an online nightli fe guide in 2012 alone at leas t thir t y-two new fes t ivals began in Americamdashfif teen of them dedicated solely to EDM
Long-standing traditions in the music industry fes-tivals typically only attracted people who spent a lot of time at live music and concertshellipuntil recently
As EDM crossed over into pop music the l ines became blur red between a night of going out to dance at a club and night of going out to see your favorite ar tist at a concer t People who a few years ago never attended a concert beyond the major pop ar tists are now concer t-fiends as the ldquopoprdquo ar tists they love today are world-renowned DJs
Of course as any genre crosses into the main-stream it is going to become increasingly popular
FeverEDMS BOOMING SUCCESS IN THE FESTIVAL MARKET HAS HEADS
TURNING FROM AROUND THE INDUSTRY TO INVEST IN LIVE MUSIC
38 we live for live music
with the masses but EDMrsquos explosion is unparal-leled Hundreds of thousands of people attended EDC Vegas and that was just one of dozens of elec-tronic dance festivals and all-night events this year
Because the live experience is EDMrsquos native for-mat the genre is par ticularly nuanced to success on the road Matt Adell of Beatport the online mecca of the DJ community explains one of the reasons why
ldquoPer formers such as Skr illex are incredibly ef f i -cient touring operations compared to rock bands Itrsquos less expensive than a rock group because therersquos just one per former Therersquos much less gear and it rsquos easier to set up because therersquos no live micro-phones So the suppor t team required is so much smallerrdquo
Bobby Clay head of the electronic division at C3 Presents touches on another aspect of EDM that primes the genre for the road ldquoIt rsquos like you donrsquot need to have a full studio on your tour bus to create the next banger or the next huge club track or the next Rihanna remix You can do it from the comfort of a tour bus or the green room of whatever arena some of these big people are playing in nowrdquo EDM ar tists have the luxury of not having to break from tour to create new songs
Although EDM is pr imed for tour ing i t is only in the past couple of years that the genre took on this rock and roll mentality As shows star ted to be booked in rock and roll venues and DJproducers took to the road stopping in every middle town and college campus in America like a rock band would DJs became rock stars in their own right One ar tist in par ticular is noted for condensing the drawn out peaks and falls of dance music into four and a half minute radio-ready tracks the half-shaved goofy-glasses wearing kid known as Skrillex Love him or hate him his genre-fusing in your face style helped to launch EDM to the place it is at today
With mega-DJs such as Skrillex earning up to $1 million per festival appearance and groups such as Swedish House Mafia selling out Madison Square Garden in nine minutes it is no surprise that corpo-rate heads have turned to this once-ignored market Over the summer Live Nation bought Hard Events one of the original promoters of the genre whose brands of Hardfest Holy Ship and Haunted Hard Mansion have gone on to great success Shor t ly af ter media mogul Robert FX Sillerman pledged to invest $1 billion dollars in EDM ventures
As the money pours in 2013 is looking to be the biggest year yet for EDM Having finally solidified i t s place in the music industr y (and at the fore-front nevertheless) Electronic Dance Music is ready to guide the music industry in a new directionmdasha direction towards the future towards a more diver-sified music industry towards a music industry that lives for live music
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
39live live issue 1
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
AT LEAST 32 NEW FESTIVALS BEGAN IN THE UNITED STATES IN 2012 OF THESE FESTIVALS FIFTEEN OF THEM ARE DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC
40 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL WONDERLANDDowntown TexasApril 27-28 2012An inside look into the modern electronic music festival
41live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL WONDERLAND
42 we live for live music
43live live issue 1
A new generation neo-age hippies
44 we live for live musicWelcome to Wonderland
45live live issue 1
46 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
47live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Dillon Francis plays The Queenrsquos Ground
48 we live for live music
49live live issue 1
Visual explosions to coordinate with the
audio attack of a drop
50 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
51live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
EDM shows are known for their
high-impact visuals
52 we live for live music
53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
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Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
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Button 42
Button 1
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Button 5
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button13
Button 52
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Button 48
was surrounded by friends in all directions I had a feeling at the time that we were a part of something that was new and going to be big but I had no idea the extent of it As my college years went on artists that I had seen play in a small bar overlooking Sixth Street for maybe 300 people were playing at Austin City Music Hall for 3000 people I no longer could turn around at a show and find my all my friends instead I was faced with a sea of unfamiliar faces I realized that my small community was not so small anymore and had broken out of our underground niche and into the mainstream Seeing this phenomenon happen in front of me inspired this thesis Originally when I began working my thesis ques-
tion was about whether or not this genre was just a bubble or had truly found its way into the mainstream Over this summer movements in the industry to invest in EDM confirmed that this was not a bubble and caused me to shift my focus why EDM was now becoming mainstream After nearly forty years of existence why was elec-tronic music just now finding its place in America and looking at the bigger picture what does this say about the direction the music industry is headed in on the wholeIn this magazine I reveal how electronic music
has finally solidified its place in America because the digital age harbors an environment that strays away from the confines of the traditional recorded music industry allowing EDM to flourish outside of the control of the major record labels While the ldquoindustryrdquo has spent the past ten years pointing fingers and looking to Washington for solutions to the piracy issue electronic artists many of whom were born into the generation
which caused the file-sharing problem embraced that factmdashthat piracy is going to happenmdashand shifted their focus instead to the format their music was created formdashthe live experiencemdashto be successful The booming success EDM artists and EDM
promoters have found in the live experience has heads turning from all over the industry as they realize that the recorded music industry will never rise to its former glory and it is time to focus on a new more diversified direction for the music industry that includes licensing mer-chandising and most of allmdashlive music
14 we live for live music
PICS FROM THE SHOW
FROM THE FANS
diplo bassnectar
NYCclublife
houseparty lightshow
ravebarbie
moderngogogirl
biggigantic
tiesto
k
yke
bc
n
msj
ek
ka
kan
dii
nsp
ira
tio
ns
b
rad
pe
ters
5
djd
oc-
sto
ne
jh
oc
ks
n
ick
yh
ilto
n
rave
ba
rbie
ty
lers
he
rrit
t
15live live issue 1
Photos from the fans for an inside look at the world of EDM
from the fans
barcelonaclublife
bennybenassi
prettylightssoundsystemmodestep
kandi
aoki edc
squarepusher
b
ec
kyg
on
z
ga
dg
ett
eke
le
brk
orm
an
k
yke
bc
n
ste
vea
ok
i
cra
ck
wo
od
je
rem
yp
mit
ch
ell
c
hri
stin
am
org
an
n
oli
vert
wis
ty
16 we live for live music
on the road on the road
Fall ToursComing soon to a city near you
17live live issue 1
Fall Tours
18 we live for live music
new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013
Pretty Lights | Roseland Ballroom | New York
Zedd amp Nicky Romero | Club Nokia | Los Angeles
Chromeo Ana Sia Gramatic Poolside Snowglobe Music Festival | South Lake Tahoe
ATB MiM0SA Zeds Dead Paul Basic Wolfgang Gartner Krewella Colorado Convention Center | Denver
Skrillex Boyz Noise FlosstradomusThe Palace of Auburn Hills | Milwaukee
Shpongle Glitch Mob Sea of Dreams | San Francisco
Tiesto | Revel Ovation Hall | Atlantic City
The Disco Biscuits | Madison Square Garden
Paper Diamond | Oregon Convention Center | Portland
Bassnectar | Bridgestone Arena | Nashville
Lights All Night | Fair Park | Dallas
Beats Antique | Paramount Theatre | Seattle
Rusko | WaMu Theatre | Seattle
Lotus amp Moon Hooch | Rams Head Live | Baltimore
on the road
19live live issue 1
Industry
genre
pop culture
technology
20 we live for live music
The term ldquoElectronic Musicrdquo is coined by Werner Meyer Eppler
Rock nrsquo Roll music is born
RCA Mark II the first programmable sound synthesizer is invented by
Olson and Belar
Motown becomes dance music classics
1949
1950s
timeline 1949 - 1970
1955
First time anyone
had used the word synthesizer for a
piece of equipment
Rock nrsquo Roll redefines music as something to be listened to not danced to
We begin the story here
1960s
(COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY)
(THE BEAT)
21live live issue 1
Bob Moogrsquos synthesizer brought electronic music out of the realm of academia and into
the hands of musicians
Rock nrsquo roll becomes the sound of modern life It continues to grow
until splits into factions in the 1970s
The Moog Company develops the first modular synthesizer
The Beach Boysrsquo Good Vibrations is the first pop hit to feature
electronic sounds
Etta James releases ldquoSomethingrsquos Got a Hold of Merdquo a sample of which resonates
through the EDM explosion of late
1962
timeline 1949 - 1970
1962
1960s
1967
1964
1960sYouth start to attend rock concerts
instead of going to sock hops
King Tubby of Jamaica births the dub which will later give rise to the remix
(CAPITOL RECORDS)
(MOOG MUSIC)
null
21222783
22 we live for live music
Disco makes streaming music continuously cool and
popularizes the club scene Jim Morrison predicts
the future of music
The Mini Moog is invented becoming the first portable synthesizer
Synth music and space age pop is starting to impact TV
film and commercials
Disco is born
Hot Butterrsquos Popcorn becomes the first electronic pop hit
DJ Herc invents BreakbeatItalo Disco becomes the
first complete EDM genre
1970s
EARLY1970s
1972-1974 1973
1970 1978
1978
1972
1970
the 1970sldquoI can envision one person with l ike a lot of machines tapes and electronic setups
singing or speaking and using machinesrdquo-Jim Morrison
The Technics 1200 Mark II is released and becomes the industry standard
(PBS)
(RCO RECORDS)
timeline
null
2677309
23live live issue 1
Saturday Night Fever
Kraftwerk releases Autobahn
David Bowie and Blondie bring in New Wave
Sugar Hill Gangrsquos ldquoRapperrsquos Delightrdquo brings hip hop into the Top 40
Brian Eno births ambient music
The first digital sampler the Fairlight CMI (Computer Musical Instrument) is released
Disco declines as sentiments such as ldquoDisco Sucksrdquo and ldquoDeath to
Discordquo become popular
1977
L AT E1970s
1978 1978
1979
1979
1975
the 1970s
These days many people falsly associate this iconic soundtrack with the
beginning of disco
Kraftwerk members are considered tobe the ldquogodfathersrdquo of electronic music
(UNKNOWN)
timeline
24 we live for live music
Disco is thought to be dead but it just went underground where it morphed into house and techno
Video game music is born as a genre
Computers video games and electronic equipment become more affordable
efficient and put to great use
Roland TR 808 Rhythm Machine
Frankie Knuckles invents house music at the
Warehouse in Chicago
E-mu Emulator becomes the first affordable
digital sampler
The Hacienda Club opens in Manchester
The rave scene grows from acid house music in the United Kingdom
the 1980rsquos
1981
1982 1987
1980
1980 1981
1980s 1980s
(UNKOWN)
In the 1980s a host of new instruments based on synthet-ic sounds and sampl ing technolo-gy contributed to the formation of new genres of electronic mu-sic and the electronic sound on the whole Whi le these days the sounds of most of these instruments can be repl icated on a computer outfit-ted with the proper audio software DJs sti l l seek the retro instruments for the unique characteristics that come from analog instruments
timeline
25live live issue 1
Sampling and breakbeat become important features for both
hip-hop and EDM
MIDI inventedRoland TB 303
Baseline released
Techno rises out of the industrial
sounds of Detroit
Roland TR 909 Drum Machine
Acid house is born at the Hacienda Club in
Manchester
Electronic Dance Music first Summer of Love begins as the free-party scene takes the sound out of the club and into the open
Ambient music becomes just as important as the dance floor during EDMrsquos second
Summer of Love
Trip Hop and other downtempo genres find success with acts like Massive Attack and Portishead
the 1980rsquos
19871983-1985
1989-1991
1988
1989
1982 19841983
1980
MIDI is a protocol not a hardware which provided a standard for electronic instrument manufacturers
(MASSIVE ATTACK)
London becomes the hub of
EDM
timeline
Computer-based production allows for DJs to recreate the sounds found in traditional analog instruments as
well as new sounds that have never been heard before (eg the Dubstep wob) It also opened up the realm of
EDM creation to anyone with the right software
Responsible for EDC Nocturnal and Wonderland Festivals
Rise of the super club and superstar DJs
The media dubs of all electronic music
ldquotechnordquo
Hardcore music begins to dominate the British
rave scene
Jungle forms out of hardcore
Paul Oakenfold Paul Van Dyk and DJ Tiesto bring trance
music to the forefront
Insomniac Events is established in Southern California
Tommy Boy Records releases the first Jock Jams album
timeline the 1990rsquos
MP3 digital audio format is introduced
1990s
1990s
1992
1990s 1990s
1993
1991
1995
Rave music sees slight mainstream success with artists such as C amp C Music Factory and
Snap and begins to infuence pop music
With the growth of personal computing electronic artists began to migrate from analog electronic
instruments to computer-based production
EARLY1990s
EARLY1990s
(TOMMY BOY RECORDS)
>
>
null
19304054
Although electronica failed to go main-stream its loops and textures find their
way into pop and hip hop
They are the developers of Ableton Live one of the premiere loop-based
sequencers used in modern production
EDC begins as a one day event
Drum and bass evolves out of jungle
Record companies try to market techno under a new namemdash
ldquoelectronicardquomdash but fail
Fatboy Slim makes $0 off of Rockafeller Skank after giving 25 of the royalties to each of
the four artists he used samples from
Moby licenses every track on his
Play album
timeline the 1990rsquos
Napster launchesAbleton is founded
19991994
1995
1991 19991999
1997 1998
1997In the UK raves are forced back underground with the passing of
the Criminal Justice Act
ProTools released at a price of $6000
LATE1990s
LATE1990s
As artists begin to use computers in production
glitch hop evolves
This new law defined gatherings of more than 20 people listening to
ldquorepetitive beatsrdquo as illegal
(SKINT RECORDS)
EDMrsquoS non-descript beats are perfect for marketing
28 we live for live music
In an interview with the New York Times David Bowie claims copyright and intellectual property
will cease to exist in the next ten years
Congress passes a law holding club owners responsible for their patronsrsquo actions and
affecting the whole industry
Tiesto DJs the Athens Olympic Opening Ceremonies
The GRAMMYs add a Best DanceElectronica
Album category
Dubstep nights begin to pop up in the underground music
scene around the USDubstep begins to grow
out of South London
timeline
Limewire introducedCD sales peak iTunes launchedThe iPod brings digital music players to the masses
2002
2000 2001 2001 2003
2003
20062001
2004 2005
ldquoYoursquod better be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation
thatrsquos going to be leftrdquo
Ruskorsquos ldquoCockney Thugrdquo i l lustrates the wob sound
2000-2009
(COURTESY OF RUSK0)
(DTSIABAIFLICKR CC)
null
24417967
29live live issue 1
Daft Punkrsquos pyramid setup at Coachella sets a
new bar for visuals
Kanye West spawns electro-rap with 808rsquos amp Heartbreak prominently fea-
turing the TR 808 drum machine
Lady Gaga and the Black Eyed Peas bring the Euro-house
sound to the Top 40
Guettarsquos ldquoWhen Love Take Overrdquo becomes an international pop hit and the Euro-house sound
starts to creep its way into popular music
timeline
2004 2004 2007
2008 2009
20072006
20092007-2009
Long-established one-day raves such as EDC and Ultra transform
into two-day festivals
Guetta co-wrote ldquoBoom Boom Powrdquo
Gagarsquos Bad Romance has nearly 05 bi l l ion YouTube views
Gary Richards starts Hard Events
Youtube launched Beatport launched
2000-2009
iPhone released
(KARL WALTERGETTY IMAGES)
(INTERSCOPE RECORDS)
2010-2011
Technics SL-1200 turntable the industry standard for thirty
years is discontinued
Limewire the top P2P file-sharing client
is shut downSpotify launches in the US
When an underage girl dies at EDC in LA EDM gets a lot backlash but this
also gives it a lot of exposure
EDC is forced out of LA and moves to Vegas which becomes the home of
EDM in the United States
Bassnectar plays Red Rocks where he incurs $100000 in noise violations
after bringing his own speakers
Skrillex is nominated for five Grammy Awards he
wins three
timeline
2010
2010
2010
2010 2010 2011
2011 2011
2011
2011
Black Eyed Peasrsquo house-based ldquoThe TimeDirty Bitrdquo tops the
charts in over 15 countries
Hip hop and EDM production styles have always mirrored one another now they are morphing
EDM finally has a home in America
Moombahton a fusion of house music and reggae is
born at a house party in DC
Skrillex explodes onto the main-stream music scene bringing the ldquodroprdquo and heavy bass with him
DJAY app
(COURTESY OF SKRILLEX)
2010-2011
Britneyrsquos Hold it Against Me acts as the catalyst for replacing the pop
bridge with the dubstep drop
EDC Vegas has over 230000 attendees in
three days
The Victoria Secret Fashion Show features rave-inspired
outfits for the final walk
timeline
2011 2011
2011 2011 2011
2011
Tiesto plays the biggest single headliner DJ show in US
history to 26000 in Carson CA
Nielsen Soundscan reports digital music sales in the US are larger than
physical sales for the first time
Absoulte Vodka sponsors Swedish House Mafiarsquos
sold out MSG show
According to Bil lboard this is considered a watershed moment
brands adopting EDM
EDM technology is large-ly based now around
software programs and
their coordinating hard-
ware--control lers for Ableton
Scratch decks for Serato
and more There is an entire
spectrum of modern DJ tech-
nology avai lable and the path
one takes depends on what
sound they are trying to achieve
(JIVE RECORDS)
(ZUMA PRESS)
(SAMANTHA HOFFER)
The neon colors associated with EDM can be found al l over
the fashion world
With the laptop as instrument EDM
producers constantly
blend and mix elements
of different genres lead-
ing to the prol iferation of
microgenres which are difficult to
distinguish
null
26177792
32 we live for live music
EDC Vegas sees 300000+ people
over 3 days
Family-friendly animated film Wreck It Ralph uses
dance music in trailer
Feature-length EDM documentary ldquoThe Drop The EDM Culture
Explosionrdquo enters production
A system of alerts are set up to notify users when they
infringe on copyright law
Night Culture Inc becomes the first EDM-oriented publicly
traded company
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline 2012
Queen Latifah sings the National Anthem at the opening game of
the NFL seasonover a beat
JAN
OCTJULY SEPT
SEPTAUG
JUNE JUNEMARUltra Music Festival in Miami
has 40000 viewers watching its online stream over YouTube
Universal closes on EMI becoming the largest of the remaining three
major record labels
(DANNY MOLOSHOK REUTERS)
(BIG MACHINE)
null
21255588
33live live issue 1
After exploding onto the mainstream music scene and pop culture in the past year the industry has set its signts on EDM ventures proved the genre has final ly conquered the final frontiermdashAmerica
Live Nation purchases Hard Events
Media mogul Robert FX Sillerman says he will spend
$1B on EDM enterprises
EDM artists get the spotlight at the Grammys for the 1st time with addi-tion of a dance music performance
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline
Taylor Swift adopts the dubstep drop with her single ldquoI Knew You
Were Troublerdquo
JUNEFEB JULY
JUNE JUNE
OCT OCT NOV
NOVOCT
Bieber drops his first dub-step-influenced track ldquoAs
Long as You Love Merdquo
Dance-based songs can be found all across the radio
The first professional media outlet for EDM is announced
NYU introduces a course on the Business of Electronic amp
Dance Music
Billboard hosts the 2nd Annual FutureSound conference to ad-dress the future of the industry
NOVEMBERBLACK WIDOW
MUSIC PUBLISHES A LIST OF 230+ EDM SUB-GENRESAND
COUNTING
(BIG MACHINE)
34 we live for live music
BACK TO THE
FUTUREThirty years after the ldquodeathrdquo of disco dance music is back in America and bigger than ever To understand
where it is going we must take a look at the past
35live live issue 1
The most recent main-stream movement to hit the United States
E l e c t r o n i c D a n c e M u s i c (EDM) did so as an explosion of lights neon and pulsating beats But dance music is nothing new Although EDM seems entirely novel to many of Amer icarsquos youth dance music has a long and storied history
In the beginning mus ic c r e a t e d v i a e l e c t r o n i c ins t r ument s was focused on academic pursuit s and high ar t The use of elec-t ron ic s i n popu la r mus ic c rea t ion b egan w i t h t he commerc ia l i z a t ion o f t he synthesizer in the 1960s As technology evolved so did experimentation with elec-tronic instruments
In the 1970s the days of disco led to the develop-ment of e lec t ronic dance mus ic when DJs invented the traditional two-turntable setup to continuously stream together music so that the dancing never had to stop U n f o r t u na te l y f o r d a n c e music just as quickly as disco was embraced ant i -d isco sentiments fueled by racism and fear of change pushed it into the underground
It was in this underground s p a c e d u r i n g t h e lsquo 8 0 s that modern dance music evo lved St r ides made in elec tronic ins trumentation developed the synthesizer machines that would form the backbones of house and techno music the Roland TB 303 baseline and Roland TR 909 drum machine
A c c o r d i n g t o T h e Guard ianrsquos recent l y pub -lished timeline A History of Modern Music DJ Frankie Knuckles is responsible for the development of house music characterized by its
44 beats Techno rose out of Detroit a few years later inspired by the indus tr ial sounds of the city
While wildly popular in the underground music scene techno and house did not find commercial success in Amer ica I t was not unt i l the lat ter par t of the lsquo80s when the sounds of house and techno found their way to t he UK and mor phed into a new sub-genre acid house that the commercial club culture was born albeit exclusively in Europe
While dance music took of f r unning on the other side of the pond in America a dif ferent s tor y began to unfold As rap and hip-hop took a s t ronghold of the music industr y in the late eighties and nineties dance music remained confined to the peripheries
A s d a n c e - m u s i c D J s w o r ke d t o e v o l v e t h e i r sound and keep up w i th technology hip -hop DJs who adopted the traditional turntable setup from the DJs of disco as well as their pro-duction techniques began to work in the record ing s tudios and inf luence the industr y especially in the realm of pop music
I n t h e 19 9 0 s i n s i d e r s thought EDM had f ina l l y hit the jackpot and found mainstream success In an inter v iew with PaperMag industry vet Gary Richards explains ldquothe f irst farewell to the undergroundrdquo
ldquoBy 1993 i t felt l ike the music wasnrsquot underground anymore so I threw a par ty c a l l e d R ave A m e r i c a a t Knot t s Ber r y Farm which i s an amusement par k in O r a n g e C o u n t y I t s o l d out with l ike 20000 peo-ple Rick Rubin came with
Anthony K ied is f rom the Red Hot Chili Peppers and a couple guys from ZZ Top and he asked me if I wanted to work in the record busi-ness and help them s ign some EDM ar t i s t s I sa id sure the Prodigy were super hot and it seemed like it was blowing up But we star ted signing all these techno art-ists thinking theyrsquod catch on too but nobody was buying it Nobodyrdquo
Jus t l i ke R ichards says n o b o d y w a s b u y i n g i t D a n c e m u s i c w a s n o t catching on in the way the industr y would have liked so in 1997 the entire music industry and press put their full force behind ldquoelectron-icardquo the new catch-all name they had given to the genre in an attempt to successfully market it
Despite the gl impses of success seen froma handful of artists the genre failed to succeed and the industr y distanced itself from dance music far ther than i t had when disco ldquodiedrdquo
T h i s f a i l u r e c a n b e accounted to EDM not f it-t i ng i n to t h e ma r ke t i ng machinery of the industr y The t radit ional setup was f ixed for four-minute rock and pop singles and album tour s not t he ex tended club mixes and residencies that were the basis of the EDM world Not only was the indus t r y i l l - equipped to market electronic music but many consumers also felt it abrasive and awkward attempting to listen to this machine-made glitch-based music that was so unfamiliar to their ears It was not until the digital revolution of the new millennium that elec-tronic dance music f inal ly found its place
36 we live for live music
Festival
MAJOR LAZER AT SUMMERFEST IN HOUSTON JUNE 2012
37live live issue 1
If music in 2012 could talk it would sound a lot like the Bill Orsquo Reillyrsquos blooper ldquoLetrsquos do it liverdquo While attending concerts has been popular since rock and roll shows in the 1950s the recent electronic music boom has made it exponentially more so
One reason accord ing to Forbes i s that as resource constraints have t ightened people are spending thei r money more on exper iences as opposed to manufactured products But it is more than that EDM has managed to ent i re ly t rans -form the concept of a concer t by blurring the lines between going out dancing and going out to see music These days one would pay the same amount to see superstar-DJ David Guetta in an arena that they would if they were simply dancing to him spin-ning in a club
But this popularity was not always the case As a genre born in the world of nightclubs EDMrsquos parties were lambasted for years as depraved raves Now many kids will go to a rave before they attend a rock concert Why the sudden change A major factor is rebranding
Raves became festivals Electronic became EDMOnce shed of the negative associations with raves
and the bad memories of the electronicarsquos failure EDM shows and festivals began to proliferate across the countr y No longer hiding in remote f ields or empt y warehouse e lec t ronic mus ic promoter s looked to book DJs in public arenas and concer t halls
Elec tr ic Daisy Carnival (EDC) 2010 a rave put on by one of the major EDM promoters Insomniac
Event s ser ved as a turning point for the genre when an underage gir l died at the event causing severe backlash against Insomniac but also giving the genre lots of exposure EDC was run out of Los Angeles but found refuge in the always-accepting city of Las Vegas It was here in Vegas that EDM finally found a homemdashnow playing the same role to America as Ibiza did to Europe when the rave scene star ted there in the 1980s Superstar DJs can be found any week as a resident DJ to Tao XS or one of the many other posh clubs and the landmark event of the year EDC Vegas is now one of the largest raves in the world with over 300000 attendees last year
EDC is not the only big festival on the market now though Festivals are becoming trendymdashan indicator of direction the music industry is headed in towards the live and away from the recorded According to Metrowizecom an online nightli fe guide in 2012 alone at leas t thir t y-two new fes t ivals began in Americamdashfif teen of them dedicated solely to EDM
Long-standing traditions in the music industry fes-tivals typically only attracted people who spent a lot of time at live music and concertshellipuntil recently
As EDM crossed over into pop music the l ines became blur red between a night of going out to dance at a club and night of going out to see your favorite ar tist at a concer t People who a few years ago never attended a concert beyond the major pop ar tists are now concer t-fiends as the ldquopoprdquo ar tists they love today are world-renowned DJs
Of course as any genre crosses into the main-stream it is going to become increasingly popular
FeverEDMS BOOMING SUCCESS IN THE FESTIVAL MARKET HAS HEADS
TURNING FROM AROUND THE INDUSTRY TO INVEST IN LIVE MUSIC
38 we live for live music
with the masses but EDMrsquos explosion is unparal-leled Hundreds of thousands of people attended EDC Vegas and that was just one of dozens of elec-tronic dance festivals and all-night events this year
Because the live experience is EDMrsquos native for-mat the genre is par ticularly nuanced to success on the road Matt Adell of Beatport the online mecca of the DJ community explains one of the reasons why
ldquoPer formers such as Skr illex are incredibly ef f i -cient touring operations compared to rock bands Itrsquos less expensive than a rock group because therersquos just one per former Therersquos much less gear and it rsquos easier to set up because therersquos no live micro-phones So the suppor t team required is so much smallerrdquo
Bobby Clay head of the electronic division at C3 Presents touches on another aspect of EDM that primes the genre for the road ldquoIt rsquos like you donrsquot need to have a full studio on your tour bus to create the next banger or the next huge club track or the next Rihanna remix You can do it from the comfort of a tour bus or the green room of whatever arena some of these big people are playing in nowrdquo EDM ar tists have the luxury of not having to break from tour to create new songs
Although EDM is pr imed for tour ing i t is only in the past couple of years that the genre took on this rock and roll mentality As shows star ted to be booked in rock and roll venues and DJproducers took to the road stopping in every middle town and college campus in America like a rock band would DJs became rock stars in their own right One ar tist in par ticular is noted for condensing the drawn out peaks and falls of dance music into four and a half minute radio-ready tracks the half-shaved goofy-glasses wearing kid known as Skrillex Love him or hate him his genre-fusing in your face style helped to launch EDM to the place it is at today
With mega-DJs such as Skrillex earning up to $1 million per festival appearance and groups such as Swedish House Mafia selling out Madison Square Garden in nine minutes it is no surprise that corpo-rate heads have turned to this once-ignored market Over the summer Live Nation bought Hard Events one of the original promoters of the genre whose brands of Hardfest Holy Ship and Haunted Hard Mansion have gone on to great success Shor t ly af ter media mogul Robert FX Sillerman pledged to invest $1 billion dollars in EDM ventures
As the money pours in 2013 is looking to be the biggest year yet for EDM Having finally solidified i t s place in the music industr y (and at the fore-front nevertheless) Electronic Dance Music is ready to guide the music industry in a new directionmdasha direction towards the future towards a more diver-sified music industry towards a music industry that lives for live music
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
39live live issue 1
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
AT LEAST 32 NEW FESTIVALS BEGAN IN THE UNITED STATES IN 2012 OF THESE FESTIVALS FIFTEEN OF THEM ARE DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC
40 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL WONDERLANDDowntown TexasApril 27-28 2012An inside look into the modern electronic music festival
41live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL WONDERLAND
42 we live for live music
43live live issue 1
A new generation neo-age hippies
44 we live for live musicWelcome to Wonderland
45live live issue 1
46 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
47live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Dillon Francis plays The Queenrsquos Ground
48 we live for live music
49live live issue 1
Visual explosions to coordinate with the
audio attack of a drop
50 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
51live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
EDM shows are known for their
high-impact visuals
52 we live for live music
53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
Button 7
Button 8
Button 9
Button 10
Button 11
Button 12
button13
Button 52
Button 54
Button 56
Button 55
Button 43
Button 44
Button 49
Button 50
Button 48
which caused the file-sharing problem embraced that factmdashthat piracy is going to happenmdashand shifted their focus instead to the format their music was created formdashthe live experiencemdashto be successful The booming success EDM artists and EDM
promoters have found in the live experience has heads turning from all over the industry as they realize that the recorded music industry will never rise to its former glory and it is time to focus on a new more diversified direction for the music industry that includes licensing mer-chandising and most of allmdashlive music
14 we live for live music
PICS FROM THE SHOW
FROM THE FANS
diplo bassnectar
NYCclublife
houseparty lightshow
ravebarbie
moderngogogirl
biggigantic
tiesto
k
yke
bc
n
msj
ek
ka
kan
dii
nsp
ira
tio
ns
b
rad
pe
ters
5
djd
oc-
sto
ne
jh
oc
ks
n
ick
yh
ilto
n
rave
ba
rbie
ty
lers
he
rrit
t
15live live issue 1
Photos from the fans for an inside look at the world of EDM
from the fans
barcelonaclublife
bennybenassi
prettylightssoundsystemmodestep
kandi
aoki edc
squarepusher
b
ec
kyg
on
z
ga
dg
ett
eke
le
brk
orm
an
k
yke
bc
n
ste
vea
ok
i
cra
ck
wo
od
je
rem
yp
mit
ch
ell
c
hri
stin
am
org
an
n
oli
vert
wis
ty
16 we live for live music
on the road on the road
Fall ToursComing soon to a city near you
17live live issue 1
Fall Tours
18 we live for live music
new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013
Pretty Lights | Roseland Ballroom | New York
Zedd amp Nicky Romero | Club Nokia | Los Angeles
Chromeo Ana Sia Gramatic Poolside Snowglobe Music Festival | South Lake Tahoe
ATB MiM0SA Zeds Dead Paul Basic Wolfgang Gartner Krewella Colorado Convention Center | Denver
Skrillex Boyz Noise FlosstradomusThe Palace of Auburn Hills | Milwaukee
Shpongle Glitch Mob Sea of Dreams | San Francisco
Tiesto | Revel Ovation Hall | Atlantic City
The Disco Biscuits | Madison Square Garden
Paper Diamond | Oregon Convention Center | Portland
Bassnectar | Bridgestone Arena | Nashville
Lights All Night | Fair Park | Dallas
Beats Antique | Paramount Theatre | Seattle
Rusko | WaMu Theatre | Seattle
Lotus amp Moon Hooch | Rams Head Live | Baltimore
on the road
19live live issue 1
Industry
genre
pop culture
technology
20 we live for live music
The term ldquoElectronic Musicrdquo is coined by Werner Meyer Eppler
Rock nrsquo Roll music is born
RCA Mark II the first programmable sound synthesizer is invented by
Olson and Belar
Motown becomes dance music classics
1949
1950s
timeline 1949 - 1970
1955
First time anyone
had used the word synthesizer for a
piece of equipment
Rock nrsquo Roll redefines music as something to be listened to not danced to
We begin the story here
1960s
(COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY)
(THE BEAT)
21live live issue 1
Bob Moogrsquos synthesizer brought electronic music out of the realm of academia and into
the hands of musicians
Rock nrsquo roll becomes the sound of modern life It continues to grow
until splits into factions in the 1970s
The Moog Company develops the first modular synthesizer
The Beach Boysrsquo Good Vibrations is the first pop hit to feature
electronic sounds
Etta James releases ldquoSomethingrsquos Got a Hold of Merdquo a sample of which resonates
through the EDM explosion of late
1962
timeline 1949 - 1970
1962
1960s
1967
1964
1960sYouth start to attend rock concerts
instead of going to sock hops
King Tubby of Jamaica births the dub which will later give rise to the remix
(CAPITOL RECORDS)
(MOOG MUSIC)
null
21222783
22 we live for live music
Disco makes streaming music continuously cool and
popularizes the club scene Jim Morrison predicts
the future of music
The Mini Moog is invented becoming the first portable synthesizer
Synth music and space age pop is starting to impact TV
film and commercials
Disco is born
Hot Butterrsquos Popcorn becomes the first electronic pop hit
DJ Herc invents BreakbeatItalo Disco becomes the
first complete EDM genre
1970s
EARLY1970s
1972-1974 1973
1970 1978
1978
1972
1970
the 1970sldquoI can envision one person with l ike a lot of machines tapes and electronic setups
singing or speaking and using machinesrdquo-Jim Morrison
The Technics 1200 Mark II is released and becomes the industry standard
(PBS)
(RCO RECORDS)
timeline
null
2677309
23live live issue 1
Saturday Night Fever
Kraftwerk releases Autobahn
David Bowie and Blondie bring in New Wave
Sugar Hill Gangrsquos ldquoRapperrsquos Delightrdquo brings hip hop into the Top 40
Brian Eno births ambient music
The first digital sampler the Fairlight CMI (Computer Musical Instrument) is released
Disco declines as sentiments such as ldquoDisco Sucksrdquo and ldquoDeath to
Discordquo become popular
1977
L AT E1970s
1978 1978
1979
1979
1975
the 1970s
These days many people falsly associate this iconic soundtrack with the
beginning of disco
Kraftwerk members are considered tobe the ldquogodfathersrdquo of electronic music
(UNKNOWN)
timeline
24 we live for live music
Disco is thought to be dead but it just went underground where it morphed into house and techno
Video game music is born as a genre
Computers video games and electronic equipment become more affordable
efficient and put to great use
Roland TR 808 Rhythm Machine
Frankie Knuckles invents house music at the
Warehouse in Chicago
E-mu Emulator becomes the first affordable
digital sampler
The Hacienda Club opens in Manchester
The rave scene grows from acid house music in the United Kingdom
the 1980rsquos
1981
1982 1987
1980
1980 1981
1980s 1980s
(UNKOWN)
In the 1980s a host of new instruments based on synthet-ic sounds and sampl ing technolo-gy contributed to the formation of new genres of electronic mu-sic and the electronic sound on the whole Whi le these days the sounds of most of these instruments can be repl icated on a computer outfit-ted with the proper audio software DJs sti l l seek the retro instruments for the unique characteristics that come from analog instruments
timeline
25live live issue 1
Sampling and breakbeat become important features for both
hip-hop and EDM
MIDI inventedRoland TB 303
Baseline released
Techno rises out of the industrial
sounds of Detroit
Roland TR 909 Drum Machine
Acid house is born at the Hacienda Club in
Manchester
Electronic Dance Music first Summer of Love begins as the free-party scene takes the sound out of the club and into the open
Ambient music becomes just as important as the dance floor during EDMrsquos second
Summer of Love
Trip Hop and other downtempo genres find success with acts like Massive Attack and Portishead
the 1980rsquos
19871983-1985
1989-1991
1988
1989
1982 19841983
1980
MIDI is a protocol not a hardware which provided a standard for electronic instrument manufacturers
(MASSIVE ATTACK)
London becomes the hub of
EDM
timeline
Computer-based production allows for DJs to recreate the sounds found in traditional analog instruments as
well as new sounds that have never been heard before (eg the Dubstep wob) It also opened up the realm of
EDM creation to anyone with the right software
Responsible for EDC Nocturnal and Wonderland Festivals
Rise of the super club and superstar DJs
The media dubs of all electronic music
ldquotechnordquo
Hardcore music begins to dominate the British
rave scene
Jungle forms out of hardcore
Paul Oakenfold Paul Van Dyk and DJ Tiesto bring trance
music to the forefront
Insomniac Events is established in Southern California
Tommy Boy Records releases the first Jock Jams album
timeline the 1990rsquos
MP3 digital audio format is introduced
1990s
1990s
1992
1990s 1990s
1993
1991
1995
Rave music sees slight mainstream success with artists such as C amp C Music Factory and
Snap and begins to infuence pop music
With the growth of personal computing electronic artists began to migrate from analog electronic
instruments to computer-based production
EARLY1990s
EARLY1990s
(TOMMY BOY RECORDS)
>
>
null
19304054
Although electronica failed to go main-stream its loops and textures find their
way into pop and hip hop
They are the developers of Ableton Live one of the premiere loop-based
sequencers used in modern production
EDC begins as a one day event
Drum and bass evolves out of jungle
Record companies try to market techno under a new namemdash
ldquoelectronicardquomdash but fail
Fatboy Slim makes $0 off of Rockafeller Skank after giving 25 of the royalties to each of
the four artists he used samples from
Moby licenses every track on his
Play album
timeline the 1990rsquos
Napster launchesAbleton is founded
19991994
1995
1991 19991999
1997 1998
1997In the UK raves are forced back underground with the passing of
the Criminal Justice Act
ProTools released at a price of $6000
LATE1990s
LATE1990s
As artists begin to use computers in production
glitch hop evolves
This new law defined gatherings of more than 20 people listening to
ldquorepetitive beatsrdquo as illegal
(SKINT RECORDS)
EDMrsquoS non-descript beats are perfect for marketing
28 we live for live music
In an interview with the New York Times David Bowie claims copyright and intellectual property
will cease to exist in the next ten years
Congress passes a law holding club owners responsible for their patronsrsquo actions and
affecting the whole industry
Tiesto DJs the Athens Olympic Opening Ceremonies
The GRAMMYs add a Best DanceElectronica
Album category
Dubstep nights begin to pop up in the underground music
scene around the USDubstep begins to grow
out of South London
timeline
Limewire introducedCD sales peak iTunes launchedThe iPod brings digital music players to the masses
2002
2000 2001 2001 2003
2003
20062001
2004 2005
ldquoYoursquod better be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation
thatrsquos going to be leftrdquo
Ruskorsquos ldquoCockney Thugrdquo i l lustrates the wob sound
2000-2009
(COURTESY OF RUSK0)
(DTSIABAIFLICKR CC)
null
24417967
29live live issue 1
Daft Punkrsquos pyramid setup at Coachella sets a
new bar for visuals
Kanye West spawns electro-rap with 808rsquos amp Heartbreak prominently fea-
turing the TR 808 drum machine
Lady Gaga and the Black Eyed Peas bring the Euro-house
sound to the Top 40
Guettarsquos ldquoWhen Love Take Overrdquo becomes an international pop hit and the Euro-house sound
starts to creep its way into popular music
timeline
2004 2004 2007
2008 2009
20072006
20092007-2009
Long-established one-day raves such as EDC and Ultra transform
into two-day festivals
Guetta co-wrote ldquoBoom Boom Powrdquo
Gagarsquos Bad Romance has nearly 05 bi l l ion YouTube views
Gary Richards starts Hard Events
Youtube launched Beatport launched
2000-2009
iPhone released
(KARL WALTERGETTY IMAGES)
(INTERSCOPE RECORDS)
2010-2011
Technics SL-1200 turntable the industry standard for thirty
years is discontinued
Limewire the top P2P file-sharing client
is shut downSpotify launches in the US
When an underage girl dies at EDC in LA EDM gets a lot backlash but this
also gives it a lot of exposure
EDC is forced out of LA and moves to Vegas which becomes the home of
EDM in the United States
Bassnectar plays Red Rocks where he incurs $100000 in noise violations
after bringing his own speakers
Skrillex is nominated for five Grammy Awards he
wins three
timeline
2010
2010
2010
2010 2010 2011
2011 2011
2011
2011
Black Eyed Peasrsquo house-based ldquoThe TimeDirty Bitrdquo tops the
charts in over 15 countries
Hip hop and EDM production styles have always mirrored one another now they are morphing
EDM finally has a home in America
Moombahton a fusion of house music and reggae is
born at a house party in DC
Skrillex explodes onto the main-stream music scene bringing the ldquodroprdquo and heavy bass with him
DJAY app
(COURTESY OF SKRILLEX)
2010-2011
Britneyrsquos Hold it Against Me acts as the catalyst for replacing the pop
bridge with the dubstep drop
EDC Vegas has over 230000 attendees in
three days
The Victoria Secret Fashion Show features rave-inspired
outfits for the final walk
timeline
2011 2011
2011 2011 2011
2011
Tiesto plays the biggest single headliner DJ show in US
history to 26000 in Carson CA
Nielsen Soundscan reports digital music sales in the US are larger than
physical sales for the first time
Absoulte Vodka sponsors Swedish House Mafiarsquos
sold out MSG show
According to Bil lboard this is considered a watershed moment
brands adopting EDM
EDM technology is large-ly based now around
software programs and
their coordinating hard-
ware--control lers for Ableton
Scratch decks for Serato
and more There is an entire
spectrum of modern DJ tech-
nology avai lable and the path
one takes depends on what
sound they are trying to achieve
(JIVE RECORDS)
(ZUMA PRESS)
(SAMANTHA HOFFER)
The neon colors associated with EDM can be found al l over
the fashion world
With the laptop as instrument EDM
producers constantly
blend and mix elements
of different genres lead-
ing to the prol iferation of
microgenres which are difficult to
distinguish
null
26177792
32 we live for live music
EDC Vegas sees 300000+ people
over 3 days
Family-friendly animated film Wreck It Ralph uses
dance music in trailer
Feature-length EDM documentary ldquoThe Drop The EDM Culture
Explosionrdquo enters production
A system of alerts are set up to notify users when they
infringe on copyright law
Night Culture Inc becomes the first EDM-oriented publicly
traded company
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline 2012
Queen Latifah sings the National Anthem at the opening game of
the NFL seasonover a beat
JAN
OCTJULY SEPT
SEPTAUG
JUNE JUNEMARUltra Music Festival in Miami
has 40000 viewers watching its online stream over YouTube
Universal closes on EMI becoming the largest of the remaining three
major record labels
(DANNY MOLOSHOK REUTERS)
(BIG MACHINE)
null
21255588
33live live issue 1
After exploding onto the mainstream music scene and pop culture in the past year the industry has set its signts on EDM ventures proved the genre has final ly conquered the final frontiermdashAmerica
Live Nation purchases Hard Events
Media mogul Robert FX Sillerman says he will spend
$1B on EDM enterprises
EDM artists get the spotlight at the Grammys for the 1st time with addi-tion of a dance music performance
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline
Taylor Swift adopts the dubstep drop with her single ldquoI Knew You
Were Troublerdquo
JUNEFEB JULY
JUNE JUNE
OCT OCT NOV
NOVOCT
Bieber drops his first dub-step-influenced track ldquoAs
Long as You Love Merdquo
Dance-based songs can be found all across the radio
The first professional media outlet for EDM is announced
NYU introduces a course on the Business of Electronic amp
Dance Music
Billboard hosts the 2nd Annual FutureSound conference to ad-dress the future of the industry
NOVEMBERBLACK WIDOW
MUSIC PUBLISHES A LIST OF 230+ EDM SUB-GENRESAND
COUNTING
(BIG MACHINE)
34 we live for live music
BACK TO THE
FUTUREThirty years after the ldquodeathrdquo of disco dance music is back in America and bigger than ever To understand
where it is going we must take a look at the past
35live live issue 1
The most recent main-stream movement to hit the United States
E l e c t r o n i c D a n c e M u s i c (EDM) did so as an explosion of lights neon and pulsating beats But dance music is nothing new Although EDM seems entirely novel to many of Amer icarsquos youth dance music has a long and storied history
In the beginning mus ic c r e a t e d v i a e l e c t r o n i c ins t r ument s was focused on academic pursuit s and high ar t The use of elec-t ron ic s i n popu la r mus ic c rea t ion b egan w i t h t he commerc ia l i z a t ion o f t he synthesizer in the 1960s As technology evolved so did experimentation with elec-tronic instruments
In the 1970s the days of disco led to the develop-ment of e lec t ronic dance mus ic when DJs invented the traditional two-turntable setup to continuously stream together music so that the dancing never had to stop U n f o r t u na te l y f o r d a n c e music just as quickly as disco was embraced ant i -d isco sentiments fueled by racism and fear of change pushed it into the underground
It was in this underground s p a c e d u r i n g t h e lsquo 8 0 s that modern dance music evo lved St r ides made in elec tronic ins trumentation developed the synthesizer machines that would form the backbones of house and techno music the Roland TB 303 baseline and Roland TR 909 drum machine
A c c o r d i n g t o T h e Guard ianrsquos recent l y pub -lished timeline A History of Modern Music DJ Frankie Knuckles is responsible for the development of house music characterized by its
44 beats Techno rose out of Detroit a few years later inspired by the indus tr ial sounds of the city
While wildly popular in the underground music scene techno and house did not find commercial success in Amer ica I t was not unt i l the lat ter par t of the lsquo80s when the sounds of house and techno found their way to t he UK and mor phed into a new sub-genre acid house that the commercial club culture was born albeit exclusively in Europe
While dance music took of f r unning on the other side of the pond in America a dif ferent s tor y began to unfold As rap and hip-hop took a s t ronghold of the music industr y in the late eighties and nineties dance music remained confined to the peripheries
A s d a n c e - m u s i c D J s w o r ke d t o e v o l v e t h e i r sound and keep up w i th technology hip -hop DJs who adopted the traditional turntable setup from the DJs of disco as well as their pro-duction techniques began to work in the record ing s tudios and inf luence the industr y especially in the realm of pop music
I n t h e 19 9 0 s i n s i d e r s thought EDM had f ina l l y hit the jackpot and found mainstream success In an inter v iew with PaperMag industry vet Gary Richards explains ldquothe f irst farewell to the undergroundrdquo
ldquoBy 1993 i t felt l ike the music wasnrsquot underground anymore so I threw a par ty c a l l e d R ave A m e r i c a a t Knot t s Ber r y Farm which i s an amusement par k in O r a n g e C o u n t y I t s o l d out with l ike 20000 peo-ple Rick Rubin came with
Anthony K ied is f rom the Red Hot Chili Peppers and a couple guys from ZZ Top and he asked me if I wanted to work in the record busi-ness and help them s ign some EDM ar t i s t s I sa id sure the Prodigy were super hot and it seemed like it was blowing up But we star ted signing all these techno art-ists thinking theyrsquod catch on too but nobody was buying it Nobodyrdquo
Jus t l i ke R ichards says n o b o d y w a s b u y i n g i t D a n c e m u s i c w a s n o t catching on in the way the industr y would have liked so in 1997 the entire music industry and press put their full force behind ldquoelectron-icardquo the new catch-all name they had given to the genre in an attempt to successfully market it
Despite the gl impses of success seen froma handful of artists the genre failed to succeed and the industr y distanced itself from dance music far ther than i t had when disco ldquodiedrdquo
T h i s f a i l u r e c a n b e accounted to EDM not f it-t i ng i n to t h e ma r ke t i ng machinery of the industr y The t radit ional setup was f ixed for four-minute rock and pop singles and album tour s not t he ex tended club mixes and residencies that were the basis of the EDM world Not only was the indus t r y i l l - equipped to market electronic music but many consumers also felt it abrasive and awkward attempting to listen to this machine-made glitch-based music that was so unfamiliar to their ears It was not until the digital revolution of the new millennium that elec-tronic dance music f inal ly found its place
36 we live for live music
Festival
MAJOR LAZER AT SUMMERFEST IN HOUSTON JUNE 2012
37live live issue 1
If music in 2012 could talk it would sound a lot like the Bill Orsquo Reillyrsquos blooper ldquoLetrsquos do it liverdquo While attending concerts has been popular since rock and roll shows in the 1950s the recent electronic music boom has made it exponentially more so
One reason accord ing to Forbes i s that as resource constraints have t ightened people are spending thei r money more on exper iences as opposed to manufactured products But it is more than that EDM has managed to ent i re ly t rans -form the concept of a concer t by blurring the lines between going out dancing and going out to see music These days one would pay the same amount to see superstar-DJ David Guetta in an arena that they would if they were simply dancing to him spin-ning in a club
But this popularity was not always the case As a genre born in the world of nightclubs EDMrsquos parties were lambasted for years as depraved raves Now many kids will go to a rave before they attend a rock concert Why the sudden change A major factor is rebranding
Raves became festivals Electronic became EDMOnce shed of the negative associations with raves
and the bad memories of the electronicarsquos failure EDM shows and festivals began to proliferate across the countr y No longer hiding in remote f ields or empt y warehouse e lec t ronic mus ic promoter s looked to book DJs in public arenas and concer t halls
Elec tr ic Daisy Carnival (EDC) 2010 a rave put on by one of the major EDM promoters Insomniac
Event s ser ved as a turning point for the genre when an underage gir l died at the event causing severe backlash against Insomniac but also giving the genre lots of exposure EDC was run out of Los Angeles but found refuge in the always-accepting city of Las Vegas It was here in Vegas that EDM finally found a homemdashnow playing the same role to America as Ibiza did to Europe when the rave scene star ted there in the 1980s Superstar DJs can be found any week as a resident DJ to Tao XS or one of the many other posh clubs and the landmark event of the year EDC Vegas is now one of the largest raves in the world with over 300000 attendees last year
EDC is not the only big festival on the market now though Festivals are becoming trendymdashan indicator of direction the music industry is headed in towards the live and away from the recorded According to Metrowizecom an online nightli fe guide in 2012 alone at leas t thir t y-two new fes t ivals began in Americamdashfif teen of them dedicated solely to EDM
Long-standing traditions in the music industry fes-tivals typically only attracted people who spent a lot of time at live music and concertshellipuntil recently
As EDM crossed over into pop music the l ines became blur red between a night of going out to dance at a club and night of going out to see your favorite ar tist at a concer t People who a few years ago never attended a concert beyond the major pop ar tists are now concer t-fiends as the ldquopoprdquo ar tists they love today are world-renowned DJs
Of course as any genre crosses into the main-stream it is going to become increasingly popular
FeverEDMS BOOMING SUCCESS IN THE FESTIVAL MARKET HAS HEADS
TURNING FROM AROUND THE INDUSTRY TO INVEST IN LIVE MUSIC
38 we live for live music
with the masses but EDMrsquos explosion is unparal-leled Hundreds of thousands of people attended EDC Vegas and that was just one of dozens of elec-tronic dance festivals and all-night events this year
Because the live experience is EDMrsquos native for-mat the genre is par ticularly nuanced to success on the road Matt Adell of Beatport the online mecca of the DJ community explains one of the reasons why
ldquoPer formers such as Skr illex are incredibly ef f i -cient touring operations compared to rock bands Itrsquos less expensive than a rock group because therersquos just one per former Therersquos much less gear and it rsquos easier to set up because therersquos no live micro-phones So the suppor t team required is so much smallerrdquo
Bobby Clay head of the electronic division at C3 Presents touches on another aspect of EDM that primes the genre for the road ldquoIt rsquos like you donrsquot need to have a full studio on your tour bus to create the next banger or the next huge club track or the next Rihanna remix You can do it from the comfort of a tour bus or the green room of whatever arena some of these big people are playing in nowrdquo EDM ar tists have the luxury of not having to break from tour to create new songs
Although EDM is pr imed for tour ing i t is only in the past couple of years that the genre took on this rock and roll mentality As shows star ted to be booked in rock and roll venues and DJproducers took to the road stopping in every middle town and college campus in America like a rock band would DJs became rock stars in their own right One ar tist in par ticular is noted for condensing the drawn out peaks and falls of dance music into four and a half minute radio-ready tracks the half-shaved goofy-glasses wearing kid known as Skrillex Love him or hate him his genre-fusing in your face style helped to launch EDM to the place it is at today
With mega-DJs such as Skrillex earning up to $1 million per festival appearance and groups such as Swedish House Mafia selling out Madison Square Garden in nine minutes it is no surprise that corpo-rate heads have turned to this once-ignored market Over the summer Live Nation bought Hard Events one of the original promoters of the genre whose brands of Hardfest Holy Ship and Haunted Hard Mansion have gone on to great success Shor t ly af ter media mogul Robert FX Sillerman pledged to invest $1 billion dollars in EDM ventures
As the money pours in 2013 is looking to be the biggest year yet for EDM Having finally solidified i t s place in the music industr y (and at the fore-front nevertheless) Electronic Dance Music is ready to guide the music industry in a new directionmdasha direction towards the future towards a more diver-sified music industry towards a music industry that lives for live music
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
39live live issue 1
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
AT LEAST 32 NEW FESTIVALS BEGAN IN THE UNITED STATES IN 2012 OF THESE FESTIVALS FIFTEEN OF THEM ARE DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC
40 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL WONDERLANDDowntown TexasApril 27-28 2012An inside look into the modern electronic music festival
41live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL WONDERLAND
42 we live for live music
43live live issue 1
A new generation neo-age hippies
44 we live for live musicWelcome to Wonderland
45live live issue 1
46 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
47live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Dillon Francis plays The Queenrsquos Ground
48 we live for live music
49live live issue 1
Visual explosions to coordinate with the
audio attack of a drop
50 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
51live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
EDM shows are known for their
high-impact visuals
52 we live for live music
53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
Button 7
Button 8
Button 9
Button 10
Button 11
Button 12
button13
Button 52
Button 54
Button 56
Button 55
Button 43
Button 44
Button 49
Button 50
Button 48
14 we live for live music
PICS FROM THE SHOW
FROM THE FANS
diplo bassnectar
NYCclublife
houseparty lightshow
ravebarbie
moderngogogirl
biggigantic
tiesto
k
yke
bc
n
msj
ek
ka
kan
dii
nsp
ira
tio
ns
b
rad
pe
ters
5
djd
oc-
sto
ne
jh
oc
ks
n
ick
yh
ilto
n
rave
ba
rbie
ty
lers
he
rrit
t
15live live issue 1
Photos from the fans for an inside look at the world of EDM
from the fans
barcelonaclublife
bennybenassi
prettylightssoundsystemmodestep
kandi
aoki edc
squarepusher
b
ec
kyg
on
z
ga
dg
ett
eke
le
brk
orm
an
k
yke
bc
n
ste
vea
ok
i
cra
ck
wo
od
je
rem
yp
mit
ch
ell
c
hri
stin
am
org
an
n
oli
vert
wis
ty
16 we live for live music
on the road on the road
Fall ToursComing soon to a city near you
17live live issue 1
Fall Tours
18 we live for live music
new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013
Pretty Lights | Roseland Ballroom | New York
Zedd amp Nicky Romero | Club Nokia | Los Angeles
Chromeo Ana Sia Gramatic Poolside Snowglobe Music Festival | South Lake Tahoe
ATB MiM0SA Zeds Dead Paul Basic Wolfgang Gartner Krewella Colorado Convention Center | Denver
Skrillex Boyz Noise FlosstradomusThe Palace of Auburn Hills | Milwaukee
Shpongle Glitch Mob Sea of Dreams | San Francisco
Tiesto | Revel Ovation Hall | Atlantic City
The Disco Biscuits | Madison Square Garden
Paper Diamond | Oregon Convention Center | Portland
Bassnectar | Bridgestone Arena | Nashville
Lights All Night | Fair Park | Dallas
Beats Antique | Paramount Theatre | Seattle
Rusko | WaMu Theatre | Seattle
Lotus amp Moon Hooch | Rams Head Live | Baltimore
on the road
19live live issue 1
Industry
genre
pop culture
technology
20 we live for live music
The term ldquoElectronic Musicrdquo is coined by Werner Meyer Eppler
Rock nrsquo Roll music is born
RCA Mark II the first programmable sound synthesizer is invented by
Olson and Belar
Motown becomes dance music classics
1949
1950s
timeline 1949 - 1970
1955
First time anyone
had used the word synthesizer for a
piece of equipment
Rock nrsquo Roll redefines music as something to be listened to not danced to
We begin the story here
1960s
(COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY)
(THE BEAT)
21live live issue 1
Bob Moogrsquos synthesizer brought electronic music out of the realm of academia and into
the hands of musicians
Rock nrsquo roll becomes the sound of modern life It continues to grow
until splits into factions in the 1970s
The Moog Company develops the first modular synthesizer
The Beach Boysrsquo Good Vibrations is the first pop hit to feature
electronic sounds
Etta James releases ldquoSomethingrsquos Got a Hold of Merdquo a sample of which resonates
through the EDM explosion of late
1962
timeline 1949 - 1970
1962
1960s
1967
1964
1960sYouth start to attend rock concerts
instead of going to sock hops
King Tubby of Jamaica births the dub which will later give rise to the remix
(CAPITOL RECORDS)
(MOOG MUSIC)
null
21222783
22 we live for live music
Disco makes streaming music continuously cool and
popularizes the club scene Jim Morrison predicts
the future of music
The Mini Moog is invented becoming the first portable synthesizer
Synth music and space age pop is starting to impact TV
film and commercials
Disco is born
Hot Butterrsquos Popcorn becomes the first electronic pop hit
DJ Herc invents BreakbeatItalo Disco becomes the
first complete EDM genre
1970s
EARLY1970s
1972-1974 1973
1970 1978
1978
1972
1970
the 1970sldquoI can envision one person with l ike a lot of machines tapes and electronic setups
singing or speaking and using machinesrdquo-Jim Morrison
The Technics 1200 Mark II is released and becomes the industry standard
(PBS)
(RCO RECORDS)
timeline
null
2677309
23live live issue 1
Saturday Night Fever
Kraftwerk releases Autobahn
David Bowie and Blondie bring in New Wave
Sugar Hill Gangrsquos ldquoRapperrsquos Delightrdquo brings hip hop into the Top 40
Brian Eno births ambient music
The first digital sampler the Fairlight CMI (Computer Musical Instrument) is released
Disco declines as sentiments such as ldquoDisco Sucksrdquo and ldquoDeath to
Discordquo become popular
1977
L AT E1970s
1978 1978
1979
1979
1975
the 1970s
These days many people falsly associate this iconic soundtrack with the
beginning of disco
Kraftwerk members are considered tobe the ldquogodfathersrdquo of electronic music
(UNKNOWN)
timeline
24 we live for live music
Disco is thought to be dead but it just went underground where it morphed into house and techno
Video game music is born as a genre
Computers video games and electronic equipment become more affordable
efficient and put to great use
Roland TR 808 Rhythm Machine
Frankie Knuckles invents house music at the
Warehouse in Chicago
E-mu Emulator becomes the first affordable
digital sampler
The Hacienda Club opens in Manchester
The rave scene grows from acid house music in the United Kingdom
the 1980rsquos
1981
1982 1987
1980
1980 1981
1980s 1980s
(UNKOWN)
In the 1980s a host of new instruments based on synthet-ic sounds and sampl ing technolo-gy contributed to the formation of new genres of electronic mu-sic and the electronic sound on the whole Whi le these days the sounds of most of these instruments can be repl icated on a computer outfit-ted with the proper audio software DJs sti l l seek the retro instruments for the unique characteristics that come from analog instruments
timeline
25live live issue 1
Sampling and breakbeat become important features for both
hip-hop and EDM
MIDI inventedRoland TB 303
Baseline released
Techno rises out of the industrial
sounds of Detroit
Roland TR 909 Drum Machine
Acid house is born at the Hacienda Club in
Manchester
Electronic Dance Music first Summer of Love begins as the free-party scene takes the sound out of the club and into the open
Ambient music becomes just as important as the dance floor during EDMrsquos second
Summer of Love
Trip Hop and other downtempo genres find success with acts like Massive Attack and Portishead
the 1980rsquos
19871983-1985
1989-1991
1988
1989
1982 19841983
1980
MIDI is a protocol not a hardware which provided a standard for electronic instrument manufacturers
(MASSIVE ATTACK)
London becomes the hub of
EDM
timeline
Computer-based production allows for DJs to recreate the sounds found in traditional analog instruments as
well as new sounds that have never been heard before (eg the Dubstep wob) It also opened up the realm of
EDM creation to anyone with the right software
Responsible for EDC Nocturnal and Wonderland Festivals
Rise of the super club and superstar DJs
The media dubs of all electronic music
ldquotechnordquo
Hardcore music begins to dominate the British
rave scene
Jungle forms out of hardcore
Paul Oakenfold Paul Van Dyk and DJ Tiesto bring trance
music to the forefront
Insomniac Events is established in Southern California
Tommy Boy Records releases the first Jock Jams album
timeline the 1990rsquos
MP3 digital audio format is introduced
1990s
1990s
1992
1990s 1990s
1993
1991
1995
Rave music sees slight mainstream success with artists such as C amp C Music Factory and
Snap and begins to infuence pop music
With the growth of personal computing electronic artists began to migrate from analog electronic
instruments to computer-based production
EARLY1990s
EARLY1990s
(TOMMY BOY RECORDS)
>
>
null
19304054
Although electronica failed to go main-stream its loops and textures find their
way into pop and hip hop
They are the developers of Ableton Live one of the premiere loop-based
sequencers used in modern production
EDC begins as a one day event
Drum and bass evolves out of jungle
Record companies try to market techno under a new namemdash
ldquoelectronicardquomdash but fail
Fatboy Slim makes $0 off of Rockafeller Skank after giving 25 of the royalties to each of
the four artists he used samples from
Moby licenses every track on his
Play album
timeline the 1990rsquos
Napster launchesAbleton is founded
19991994
1995
1991 19991999
1997 1998
1997In the UK raves are forced back underground with the passing of
the Criminal Justice Act
ProTools released at a price of $6000
LATE1990s
LATE1990s
As artists begin to use computers in production
glitch hop evolves
This new law defined gatherings of more than 20 people listening to
ldquorepetitive beatsrdquo as illegal
(SKINT RECORDS)
EDMrsquoS non-descript beats are perfect for marketing
28 we live for live music
In an interview with the New York Times David Bowie claims copyright and intellectual property
will cease to exist in the next ten years
Congress passes a law holding club owners responsible for their patronsrsquo actions and
affecting the whole industry
Tiesto DJs the Athens Olympic Opening Ceremonies
The GRAMMYs add a Best DanceElectronica
Album category
Dubstep nights begin to pop up in the underground music
scene around the USDubstep begins to grow
out of South London
timeline
Limewire introducedCD sales peak iTunes launchedThe iPod brings digital music players to the masses
2002
2000 2001 2001 2003
2003
20062001
2004 2005
ldquoYoursquod better be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation
thatrsquos going to be leftrdquo
Ruskorsquos ldquoCockney Thugrdquo i l lustrates the wob sound
2000-2009
(COURTESY OF RUSK0)
(DTSIABAIFLICKR CC)
null
24417967
29live live issue 1
Daft Punkrsquos pyramid setup at Coachella sets a
new bar for visuals
Kanye West spawns electro-rap with 808rsquos amp Heartbreak prominently fea-
turing the TR 808 drum machine
Lady Gaga and the Black Eyed Peas bring the Euro-house
sound to the Top 40
Guettarsquos ldquoWhen Love Take Overrdquo becomes an international pop hit and the Euro-house sound
starts to creep its way into popular music
timeline
2004 2004 2007
2008 2009
20072006
20092007-2009
Long-established one-day raves such as EDC and Ultra transform
into two-day festivals
Guetta co-wrote ldquoBoom Boom Powrdquo
Gagarsquos Bad Romance has nearly 05 bi l l ion YouTube views
Gary Richards starts Hard Events
Youtube launched Beatport launched
2000-2009
iPhone released
(KARL WALTERGETTY IMAGES)
(INTERSCOPE RECORDS)
2010-2011
Technics SL-1200 turntable the industry standard for thirty
years is discontinued
Limewire the top P2P file-sharing client
is shut downSpotify launches in the US
When an underage girl dies at EDC in LA EDM gets a lot backlash but this
also gives it a lot of exposure
EDC is forced out of LA and moves to Vegas which becomes the home of
EDM in the United States
Bassnectar plays Red Rocks where he incurs $100000 in noise violations
after bringing his own speakers
Skrillex is nominated for five Grammy Awards he
wins three
timeline
2010
2010
2010
2010 2010 2011
2011 2011
2011
2011
Black Eyed Peasrsquo house-based ldquoThe TimeDirty Bitrdquo tops the
charts in over 15 countries
Hip hop and EDM production styles have always mirrored one another now they are morphing
EDM finally has a home in America
Moombahton a fusion of house music and reggae is
born at a house party in DC
Skrillex explodes onto the main-stream music scene bringing the ldquodroprdquo and heavy bass with him
DJAY app
(COURTESY OF SKRILLEX)
2010-2011
Britneyrsquos Hold it Against Me acts as the catalyst for replacing the pop
bridge with the dubstep drop
EDC Vegas has over 230000 attendees in
three days
The Victoria Secret Fashion Show features rave-inspired
outfits for the final walk
timeline
2011 2011
2011 2011 2011
2011
Tiesto plays the biggest single headliner DJ show in US
history to 26000 in Carson CA
Nielsen Soundscan reports digital music sales in the US are larger than
physical sales for the first time
Absoulte Vodka sponsors Swedish House Mafiarsquos
sold out MSG show
According to Bil lboard this is considered a watershed moment
brands adopting EDM
EDM technology is large-ly based now around
software programs and
their coordinating hard-
ware--control lers for Ableton
Scratch decks for Serato
and more There is an entire
spectrum of modern DJ tech-
nology avai lable and the path
one takes depends on what
sound they are trying to achieve
(JIVE RECORDS)
(ZUMA PRESS)
(SAMANTHA HOFFER)
The neon colors associated with EDM can be found al l over
the fashion world
With the laptop as instrument EDM
producers constantly
blend and mix elements
of different genres lead-
ing to the prol iferation of
microgenres which are difficult to
distinguish
null
26177792
32 we live for live music
EDC Vegas sees 300000+ people
over 3 days
Family-friendly animated film Wreck It Ralph uses
dance music in trailer
Feature-length EDM documentary ldquoThe Drop The EDM Culture
Explosionrdquo enters production
A system of alerts are set up to notify users when they
infringe on copyright law
Night Culture Inc becomes the first EDM-oriented publicly
traded company
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline 2012
Queen Latifah sings the National Anthem at the opening game of
the NFL seasonover a beat
JAN
OCTJULY SEPT
SEPTAUG
JUNE JUNEMARUltra Music Festival in Miami
has 40000 viewers watching its online stream over YouTube
Universal closes on EMI becoming the largest of the remaining three
major record labels
(DANNY MOLOSHOK REUTERS)
(BIG MACHINE)
null
21255588
33live live issue 1
After exploding onto the mainstream music scene and pop culture in the past year the industry has set its signts on EDM ventures proved the genre has final ly conquered the final frontiermdashAmerica
Live Nation purchases Hard Events
Media mogul Robert FX Sillerman says he will spend
$1B on EDM enterprises
EDM artists get the spotlight at the Grammys for the 1st time with addi-tion of a dance music performance
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline
Taylor Swift adopts the dubstep drop with her single ldquoI Knew You
Were Troublerdquo
JUNEFEB JULY
JUNE JUNE
OCT OCT NOV
NOVOCT
Bieber drops his first dub-step-influenced track ldquoAs
Long as You Love Merdquo
Dance-based songs can be found all across the radio
The first professional media outlet for EDM is announced
NYU introduces a course on the Business of Electronic amp
Dance Music
Billboard hosts the 2nd Annual FutureSound conference to ad-dress the future of the industry
NOVEMBERBLACK WIDOW
MUSIC PUBLISHES A LIST OF 230+ EDM SUB-GENRESAND
COUNTING
(BIG MACHINE)
34 we live for live music
BACK TO THE
FUTUREThirty years after the ldquodeathrdquo of disco dance music is back in America and bigger than ever To understand
where it is going we must take a look at the past
35live live issue 1
The most recent main-stream movement to hit the United States
E l e c t r o n i c D a n c e M u s i c (EDM) did so as an explosion of lights neon and pulsating beats But dance music is nothing new Although EDM seems entirely novel to many of Amer icarsquos youth dance music has a long and storied history
In the beginning mus ic c r e a t e d v i a e l e c t r o n i c ins t r ument s was focused on academic pursuit s and high ar t The use of elec-t ron ic s i n popu la r mus ic c rea t ion b egan w i t h t he commerc ia l i z a t ion o f t he synthesizer in the 1960s As technology evolved so did experimentation with elec-tronic instruments
In the 1970s the days of disco led to the develop-ment of e lec t ronic dance mus ic when DJs invented the traditional two-turntable setup to continuously stream together music so that the dancing never had to stop U n f o r t u na te l y f o r d a n c e music just as quickly as disco was embraced ant i -d isco sentiments fueled by racism and fear of change pushed it into the underground
It was in this underground s p a c e d u r i n g t h e lsquo 8 0 s that modern dance music evo lved St r ides made in elec tronic ins trumentation developed the synthesizer machines that would form the backbones of house and techno music the Roland TB 303 baseline and Roland TR 909 drum machine
A c c o r d i n g t o T h e Guard ianrsquos recent l y pub -lished timeline A History of Modern Music DJ Frankie Knuckles is responsible for the development of house music characterized by its
44 beats Techno rose out of Detroit a few years later inspired by the indus tr ial sounds of the city
While wildly popular in the underground music scene techno and house did not find commercial success in Amer ica I t was not unt i l the lat ter par t of the lsquo80s when the sounds of house and techno found their way to t he UK and mor phed into a new sub-genre acid house that the commercial club culture was born albeit exclusively in Europe
While dance music took of f r unning on the other side of the pond in America a dif ferent s tor y began to unfold As rap and hip-hop took a s t ronghold of the music industr y in the late eighties and nineties dance music remained confined to the peripheries
A s d a n c e - m u s i c D J s w o r ke d t o e v o l v e t h e i r sound and keep up w i th technology hip -hop DJs who adopted the traditional turntable setup from the DJs of disco as well as their pro-duction techniques began to work in the record ing s tudios and inf luence the industr y especially in the realm of pop music
I n t h e 19 9 0 s i n s i d e r s thought EDM had f ina l l y hit the jackpot and found mainstream success In an inter v iew with PaperMag industry vet Gary Richards explains ldquothe f irst farewell to the undergroundrdquo
ldquoBy 1993 i t felt l ike the music wasnrsquot underground anymore so I threw a par ty c a l l e d R ave A m e r i c a a t Knot t s Ber r y Farm which i s an amusement par k in O r a n g e C o u n t y I t s o l d out with l ike 20000 peo-ple Rick Rubin came with
Anthony K ied is f rom the Red Hot Chili Peppers and a couple guys from ZZ Top and he asked me if I wanted to work in the record busi-ness and help them s ign some EDM ar t i s t s I sa id sure the Prodigy were super hot and it seemed like it was blowing up But we star ted signing all these techno art-ists thinking theyrsquod catch on too but nobody was buying it Nobodyrdquo
Jus t l i ke R ichards says n o b o d y w a s b u y i n g i t D a n c e m u s i c w a s n o t catching on in the way the industr y would have liked so in 1997 the entire music industry and press put their full force behind ldquoelectron-icardquo the new catch-all name they had given to the genre in an attempt to successfully market it
Despite the gl impses of success seen froma handful of artists the genre failed to succeed and the industr y distanced itself from dance music far ther than i t had when disco ldquodiedrdquo
T h i s f a i l u r e c a n b e accounted to EDM not f it-t i ng i n to t h e ma r ke t i ng machinery of the industr y The t radit ional setup was f ixed for four-minute rock and pop singles and album tour s not t he ex tended club mixes and residencies that were the basis of the EDM world Not only was the indus t r y i l l - equipped to market electronic music but many consumers also felt it abrasive and awkward attempting to listen to this machine-made glitch-based music that was so unfamiliar to their ears It was not until the digital revolution of the new millennium that elec-tronic dance music f inal ly found its place
36 we live for live music
Festival
MAJOR LAZER AT SUMMERFEST IN HOUSTON JUNE 2012
37live live issue 1
If music in 2012 could talk it would sound a lot like the Bill Orsquo Reillyrsquos blooper ldquoLetrsquos do it liverdquo While attending concerts has been popular since rock and roll shows in the 1950s the recent electronic music boom has made it exponentially more so
One reason accord ing to Forbes i s that as resource constraints have t ightened people are spending thei r money more on exper iences as opposed to manufactured products But it is more than that EDM has managed to ent i re ly t rans -form the concept of a concer t by blurring the lines between going out dancing and going out to see music These days one would pay the same amount to see superstar-DJ David Guetta in an arena that they would if they were simply dancing to him spin-ning in a club
But this popularity was not always the case As a genre born in the world of nightclubs EDMrsquos parties were lambasted for years as depraved raves Now many kids will go to a rave before they attend a rock concert Why the sudden change A major factor is rebranding
Raves became festivals Electronic became EDMOnce shed of the negative associations with raves
and the bad memories of the electronicarsquos failure EDM shows and festivals began to proliferate across the countr y No longer hiding in remote f ields or empt y warehouse e lec t ronic mus ic promoter s looked to book DJs in public arenas and concer t halls
Elec tr ic Daisy Carnival (EDC) 2010 a rave put on by one of the major EDM promoters Insomniac
Event s ser ved as a turning point for the genre when an underage gir l died at the event causing severe backlash against Insomniac but also giving the genre lots of exposure EDC was run out of Los Angeles but found refuge in the always-accepting city of Las Vegas It was here in Vegas that EDM finally found a homemdashnow playing the same role to America as Ibiza did to Europe when the rave scene star ted there in the 1980s Superstar DJs can be found any week as a resident DJ to Tao XS or one of the many other posh clubs and the landmark event of the year EDC Vegas is now one of the largest raves in the world with over 300000 attendees last year
EDC is not the only big festival on the market now though Festivals are becoming trendymdashan indicator of direction the music industry is headed in towards the live and away from the recorded According to Metrowizecom an online nightli fe guide in 2012 alone at leas t thir t y-two new fes t ivals began in Americamdashfif teen of them dedicated solely to EDM
Long-standing traditions in the music industry fes-tivals typically only attracted people who spent a lot of time at live music and concertshellipuntil recently
As EDM crossed over into pop music the l ines became blur red between a night of going out to dance at a club and night of going out to see your favorite ar tist at a concer t People who a few years ago never attended a concert beyond the major pop ar tists are now concer t-fiends as the ldquopoprdquo ar tists they love today are world-renowned DJs
Of course as any genre crosses into the main-stream it is going to become increasingly popular
FeverEDMS BOOMING SUCCESS IN THE FESTIVAL MARKET HAS HEADS
TURNING FROM AROUND THE INDUSTRY TO INVEST IN LIVE MUSIC
38 we live for live music
with the masses but EDMrsquos explosion is unparal-leled Hundreds of thousands of people attended EDC Vegas and that was just one of dozens of elec-tronic dance festivals and all-night events this year
Because the live experience is EDMrsquos native for-mat the genre is par ticularly nuanced to success on the road Matt Adell of Beatport the online mecca of the DJ community explains one of the reasons why
ldquoPer formers such as Skr illex are incredibly ef f i -cient touring operations compared to rock bands Itrsquos less expensive than a rock group because therersquos just one per former Therersquos much less gear and it rsquos easier to set up because therersquos no live micro-phones So the suppor t team required is so much smallerrdquo
Bobby Clay head of the electronic division at C3 Presents touches on another aspect of EDM that primes the genre for the road ldquoIt rsquos like you donrsquot need to have a full studio on your tour bus to create the next banger or the next huge club track or the next Rihanna remix You can do it from the comfort of a tour bus or the green room of whatever arena some of these big people are playing in nowrdquo EDM ar tists have the luxury of not having to break from tour to create new songs
Although EDM is pr imed for tour ing i t is only in the past couple of years that the genre took on this rock and roll mentality As shows star ted to be booked in rock and roll venues and DJproducers took to the road stopping in every middle town and college campus in America like a rock band would DJs became rock stars in their own right One ar tist in par ticular is noted for condensing the drawn out peaks and falls of dance music into four and a half minute radio-ready tracks the half-shaved goofy-glasses wearing kid known as Skrillex Love him or hate him his genre-fusing in your face style helped to launch EDM to the place it is at today
With mega-DJs such as Skrillex earning up to $1 million per festival appearance and groups such as Swedish House Mafia selling out Madison Square Garden in nine minutes it is no surprise that corpo-rate heads have turned to this once-ignored market Over the summer Live Nation bought Hard Events one of the original promoters of the genre whose brands of Hardfest Holy Ship and Haunted Hard Mansion have gone on to great success Shor t ly af ter media mogul Robert FX Sillerman pledged to invest $1 billion dollars in EDM ventures
As the money pours in 2013 is looking to be the biggest year yet for EDM Having finally solidified i t s place in the music industr y (and at the fore-front nevertheless) Electronic Dance Music is ready to guide the music industry in a new directionmdasha direction towards the future towards a more diver-sified music industry towards a music industry that lives for live music
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
39live live issue 1
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
AT LEAST 32 NEW FESTIVALS BEGAN IN THE UNITED STATES IN 2012 OF THESE FESTIVALS FIFTEEN OF THEM ARE DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC
40 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL WONDERLANDDowntown TexasApril 27-28 2012An inside look into the modern electronic music festival
41live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL WONDERLAND
42 we live for live music
43live live issue 1
A new generation neo-age hippies
44 we live for live musicWelcome to Wonderland
45live live issue 1
46 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
47live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Dillon Francis plays The Queenrsquos Ground
48 we live for live music
49live live issue 1
Visual explosions to coordinate with the
audio attack of a drop
50 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
51live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
EDM shows are known for their
high-impact visuals
52 we live for live music
53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
Button 7
Button 8
Button 9
Button 10
Button 11
Button 12
button13
Button 52
Button 54
Button 56
Button 55
Button 43
Button 44
Button 49
Button 50
Button 48
15live live issue 1
Photos from the fans for an inside look at the world of EDM
from the fans
barcelonaclublife
bennybenassi
prettylightssoundsystemmodestep
kandi
aoki edc
squarepusher
b
ec
kyg
on
z
ga
dg
ett
eke
le
brk
orm
an
k
yke
bc
n
ste
vea
ok
i
cra
ck
wo
od
je
rem
yp
mit
ch
ell
c
hri
stin
am
org
an
n
oli
vert
wis
ty
16 we live for live music
on the road on the road
Fall ToursComing soon to a city near you
17live live issue 1
Fall Tours
18 we live for live music
new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013
Pretty Lights | Roseland Ballroom | New York
Zedd amp Nicky Romero | Club Nokia | Los Angeles
Chromeo Ana Sia Gramatic Poolside Snowglobe Music Festival | South Lake Tahoe
ATB MiM0SA Zeds Dead Paul Basic Wolfgang Gartner Krewella Colorado Convention Center | Denver
Skrillex Boyz Noise FlosstradomusThe Palace of Auburn Hills | Milwaukee
Shpongle Glitch Mob Sea of Dreams | San Francisco
Tiesto | Revel Ovation Hall | Atlantic City
The Disco Biscuits | Madison Square Garden
Paper Diamond | Oregon Convention Center | Portland
Bassnectar | Bridgestone Arena | Nashville
Lights All Night | Fair Park | Dallas
Beats Antique | Paramount Theatre | Seattle
Rusko | WaMu Theatre | Seattle
Lotus amp Moon Hooch | Rams Head Live | Baltimore
on the road
19live live issue 1
Industry
genre
pop culture
technology
20 we live for live music
The term ldquoElectronic Musicrdquo is coined by Werner Meyer Eppler
Rock nrsquo Roll music is born
RCA Mark II the first programmable sound synthesizer is invented by
Olson and Belar
Motown becomes dance music classics
1949
1950s
timeline 1949 - 1970
1955
First time anyone
had used the word synthesizer for a
piece of equipment
Rock nrsquo Roll redefines music as something to be listened to not danced to
We begin the story here
1960s
(COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY)
(THE BEAT)
21live live issue 1
Bob Moogrsquos synthesizer brought electronic music out of the realm of academia and into
the hands of musicians
Rock nrsquo roll becomes the sound of modern life It continues to grow
until splits into factions in the 1970s
The Moog Company develops the first modular synthesizer
The Beach Boysrsquo Good Vibrations is the first pop hit to feature
electronic sounds
Etta James releases ldquoSomethingrsquos Got a Hold of Merdquo a sample of which resonates
through the EDM explosion of late
1962
timeline 1949 - 1970
1962
1960s
1967
1964
1960sYouth start to attend rock concerts
instead of going to sock hops
King Tubby of Jamaica births the dub which will later give rise to the remix
(CAPITOL RECORDS)
(MOOG MUSIC)
null
21222783
22 we live for live music
Disco makes streaming music continuously cool and
popularizes the club scene Jim Morrison predicts
the future of music
The Mini Moog is invented becoming the first portable synthesizer
Synth music and space age pop is starting to impact TV
film and commercials
Disco is born
Hot Butterrsquos Popcorn becomes the first electronic pop hit
DJ Herc invents BreakbeatItalo Disco becomes the
first complete EDM genre
1970s
EARLY1970s
1972-1974 1973
1970 1978
1978
1972
1970
the 1970sldquoI can envision one person with l ike a lot of machines tapes and electronic setups
singing or speaking and using machinesrdquo-Jim Morrison
The Technics 1200 Mark II is released and becomes the industry standard
(PBS)
(RCO RECORDS)
timeline
null
2677309
23live live issue 1
Saturday Night Fever
Kraftwerk releases Autobahn
David Bowie and Blondie bring in New Wave
Sugar Hill Gangrsquos ldquoRapperrsquos Delightrdquo brings hip hop into the Top 40
Brian Eno births ambient music
The first digital sampler the Fairlight CMI (Computer Musical Instrument) is released
Disco declines as sentiments such as ldquoDisco Sucksrdquo and ldquoDeath to
Discordquo become popular
1977
L AT E1970s
1978 1978
1979
1979
1975
the 1970s
These days many people falsly associate this iconic soundtrack with the
beginning of disco
Kraftwerk members are considered tobe the ldquogodfathersrdquo of electronic music
(UNKNOWN)
timeline
24 we live for live music
Disco is thought to be dead but it just went underground where it morphed into house and techno
Video game music is born as a genre
Computers video games and electronic equipment become more affordable
efficient and put to great use
Roland TR 808 Rhythm Machine
Frankie Knuckles invents house music at the
Warehouse in Chicago
E-mu Emulator becomes the first affordable
digital sampler
The Hacienda Club opens in Manchester
The rave scene grows from acid house music in the United Kingdom
the 1980rsquos
1981
1982 1987
1980
1980 1981
1980s 1980s
(UNKOWN)
In the 1980s a host of new instruments based on synthet-ic sounds and sampl ing technolo-gy contributed to the formation of new genres of electronic mu-sic and the electronic sound on the whole Whi le these days the sounds of most of these instruments can be repl icated on a computer outfit-ted with the proper audio software DJs sti l l seek the retro instruments for the unique characteristics that come from analog instruments
timeline
25live live issue 1
Sampling and breakbeat become important features for both
hip-hop and EDM
MIDI inventedRoland TB 303
Baseline released
Techno rises out of the industrial
sounds of Detroit
Roland TR 909 Drum Machine
Acid house is born at the Hacienda Club in
Manchester
Electronic Dance Music first Summer of Love begins as the free-party scene takes the sound out of the club and into the open
Ambient music becomes just as important as the dance floor during EDMrsquos second
Summer of Love
Trip Hop and other downtempo genres find success with acts like Massive Attack and Portishead
the 1980rsquos
19871983-1985
1989-1991
1988
1989
1982 19841983
1980
MIDI is a protocol not a hardware which provided a standard for electronic instrument manufacturers
(MASSIVE ATTACK)
London becomes the hub of
EDM
timeline
Computer-based production allows for DJs to recreate the sounds found in traditional analog instruments as
well as new sounds that have never been heard before (eg the Dubstep wob) It also opened up the realm of
EDM creation to anyone with the right software
Responsible for EDC Nocturnal and Wonderland Festivals
Rise of the super club and superstar DJs
The media dubs of all electronic music
ldquotechnordquo
Hardcore music begins to dominate the British
rave scene
Jungle forms out of hardcore
Paul Oakenfold Paul Van Dyk and DJ Tiesto bring trance
music to the forefront
Insomniac Events is established in Southern California
Tommy Boy Records releases the first Jock Jams album
timeline the 1990rsquos
MP3 digital audio format is introduced
1990s
1990s
1992
1990s 1990s
1993
1991
1995
Rave music sees slight mainstream success with artists such as C amp C Music Factory and
Snap and begins to infuence pop music
With the growth of personal computing electronic artists began to migrate from analog electronic
instruments to computer-based production
EARLY1990s
EARLY1990s
(TOMMY BOY RECORDS)
>
>
null
19304054
Although electronica failed to go main-stream its loops and textures find their
way into pop and hip hop
They are the developers of Ableton Live one of the premiere loop-based
sequencers used in modern production
EDC begins as a one day event
Drum and bass evolves out of jungle
Record companies try to market techno under a new namemdash
ldquoelectronicardquomdash but fail
Fatboy Slim makes $0 off of Rockafeller Skank after giving 25 of the royalties to each of
the four artists he used samples from
Moby licenses every track on his
Play album
timeline the 1990rsquos
Napster launchesAbleton is founded
19991994
1995
1991 19991999
1997 1998
1997In the UK raves are forced back underground with the passing of
the Criminal Justice Act
ProTools released at a price of $6000
LATE1990s
LATE1990s
As artists begin to use computers in production
glitch hop evolves
This new law defined gatherings of more than 20 people listening to
ldquorepetitive beatsrdquo as illegal
(SKINT RECORDS)
EDMrsquoS non-descript beats are perfect for marketing
28 we live for live music
In an interview with the New York Times David Bowie claims copyright and intellectual property
will cease to exist in the next ten years
Congress passes a law holding club owners responsible for their patronsrsquo actions and
affecting the whole industry
Tiesto DJs the Athens Olympic Opening Ceremonies
The GRAMMYs add a Best DanceElectronica
Album category
Dubstep nights begin to pop up in the underground music
scene around the USDubstep begins to grow
out of South London
timeline
Limewire introducedCD sales peak iTunes launchedThe iPod brings digital music players to the masses
2002
2000 2001 2001 2003
2003
20062001
2004 2005
ldquoYoursquod better be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation
thatrsquos going to be leftrdquo
Ruskorsquos ldquoCockney Thugrdquo i l lustrates the wob sound
2000-2009
(COURTESY OF RUSK0)
(DTSIABAIFLICKR CC)
null
24417967
29live live issue 1
Daft Punkrsquos pyramid setup at Coachella sets a
new bar for visuals
Kanye West spawns electro-rap with 808rsquos amp Heartbreak prominently fea-
turing the TR 808 drum machine
Lady Gaga and the Black Eyed Peas bring the Euro-house
sound to the Top 40
Guettarsquos ldquoWhen Love Take Overrdquo becomes an international pop hit and the Euro-house sound
starts to creep its way into popular music
timeline
2004 2004 2007
2008 2009
20072006
20092007-2009
Long-established one-day raves such as EDC and Ultra transform
into two-day festivals
Guetta co-wrote ldquoBoom Boom Powrdquo
Gagarsquos Bad Romance has nearly 05 bi l l ion YouTube views
Gary Richards starts Hard Events
Youtube launched Beatport launched
2000-2009
iPhone released
(KARL WALTERGETTY IMAGES)
(INTERSCOPE RECORDS)
2010-2011
Technics SL-1200 turntable the industry standard for thirty
years is discontinued
Limewire the top P2P file-sharing client
is shut downSpotify launches in the US
When an underage girl dies at EDC in LA EDM gets a lot backlash but this
also gives it a lot of exposure
EDC is forced out of LA and moves to Vegas which becomes the home of
EDM in the United States
Bassnectar plays Red Rocks where he incurs $100000 in noise violations
after bringing his own speakers
Skrillex is nominated for five Grammy Awards he
wins three
timeline
2010
2010
2010
2010 2010 2011
2011 2011
2011
2011
Black Eyed Peasrsquo house-based ldquoThe TimeDirty Bitrdquo tops the
charts in over 15 countries
Hip hop and EDM production styles have always mirrored one another now they are morphing
EDM finally has a home in America
Moombahton a fusion of house music and reggae is
born at a house party in DC
Skrillex explodes onto the main-stream music scene bringing the ldquodroprdquo and heavy bass with him
DJAY app
(COURTESY OF SKRILLEX)
2010-2011
Britneyrsquos Hold it Against Me acts as the catalyst for replacing the pop
bridge with the dubstep drop
EDC Vegas has over 230000 attendees in
three days
The Victoria Secret Fashion Show features rave-inspired
outfits for the final walk
timeline
2011 2011
2011 2011 2011
2011
Tiesto plays the biggest single headliner DJ show in US
history to 26000 in Carson CA
Nielsen Soundscan reports digital music sales in the US are larger than
physical sales for the first time
Absoulte Vodka sponsors Swedish House Mafiarsquos
sold out MSG show
According to Bil lboard this is considered a watershed moment
brands adopting EDM
EDM technology is large-ly based now around
software programs and
their coordinating hard-
ware--control lers for Ableton
Scratch decks for Serato
and more There is an entire
spectrum of modern DJ tech-
nology avai lable and the path
one takes depends on what
sound they are trying to achieve
(JIVE RECORDS)
(ZUMA PRESS)
(SAMANTHA HOFFER)
The neon colors associated with EDM can be found al l over
the fashion world
With the laptop as instrument EDM
producers constantly
blend and mix elements
of different genres lead-
ing to the prol iferation of
microgenres which are difficult to
distinguish
null
26177792
32 we live for live music
EDC Vegas sees 300000+ people
over 3 days
Family-friendly animated film Wreck It Ralph uses
dance music in trailer
Feature-length EDM documentary ldquoThe Drop The EDM Culture
Explosionrdquo enters production
A system of alerts are set up to notify users when they
infringe on copyright law
Night Culture Inc becomes the first EDM-oriented publicly
traded company
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline 2012
Queen Latifah sings the National Anthem at the opening game of
the NFL seasonover a beat
JAN
OCTJULY SEPT
SEPTAUG
JUNE JUNEMARUltra Music Festival in Miami
has 40000 viewers watching its online stream over YouTube
Universal closes on EMI becoming the largest of the remaining three
major record labels
(DANNY MOLOSHOK REUTERS)
(BIG MACHINE)
null
21255588
33live live issue 1
After exploding onto the mainstream music scene and pop culture in the past year the industry has set its signts on EDM ventures proved the genre has final ly conquered the final frontiermdashAmerica
Live Nation purchases Hard Events
Media mogul Robert FX Sillerman says he will spend
$1B on EDM enterprises
EDM artists get the spotlight at the Grammys for the 1st time with addi-tion of a dance music performance
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline
Taylor Swift adopts the dubstep drop with her single ldquoI Knew You
Were Troublerdquo
JUNEFEB JULY
JUNE JUNE
OCT OCT NOV
NOVOCT
Bieber drops his first dub-step-influenced track ldquoAs
Long as You Love Merdquo
Dance-based songs can be found all across the radio
The first professional media outlet for EDM is announced
NYU introduces a course on the Business of Electronic amp
Dance Music
Billboard hosts the 2nd Annual FutureSound conference to ad-dress the future of the industry
NOVEMBERBLACK WIDOW
MUSIC PUBLISHES A LIST OF 230+ EDM SUB-GENRESAND
COUNTING
(BIG MACHINE)
34 we live for live music
BACK TO THE
FUTUREThirty years after the ldquodeathrdquo of disco dance music is back in America and bigger than ever To understand
where it is going we must take a look at the past
35live live issue 1
The most recent main-stream movement to hit the United States
E l e c t r o n i c D a n c e M u s i c (EDM) did so as an explosion of lights neon and pulsating beats But dance music is nothing new Although EDM seems entirely novel to many of Amer icarsquos youth dance music has a long and storied history
In the beginning mus ic c r e a t e d v i a e l e c t r o n i c ins t r ument s was focused on academic pursuit s and high ar t The use of elec-t ron ic s i n popu la r mus ic c rea t ion b egan w i t h t he commerc ia l i z a t ion o f t he synthesizer in the 1960s As technology evolved so did experimentation with elec-tronic instruments
In the 1970s the days of disco led to the develop-ment of e lec t ronic dance mus ic when DJs invented the traditional two-turntable setup to continuously stream together music so that the dancing never had to stop U n f o r t u na te l y f o r d a n c e music just as quickly as disco was embraced ant i -d isco sentiments fueled by racism and fear of change pushed it into the underground
It was in this underground s p a c e d u r i n g t h e lsquo 8 0 s that modern dance music evo lved St r ides made in elec tronic ins trumentation developed the synthesizer machines that would form the backbones of house and techno music the Roland TB 303 baseline and Roland TR 909 drum machine
A c c o r d i n g t o T h e Guard ianrsquos recent l y pub -lished timeline A History of Modern Music DJ Frankie Knuckles is responsible for the development of house music characterized by its
44 beats Techno rose out of Detroit a few years later inspired by the indus tr ial sounds of the city
While wildly popular in the underground music scene techno and house did not find commercial success in Amer ica I t was not unt i l the lat ter par t of the lsquo80s when the sounds of house and techno found their way to t he UK and mor phed into a new sub-genre acid house that the commercial club culture was born albeit exclusively in Europe
While dance music took of f r unning on the other side of the pond in America a dif ferent s tor y began to unfold As rap and hip-hop took a s t ronghold of the music industr y in the late eighties and nineties dance music remained confined to the peripheries
A s d a n c e - m u s i c D J s w o r ke d t o e v o l v e t h e i r sound and keep up w i th technology hip -hop DJs who adopted the traditional turntable setup from the DJs of disco as well as their pro-duction techniques began to work in the record ing s tudios and inf luence the industr y especially in the realm of pop music
I n t h e 19 9 0 s i n s i d e r s thought EDM had f ina l l y hit the jackpot and found mainstream success In an inter v iew with PaperMag industry vet Gary Richards explains ldquothe f irst farewell to the undergroundrdquo
ldquoBy 1993 i t felt l ike the music wasnrsquot underground anymore so I threw a par ty c a l l e d R ave A m e r i c a a t Knot t s Ber r y Farm which i s an amusement par k in O r a n g e C o u n t y I t s o l d out with l ike 20000 peo-ple Rick Rubin came with
Anthony K ied is f rom the Red Hot Chili Peppers and a couple guys from ZZ Top and he asked me if I wanted to work in the record busi-ness and help them s ign some EDM ar t i s t s I sa id sure the Prodigy were super hot and it seemed like it was blowing up But we star ted signing all these techno art-ists thinking theyrsquod catch on too but nobody was buying it Nobodyrdquo
Jus t l i ke R ichards says n o b o d y w a s b u y i n g i t D a n c e m u s i c w a s n o t catching on in the way the industr y would have liked so in 1997 the entire music industry and press put their full force behind ldquoelectron-icardquo the new catch-all name they had given to the genre in an attempt to successfully market it
Despite the gl impses of success seen froma handful of artists the genre failed to succeed and the industr y distanced itself from dance music far ther than i t had when disco ldquodiedrdquo
T h i s f a i l u r e c a n b e accounted to EDM not f it-t i ng i n to t h e ma r ke t i ng machinery of the industr y The t radit ional setup was f ixed for four-minute rock and pop singles and album tour s not t he ex tended club mixes and residencies that were the basis of the EDM world Not only was the indus t r y i l l - equipped to market electronic music but many consumers also felt it abrasive and awkward attempting to listen to this machine-made glitch-based music that was so unfamiliar to their ears It was not until the digital revolution of the new millennium that elec-tronic dance music f inal ly found its place
36 we live for live music
Festival
MAJOR LAZER AT SUMMERFEST IN HOUSTON JUNE 2012
37live live issue 1
If music in 2012 could talk it would sound a lot like the Bill Orsquo Reillyrsquos blooper ldquoLetrsquos do it liverdquo While attending concerts has been popular since rock and roll shows in the 1950s the recent electronic music boom has made it exponentially more so
One reason accord ing to Forbes i s that as resource constraints have t ightened people are spending thei r money more on exper iences as opposed to manufactured products But it is more than that EDM has managed to ent i re ly t rans -form the concept of a concer t by blurring the lines between going out dancing and going out to see music These days one would pay the same amount to see superstar-DJ David Guetta in an arena that they would if they were simply dancing to him spin-ning in a club
But this popularity was not always the case As a genre born in the world of nightclubs EDMrsquos parties were lambasted for years as depraved raves Now many kids will go to a rave before they attend a rock concert Why the sudden change A major factor is rebranding
Raves became festivals Electronic became EDMOnce shed of the negative associations with raves
and the bad memories of the electronicarsquos failure EDM shows and festivals began to proliferate across the countr y No longer hiding in remote f ields or empt y warehouse e lec t ronic mus ic promoter s looked to book DJs in public arenas and concer t halls
Elec tr ic Daisy Carnival (EDC) 2010 a rave put on by one of the major EDM promoters Insomniac
Event s ser ved as a turning point for the genre when an underage gir l died at the event causing severe backlash against Insomniac but also giving the genre lots of exposure EDC was run out of Los Angeles but found refuge in the always-accepting city of Las Vegas It was here in Vegas that EDM finally found a homemdashnow playing the same role to America as Ibiza did to Europe when the rave scene star ted there in the 1980s Superstar DJs can be found any week as a resident DJ to Tao XS or one of the many other posh clubs and the landmark event of the year EDC Vegas is now one of the largest raves in the world with over 300000 attendees last year
EDC is not the only big festival on the market now though Festivals are becoming trendymdashan indicator of direction the music industry is headed in towards the live and away from the recorded According to Metrowizecom an online nightli fe guide in 2012 alone at leas t thir t y-two new fes t ivals began in Americamdashfif teen of them dedicated solely to EDM
Long-standing traditions in the music industry fes-tivals typically only attracted people who spent a lot of time at live music and concertshellipuntil recently
As EDM crossed over into pop music the l ines became blur red between a night of going out to dance at a club and night of going out to see your favorite ar tist at a concer t People who a few years ago never attended a concert beyond the major pop ar tists are now concer t-fiends as the ldquopoprdquo ar tists they love today are world-renowned DJs
Of course as any genre crosses into the main-stream it is going to become increasingly popular
FeverEDMS BOOMING SUCCESS IN THE FESTIVAL MARKET HAS HEADS
TURNING FROM AROUND THE INDUSTRY TO INVEST IN LIVE MUSIC
38 we live for live music
with the masses but EDMrsquos explosion is unparal-leled Hundreds of thousands of people attended EDC Vegas and that was just one of dozens of elec-tronic dance festivals and all-night events this year
Because the live experience is EDMrsquos native for-mat the genre is par ticularly nuanced to success on the road Matt Adell of Beatport the online mecca of the DJ community explains one of the reasons why
ldquoPer formers such as Skr illex are incredibly ef f i -cient touring operations compared to rock bands Itrsquos less expensive than a rock group because therersquos just one per former Therersquos much less gear and it rsquos easier to set up because therersquos no live micro-phones So the suppor t team required is so much smallerrdquo
Bobby Clay head of the electronic division at C3 Presents touches on another aspect of EDM that primes the genre for the road ldquoIt rsquos like you donrsquot need to have a full studio on your tour bus to create the next banger or the next huge club track or the next Rihanna remix You can do it from the comfort of a tour bus or the green room of whatever arena some of these big people are playing in nowrdquo EDM ar tists have the luxury of not having to break from tour to create new songs
Although EDM is pr imed for tour ing i t is only in the past couple of years that the genre took on this rock and roll mentality As shows star ted to be booked in rock and roll venues and DJproducers took to the road stopping in every middle town and college campus in America like a rock band would DJs became rock stars in their own right One ar tist in par ticular is noted for condensing the drawn out peaks and falls of dance music into four and a half minute radio-ready tracks the half-shaved goofy-glasses wearing kid known as Skrillex Love him or hate him his genre-fusing in your face style helped to launch EDM to the place it is at today
With mega-DJs such as Skrillex earning up to $1 million per festival appearance and groups such as Swedish House Mafia selling out Madison Square Garden in nine minutes it is no surprise that corpo-rate heads have turned to this once-ignored market Over the summer Live Nation bought Hard Events one of the original promoters of the genre whose brands of Hardfest Holy Ship and Haunted Hard Mansion have gone on to great success Shor t ly af ter media mogul Robert FX Sillerman pledged to invest $1 billion dollars in EDM ventures
As the money pours in 2013 is looking to be the biggest year yet for EDM Having finally solidified i t s place in the music industr y (and at the fore-front nevertheless) Electronic Dance Music is ready to guide the music industry in a new directionmdasha direction towards the future towards a more diver-sified music industry towards a music industry that lives for live music
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
39live live issue 1
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
AT LEAST 32 NEW FESTIVALS BEGAN IN THE UNITED STATES IN 2012 OF THESE FESTIVALS FIFTEEN OF THEM ARE DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC
40 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL WONDERLANDDowntown TexasApril 27-28 2012An inside look into the modern electronic music festival
41live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL WONDERLAND
42 we live for live music
43live live issue 1
A new generation neo-age hippies
44 we live for live musicWelcome to Wonderland
45live live issue 1
46 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
47live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Dillon Francis plays The Queenrsquos Ground
48 we live for live music
49live live issue 1
Visual explosions to coordinate with the
audio attack of a drop
50 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
51live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
EDM shows are known for their
high-impact visuals
52 we live for live music
53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
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Button 31
Button 32
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Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
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Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
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16 we live for live music
on the road on the road
Fall ToursComing soon to a city near you
17live live issue 1
Fall Tours
18 we live for live music
new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013
Pretty Lights | Roseland Ballroom | New York
Zedd amp Nicky Romero | Club Nokia | Los Angeles
Chromeo Ana Sia Gramatic Poolside Snowglobe Music Festival | South Lake Tahoe
ATB MiM0SA Zeds Dead Paul Basic Wolfgang Gartner Krewella Colorado Convention Center | Denver
Skrillex Boyz Noise FlosstradomusThe Palace of Auburn Hills | Milwaukee
Shpongle Glitch Mob Sea of Dreams | San Francisco
Tiesto | Revel Ovation Hall | Atlantic City
The Disco Biscuits | Madison Square Garden
Paper Diamond | Oregon Convention Center | Portland
Bassnectar | Bridgestone Arena | Nashville
Lights All Night | Fair Park | Dallas
Beats Antique | Paramount Theatre | Seattle
Rusko | WaMu Theatre | Seattle
Lotus amp Moon Hooch | Rams Head Live | Baltimore
on the road
19live live issue 1
Industry
genre
pop culture
technology
20 we live for live music
The term ldquoElectronic Musicrdquo is coined by Werner Meyer Eppler
Rock nrsquo Roll music is born
RCA Mark II the first programmable sound synthesizer is invented by
Olson and Belar
Motown becomes dance music classics
1949
1950s
timeline 1949 - 1970
1955
First time anyone
had used the word synthesizer for a
piece of equipment
Rock nrsquo Roll redefines music as something to be listened to not danced to
We begin the story here
1960s
(COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY)
(THE BEAT)
21live live issue 1
Bob Moogrsquos synthesizer brought electronic music out of the realm of academia and into
the hands of musicians
Rock nrsquo roll becomes the sound of modern life It continues to grow
until splits into factions in the 1970s
The Moog Company develops the first modular synthesizer
The Beach Boysrsquo Good Vibrations is the first pop hit to feature
electronic sounds
Etta James releases ldquoSomethingrsquos Got a Hold of Merdquo a sample of which resonates
through the EDM explosion of late
1962
timeline 1949 - 1970
1962
1960s
1967
1964
1960sYouth start to attend rock concerts
instead of going to sock hops
King Tubby of Jamaica births the dub which will later give rise to the remix
(CAPITOL RECORDS)
(MOOG MUSIC)
null
21222783
22 we live for live music
Disco makes streaming music continuously cool and
popularizes the club scene Jim Morrison predicts
the future of music
The Mini Moog is invented becoming the first portable synthesizer
Synth music and space age pop is starting to impact TV
film and commercials
Disco is born
Hot Butterrsquos Popcorn becomes the first electronic pop hit
DJ Herc invents BreakbeatItalo Disco becomes the
first complete EDM genre
1970s
EARLY1970s
1972-1974 1973
1970 1978
1978
1972
1970
the 1970sldquoI can envision one person with l ike a lot of machines tapes and electronic setups
singing or speaking and using machinesrdquo-Jim Morrison
The Technics 1200 Mark II is released and becomes the industry standard
(PBS)
(RCO RECORDS)
timeline
null
2677309
23live live issue 1
Saturday Night Fever
Kraftwerk releases Autobahn
David Bowie and Blondie bring in New Wave
Sugar Hill Gangrsquos ldquoRapperrsquos Delightrdquo brings hip hop into the Top 40
Brian Eno births ambient music
The first digital sampler the Fairlight CMI (Computer Musical Instrument) is released
Disco declines as sentiments such as ldquoDisco Sucksrdquo and ldquoDeath to
Discordquo become popular
1977
L AT E1970s
1978 1978
1979
1979
1975
the 1970s
These days many people falsly associate this iconic soundtrack with the
beginning of disco
Kraftwerk members are considered tobe the ldquogodfathersrdquo of electronic music
(UNKNOWN)
timeline
24 we live for live music
Disco is thought to be dead but it just went underground where it morphed into house and techno
Video game music is born as a genre
Computers video games and electronic equipment become more affordable
efficient and put to great use
Roland TR 808 Rhythm Machine
Frankie Knuckles invents house music at the
Warehouse in Chicago
E-mu Emulator becomes the first affordable
digital sampler
The Hacienda Club opens in Manchester
The rave scene grows from acid house music in the United Kingdom
the 1980rsquos
1981
1982 1987
1980
1980 1981
1980s 1980s
(UNKOWN)
In the 1980s a host of new instruments based on synthet-ic sounds and sampl ing technolo-gy contributed to the formation of new genres of electronic mu-sic and the electronic sound on the whole Whi le these days the sounds of most of these instruments can be repl icated on a computer outfit-ted with the proper audio software DJs sti l l seek the retro instruments for the unique characteristics that come from analog instruments
timeline
25live live issue 1
Sampling and breakbeat become important features for both
hip-hop and EDM
MIDI inventedRoland TB 303
Baseline released
Techno rises out of the industrial
sounds of Detroit
Roland TR 909 Drum Machine
Acid house is born at the Hacienda Club in
Manchester
Electronic Dance Music first Summer of Love begins as the free-party scene takes the sound out of the club and into the open
Ambient music becomes just as important as the dance floor during EDMrsquos second
Summer of Love
Trip Hop and other downtempo genres find success with acts like Massive Attack and Portishead
the 1980rsquos
19871983-1985
1989-1991
1988
1989
1982 19841983
1980
MIDI is a protocol not a hardware which provided a standard for electronic instrument manufacturers
(MASSIVE ATTACK)
London becomes the hub of
EDM
timeline
Computer-based production allows for DJs to recreate the sounds found in traditional analog instruments as
well as new sounds that have never been heard before (eg the Dubstep wob) It also opened up the realm of
EDM creation to anyone with the right software
Responsible for EDC Nocturnal and Wonderland Festivals
Rise of the super club and superstar DJs
The media dubs of all electronic music
ldquotechnordquo
Hardcore music begins to dominate the British
rave scene
Jungle forms out of hardcore
Paul Oakenfold Paul Van Dyk and DJ Tiesto bring trance
music to the forefront
Insomniac Events is established in Southern California
Tommy Boy Records releases the first Jock Jams album
timeline the 1990rsquos
MP3 digital audio format is introduced
1990s
1990s
1992
1990s 1990s
1993
1991
1995
Rave music sees slight mainstream success with artists such as C amp C Music Factory and
Snap and begins to infuence pop music
With the growth of personal computing electronic artists began to migrate from analog electronic
instruments to computer-based production
EARLY1990s
EARLY1990s
(TOMMY BOY RECORDS)
>
>
null
19304054
Although electronica failed to go main-stream its loops and textures find their
way into pop and hip hop
They are the developers of Ableton Live one of the premiere loop-based
sequencers used in modern production
EDC begins as a one day event
Drum and bass evolves out of jungle
Record companies try to market techno under a new namemdash
ldquoelectronicardquomdash but fail
Fatboy Slim makes $0 off of Rockafeller Skank after giving 25 of the royalties to each of
the four artists he used samples from
Moby licenses every track on his
Play album
timeline the 1990rsquos
Napster launchesAbleton is founded
19991994
1995
1991 19991999
1997 1998
1997In the UK raves are forced back underground with the passing of
the Criminal Justice Act
ProTools released at a price of $6000
LATE1990s
LATE1990s
As artists begin to use computers in production
glitch hop evolves
This new law defined gatherings of more than 20 people listening to
ldquorepetitive beatsrdquo as illegal
(SKINT RECORDS)
EDMrsquoS non-descript beats are perfect for marketing
28 we live for live music
In an interview with the New York Times David Bowie claims copyright and intellectual property
will cease to exist in the next ten years
Congress passes a law holding club owners responsible for their patronsrsquo actions and
affecting the whole industry
Tiesto DJs the Athens Olympic Opening Ceremonies
The GRAMMYs add a Best DanceElectronica
Album category
Dubstep nights begin to pop up in the underground music
scene around the USDubstep begins to grow
out of South London
timeline
Limewire introducedCD sales peak iTunes launchedThe iPod brings digital music players to the masses
2002
2000 2001 2001 2003
2003
20062001
2004 2005
ldquoYoursquod better be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation
thatrsquos going to be leftrdquo
Ruskorsquos ldquoCockney Thugrdquo i l lustrates the wob sound
2000-2009
(COURTESY OF RUSK0)
(DTSIABAIFLICKR CC)
null
24417967
29live live issue 1
Daft Punkrsquos pyramid setup at Coachella sets a
new bar for visuals
Kanye West spawns electro-rap with 808rsquos amp Heartbreak prominently fea-
turing the TR 808 drum machine
Lady Gaga and the Black Eyed Peas bring the Euro-house
sound to the Top 40
Guettarsquos ldquoWhen Love Take Overrdquo becomes an international pop hit and the Euro-house sound
starts to creep its way into popular music
timeline
2004 2004 2007
2008 2009
20072006
20092007-2009
Long-established one-day raves such as EDC and Ultra transform
into two-day festivals
Guetta co-wrote ldquoBoom Boom Powrdquo
Gagarsquos Bad Romance has nearly 05 bi l l ion YouTube views
Gary Richards starts Hard Events
Youtube launched Beatport launched
2000-2009
iPhone released
(KARL WALTERGETTY IMAGES)
(INTERSCOPE RECORDS)
2010-2011
Technics SL-1200 turntable the industry standard for thirty
years is discontinued
Limewire the top P2P file-sharing client
is shut downSpotify launches in the US
When an underage girl dies at EDC in LA EDM gets a lot backlash but this
also gives it a lot of exposure
EDC is forced out of LA and moves to Vegas which becomes the home of
EDM in the United States
Bassnectar plays Red Rocks where he incurs $100000 in noise violations
after bringing his own speakers
Skrillex is nominated for five Grammy Awards he
wins three
timeline
2010
2010
2010
2010 2010 2011
2011 2011
2011
2011
Black Eyed Peasrsquo house-based ldquoThe TimeDirty Bitrdquo tops the
charts in over 15 countries
Hip hop and EDM production styles have always mirrored one another now they are morphing
EDM finally has a home in America
Moombahton a fusion of house music and reggae is
born at a house party in DC
Skrillex explodes onto the main-stream music scene bringing the ldquodroprdquo and heavy bass with him
DJAY app
(COURTESY OF SKRILLEX)
2010-2011
Britneyrsquos Hold it Against Me acts as the catalyst for replacing the pop
bridge with the dubstep drop
EDC Vegas has over 230000 attendees in
three days
The Victoria Secret Fashion Show features rave-inspired
outfits for the final walk
timeline
2011 2011
2011 2011 2011
2011
Tiesto plays the biggest single headliner DJ show in US
history to 26000 in Carson CA
Nielsen Soundscan reports digital music sales in the US are larger than
physical sales for the first time
Absoulte Vodka sponsors Swedish House Mafiarsquos
sold out MSG show
According to Bil lboard this is considered a watershed moment
brands adopting EDM
EDM technology is large-ly based now around
software programs and
their coordinating hard-
ware--control lers for Ableton
Scratch decks for Serato
and more There is an entire
spectrum of modern DJ tech-
nology avai lable and the path
one takes depends on what
sound they are trying to achieve
(JIVE RECORDS)
(ZUMA PRESS)
(SAMANTHA HOFFER)
The neon colors associated with EDM can be found al l over
the fashion world
With the laptop as instrument EDM
producers constantly
blend and mix elements
of different genres lead-
ing to the prol iferation of
microgenres which are difficult to
distinguish
null
26177792
32 we live for live music
EDC Vegas sees 300000+ people
over 3 days
Family-friendly animated film Wreck It Ralph uses
dance music in trailer
Feature-length EDM documentary ldquoThe Drop The EDM Culture
Explosionrdquo enters production
A system of alerts are set up to notify users when they
infringe on copyright law
Night Culture Inc becomes the first EDM-oriented publicly
traded company
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline 2012
Queen Latifah sings the National Anthem at the opening game of
the NFL seasonover a beat
JAN
OCTJULY SEPT
SEPTAUG
JUNE JUNEMARUltra Music Festival in Miami
has 40000 viewers watching its online stream over YouTube
Universal closes on EMI becoming the largest of the remaining three
major record labels
(DANNY MOLOSHOK REUTERS)
(BIG MACHINE)
null
21255588
33live live issue 1
After exploding onto the mainstream music scene and pop culture in the past year the industry has set its signts on EDM ventures proved the genre has final ly conquered the final frontiermdashAmerica
Live Nation purchases Hard Events
Media mogul Robert FX Sillerman says he will spend
$1B on EDM enterprises
EDM artists get the spotlight at the Grammys for the 1st time with addi-tion of a dance music performance
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline
Taylor Swift adopts the dubstep drop with her single ldquoI Knew You
Were Troublerdquo
JUNEFEB JULY
JUNE JUNE
OCT OCT NOV
NOVOCT
Bieber drops his first dub-step-influenced track ldquoAs
Long as You Love Merdquo
Dance-based songs can be found all across the radio
The first professional media outlet for EDM is announced
NYU introduces a course on the Business of Electronic amp
Dance Music
Billboard hosts the 2nd Annual FutureSound conference to ad-dress the future of the industry
NOVEMBERBLACK WIDOW
MUSIC PUBLISHES A LIST OF 230+ EDM SUB-GENRESAND
COUNTING
(BIG MACHINE)
34 we live for live music
BACK TO THE
FUTUREThirty years after the ldquodeathrdquo of disco dance music is back in America and bigger than ever To understand
where it is going we must take a look at the past
35live live issue 1
The most recent main-stream movement to hit the United States
E l e c t r o n i c D a n c e M u s i c (EDM) did so as an explosion of lights neon and pulsating beats But dance music is nothing new Although EDM seems entirely novel to many of Amer icarsquos youth dance music has a long and storied history
In the beginning mus ic c r e a t e d v i a e l e c t r o n i c ins t r ument s was focused on academic pursuit s and high ar t The use of elec-t ron ic s i n popu la r mus ic c rea t ion b egan w i t h t he commerc ia l i z a t ion o f t he synthesizer in the 1960s As technology evolved so did experimentation with elec-tronic instruments
In the 1970s the days of disco led to the develop-ment of e lec t ronic dance mus ic when DJs invented the traditional two-turntable setup to continuously stream together music so that the dancing never had to stop U n f o r t u na te l y f o r d a n c e music just as quickly as disco was embraced ant i -d isco sentiments fueled by racism and fear of change pushed it into the underground
It was in this underground s p a c e d u r i n g t h e lsquo 8 0 s that modern dance music evo lved St r ides made in elec tronic ins trumentation developed the synthesizer machines that would form the backbones of house and techno music the Roland TB 303 baseline and Roland TR 909 drum machine
A c c o r d i n g t o T h e Guard ianrsquos recent l y pub -lished timeline A History of Modern Music DJ Frankie Knuckles is responsible for the development of house music characterized by its
44 beats Techno rose out of Detroit a few years later inspired by the indus tr ial sounds of the city
While wildly popular in the underground music scene techno and house did not find commercial success in Amer ica I t was not unt i l the lat ter par t of the lsquo80s when the sounds of house and techno found their way to t he UK and mor phed into a new sub-genre acid house that the commercial club culture was born albeit exclusively in Europe
While dance music took of f r unning on the other side of the pond in America a dif ferent s tor y began to unfold As rap and hip-hop took a s t ronghold of the music industr y in the late eighties and nineties dance music remained confined to the peripheries
A s d a n c e - m u s i c D J s w o r ke d t o e v o l v e t h e i r sound and keep up w i th technology hip -hop DJs who adopted the traditional turntable setup from the DJs of disco as well as their pro-duction techniques began to work in the record ing s tudios and inf luence the industr y especially in the realm of pop music
I n t h e 19 9 0 s i n s i d e r s thought EDM had f ina l l y hit the jackpot and found mainstream success In an inter v iew with PaperMag industry vet Gary Richards explains ldquothe f irst farewell to the undergroundrdquo
ldquoBy 1993 i t felt l ike the music wasnrsquot underground anymore so I threw a par ty c a l l e d R ave A m e r i c a a t Knot t s Ber r y Farm which i s an amusement par k in O r a n g e C o u n t y I t s o l d out with l ike 20000 peo-ple Rick Rubin came with
Anthony K ied is f rom the Red Hot Chili Peppers and a couple guys from ZZ Top and he asked me if I wanted to work in the record busi-ness and help them s ign some EDM ar t i s t s I sa id sure the Prodigy were super hot and it seemed like it was blowing up But we star ted signing all these techno art-ists thinking theyrsquod catch on too but nobody was buying it Nobodyrdquo
Jus t l i ke R ichards says n o b o d y w a s b u y i n g i t D a n c e m u s i c w a s n o t catching on in the way the industr y would have liked so in 1997 the entire music industry and press put their full force behind ldquoelectron-icardquo the new catch-all name they had given to the genre in an attempt to successfully market it
Despite the gl impses of success seen froma handful of artists the genre failed to succeed and the industr y distanced itself from dance music far ther than i t had when disco ldquodiedrdquo
T h i s f a i l u r e c a n b e accounted to EDM not f it-t i ng i n to t h e ma r ke t i ng machinery of the industr y The t radit ional setup was f ixed for four-minute rock and pop singles and album tour s not t he ex tended club mixes and residencies that were the basis of the EDM world Not only was the indus t r y i l l - equipped to market electronic music but many consumers also felt it abrasive and awkward attempting to listen to this machine-made glitch-based music that was so unfamiliar to their ears It was not until the digital revolution of the new millennium that elec-tronic dance music f inal ly found its place
36 we live for live music
Festival
MAJOR LAZER AT SUMMERFEST IN HOUSTON JUNE 2012
37live live issue 1
If music in 2012 could talk it would sound a lot like the Bill Orsquo Reillyrsquos blooper ldquoLetrsquos do it liverdquo While attending concerts has been popular since rock and roll shows in the 1950s the recent electronic music boom has made it exponentially more so
One reason accord ing to Forbes i s that as resource constraints have t ightened people are spending thei r money more on exper iences as opposed to manufactured products But it is more than that EDM has managed to ent i re ly t rans -form the concept of a concer t by blurring the lines between going out dancing and going out to see music These days one would pay the same amount to see superstar-DJ David Guetta in an arena that they would if they were simply dancing to him spin-ning in a club
But this popularity was not always the case As a genre born in the world of nightclubs EDMrsquos parties were lambasted for years as depraved raves Now many kids will go to a rave before they attend a rock concert Why the sudden change A major factor is rebranding
Raves became festivals Electronic became EDMOnce shed of the negative associations with raves
and the bad memories of the electronicarsquos failure EDM shows and festivals began to proliferate across the countr y No longer hiding in remote f ields or empt y warehouse e lec t ronic mus ic promoter s looked to book DJs in public arenas and concer t halls
Elec tr ic Daisy Carnival (EDC) 2010 a rave put on by one of the major EDM promoters Insomniac
Event s ser ved as a turning point for the genre when an underage gir l died at the event causing severe backlash against Insomniac but also giving the genre lots of exposure EDC was run out of Los Angeles but found refuge in the always-accepting city of Las Vegas It was here in Vegas that EDM finally found a homemdashnow playing the same role to America as Ibiza did to Europe when the rave scene star ted there in the 1980s Superstar DJs can be found any week as a resident DJ to Tao XS or one of the many other posh clubs and the landmark event of the year EDC Vegas is now one of the largest raves in the world with over 300000 attendees last year
EDC is not the only big festival on the market now though Festivals are becoming trendymdashan indicator of direction the music industry is headed in towards the live and away from the recorded According to Metrowizecom an online nightli fe guide in 2012 alone at leas t thir t y-two new fes t ivals began in Americamdashfif teen of them dedicated solely to EDM
Long-standing traditions in the music industry fes-tivals typically only attracted people who spent a lot of time at live music and concertshellipuntil recently
As EDM crossed over into pop music the l ines became blur red between a night of going out to dance at a club and night of going out to see your favorite ar tist at a concer t People who a few years ago never attended a concert beyond the major pop ar tists are now concer t-fiends as the ldquopoprdquo ar tists they love today are world-renowned DJs
Of course as any genre crosses into the main-stream it is going to become increasingly popular
FeverEDMS BOOMING SUCCESS IN THE FESTIVAL MARKET HAS HEADS
TURNING FROM AROUND THE INDUSTRY TO INVEST IN LIVE MUSIC
38 we live for live music
with the masses but EDMrsquos explosion is unparal-leled Hundreds of thousands of people attended EDC Vegas and that was just one of dozens of elec-tronic dance festivals and all-night events this year
Because the live experience is EDMrsquos native for-mat the genre is par ticularly nuanced to success on the road Matt Adell of Beatport the online mecca of the DJ community explains one of the reasons why
ldquoPer formers such as Skr illex are incredibly ef f i -cient touring operations compared to rock bands Itrsquos less expensive than a rock group because therersquos just one per former Therersquos much less gear and it rsquos easier to set up because therersquos no live micro-phones So the suppor t team required is so much smallerrdquo
Bobby Clay head of the electronic division at C3 Presents touches on another aspect of EDM that primes the genre for the road ldquoIt rsquos like you donrsquot need to have a full studio on your tour bus to create the next banger or the next huge club track or the next Rihanna remix You can do it from the comfort of a tour bus or the green room of whatever arena some of these big people are playing in nowrdquo EDM ar tists have the luxury of not having to break from tour to create new songs
Although EDM is pr imed for tour ing i t is only in the past couple of years that the genre took on this rock and roll mentality As shows star ted to be booked in rock and roll venues and DJproducers took to the road stopping in every middle town and college campus in America like a rock band would DJs became rock stars in their own right One ar tist in par ticular is noted for condensing the drawn out peaks and falls of dance music into four and a half minute radio-ready tracks the half-shaved goofy-glasses wearing kid known as Skrillex Love him or hate him his genre-fusing in your face style helped to launch EDM to the place it is at today
With mega-DJs such as Skrillex earning up to $1 million per festival appearance and groups such as Swedish House Mafia selling out Madison Square Garden in nine minutes it is no surprise that corpo-rate heads have turned to this once-ignored market Over the summer Live Nation bought Hard Events one of the original promoters of the genre whose brands of Hardfest Holy Ship and Haunted Hard Mansion have gone on to great success Shor t ly af ter media mogul Robert FX Sillerman pledged to invest $1 billion dollars in EDM ventures
As the money pours in 2013 is looking to be the biggest year yet for EDM Having finally solidified i t s place in the music industr y (and at the fore-front nevertheless) Electronic Dance Music is ready to guide the music industry in a new directionmdasha direction towards the future towards a more diver-sified music industry towards a music industry that lives for live music
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
39live live issue 1
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
AT LEAST 32 NEW FESTIVALS BEGAN IN THE UNITED STATES IN 2012 OF THESE FESTIVALS FIFTEEN OF THEM ARE DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC
40 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL WONDERLANDDowntown TexasApril 27-28 2012An inside look into the modern electronic music festival
41live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL WONDERLAND
42 we live for live music
43live live issue 1
A new generation neo-age hippies
44 we live for live musicWelcome to Wonderland
45live live issue 1
46 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
47live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Dillon Francis plays The Queenrsquos Ground
48 we live for live music
49live live issue 1
Visual explosions to coordinate with the
audio attack of a drop
50 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
51live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
EDM shows are known for their
high-impact visuals
52 we live for live music
53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
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17live live issue 1
Fall Tours
18 we live for live music
new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013
Pretty Lights | Roseland Ballroom | New York
Zedd amp Nicky Romero | Club Nokia | Los Angeles
Chromeo Ana Sia Gramatic Poolside Snowglobe Music Festival | South Lake Tahoe
ATB MiM0SA Zeds Dead Paul Basic Wolfgang Gartner Krewella Colorado Convention Center | Denver
Skrillex Boyz Noise FlosstradomusThe Palace of Auburn Hills | Milwaukee
Shpongle Glitch Mob Sea of Dreams | San Francisco
Tiesto | Revel Ovation Hall | Atlantic City
The Disco Biscuits | Madison Square Garden
Paper Diamond | Oregon Convention Center | Portland
Bassnectar | Bridgestone Arena | Nashville
Lights All Night | Fair Park | Dallas
Beats Antique | Paramount Theatre | Seattle
Rusko | WaMu Theatre | Seattle
Lotus amp Moon Hooch | Rams Head Live | Baltimore
on the road
19live live issue 1
Industry
genre
pop culture
technology
20 we live for live music
The term ldquoElectronic Musicrdquo is coined by Werner Meyer Eppler
Rock nrsquo Roll music is born
RCA Mark II the first programmable sound synthesizer is invented by
Olson and Belar
Motown becomes dance music classics
1949
1950s
timeline 1949 - 1970
1955
First time anyone
had used the word synthesizer for a
piece of equipment
Rock nrsquo Roll redefines music as something to be listened to not danced to
We begin the story here
1960s
(COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY)
(THE BEAT)
21live live issue 1
Bob Moogrsquos synthesizer brought electronic music out of the realm of academia and into
the hands of musicians
Rock nrsquo roll becomes the sound of modern life It continues to grow
until splits into factions in the 1970s
The Moog Company develops the first modular synthesizer
The Beach Boysrsquo Good Vibrations is the first pop hit to feature
electronic sounds
Etta James releases ldquoSomethingrsquos Got a Hold of Merdquo a sample of which resonates
through the EDM explosion of late
1962
timeline 1949 - 1970
1962
1960s
1967
1964
1960sYouth start to attend rock concerts
instead of going to sock hops
King Tubby of Jamaica births the dub which will later give rise to the remix
(CAPITOL RECORDS)
(MOOG MUSIC)
null
21222783
22 we live for live music
Disco makes streaming music continuously cool and
popularizes the club scene Jim Morrison predicts
the future of music
The Mini Moog is invented becoming the first portable synthesizer
Synth music and space age pop is starting to impact TV
film and commercials
Disco is born
Hot Butterrsquos Popcorn becomes the first electronic pop hit
DJ Herc invents BreakbeatItalo Disco becomes the
first complete EDM genre
1970s
EARLY1970s
1972-1974 1973
1970 1978
1978
1972
1970
the 1970sldquoI can envision one person with l ike a lot of machines tapes and electronic setups
singing or speaking and using machinesrdquo-Jim Morrison
The Technics 1200 Mark II is released and becomes the industry standard
(PBS)
(RCO RECORDS)
timeline
null
2677309
23live live issue 1
Saturday Night Fever
Kraftwerk releases Autobahn
David Bowie and Blondie bring in New Wave
Sugar Hill Gangrsquos ldquoRapperrsquos Delightrdquo brings hip hop into the Top 40
Brian Eno births ambient music
The first digital sampler the Fairlight CMI (Computer Musical Instrument) is released
Disco declines as sentiments such as ldquoDisco Sucksrdquo and ldquoDeath to
Discordquo become popular
1977
L AT E1970s
1978 1978
1979
1979
1975
the 1970s
These days many people falsly associate this iconic soundtrack with the
beginning of disco
Kraftwerk members are considered tobe the ldquogodfathersrdquo of electronic music
(UNKNOWN)
timeline
24 we live for live music
Disco is thought to be dead but it just went underground where it morphed into house and techno
Video game music is born as a genre
Computers video games and electronic equipment become more affordable
efficient and put to great use
Roland TR 808 Rhythm Machine
Frankie Knuckles invents house music at the
Warehouse in Chicago
E-mu Emulator becomes the first affordable
digital sampler
The Hacienda Club opens in Manchester
The rave scene grows from acid house music in the United Kingdom
the 1980rsquos
1981
1982 1987
1980
1980 1981
1980s 1980s
(UNKOWN)
In the 1980s a host of new instruments based on synthet-ic sounds and sampl ing technolo-gy contributed to the formation of new genres of electronic mu-sic and the electronic sound on the whole Whi le these days the sounds of most of these instruments can be repl icated on a computer outfit-ted with the proper audio software DJs sti l l seek the retro instruments for the unique characteristics that come from analog instruments
timeline
25live live issue 1
Sampling and breakbeat become important features for both
hip-hop and EDM
MIDI inventedRoland TB 303
Baseline released
Techno rises out of the industrial
sounds of Detroit
Roland TR 909 Drum Machine
Acid house is born at the Hacienda Club in
Manchester
Electronic Dance Music first Summer of Love begins as the free-party scene takes the sound out of the club and into the open
Ambient music becomes just as important as the dance floor during EDMrsquos second
Summer of Love
Trip Hop and other downtempo genres find success with acts like Massive Attack and Portishead
the 1980rsquos
19871983-1985
1989-1991
1988
1989
1982 19841983
1980
MIDI is a protocol not a hardware which provided a standard for electronic instrument manufacturers
(MASSIVE ATTACK)
London becomes the hub of
EDM
timeline
Computer-based production allows for DJs to recreate the sounds found in traditional analog instruments as
well as new sounds that have never been heard before (eg the Dubstep wob) It also opened up the realm of
EDM creation to anyone with the right software
Responsible for EDC Nocturnal and Wonderland Festivals
Rise of the super club and superstar DJs
The media dubs of all electronic music
ldquotechnordquo
Hardcore music begins to dominate the British
rave scene
Jungle forms out of hardcore
Paul Oakenfold Paul Van Dyk and DJ Tiesto bring trance
music to the forefront
Insomniac Events is established in Southern California
Tommy Boy Records releases the first Jock Jams album
timeline the 1990rsquos
MP3 digital audio format is introduced
1990s
1990s
1992
1990s 1990s
1993
1991
1995
Rave music sees slight mainstream success with artists such as C amp C Music Factory and
Snap and begins to infuence pop music
With the growth of personal computing electronic artists began to migrate from analog electronic
instruments to computer-based production
EARLY1990s
EARLY1990s
(TOMMY BOY RECORDS)
>
>
null
19304054
Although electronica failed to go main-stream its loops and textures find their
way into pop and hip hop
They are the developers of Ableton Live one of the premiere loop-based
sequencers used in modern production
EDC begins as a one day event
Drum and bass evolves out of jungle
Record companies try to market techno under a new namemdash
ldquoelectronicardquomdash but fail
Fatboy Slim makes $0 off of Rockafeller Skank after giving 25 of the royalties to each of
the four artists he used samples from
Moby licenses every track on his
Play album
timeline the 1990rsquos
Napster launchesAbleton is founded
19991994
1995
1991 19991999
1997 1998
1997In the UK raves are forced back underground with the passing of
the Criminal Justice Act
ProTools released at a price of $6000
LATE1990s
LATE1990s
As artists begin to use computers in production
glitch hop evolves
This new law defined gatherings of more than 20 people listening to
ldquorepetitive beatsrdquo as illegal
(SKINT RECORDS)
EDMrsquoS non-descript beats are perfect for marketing
28 we live for live music
In an interview with the New York Times David Bowie claims copyright and intellectual property
will cease to exist in the next ten years
Congress passes a law holding club owners responsible for their patronsrsquo actions and
affecting the whole industry
Tiesto DJs the Athens Olympic Opening Ceremonies
The GRAMMYs add a Best DanceElectronica
Album category
Dubstep nights begin to pop up in the underground music
scene around the USDubstep begins to grow
out of South London
timeline
Limewire introducedCD sales peak iTunes launchedThe iPod brings digital music players to the masses
2002
2000 2001 2001 2003
2003
20062001
2004 2005
ldquoYoursquod better be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation
thatrsquos going to be leftrdquo
Ruskorsquos ldquoCockney Thugrdquo i l lustrates the wob sound
2000-2009
(COURTESY OF RUSK0)
(DTSIABAIFLICKR CC)
null
24417967
29live live issue 1
Daft Punkrsquos pyramid setup at Coachella sets a
new bar for visuals
Kanye West spawns electro-rap with 808rsquos amp Heartbreak prominently fea-
turing the TR 808 drum machine
Lady Gaga and the Black Eyed Peas bring the Euro-house
sound to the Top 40
Guettarsquos ldquoWhen Love Take Overrdquo becomes an international pop hit and the Euro-house sound
starts to creep its way into popular music
timeline
2004 2004 2007
2008 2009
20072006
20092007-2009
Long-established one-day raves such as EDC and Ultra transform
into two-day festivals
Guetta co-wrote ldquoBoom Boom Powrdquo
Gagarsquos Bad Romance has nearly 05 bi l l ion YouTube views
Gary Richards starts Hard Events
Youtube launched Beatport launched
2000-2009
iPhone released
(KARL WALTERGETTY IMAGES)
(INTERSCOPE RECORDS)
2010-2011
Technics SL-1200 turntable the industry standard for thirty
years is discontinued
Limewire the top P2P file-sharing client
is shut downSpotify launches in the US
When an underage girl dies at EDC in LA EDM gets a lot backlash but this
also gives it a lot of exposure
EDC is forced out of LA and moves to Vegas which becomes the home of
EDM in the United States
Bassnectar plays Red Rocks where he incurs $100000 in noise violations
after bringing his own speakers
Skrillex is nominated for five Grammy Awards he
wins three
timeline
2010
2010
2010
2010 2010 2011
2011 2011
2011
2011
Black Eyed Peasrsquo house-based ldquoThe TimeDirty Bitrdquo tops the
charts in over 15 countries
Hip hop and EDM production styles have always mirrored one another now they are morphing
EDM finally has a home in America
Moombahton a fusion of house music and reggae is
born at a house party in DC
Skrillex explodes onto the main-stream music scene bringing the ldquodroprdquo and heavy bass with him
DJAY app
(COURTESY OF SKRILLEX)
2010-2011
Britneyrsquos Hold it Against Me acts as the catalyst for replacing the pop
bridge with the dubstep drop
EDC Vegas has over 230000 attendees in
three days
The Victoria Secret Fashion Show features rave-inspired
outfits for the final walk
timeline
2011 2011
2011 2011 2011
2011
Tiesto plays the biggest single headliner DJ show in US
history to 26000 in Carson CA
Nielsen Soundscan reports digital music sales in the US are larger than
physical sales for the first time
Absoulte Vodka sponsors Swedish House Mafiarsquos
sold out MSG show
According to Bil lboard this is considered a watershed moment
brands adopting EDM
EDM technology is large-ly based now around
software programs and
their coordinating hard-
ware--control lers for Ableton
Scratch decks for Serato
and more There is an entire
spectrum of modern DJ tech-
nology avai lable and the path
one takes depends on what
sound they are trying to achieve
(JIVE RECORDS)
(ZUMA PRESS)
(SAMANTHA HOFFER)
The neon colors associated with EDM can be found al l over
the fashion world
With the laptop as instrument EDM
producers constantly
blend and mix elements
of different genres lead-
ing to the prol iferation of
microgenres which are difficult to
distinguish
null
26177792
32 we live for live music
EDC Vegas sees 300000+ people
over 3 days
Family-friendly animated film Wreck It Ralph uses
dance music in trailer
Feature-length EDM documentary ldquoThe Drop The EDM Culture
Explosionrdquo enters production
A system of alerts are set up to notify users when they
infringe on copyright law
Night Culture Inc becomes the first EDM-oriented publicly
traded company
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline 2012
Queen Latifah sings the National Anthem at the opening game of
the NFL seasonover a beat
JAN
OCTJULY SEPT
SEPTAUG
JUNE JUNEMARUltra Music Festival in Miami
has 40000 viewers watching its online stream over YouTube
Universal closes on EMI becoming the largest of the remaining three
major record labels
(DANNY MOLOSHOK REUTERS)
(BIG MACHINE)
null
21255588
33live live issue 1
After exploding onto the mainstream music scene and pop culture in the past year the industry has set its signts on EDM ventures proved the genre has final ly conquered the final frontiermdashAmerica
Live Nation purchases Hard Events
Media mogul Robert FX Sillerman says he will spend
$1B on EDM enterprises
EDM artists get the spotlight at the Grammys for the 1st time with addi-tion of a dance music performance
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline
Taylor Swift adopts the dubstep drop with her single ldquoI Knew You
Were Troublerdquo
JUNEFEB JULY
JUNE JUNE
OCT OCT NOV
NOVOCT
Bieber drops his first dub-step-influenced track ldquoAs
Long as You Love Merdquo
Dance-based songs can be found all across the radio
The first professional media outlet for EDM is announced
NYU introduces a course on the Business of Electronic amp
Dance Music
Billboard hosts the 2nd Annual FutureSound conference to ad-dress the future of the industry
NOVEMBERBLACK WIDOW
MUSIC PUBLISHES A LIST OF 230+ EDM SUB-GENRESAND
COUNTING
(BIG MACHINE)
34 we live for live music
BACK TO THE
FUTUREThirty years after the ldquodeathrdquo of disco dance music is back in America and bigger than ever To understand
where it is going we must take a look at the past
35live live issue 1
The most recent main-stream movement to hit the United States
E l e c t r o n i c D a n c e M u s i c (EDM) did so as an explosion of lights neon and pulsating beats But dance music is nothing new Although EDM seems entirely novel to many of Amer icarsquos youth dance music has a long and storied history
In the beginning mus ic c r e a t e d v i a e l e c t r o n i c ins t r ument s was focused on academic pursuit s and high ar t The use of elec-t ron ic s i n popu la r mus ic c rea t ion b egan w i t h t he commerc ia l i z a t ion o f t he synthesizer in the 1960s As technology evolved so did experimentation with elec-tronic instruments
In the 1970s the days of disco led to the develop-ment of e lec t ronic dance mus ic when DJs invented the traditional two-turntable setup to continuously stream together music so that the dancing never had to stop U n f o r t u na te l y f o r d a n c e music just as quickly as disco was embraced ant i -d isco sentiments fueled by racism and fear of change pushed it into the underground
It was in this underground s p a c e d u r i n g t h e lsquo 8 0 s that modern dance music evo lved St r ides made in elec tronic ins trumentation developed the synthesizer machines that would form the backbones of house and techno music the Roland TB 303 baseline and Roland TR 909 drum machine
A c c o r d i n g t o T h e Guard ianrsquos recent l y pub -lished timeline A History of Modern Music DJ Frankie Knuckles is responsible for the development of house music characterized by its
44 beats Techno rose out of Detroit a few years later inspired by the indus tr ial sounds of the city
While wildly popular in the underground music scene techno and house did not find commercial success in Amer ica I t was not unt i l the lat ter par t of the lsquo80s when the sounds of house and techno found their way to t he UK and mor phed into a new sub-genre acid house that the commercial club culture was born albeit exclusively in Europe
While dance music took of f r unning on the other side of the pond in America a dif ferent s tor y began to unfold As rap and hip-hop took a s t ronghold of the music industr y in the late eighties and nineties dance music remained confined to the peripheries
A s d a n c e - m u s i c D J s w o r ke d t o e v o l v e t h e i r sound and keep up w i th technology hip -hop DJs who adopted the traditional turntable setup from the DJs of disco as well as their pro-duction techniques began to work in the record ing s tudios and inf luence the industr y especially in the realm of pop music
I n t h e 19 9 0 s i n s i d e r s thought EDM had f ina l l y hit the jackpot and found mainstream success In an inter v iew with PaperMag industry vet Gary Richards explains ldquothe f irst farewell to the undergroundrdquo
ldquoBy 1993 i t felt l ike the music wasnrsquot underground anymore so I threw a par ty c a l l e d R ave A m e r i c a a t Knot t s Ber r y Farm which i s an amusement par k in O r a n g e C o u n t y I t s o l d out with l ike 20000 peo-ple Rick Rubin came with
Anthony K ied is f rom the Red Hot Chili Peppers and a couple guys from ZZ Top and he asked me if I wanted to work in the record busi-ness and help them s ign some EDM ar t i s t s I sa id sure the Prodigy were super hot and it seemed like it was blowing up But we star ted signing all these techno art-ists thinking theyrsquod catch on too but nobody was buying it Nobodyrdquo
Jus t l i ke R ichards says n o b o d y w a s b u y i n g i t D a n c e m u s i c w a s n o t catching on in the way the industr y would have liked so in 1997 the entire music industry and press put their full force behind ldquoelectron-icardquo the new catch-all name they had given to the genre in an attempt to successfully market it
Despite the gl impses of success seen froma handful of artists the genre failed to succeed and the industr y distanced itself from dance music far ther than i t had when disco ldquodiedrdquo
T h i s f a i l u r e c a n b e accounted to EDM not f it-t i ng i n to t h e ma r ke t i ng machinery of the industr y The t radit ional setup was f ixed for four-minute rock and pop singles and album tour s not t he ex tended club mixes and residencies that were the basis of the EDM world Not only was the indus t r y i l l - equipped to market electronic music but many consumers also felt it abrasive and awkward attempting to listen to this machine-made glitch-based music that was so unfamiliar to their ears It was not until the digital revolution of the new millennium that elec-tronic dance music f inal ly found its place
36 we live for live music
Festival
MAJOR LAZER AT SUMMERFEST IN HOUSTON JUNE 2012
37live live issue 1
If music in 2012 could talk it would sound a lot like the Bill Orsquo Reillyrsquos blooper ldquoLetrsquos do it liverdquo While attending concerts has been popular since rock and roll shows in the 1950s the recent electronic music boom has made it exponentially more so
One reason accord ing to Forbes i s that as resource constraints have t ightened people are spending thei r money more on exper iences as opposed to manufactured products But it is more than that EDM has managed to ent i re ly t rans -form the concept of a concer t by blurring the lines between going out dancing and going out to see music These days one would pay the same amount to see superstar-DJ David Guetta in an arena that they would if they were simply dancing to him spin-ning in a club
But this popularity was not always the case As a genre born in the world of nightclubs EDMrsquos parties were lambasted for years as depraved raves Now many kids will go to a rave before they attend a rock concert Why the sudden change A major factor is rebranding
Raves became festivals Electronic became EDMOnce shed of the negative associations with raves
and the bad memories of the electronicarsquos failure EDM shows and festivals began to proliferate across the countr y No longer hiding in remote f ields or empt y warehouse e lec t ronic mus ic promoter s looked to book DJs in public arenas and concer t halls
Elec tr ic Daisy Carnival (EDC) 2010 a rave put on by one of the major EDM promoters Insomniac
Event s ser ved as a turning point for the genre when an underage gir l died at the event causing severe backlash against Insomniac but also giving the genre lots of exposure EDC was run out of Los Angeles but found refuge in the always-accepting city of Las Vegas It was here in Vegas that EDM finally found a homemdashnow playing the same role to America as Ibiza did to Europe when the rave scene star ted there in the 1980s Superstar DJs can be found any week as a resident DJ to Tao XS or one of the many other posh clubs and the landmark event of the year EDC Vegas is now one of the largest raves in the world with over 300000 attendees last year
EDC is not the only big festival on the market now though Festivals are becoming trendymdashan indicator of direction the music industry is headed in towards the live and away from the recorded According to Metrowizecom an online nightli fe guide in 2012 alone at leas t thir t y-two new fes t ivals began in Americamdashfif teen of them dedicated solely to EDM
Long-standing traditions in the music industry fes-tivals typically only attracted people who spent a lot of time at live music and concertshellipuntil recently
As EDM crossed over into pop music the l ines became blur red between a night of going out to dance at a club and night of going out to see your favorite ar tist at a concer t People who a few years ago never attended a concert beyond the major pop ar tists are now concer t-fiends as the ldquopoprdquo ar tists they love today are world-renowned DJs
Of course as any genre crosses into the main-stream it is going to become increasingly popular
FeverEDMS BOOMING SUCCESS IN THE FESTIVAL MARKET HAS HEADS
TURNING FROM AROUND THE INDUSTRY TO INVEST IN LIVE MUSIC
38 we live for live music
with the masses but EDMrsquos explosion is unparal-leled Hundreds of thousands of people attended EDC Vegas and that was just one of dozens of elec-tronic dance festivals and all-night events this year
Because the live experience is EDMrsquos native for-mat the genre is par ticularly nuanced to success on the road Matt Adell of Beatport the online mecca of the DJ community explains one of the reasons why
ldquoPer formers such as Skr illex are incredibly ef f i -cient touring operations compared to rock bands Itrsquos less expensive than a rock group because therersquos just one per former Therersquos much less gear and it rsquos easier to set up because therersquos no live micro-phones So the suppor t team required is so much smallerrdquo
Bobby Clay head of the electronic division at C3 Presents touches on another aspect of EDM that primes the genre for the road ldquoIt rsquos like you donrsquot need to have a full studio on your tour bus to create the next banger or the next huge club track or the next Rihanna remix You can do it from the comfort of a tour bus or the green room of whatever arena some of these big people are playing in nowrdquo EDM ar tists have the luxury of not having to break from tour to create new songs
Although EDM is pr imed for tour ing i t is only in the past couple of years that the genre took on this rock and roll mentality As shows star ted to be booked in rock and roll venues and DJproducers took to the road stopping in every middle town and college campus in America like a rock band would DJs became rock stars in their own right One ar tist in par ticular is noted for condensing the drawn out peaks and falls of dance music into four and a half minute radio-ready tracks the half-shaved goofy-glasses wearing kid known as Skrillex Love him or hate him his genre-fusing in your face style helped to launch EDM to the place it is at today
With mega-DJs such as Skrillex earning up to $1 million per festival appearance and groups such as Swedish House Mafia selling out Madison Square Garden in nine minutes it is no surprise that corpo-rate heads have turned to this once-ignored market Over the summer Live Nation bought Hard Events one of the original promoters of the genre whose brands of Hardfest Holy Ship and Haunted Hard Mansion have gone on to great success Shor t ly af ter media mogul Robert FX Sillerman pledged to invest $1 billion dollars in EDM ventures
As the money pours in 2013 is looking to be the biggest year yet for EDM Having finally solidified i t s place in the music industr y (and at the fore-front nevertheless) Electronic Dance Music is ready to guide the music industry in a new directionmdasha direction towards the future towards a more diver-sified music industry towards a music industry that lives for live music
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
39live live issue 1
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
AT LEAST 32 NEW FESTIVALS BEGAN IN THE UNITED STATES IN 2012 OF THESE FESTIVALS FIFTEEN OF THEM ARE DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC
40 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL WONDERLANDDowntown TexasApril 27-28 2012An inside look into the modern electronic music festival
41live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL WONDERLAND
42 we live for live music
43live live issue 1
A new generation neo-age hippies
44 we live for live musicWelcome to Wonderland
45live live issue 1
46 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
47live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Dillon Francis plays The Queenrsquos Ground
48 we live for live music
49live live issue 1
Visual explosions to coordinate with the
audio attack of a drop
50 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
51live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
EDM shows are known for their
high-impact visuals
52 we live for live music
53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
Button 7
Button 8
Button 9
Button 10
Button 11
Button 12
button13
Button 52
Button 54
Button 56
Button 55
Button 43
Button 44
Button 49
Button 50
Button 48
18 we live for live music
new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013new yearrsquos 2013
Pretty Lights | Roseland Ballroom | New York
Zedd amp Nicky Romero | Club Nokia | Los Angeles
Chromeo Ana Sia Gramatic Poolside Snowglobe Music Festival | South Lake Tahoe
ATB MiM0SA Zeds Dead Paul Basic Wolfgang Gartner Krewella Colorado Convention Center | Denver
Skrillex Boyz Noise FlosstradomusThe Palace of Auburn Hills | Milwaukee
Shpongle Glitch Mob Sea of Dreams | San Francisco
Tiesto | Revel Ovation Hall | Atlantic City
The Disco Biscuits | Madison Square Garden
Paper Diamond | Oregon Convention Center | Portland
Bassnectar | Bridgestone Arena | Nashville
Lights All Night | Fair Park | Dallas
Beats Antique | Paramount Theatre | Seattle
Rusko | WaMu Theatre | Seattle
Lotus amp Moon Hooch | Rams Head Live | Baltimore
on the road
19live live issue 1
Industry
genre
pop culture
technology
20 we live for live music
The term ldquoElectronic Musicrdquo is coined by Werner Meyer Eppler
Rock nrsquo Roll music is born
RCA Mark II the first programmable sound synthesizer is invented by
Olson and Belar
Motown becomes dance music classics
1949
1950s
timeline 1949 - 1970
1955
First time anyone
had used the word synthesizer for a
piece of equipment
Rock nrsquo Roll redefines music as something to be listened to not danced to
We begin the story here
1960s
(COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY)
(THE BEAT)
21live live issue 1
Bob Moogrsquos synthesizer brought electronic music out of the realm of academia and into
the hands of musicians
Rock nrsquo roll becomes the sound of modern life It continues to grow
until splits into factions in the 1970s
The Moog Company develops the first modular synthesizer
The Beach Boysrsquo Good Vibrations is the first pop hit to feature
electronic sounds
Etta James releases ldquoSomethingrsquos Got a Hold of Merdquo a sample of which resonates
through the EDM explosion of late
1962
timeline 1949 - 1970
1962
1960s
1967
1964
1960sYouth start to attend rock concerts
instead of going to sock hops
King Tubby of Jamaica births the dub which will later give rise to the remix
(CAPITOL RECORDS)
(MOOG MUSIC)
null
21222783
22 we live for live music
Disco makes streaming music continuously cool and
popularizes the club scene Jim Morrison predicts
the future of music
The Mini Moog is invented becoming the first portable synthesizer
Synth music and space age pop is starting to impact TV
film and commercials
Disco is born
Hot Butterrsquos Popcorn becomes the first electronic pop hit
DJ Herc invents BreakbeatItalo Disco becomes the
first complete EDM genre
1970s
EARLY1970s
1972-1974 1973
1970 1978
1978
1972
1970
the 1970sldquoI can envision one person with l ike a lot of machines tapes and electronic setups
singing or speaking and using machinesrdquo-Jim Morrison
The Technics 1200 Mark II is released and becomes the industry standard
(PBS)
(RCO RECORDS)
timeline
null
2677309
23live live issue 1
Saturday Night Fever
Kraftwerk releases Autobahn
David Bowie and Blondie bring in New Wave
Sugar Hill Gangrsquos ldquoRapperrsquos Delightrdquo brings hip hop into the Top 40
Brian Eno births ambient music
The first digital sampler the Fairlight CMI (Computer Musical Instrument) is released
Disco declines as sentiments such as ldquoDisco Sucksrdquo and ldquoDeath to
Discordquo become popular
1977
L AT E1970s
1978 1978
1979
1979
1975
the 1970s
These days many people falsly associate this iconic soundtrack with the
beginning of disco
Kraftwerk members are considered tobe the ldquogodfathersrdquo of electronic music
(UNKNOWN)
timeline
24 we live for live music
Disco is thought to be dead but it just went underground where it morphed into house and techno
Video game music is born as a genre
Computers video games and electronic equipment become more affordable
efficient and put to great use
Roland TR 808 Rhythm Machine
Frankie Knuckles invents house music at the
Warehouse in Chicago
E-mu Emulator becomes the first affordable
digital sampler
The Hacienda Club opens in Manchester
The rave scene grows from acid house music in the United Kingdom
the 1980rsquos
1981
1982 1987
1980
1980 1981
1980s 1980s
(UNKOWN)
In the 1980s a host of new instruments based on synthet-ic sounds and sampl ing technolo-gy contributed to the formation of new genres of electronic mu-sic and the electronic sound on the whole Whi le these days the sounds of most of these instruments can be repl icated on a computer outfit-ted with the proper audio software DJs sti l l seek the retro instruments for the unique characteristics that come from analog instruments
timeline
25live live issue 1
Sampling and breakbeat become important features for both
hip-hop and EDM
MIDI inventedRoland TB 303
Baseline released
Techno rises out of the industrial
sounds of Detroit
Roland TR 909 Drum Machine
Acid house is born at the Hacienda Club in
Manchester
Electronic Dance Music first Summer of Love begins as the free-party scene takes the sound out of the club and into the open
Ambient music becomes just as important as the dance floor during EDMrsquos second
Summer of Love
Trip Hop and other downtempo genres find success with acts like Massive Attack and Portishead
the 1980rsquos
19871983-1985
1989-1991
1988
1989
1982 19841983
1980
MIDI is a protocol not a hardware which provided a standard for electronic instrument manufacturers
(MASSIVE ATTACK)
London becomes the hub of
EDM
timeline
Computer-based production allows for DJs to recreate the sounds found in traditional analog instruments as
well as new sounds that have never been heard before (eg the Dubstep wob) It also opened up the realm of
EDM creation to anyone with the right software
Responsible for EDC Nocturnal and Wonderland Festivals
Rise of the super club and superstar DJs
The media dubs of all electronic music
ldquotechnordquo
Hardcore music begins to dominate the British
rave scene
Jungle forms out of hardcore
Paul Oakenfold Paul Van Dyk and DJ Tiesto bring trance
music to the forefront
Insomniac Events is established in Southern California
Tommy Boy Records releases the first Jock Jams album
timeline the 1990rsquos
MP3 digital audio format is introduced
1990s
1990s
1992
1990s 1990s
1993
1991
1995
Rave music sees slight mainstream success with artists such as C amp C Music Factory and
Snap and begins to infuence pop music
With the growth of personal computing electronic artists began to migrate from analog electronic
instruments to computer-based production
EARLY1990s
EARLY1990s
(TOMMY BOY RECORDS)
>
>
null
19304054
Although electronica failed to go main-stream its loops and textures find their
way into pop and hip hop
They are the developers of Ableton Live one of the premiere loop-based
sequencers used in modern production
EDC begins as a one day event
Drum and bass evolves out of jungle
Record companies try to market techno under a new namemdash
ldquoelectronicardquomdash but fail
Fatboy Slim makes $0 off of Rockafeller Skank after giving 25 of the royalties to each of
the four artists he used samples from
Moby licenses every track on his
Play album
timeline the 1990rsquos
Napster launchesAbleton is founded
19991994
1995
1991 19991999
1997 1998
1997In the UK raves are forced back underground with the passing of
the Criminal Justice Act
ProTools released at a price of $6000
LATE1990s
LATE1990s
As artists begin to use computers in production
glitch hop evolves
This new law defined gatherings of more than 20 people listening to
ldquorepetitive beatsrdquo as illegal
(SKINT RECORDS)
EDMrsquoS non-descript beats are perfect for marketing
28 we live for live music
In an interview with the New York Times David Bowie claims copyright and intellectual property
will cease to exist in the next ten years
Congress passes a law holding club owners responsible for their patronsrsquo actions and
affecting the whole industry
Tiesto DJs the Athens Olympic Opening Ceremonies
The GRAMMYs add a Best DanceElectronica
Album category
Dubstep nights begin to pop up in the underground music
scene around the USDubstep begins to grow
out of South London
timeline
Limewire introducedCD sales peak iTunes launchedThe iPod brings digital music players to the masses
2002
2000 2001 2001 2003
2003
20062001
2004 2005
ldquoYoursquod better be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation
thatrsquos going to be leftrdquo
Ruskorsquos ldquoCockney Thugrdquo i l lustrates the wob sound
2000-2009
(COURTESY OF RUSK0)
(DTSIABAIFLICKR CC)
null
24417967
29live live issue 1
Daft Punkrsquos pyramid setup at Coachella sets a
new bar for visuals
Kanye West spawns electro-rap with 808rsquos amp Heartbreak prominently fea-
turing the TR 808 drum machine
Lady Gaga and the Black Eyed Peas bring the Euro-house
sound to the Top 40
Guettarsquos ldquoWhen Love Take Overrdquo becomes an international pop hit and the Euro-house sound
starts to creep its way into popular music
timeline
2004 2004 2007
2008 2009
20072006
20092007-2009
Long-established one-day raves such as EDC and Ultra transform
into two-day festivals
Guetta co-wrote ldquoBoom Boom Powrdquo
Gagarsquos Bad Romance has nearly 05 bi l l ion YouTube views
Gary Richards starts Hard Events
Youtube launched Beatport launched
2000-2009
iPhone released
(KARL WALTERGETTY IMAGES)
(INTERSCOPE RECORDS)
2010-2011
Technics SL-1200 turntable the industry standard for thirty
years is discontinued
Limewire the top P2P file-sharing client
is shut downSpotify launches in the US
When an underage girl dies at EDC in LA EDM gets a lot backlash but this
also gives it a lot of exposure
EDC is forced out of LA and moves to Vegas which becomes the home of
EDM in the United States
Bassnectar plays Red Rocks where he incurs $100000 in noise violations
after bringing his own speakers
Skrillex is nominated for five Grammy Awards he
wins three
timeline
2010
2010
2010
2010 2010 2011
2011 2011
2011
2011
Black Eyed Peasrsquo house-based ldquoThe TimeDirty Bitrdquo tops the
charts in over 15 countries
Hip hop and EDM production styles have always mirrored one another now they are morphing
EDM finally has a home in America
Moombahton a fusion of house music and reggae is
born at a house party in DC
Skrillex explodes onto the main-stream music scene bringing the ldquodroprdquo and heavy bass with him
DJAY app
(COURTESY OF SKRILLEX)
2010-2011
Britneyrsquos Hold it Against Me acts as the catalyst for replacing the pop
bridge with the dubstep drop
EDC Vegas has over 230000 attendees in
three days
The Victoria Secret Fashion Show features rave-inspired
outfits for the final walk
timeline
2011 2011
2011 2011 2011
2011
Tiesto plays the biggest single headliner DJ show in US
history to 26000 in Carson CA
Nielsen Soundscan reports digital music sales in the US are larger than
physical sales for the first time
Absoulte Vodka sponsors Swedish House Mafiarsquos
sold out MSG show
According to Bil lboard this is considered a watershed moment
brands adopting EDM
EDM technology is large-ly based now around
software programs and
their coordinating hard-
ware--control lers for Ableton
Scratch decks for Serato
and more There is an entire
spectrum of modern DJ tech-
nology avai lable and the path
one takes depends on what
sound they are trying to achieve
(JIVE RECORDS)
(ZUMA PRESS)
(SAMANTHA HOFFER)
The neon colors associated with EDM can be found al l over
the fashion world
With the laptop as instrument EDM
producers constantly
blend and mix elements
of different genres lead-
ing to the prol iferation of
microgenres which are difficult to
distinguish
null
26177792
32 we live for live music
EDC Vegas sees 300000+ people
over 3 days
Family-friendly animated film Wreck It Ralph uses
dance music in trailer
Feature-length EDM documentary ldquoThe Drop The EDM Culture
Explosionrdquo enters production
A system of alerts are set up to notify users when they
infringe on copyright law
Night Culture Inc becomes the first EDM-oriented publicly
traded company
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline 2012
Queen Latifah sings the National Anthem at the opening game of
the NFL seasonover a beat
JAN
OCTJULY SEPT
SEPTAUG
JUNE JUNEMARUltra Music Festival in Miami
has 40000 viewers watching its online stream over YouTube
Universal closes on EMI becoming the largest of the remaining three
major record labels
(DANNY MOLOSHOK REUTERS)
(BIG MACHINE)
null
21255588
33live live issue 1
After exploding onto the mainstream music scene and pop culture in the past year the industry has set its signts on EDM ventures proved the genre has final ly conquered the final frontiermdashAmerica
Live Nation purchases Hard Events
Media mogul Robert FX Sillerman says he will spend
$1B on EDM enterprises
EDM artists get the spotlight at the Grammys for the 1st time with addi-tion of a dance music performance
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline
Taylor Swift adopts the dubstep drop with her single ldquoI Knew You
Were Troublerdquo
JUNEFEB JULY
JUNE JUNE
OCT OCT NOV
NOVOCT
Bieber drops his first dub-step-influenced track ldquoAs
Long as You Love Merdquo
Dance-based songs can be found all across the radio
The first professional media outlet for EDM is announced
NYU introduces a course on the Business of Electronic amp
Dance Music
Billboard hosts the 2nd Annual FutureSound conference to ad-dress the future of the industry
NOVEMBERBLACK WIDOW
MUSIC PUBLISHES A LIST OF 230+ EDM SUB-GENRESAND
COUNTING
(BIG MACHINE)
34 we live for live music
BACK TO THE
FUTUREThirty years after the ldquodeathrdquo of disco dance music is back in America and bigger than ever To understand
where it is going we must take a look at the past
35live live issue 1
The most recent main-stream movement to hit the United States
E l e c t r o n i c D a n c e M u s i c (EDM) did so as an explosion of lights neon and pulsating beats But dance music is nothing new Although EDM seems entirely novel to many of Amer icarsquos youth dance music has a long and storied history
In the beginning mus ic c r e a t e d v i a e l e c t r o n i c ins t r ument s was focused on academic pursuit s and high ar t The use of elec-t ron ic s i n popu la r mus ic c rea t ion b egan w i t h t he commerc ia l i z a t ion o f t he synthesizer in the 1960s As technology evolved so did experimentation with elec-tronic instruments
In the 1970s the days of disco led to the develop-ment of e lec t ronic dance mus ic when DJs invented the traditional two-turntable setup to continuously stream together music so that the dancing never had to stop U n f o r t u na te l y f o r d a n c e music just as quickly as disco was embraced ant i -d isco sentiments fueled by racism and fear of change pushed it into the underground
It was in this underground s p a c e d u r i n g t h e lsquo 8 0 s that modern dance music evo lved St r ides made in elec tronic ins trumentation developed the synthesizer machines that would form the backbones of house and techno music the Roland TB 303 baseline and Roland TR 909 drum machine
A c c o r d i n g t o T h e Guard ianrsquos recent l y pub -lished timeline A History of Modern Music DJ Frankie Knuckles is responsible for the development of house music characterized by its
44 beats Techno rose out of Detroit a few years later inspired by the indus tr ial sounds of the city
While wildly popular in the underground music scene techno and house did not find commercial success in Amer ica I t was not unt i l the lat ter par t of the lsquo80s when the sounds of house and techno found their way to t he UK and mor phed into a new sub-genre acid house that the commercial club culture was born albeit exclusively in Europe
While dance music took of f r unning on the other side of the pond in America a dif ferent s tor y began to unfold As rap and hip-hop took a s t ronghold of the music industr y in the late eighties and nineties dance music remained confined to the peripheries
A s d a n c e - m u s i c D J s w o r ke d t o e v o l v e t h e i r sound and keep up w i th technology hip -hop DJs who adopted the traditional turntable setup from the DJs of disco as well as their pro-duction techniques began to work in the record ing s tudios and inf luence the industr y especially in the realm of pop music
I n t h e 19 9 0 s i n s i d e r s thought EDM had f ina l l y hit the jackpot and found mainstream success In an inter v iew with PaperMag industry vet Gary Richards explains ldquothe f irst farewell to the undergroundrdquo
ldquoBy 1993 i t felt l ike the music wasnrsquot underground anymore so I threw a par ty c a l l e d R ave A m e r i c a a t Knot t s Ber r y Farm which i s an amusement par k in O r a n g e C o u n t y I t s o l d out with l ike 20000 peo-ple Rick Rubin came with
Anthony K ied is f rom the Red Hot Chili Peppers and a couple guys from ZZ Top and he asked me if I wanted to work in the record busi-ness and help them s ign some EDM ar t i s t s I sa id sure the Prodigy were super hot and it seemed like it was blowing up But we star ted signing all these techno art-ists thinking theyrsquod catch on too but nobody was buying it Nobodyrdquo
Jus t l i ke R ichards says n o b o d y w a s b u y i n g i t D a n c e m u s i c w a s n o t catching on in the way the industr y would have liked so in 1997 the entire music industry and press put their full force behind ldquoelectron-icardquo the new catch-all name they had given to the genre in an attempt to successfully market it
Despite the gl impses of success seen froma handful of artists the genre failed to succeed and the industr y distanced itself from dance music far ther than i t had when disco ldquodiedrdquo
T h i s f a i l u r e c a n b e accounted to EDM not f it-t i ng i n to t h e ma r ke t i ng machinery of the industr y The t radit ional setup was f ixed for four-minute rock and pop singles and album tour s not t he ex tended club mixes and residencies that were the basis of the EDM world Not only was the indus t r y i l l - equipped to market electronic music but many consumers also felt it abrasive and awkward attempting to listen to this machine-made glitch-based music that was so unfamiliar to their ears It was not until the digital revolution of the new millennium that elec-tronic dance music f inal ly found its place
36 we live for live music
Festival
MAJOR LAZER AT SUMMERFEST IN HOUSTON JUNE 2012
37live live issue 1
If music in 2012 could talk it would sound a lot like the Bill Orsquo Reillyrsquos blooper ldquoLetrsquos do it liverdquo While attending concerts has been popular since rock and roll shows in the 1950s the recent electronic music boom has made it exponentially more so
One reason accord ing to Forbes i s that as resource constraints have t ightened people are spending thei r money more on exper iences as opposed to manufactured products But it is more than that EDM has managed to ent i re ly t rans -form the concept of a concer t by blurring the lines between going out dancing and going out to see music These days one would pay the same amount to see superstar-DJ David Guetta in an arena that they would if they were simply dancing to him spin-ning in a club
But this popularity was not always the case As a genre born in the world of nightclubs EDMrsquos parties were lambasted for years as depraved raves Now many kids will go to a rave before they attend a rock concert Why the sudden change A major factor is rebranding
Raves became festivals Electronic became EDMOnce shed of the negative associations with raves
and the bad memories of the electronicarsquos failure EDM shows and festivals began to proliferate across the countr y No longer hiding in remote f ields or empt y warehouse e lec t ronic mus ic promoter s looked to book DJs in public arenas and concer t halls
Elec tr ic Daisy Carnival (EDC) 2010 a rave put on by one of the major EDM promoters Insomniac
Event s ser ved as a turning point for the genre when an underage gir l died at the event causing severe backlash against Insomniac but also giving the genre lots of exposure EDC was run out of Los Angeles but found refuge in the always-accepting city of Las Vegas It was here in Vegas that EDM finally found a homemdashnow playing the same role to America as Ibiza did to Europe when the rave scene star ted there in the 1980s Superstar DJs can be found any week as a resident DJ to Tao XS or one of the many other posh clubs and the landmark event of the year EDC Vegas is now one of the largest raves in the world with over 300000 attendees last year
EDC is not the only big festival on the market now though Festivals are becoming trendymdashan indicator of direction the music industry is headed in towards the live and away from the recorded According to Metrowizecom an online nightli fe guide in 2012 alone at leas t thir t y-two new fes t ivals began in Americamdashfif teen of them dedicated solely to EDM
Long-standing traditions in the music industry fes-tivals typically only attracted people who spent a lot of time at live music and concertshellipuntil recently
As EDM crossed over into pop music the l ines became blur red between a night of going out to dance at a club and night of going out to see your favorite ar tist at a concer t People who a few years ago never attended a concert beyond the major pop ar tists are now concer t-fiends as the ldquopoprdquo ar tists they love today are world-renowned DJs
Of course as any genre crosses into the main-stream it is going to become increasingly popular
FeverEDMS BOOMING SUCCESS IN THE FESTIVAL MARKET HAS HEADS
TURNING FROM AROUND THE INDUSTRY TO INVEST IN LIVE MUSIC
38 we live for live music
with the masses but EDMrsquos explosion is unparal-leled Hundreds of thousands of people attended EDC Vegas and that was just one of dozens of elec-tronic dance festivals and all-night events this year
Because the live experience is EDMrsquos native for-mat the genre is par ticularly nuanced to success on the road Matt Adell of Beatport the online mecca of the DJ community explains one of the reasons why
ldquoPer formers such as Skr illex are incredibly ef f i -cient touring operations compared to rock bands Itrsquos less expensive than a rock group because therersquos just one per former Therersquos much less gear and it rsquos easier to set up because therersquos no live micro-phones So the suppor t team required is so much smallerrdquo
Bobby Clay head of the electronic division at C3 Presents touches on another aspect of EDM that primes the genre for the road ldquoIt rsquos like you donrsquot need to have a full studio on your tour bus to create the next banger or the next huge club track or the next Rihanna remix You can do it from the comfort of a tour bus or the green room of whatever arena some of these big people are playing in nowrdquo EDM ar tists have the luxury of not having to break from tour to create new songs
Although EDM is pr imed for tour ing i t is only in the past couple of years that the genre took on this rock and roll mentality As shows star ted to be booked in rock and roll venues and DJproducers took to the road stopping in every middle town and college campus in America like a rock band would DJs became rock stars in their own right One ar tist in par ticular is noted for condensing the drawn out peaks and falls of dance music into four and a half minute radio-ready tracks the half-shaved goofy-glasses wearing kid known as Skrillex Love him or hate him his genre-fusing in your face style helped to launch EDM to the place it is at today
With mega-DJs such as Skrillex earning up to $1 million per festival appearance and groups such as Swedish House Mafia selling out Madison Square Garden in nine minutes it is no surprise that corpo-rate heads have turned to this once-ignored market Over the summer Live Nation bought Hard Events one of the original promoters of the genre whose brands of Hardfest Holy Ship and Haunted Hard Mansion have gone on to great success Shor t ly af ter media mogul Robert FX Sillerman pledged to invest $1 billion dollars in EDM ventures
As the money pours in 2013 is looking to be the biggest year yet for EDM Having finally solidified i t s place in the music industr y (and at the fore-front nevertheless) Electronic Dance Music is ready to guide the music industry in a new directionmdasha direction towards the future towards a more diver-sified music industry towards a music industry that lives for live music
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
39live live issue 1
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
AT LEAST 32 NEW FESTIVALS BEGAN IN THE UNITED STATES IN 2012 OF THESE FESTIVALS FIFTEEN OF THEM ARE DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC
40 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL WONDERLANDDowntown TexasApril 27-28 2012An inside look into the modern electronic music festival
41live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL WONDERLAND
42 we live for live music
43live live issue 1
A new generation neo-age hippies
44 we live for live musicWelcome to Wonderland
45live live issue 1
46 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
47live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Dillon Francis plays The Queenrsquos Ground
48 we live for live music
49live live issue 1
Visual explosions to coordinate with the
audio attack of a drop
50 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
51live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
EDM shows are known for their
high-impact visuals
52 we live for live music
53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
Button 7
Button 8
Button 9
Button 10
Button 11
Button 12
button13
Button 52
Button 54
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19live live issue 1
Industry
genre
pop culture
technology
20 we live for live music
The term ldquoElectronic Musicrdquo is coined by Werner Meyer Eppler
Rock nrsquo Roll music is born
RCA Mark II the first programmable sound synthesizer is invented by
Olson and Belar
Motown becomes dance music classics
1949
1950s
timeline 1949 - 1970
1955
First time anyone
had used the word synthesizer for a
piece of equipment
Rock nrsquo Roll redefines music as something to be listened to not danced to
We begin the story here
1960s
(COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY)
(THE BEAT)
21live live issue 1
Bob Moogrsquos synthesizer brought electronic music out of the realm of academia and into
the hands of musicians
Rock nrsquo roll becomes the sound of modern life It continues to grow
until splits into factions in the 1970s
The Moog Company develops the first modular synthesizer
The Beach Boysrsquo Good Vibrations is the first pop hit to feature
electronic sounds
Etta James releases ldquoSomethingrsquos Got a Hold of Merdquo a sample of which resonates
through the EDM explosion of late
1962
timeline 1949 - 1970
1962
1960s
1967
1964
1960sYouth start to attend rock concerts
instead of going to sock hops
King Tubby of Jamaica births the dub which will later give rise to the remix
(CAPITOL RECORDS)
(MOOG MUSIC)
null
21222783
22 we live for live music
Disco makes streaming music continuously cool and
popularizes the club scene Jim Morrison predicts
the future of music
The Mini Moog is invented becoming the first portable synthesizer
Synth music and space age pop is starting to impact TV
film and commercials
Disco is born
Hot Butterrsquos Popcorn becomes the first electronic pop hit
DJ Herc invents BreakbeatItalo Disco becomes the
first complete EDM genre
1970s
EARLY1970s
1972-1974 1973
1970 1978
1978
1972
1970
the 1970sldquoI can envision one person with l ike a lot of machines tapes and electronic setups
singing or speaking and using machinesrdquo-Jim Morrison
The Technics 1200 Mark II is released and becomes the industry standard
(PBS)
(RCO RECORDS)
timeline
null
2677309
23live live issue 1
Saturday Night Fever
Kraftwerk releases Autobahn
David Bowie and Blondie bring in New Wave
Sugar Hill Gangrsquos ldquoRapperrsquos Delightrdquo brings hip hop into the Top 40
Brian Eno births ambient music
The first digital sampler the Fairlight CMI (Computer Musical Instrument) is released
Disco declines as sentiments such as ldquoDisco Sucksrdquo and ldquoDeath to
Discordquo become popular
1977
L AT E1970s
1978 1978
1979
1979
1975
the 1970s
These days many people falsly associate this iconic soundtrack with the
beginning of disco
Kraftwerk members are considered tobe the ldquogodfathersrdquo of electronic music
(UNKNOWN)
timeline
24 we live for live music
Disco is thought to be dead but it just went underground where it morphed into house and techno
Video game music is born as a genre
Computers video games and electronic equipment become more affordable
efficient and put to great use
Roland TR 808 Rhythm Machine
Frankie Knuckles invents house music at the
Warehouse in Chicago
E-mu Emulator becomes the first affordable
digital sampler
The Hacienda Club opens in Manchester
The rave scene grows from acid house music in the United Kingdom
the 1980rsquos
1981
1982 1987
1980
1980 1981
1980s 1980s
(UNKOWN)
In the 1980s a host of new instruments based on synthet-ic sounds and sampl ing technolo-gy contributed to the formation of new genres of electronic mu-sic and the electronic sound on the whole Whi le these days the sounds of most of these instruments can be repl icated on a computer outfit-ted with the proper audio software DJs sti l l seek the retro instruments for the unique characteristics that come from analog instruments
timeline
25live live issue 1
Sampling and breakbeat become important features for both
hip-hop and EDM
MIDI inventedRoland TB 303
Baseline released
Techno rises out of the industrial
sounds of Detroit
Roland TR 909 Drum Machine
Acid house is born at the Hacienda Club in
Manchester
Electronic Dance Music first Summer of Love begins as the free-party scene takes the sound out of the club and into the open
Ambient music becomes just as important as the dance floor during EDMrsquos second
Summer of Love
Trip Hop and other downtempo genres find success with acts like Massive Attack and Portishead
the 1980rsquos
19871983-1985
1989-1991
1988
1989
1982 19841983
1980
MIDI is a protocol not a hardware which provided a standard for electronic instrument manufacturers
(MASSIVE ATTACK)
London becomes the hub of
EDM
timeline
Computer-based production allows for DJs to recreate the sounds found in traditional analog instruments as
well as new sounds that have never been heard before (eg the Dubstep wob) It also opened up the realm of
EDM creation to anyone with the right software
Responsible for EDC Nocturnal and Wonderland Festivals
Rise of the super club and superstar DJs
The media dubs of all electronic music
ldquotechnordquo
Hardcore music begins to dominate the British
rave scene
Jungle forms out of hardcore
Paul Oakenfold Paul Van Dyk and DJ Tiesto bring trance
music to the forefront
Insomniac Events is established in Southern California
Tommy Boy Records releases the first Jock Jams album
timeline the 1990rsquos
MP3 digital audio format is introduced
1990s
1990s
1992
1990s 1990s
1993
1991
1995
Rave music sees slight mainstream success with artists such as C amp C Music Factory and
Snap and begins to infuence pop music
With the growth of personal computing electronic artists began to migrate from analog electronic
instruments to computer-based production
EARLY1990s
EARLY1990s
(TOMMY BOY RECORDS)
>
>
null
19304054
Although electronica failed to go main-stream its loops and textures find their
way into pop and hip hop
They are the developers of Ableton Live one of the premiere loop-based
sequencers used in modern production
EDC begins as a one day event
Drum and bass evolves out of jungle
Record companies try to market techno under a new namemdash
ldquoelectronicardquomdash but fail
Fatboy Slim makes $0 off of Rockafeller Skank after giving 25 of the royalties to each of
the four artists he used samples from
Moby licenses every track on his
Play album
timeline the 1990rsquos
Napster launchesAbleton is founded
19991994
1995
1991 19991999
1997 1998
1997In the UK raves are forced back underground with the passing of
the Criminal Justice Act
ProTools released at a price of $6000
LATE1990s
LATE1990s
As artists begin to use computers in production
glitch hop evolves
This new law defined gatherings of more than 20 people listening to
ldquorepetitive beatsrdquo as illegal
(SKINT RECORDS)
EDMrsquoS non-descript beats are perfect for marketing
28 we live for live music
In an interview with the New York Times David Bowie claims copyright and intellectual property
will cease to exist in the next ten years
Congress passes a law holding club owners responsible for their patronsrsquo actions and
affecting the whole industry
Tiesto DJs the Athens Olympic Opening Ceremonies
The GRAMMYs add a Best DanceElectronica
Album category
Dubstep nights begin to pop up in the underground music
scene around the USDubstep begins to grow
out of South London
timeline
Limewire introducedCD sales peak iTunes launchedThe iPod brings digital music players to the masses
2002
2000 2001 2001 2003
2003
20062001
2004 2005
ldquoYoursquod better be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation
thatrsquos going to be leftrdquo
Ruskorsquos ldquoCockney Thugrdquo i l lustrates the wob sound
2000-2009
(COURTESY OF RUSK0)
(DTSIABAIFLICKR CC)
null
24417967
29live live issue 1
Daft Punkrsquos pyramid setup at Coachella sets a
new bar for visuals
Kanye West spawns electro-rap with 808rsquos amp Heartbreak prominently fea-
turing the TR 808 drum machine
Lady Gaga and the Black Eyed Peas bring the Euro-house
sound to the Top 40
Guettarsquos ldquoWhen Love Take Overrdquo becomes an international pop hit and the Euro-house sound
starts to creep its way into popular music
timeline
2004 2004 2007
2008 2009
20072006
20092007-2009
Long-established one-day raves such as EDC and Ultra transform
into two-day festivals
Guetta co-wrote ldquoBoom Boom Powrdquo
Gagarsquos Bad Romance has nearly 05 bi l l ion YouTube views
Gary Richards starts Hard Events
Youtube launched Beatport launched
2000-2009
iPhone released
(KARL WALTERGETTY IMAGES)
(INTERSCOPE RECORDS)
2010-2011
Technics SL-1200 turntable the industry standard for thirty
years is discontinued
Limewire the top P2P file-sharing client
is shut downSpotify launches in the US
When an underage girl dies at EDC in LA EDM gets a lot backlash but this
also gives it a lot of exposure
EDC is forced out of LA and moves to Vegas which becomes the home of
EDM in the United States
Bassnectar plays Red Rocks where he incurs $100000 in noise violations
after bringing his own speakers
Skrillex is nominated for five Grammy Awards he
wins three
timeline
2010
2010
2010
2010 2010 2011
2011 2011
2011
2011
Black Eyed Peasrsquo house-based ldquoThe TimeDirty Bitrdquo tops the
charts in over 15 countries
Hip hop and EDM production styles have always mirrored one another now they are morphing
EDM finally has a home in America
Moombahton a fusion of house music and reggae is
born at a house party in DC
Skrillex explodes onto the main-stream music scene bringing the ldquodroprdquo and heavy bass with him
DJAY app
(COURTESY OF SKRILLEX)
2010-2011
Britneyrsquos Hold it Against Me acts as the catalyst for replacing the pop
bridge with the dubstep drop
EDC Vegas has over 230000 attendees in
three days
The Victoria Secret Fashion Show features rave-inspired
outfits for the final walk
timeline
2011 2011
2011 2011 2011
2011
Tiesto plays the biggest single headliner DJ show in US
history to 26000 in Carson CA
Nielsen Soundscan reports digital music sales in the US are larger than
physical sales for the first time
Absoulte Vodka sponsors Swedish House Mafiarsquos
sold out MSG show
According to Bil lboard this is considered a watershed moment
brands adopting EDM
EDM technology is large-ly based now around
software programs and
their coordinating hard-
ware--control lers for Ableton
Scratch decks for Serato
and more There is an entire
spectrum of modern DJ tech-
nology avai lable and the path
one takes depends on what
sound they are trying to achieve
(JIVE RECORDS)
(ZUMA PRESS)
(SAMANTHA HOFFER)
The neon colors associated with EDM can be found al l over
the fashion world
With the laptop as instrument EDM
producers constantly
blend and mix elements
of different genres lead-
ing to the prol iferation of
microgenres which are difficult to
distinguish
null
26177792
32 we live for live music
EDC Vegas sees 300000+ people
over 3 days
Family-friendly animated film Wreck It Ralph uses
dance music in trailer
Feature-length EDM documentary ldquoThe Drop The EDM Culture
Explosionrdquo enters production
A system of alerts are set up to notify users when they
infringe on copyright law
Night Culture Inc becomes the first EDM-oriented publicly
traded company
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline 2012
Queen Latifah sings the National Anthem at the opening game of
the NFL seasonover a beat
JAN
OCTJULY SEPT
SEPTAUG
JUNE JUNEMARUltra Music Festival in Miami
has 40000 viewers watching its online stream over YouTube
Universal closes on EMI becoming the largest of the remaining three
major record labels
(DANNY MOLOSHOK REUTERS)
(BIG MACHINE)
null
21255588
33live live issue 1
After exploding onto the mainstream music scene and pop culture in the past year the industry has set its signts on EDM ventures proved the genre has final ly conquered the final frontiermdashAmerica
Live Nation purchases Hard Events
Media mogul Robert FX Sillerman says he will spend
$1B on EDM enterprises
EDM artists get the spotlight at the Grammys for the 1st time with addi-tion of a dance music performance
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline
Taylor Swift adopts the dubstep drop with her single ldquoI Knew You
Were Troublerdquo
JUNEFEB JULY
JUNE JUNE
OCT OCT NOV
NOVOCT
Bieber drops his first dub-step-influenced track ldquoAs
Long as You Love Merdquo
Dance-based songs can be found all across the radio
The first professional media outlet for EDM is announced
NYU introduces a course on the Business of Electronic amp
Dance Music
Billboard hosts the 2nd Annual FutureSound conference to ad-dress the future of the industry
NOVEMBERBLACK WIDOW
MUSIC PUBLISHES A LIST OF 230+ EDM SUB-GENRESAND
COUNTING
(BIG MACHINE)
34 we live for live music
BACK TO THE
FUTUREThirty years after the ldquodeathrdquo of disco dance music is back in America and bigger than ever To understand
where it is going we must take a look at the past
35live live issue 1
The most recent main-stream movement to hit the United States
E l e c t r o n i c D a n c e M u s i c (EDM) did so as an explosion of lights neon and pulsating beats But dance music is nothing new Although EDM seems entirely novel to many of Amer icarsquos youth dance music has a long and storied history
In the beginning mus ic c r e a t e d v i a e l e c t r o n i c ins t r ument s was focused on academic pursuit s and high ar t The use of elec-t ron ic s i n popu la r mus ic c rea t ion b egan w i t h t he commerc ia l i z a t ion o f t he synthesizer in the 1960s As technology evolved so did experimentation with elec-tronic instruments
In the 1970s the days of disco led to the develop-ment of e lec t ronic dance mus ic when DJs invented the traditional two-turntable setup to continuously stream together music so that the dancing never had to stop U n f o r t u na te l y f o r d a n c e music just as quickly as disco was embraced ant i -d isco sentiments fueled by racism and fear of change pushed it into the underground
It was in this underground s p a c e d u r i n g t h e lsquo 8 0 s that modern dance music evo lved St r ides made in elec tronic ins trumentation developed the synthesizer machines that would form the backbones of house and techno music the Roland TB 303 baseline and Roland TR 909 drum machine
A c c o r d i n g t o T h e Guard ianrsquos recent l y pub -lished timeline A History of Modern Music DJ Frankie Knuckles is responsible for the development of house music characterized by its
44 beats Techno rose out of Detroit a few years later inspired by the indus tr ial sounds of the city
While wildly popular in the underground music scene techno and house did not find commercial success in Amer ica I t was not unt i l the lat ter par t of the lsquo80s when the sounds of house and techno found their way to t he UK and mor phed into a new sub-genre acid house that the commercial club culture was born albeit exclusively in Europe
While dance music took of f r unning on the other side of the pond in America a dif ferent s tor y began to unfold As rap and hip-hop took a s t ronghold of the music industr y in the late eighties and nineties dance music remained confined to the peripheries
A s d a n c e - m u s i c D J s w o r ke d t o e v o l v e t h e i r sound and keep up w i th technology hip -hop DJs who adopted the traditional turntable setup from the DJs of disco as well as their pro-duction techniques began to work in the record ing s tudios and inf luence the industr y especially in the realm of pop music
I n t h e 19 9 0 s i n s i d e r s thought EDM had f ina l l y hit the jackpot and found mainstream success In an inter v iew with PaperMag industry vet Gary Richards explains ldquothe f irst farewell to the undergroundrdquo
ldquoBy 1993 i t felt l ike the music wasnrsquot underground anymore so I threw a par ty c a l l e d R ave A m e r i c a a t Knot t s Ber r y Farm which i s an amusement par k in O r a n g e C o u n t y I t s o l d out with l ike 20000 peo-ple Rick Rubin came with
Anthony K ied is f rom the Red Hot Chili Peppers and a couple guys from ZZ Top and he asked me if I wanted to work in the record busi-ness and help them s ign some EDM ar t i s t s I sa id sure the Prodigy were super hot and it seemed like it was blowing up But we star ted signing all these techno art-ists thinking theyrsquod catch on too but nobody was buying it Nobodyrdquo
Jus t l i ke R ichards says n o b o d y w a s b u y i n g i t D a n c e m u s i c w a s n o t catching on in the way the industr y would have liked so in 1997 the entire music industry and press put their full force behind ldquoelectron-icardquo the new catch-all name they had given to the genre in an attempt to successfully market it
Despite the gl impses of success seen froma handful of artists the genre failed to succeed and the industr y distanced itself from dance music far ther than i t had when disco ldquodiedrdquo
T h i s f a i l u r e c a n b e accounted to EDM not f it-t i ng i n to t h e ma r ke t i ng machinery of the industr y The t radit ional setup was f ixed for four-minute rock and pop singles and album tour s not t he ex tended club mixes and residencies that were the basis of the EDM world Not only was the indus t r y i l l - equipped to market electronic music but many consumers also felt it abrasive and awkward attempting to listen to this machine-made glitch-based music that was so unfamiliar to their ears It was not until the digital revolution of the new millennium that elec-tronic dance music f inal ly found its place
36 we live for live music
Festival
MAJOR LAZER AT SUMMERFEST IN HOUSTON JUNE 2012
37live live issue 1
If music in 2012 could talk it would sound a lot like the Bill Orsquo Reillyrsquos blooper ldquoLetrsquos do it liverdquo While attending concerts has been popular since rock and roll shows in the 1950s the recent electronic music boom has made it exponentially more so
One reason accord ing to Forbes i s that as resource constraints have t ightened people are spending thei r money more on exper iences as opposed to manufactured products But it is more than that EDM has managed to ent i re ly t rans -form the concept of a concer t by blurring the lines between going out dancing and going out to see music These days one would pay the same amount to see superstar-DJ David Guetta in an arena that they would if they were simply dancing to him spin-ning in a club
But this popularity was not always the case As a genre born in the world of nightclubs EDMrsquos parties were lambasted for years as depraved raves Now many kids will go to a rave before they attend a rock concert Why the sudden change A major factor is rebranding
Raves became festivals Electronic became EDMOnce shed of the negative associations with raves
and the bad memories of the electronicarsquos failure EDM shows and festivals began to proliferate across the countr y No longer hiding in remote f ields or empt y warehouse e lec t ronic mus ic promoter s looked to book DJs in public arenas and concer t halls
Elec tr ic Daisy Carnival (EDC) 2010 a rave put on by one of the major EDM promoters Insomniac
Event s ser ved as a turning point for the genre when an underage gir l died at the event causing severe backlash against Insomniac but also giving the genre lots of exposure EDC was run out of Los Angeles but found refuge in the always-accepting city of Las Vegas It was here in Vegas that EDM finally found a homemdashnow playing the same role to America as Ibiza did to Europe when the rave scene star ted there in the 1980s Superstar DJs can be found any week as a resident DJ to Tao XS or one of the many other posh clubs and the landmark event of the year EDC Vegas is now one of the largest raves in the world with over 300000 attendees last year
EDC is not the only big festival on the market now though Festivals are becoming trendymdashan indicator of direction the music industry is headed in towards the live and away from the recorded According to Metrowizecom an online nightli fe guide in 2012 alone at leas t thir t y-two new fes t ivals began in Americamdashfif teen of them dedicated solely to EDM
Long-standing traditions in the music industry fes-tivals typically only attracted people who spent a lot of time at live music and concertshellipuntil recently
As EDM crossed over into pop music the l ines became blur red between a night of going out to dance at a club and night of going out to see your favorite ar tist at a concer t People who a few years ago never attended a concert beyond the major pop ar tists are now concer t-fiends as the ldquopoprdquo ar tists they love today are world-renowned DJs
Of course as any genre crosses into the main-stream it is going to become increasingly popular
FeverEDMS BOOMING SUCCESS IN THE FESTIVAL MARKET HAS HEADS
TURNING FROM AROUND THE INDUSTRY TO INVEST IN LIVE MUSIC
38 we live for live music
with the masses but EDMrsquos explosion is unparal-leled Hundreds of thousands of people attended EDC Vegas and that was just one of dozens of elec-tronic dance festivals and all-night events this year
Because the live experience is EDMrsquos native for-mat the genre is par ticularly nuanced to success on the road Matt Adell of Beatport the online mecca of the DJ community explains one of the reasons why
ldquoPer formers such as Skr illex are incredibly ef f i -cient touring operations compared to rock bands Itrsquos less expensive than a rock group because therersquos just one per former Therersquos much less gear and it rsquos easier to set up because therersquos no live micro-phones So the suppor t team required is so much smallerrdquo
Bobby Clay head of the electronic division at C3 Presents touches on another aspect of EDM that primes the genre for the road ldquoIt rsquos like you donrsquot need to have a full studio on your tour bus to create the next banger or the next huge club track or the next Rihanna remix You can do it from the comfort of a tour bus or the green room of whatever arena some of these big people are playing in nowrdquo EDM ar tists have the luxury of not having to break from tour to create new songs
Although EDM is pr imed for tour ing i t is only in the past couple of years that the genre took on this rock and roll mentality As shows star ted to be booked in rock and roll venues and DJproducers took to the road stopping in every middle town and college campus in America like a rock band would DJs became rock stars in their own right One ar tist in par ticular is noted for condensing the drawn out peaks and falls of dance music into four and a half minute radio-ready tracks the half-shaved goofy-glasses wearing kid known as Skrillex Love him or hate him his genre-fusing in your face style helped to launch EDM to the place it is at today
With mega-DJs such as Skrillex earning up to $1 million per festival appearance and groups such as Swedish House Mafia selling out Madison Square Garden in nine minutes it is no surprise that corpo-rate heads have turned to this once-ignored market Over the summer Live Nation bought Hard Events one of the original promoters of the genre whose brands of Hardfest Holy Ship and Haunted Hard Mansion have gone on to great success Shor t ly af ter media mogul Robert FX Sillerman pledged to invest $1 billion dollars in EDM ventures
As the money pours in 2013 is looking to be the biggest year yet for EDM Having finally solidified i t s place in the music industr y (and at the fore-front nevertheless) Electronic Dance Music is ready to guide the music industry in a new directionmdasha direction towards the future towards a more diver-sified music industry towards a music industry that lives for live music
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
39live live issue 1
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
AT LEAST 32 NEW FESTIVALS BEGAN IN THE UNITED STATES IN 2012 OF THESE FESTIVALS FIFTEEN OF THEM ARE DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC
40 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL WONDERLANDDowntown TexasApril 27-28 2012An inside look into the modern electronic music festival
41live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL WONDERLAND
42 we live for live music
43live live issue 1
A new generation neo-age hippies
44 we live for live musicWelcome to Wonderland
45live live issue 1
46 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
47live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Dillon Francis plays The Queenrsquos Ground
48 we live for live music
49live live issue 1
Visual explosions to coordinate with the
audio attack of a drop
50 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
51live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
EDM shows are known for their
high-impact visuals
52 we live for live music
53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
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Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
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button13
Button 52
Button 54
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Button 48
Industry
genre
pop culture
technology
20 we live for live music
The term ldquoElectronic Musicrdquo is coined by Werner Meyer Eppler
Rock nrsquo Roll music is born
RCA Mark II the first programmable sound synthesizer is invented by
Olson and Belar
Motown becomes dance music classics
1949
1950s
timeline 1949 - 1970
1955
First time anyone
had used the word synthesizer for a
piece of equipment
Rock nrsquo Roll redefines music as something to be listened to not danced to
We begin the story here
1960s
(COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY)
(THE BEAT)
21live live issue 1
Bob Moogrsquos synthesizer brought electronic music out of the realm of academia and into
the hands of musicians
Rock nrsquo roll becomes the sound of modern life It continues to grow
until splits into factions in the 1970s
The Moog Company develops the first modular synthesizer
The Beach Boysrsquo Good Vibrations is the first pop hit to feature
electronic sounds
Etta James releases ldquoSomethingrsquos Got a Hold of Merdquo a sample of which resonates
through the EDM explosion of late
1962
timeline 1949 - 1970
1962
1960s
1967
1964
1960sYouth start to attend rock concerts
instead of going to sock hops
King Tubby of Jamaica births the dub which will later give rise to the remix
(CAPITOL RECORDS)
(MOOG MUSIC)
null
21222783
22 we live for live music
Disco makes streaming music continuously cool and
popularizes the club scene Jim Morrison predicts
the future of music
The Mini Moog is invented becoming the first portable synthesizer
Synth music and space age pop is starting to impact TV
film and commercials
Disco is born
Hot Butterrsquos Popcorn becomes the first electronic pop hit
DJ Herc invents BreakbeatItalo Disco becomes the
first complete EDM genre
1970s
EARLY1970s
1972-1974 1973
1970 1978
1978
1972
1970
the 1970sldquoI can envision one person with l ike a lot of machines tapes and electronic setups
singing or speaking and using machinesrdquo-Jim Morrison
The Technics 1200 Mark II is released and becomes the industry standard
(PBS)
(RCO RECORDS)
timeline
null
2677309
23live live issue 1
Saturday Night Fever
Kraftwerk releases Autobahn
David Bowie and Blondie bring in New Wave
Sugar Hill Gangrsquos ldquoRapperrsquos Delightrdquo brings hip hop into the Top 40
Brian Eno births ambient music
The first digital sampler the Fairlight CMI (Computer Musical Instrument) is released
Disco declines as sentiments such as ldquoDisco Sucksrdquo and ldquoDeath to
Discordquo become popular
1977
L AT E1970s
1978 1978
1979
1979
1975
the 1970s
These days many people falsly associate this iconic soundtrack with the
beginning of disco
Kraftwerk members are considered tobe the ldquogodfathersrdquo of electronic music
(UNKNOWN)
timeline
24 we live for live music
Disco is thought to be dead but it just went underground where it morphed into house and techno
Video game music is born as a genre
Computers video games and electronic equipment become more affordable
efficient and put to great use
Roland TR 808 Rhythm Machine
Frankie Knuckles invents house music at the
Warehouse in Chicago
E-mu Emulator becomes the first affordable
digital sampler
The Hacienda Club opens in Manchester
The rave scene grows from acid house music in the United Kingdom
the 1980rsquos
1981
1982 1987
1980
1980 1981
1980s 1980s
(UNKOWN)
In the 1980s a host of new instruments based on synthet-ic sounds and sampl ing technolo-gy contributed to the formation of new genres of electronic mu-sic and the electronic sound on the whole Whi le these days the sounds of most of these instruments can be repl icated on a computer outfit-ted with the proper audio software DJs sti l l seek the retro instruments for the unique characteristics that come from analog instruments
timeline
25live live issue 1
Sampling and breakbeat become important features for both
hip-hop and EDM
MIDI inventedRoland TB 303
Baseline released
Techno rises out of the industrial
sounds of Detroit
Roland TR 909 Drum Machine
Acid house is born at the Hacienda Club in
Manchester
Electronic Dance Music first Summer of Love begins as the free-party scene takes the sound out of the club and into the open
Ambient music becomes just as important as the dance floor during EDMrsquos second
Summer of Love
Trip Hop and other downtempo genres find success with acts like Massive Attack and Portishead
the 1980rsquos
19871983-1985
1989-1991
1988
1989
1982 19841983
1980
MIDI is a protocol not a hardware which provided a standard for electronic instrument manufacturers
(MASSIVE ATTACK)
London becomes the hub of
EDM
timeline
Computer-based production allows for DJs to recreate the sounds found in traditional analog instruments as
well as new sounds that have never been heard before (eg the Dubstep wob) It also opened up the realm of
EDM creation to anyone with the right software
Responsible for EDC Nocturnal and Wonderland Festivals
Rise of the super club and superstar DJs
The media dubs of all electronic music
ldquotechnordquo
Hardcore music begins to dominate the British
rave scene
Jungle forms out of hardcore
Paul Oakenfold Paul Van Dyk and DJ Tiesto bring trance
music to the forefront
Insomniac Events is established in Southern California
Tommy Boy Records releases the first Jock Jams album
timeline the 1990rsquos
MP3 digital audio format is introduced
1990s
1990s
1992
1990s 1990s
1993
1991
1995
Rave music sees slight mainstream success with artists such as C amp C Music Factory and
Snap and begins to infuence pop music
With the growth of personal computing electronic artists began to migrate from analog electronic
instruments to computer-based production
EARLY1990s
EARLY1990s
(TOMMY BOY RECORDS)
>
>
null
19304054
Although electronica failed to go main-stream its loops and textures find their
way into pop and hip hop
They are the developers of Ableton Live one of the premiere loop-based
sequencers used in modern production
EDC begins as a one day event
Drum and bass evolves out of jungle
Record companies try to market techno under a new namemdash
ldquoelectronicardquomdash but fail
Fatboy Slim makes $0 off of Rockafeller Skank after giving 25 of the royalties to each of
the four artists he used samples from
Moby licenses every track on his
Play album
timeline the 1990rsquos
Napster launchesAbleton is founded
19991994
1995
1991 19991999
1997 1998
1997In the UK raves are forced back underground with the passing of
the Criminal Justice Act
ProTools released at a price of $6000
LATE1990s
LATE1990s
As artists begin to use computers in production
glitch hop evolves
This new law defined gatherings of more than 20 people listening to
ldquorepetitive beatsrdquo as illegal
(SKINT RECORDS)
EDMrsquoS non-descript beats are perfect for marketing
28 we live for live music
In an interview with the New York Times David Bowie claims copyright and intellectual property
will cease to exist in the next ten years
Congress passes a law holding club owners responsible for their patronsrsquo actions and
affecting the whole industry
Tiesto DJs the Athens Olympic Opening Ceremonies
The GRAMMYs add a Best DanceElectronica
Album category
Dubstep nights begin to pop up in the underground music
scene around the USDubstep begins to grow
out of South London
timeline
Limewire introducedCD sales peak iTunes launchedThe iPod brings digital music players to the masses
2002
2000 2001 2001 2003
2003
20062001
2004 2005
ldquoYoursquod better be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation
thatrsquos going to be leftrdquo
Ruskorsquos ldquoCockney Thugrdquo i l lustrates the wob sound
2000-2009
(COURTESY OF RUSK0)
(DTSIABAIFLICKR CC)
null
24417967
29live live issue 1
Daft Punkrsquos pyramid setup at Coachella sets a
new bar for visuals
Kanye West spawns electro-rap with 808rsquos amp Heartbreak prominently fea-
turing the TR 808 drum machine
Lady Gaga and the Black Eyed Peas bring the Euro-house
sound to the Top 40
Guettarsquos ldquoWhen Love Take Overrdquo becomes an international pop hit and the Euro-house sound
starts to creep its way into popular music
timeline
2004 2004 2007
2008 2009
20072006
20092007-2009
Long-established one-day raves such as EDC and Ultra transform
into two-day festivals
Guetta co-wrote ldquoBoom Boom Powrdquo
Gagarsquos Bad Romance has nearly 05 bi l l ion YouTube views
Gary Richards starts Hard Events
Youtube launched Beatport launched
2000-2009
iPhone released
(KARL WALTERGETTY IMAGES)
(INTERSCOPE RECORDS)
2010-2011
Technics SL-1200 turntable the industry standard for thirty
years is discontinued
Limewire the top P2P file-sharing client
is shut downSpotify launches in the US
When an underage girl dies at EDC in LA EDM gets a lot backlash but this
also gives it a lot of exposure
EDC is forced out of LA and moves to Vegas which becomes the home of
EDM in the United States
Bassnectar plays Red Rocks where he incurs $100000 in noise violations
after bringing his own speakers
Skrillex is nominated for five Grammy Awards he
wins three
timeline
2010
2010
2010
2010 2010 2011
2011 2011
2011
2011
Black Eyed Peasrsquo house-based ldquoThe TimeDirty Bitrdquo tops the
charts in over 15 countries
Hip hop and EDM production styles have always mirrored one another now they are morphing
EDM finally has a home in America
Moombahton a fusion of house music and reggae is
born at a house party in DC
Skrillex explodes onto the main-stream music scene bringing the ldquodroprdquo and heavy bass with him
DJAY app
(COURTESY OF SKRILLEX)
2010-2011
Britneyrsquos Hold it Against Me acts as the catalyst for replacing the pop
bridge with the dubstep drop
EDC Vegas has over 230000 attendees in
three days
The Victoria Secret Fashion Show features rave-inspired
outfits for the final walk
timeline
2011 2011
2011 2011 2011
2011
Tiesto plays the biggest single headliner DJ show in US
history to 26000 in Carson CA
Nielsen Soundscan reports digital music sales in the US are larger than
physical sales for the first time
Absoulte Vodka sponsors Swedish House Mafiarsquos
sold out MSG show
According to Bil lboard this is considered a watershed moment
brands adopting EDM
EDM technology is large-ly based now around
software programs and
their coordinating hard-
ware--control lers for Ableton
Scratch decks for Serato
and more There is an entire
spectrum of modern DJ tech-
nology avai lable and the path
one takes depends on what
sound they are trying to achieve
(JIVE RECORDS)
(ZUMA PRESS)
(SAMANTHA HOFFER)
The neon colors associated with EDM can be found al l over
the fashion world
With the laptop as instrument EDM
producers constantly
blend and mix elements
of different genres lead-
ing to the prol iferation of
microgenres which are difficult to
distinguish
null
26177792
32 we live for live music
EDC Vegas sees 300000+ people
over 3 days
Family-friendly animated film Wreck It Ralph uses
dance music in trailer
Feature-length EDM documentary ldquoThe Drop The EDM Culture
Explosionrdquo enters production
A system of alerts are set up to notify users when they
infringe on copyright law
Night Culture Inc becomes the first EDM-oriented publicly
traded company
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline 2012
Queen Latifah sings the National Anthem at the opening game of
the NFL seasonover a beat
JAN
OCTJULY SEPT
SEPTAUG
JUNE JUNEMARUltra Music Festival in Miami
has 40000 viewers watching its online stream over YouTube
Universal closes on EMI becoming the largest of the remaining three
major record labels
(DANNY MOLOSHOK REUTERS)
(BIG MACHINE)
null
21255588
33live live issue 1
After exploding onto the mainstream music scene and pop culture in the past year the industry has set its signts on EDM ventures proved the genre has final ly conquered the final frontiermdashAmerica
Live Nation purchases Hard Events
Media mogul Robert FX Sillerman says he will spend
$1B on EDM enterprises
EDM artists get the spotlight at the Grammys for the 1st time with addi-tion of a dance music performance
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline
Taylor Swift adopts the dubstep drop with her single ldquoI Knew You
Were Troublerdquo
JUNEFEB JULY
JUNE JUNE
OCT OCT NOV
NOVOCT
Bieber drops his first dub-step-influenced track ldquoAs
Long as You Love Merdquo
Dance-based songs can be found all across the radio
The first professional media outlet for EDM is announced
NYU introduces a course on the Business of Electronic amp
Dance Music
Billboard hosts the 2nd Annual FutureSound conference to ad-dress the future of the industry
NOVEMBERBLACK WIDOW
MUSIC PUBLISHES A LIST OF 230+ EDM SUB-GENRESAND
COUNTING
(BIG MACHINE)
34 we live for live music
BACK TO THE
FUTUREThirty years after the ldquodeathrdquo of disco dance music is back in America and bigger than ever To understand
where it is going we must take a look at the past
35live live issue 1
The most recent main-stream movement to hit the United States
E l e c t r o n i c D a n c e M u s i c (EDM) did so as an explosion of lights neon and pulsating beats But dance music is nothing new Although EDM seems entirely novel to many of Amer icarsquos youth dance music has a long and storied history
In the beginning mus ic c r e a t e d v i a e l e c t r o n i c ins t r ument s was focused on academic pursuit s and high ar t The use of elec-t ron ic s i n popu la r mus ic c rea t ion b egan w i t h t he commerc ia l i z a t ion o f t he synthesizer in the 1960s As technology evolved so did experimentation with elec-tronic instruments
In the 1970s the days of disco led to the develop-ment of e lec t ronic dance mus ic when DJs invented the traditional two-turntable setup to continuously stream together music so that the dancing never had to stop U n f o r t u na te l y f o r d a n c e music just as quickly as disco was embraced ant i -d isco sentiments fueled by racism and fear of change pushed it into the underground
It was in this underground s p a c e d u r i n g t h e lsquo 8 0 s that modern dance music evo lved St r ides made in elec tronic ins trumentation developed the synthesizer machines that would form the backbones of house and techno music the Roland TB 303 baseline and Roland TR 909 drum machine
A c c o r d i n g t o T h e Guard ianrsquos recent l y pub -lished timeline A History of Modern Music DJ Frankie Knuckles is responsible for the development of house music characterized by its
44 beats Techno rose out of Detroit a few years later inspired by the indus tr ial sounds of the city
While wildly popular in the underground music scene techno and house did not find commercial success in Amer ica I t was not unt i l the lat ter par t of the lsquo80s when the sounds of house and techno found their way to t he UK and mor phed into a new sub-genre acid house that the commercial club culture was born albeit exclusively in Europe
While dance music took of f r unning on the other side of the pond in America a dif ferent s tor y began to unfold As rap and hip-hop took a s t ronghold of the music industr y in the late eighties and nineties dance music remained confined to the peripheries
A s d a n c e - m u s i c D J s w o r ke d t o e v o l v e t h e i r sound and keep up w i th technology hip -hop DJs who adopted the traditional turntable setup from the DJs of disco as well as their pro-duction techniques began to work in the record ing s tudios and inf luence the industr y especially in the realm of pop music
I n t h e 19 9 0 s i n s i d e r s thought EDM had f ina l l y hit the jackpot and found mainstream success In an inter v iew with PaperMag industry vet Gary Richards explains ldquothe f irst farewell to the undergroundrdquo
ldquoBy 1993 i t felt l ike the music wasnrsquot underground anymore so I threw a par ty c a l l e d R ave A m e r i c a a t Knot t s Ber r y Farm which i s an amusement par k in O r a n g e C o u n t y I t s o l d out with l ike 20000 peo-ple Rick Rubin came with
Anthony K ied is f rom the Red Hot Chili Peppers and a couple guys from ZZ Top and he asked me if I wanted to work in the record busi-ness and help them s ign some EDM ar t i s t s I sa id sure the Prodigy were super hot and it seemed like it was blowing up But we star ted signing all these techno art-ists thinking theyrsquod catch on too but nobody was buying it Nobodyrdquo
Jus t l i ke R ichards says n o b o d y w a s b u y i n g i t D a n c e m u s i c w a s n o t catching on in the way the industr y would have liked so in 1997 the entire music industry and press put their full force behind ldquoelectron-icardquo the new catch-all name they had given to the genre in an attempt to successfully market it
Despite the gl impses of success seen froma handful of artists the genre failed to succeed and the industr y distanced itself from dance music far ther than i t had when disco ldquodiedrdquo
T h i s f a i l u r e c a n b e accounted to EDM not f it-t i ng i n to t h e ma r ke t i ng machinery of the industr y The t radit ional setup was f ixed for four-minute rock and pop singles and album tour s not t he ex tended club mixes and residencies that were the basis of the EDM world Not only was the indus t r y i l l - equipped to market electronic music but many consumers also felt it abrasive and awkward attempting to listen to this machine-made glitch-based music that was so unfamiliar to their ears It was not until the digital revolution of the new millennium that elec-tronic dance music f inal ly found its place
36 we live for live music
Festival
MAJOR LAZER AT SUMMERFEST IN HOUSTON JUNE 2012
37live live issue 1
If music in 2012 could talk it would sound a lot like the Bill Orsquo Reillyrsquos blooper ldquoLetrsquos do it liverdquo While attending concerts has been popular since rock and roll shows in the 1950s the recent electronic music boom has made it exponentially more so
One reason accord ing to Forbes i s that as resource constraints have t ightened people are spending thei r money more on exper iences as opposed to manufactured products But it is more than that EDM has managed to ent i re ly t rans -form the concept of a concer t by blurring the lines between going out dancing and going out to see music These days one would pay the same amount to see superstar-DJ David Guetta in an arena that they would if they were simply dancing to him spin-ning in a club
But this popularity was not always the case As a genre born in the world of nightclubs EDMrsquos parties were lambasted for years as depraved raves Now many kids will go to a rave before they attend a rock concert Why the sudden change A major factor is rebranding
Raves became festivals Electronic became EDMOnce shed of the negative associations with raves
and the bad memories of the electronicarsquos failure EDM shows and festivals began to proliferate across the countr y No longer hiding in remote f ields or empt y warehouse e lec t ronic mus ic promoter s looked to book DJs in public arenas and concer t halls
Elec tr ic Daisy Carnival (EDC) 2010 a rave put on by one of the major EDM promoters Insomniac
Event s ser ved as a turning point for the genre when an underage gir l died at the event causing severe backlash against Insomniac but also giving the genre lots of exposure EDC was run out of Los Angeles but found refuge in the always-accepting city of Las Vegas It was here in Vegas that EDM finally found a homemdashnow playing the same role to America as Ibiza did to Europe when the rave scene star ted there in the 1980s Superstar DJs can be found any week as a resident DJ to Tao XS or one of the many other posh clubs and the landmark event of the year EDC Vegas is now one of the largest raves in the world with over 300000 attendees last year
EDC is not the only big festival on the market now though Festivals are becoming trendymdashan indicator of direction the music industry is headed in towards the live and away from the recorded According to Metrowizecom an online nightli fe guide in 2012 alone at leas t thir t y-two new fes t ivals began in Americamdashfif teen of them dedicated solely to EDM
Long-standing traditions in the music industry fes-tivals typically only attracted people who spent a lot of time at live music and concertshellipuntil recently
As EDM crossed over into pop music the l ines became blur red between a night of going out to dance at a club and night of going out to see your favorite ar tist at a concer t People who a few years ago never attended a concert beyond the major pop ar tists are now concer t-fiends as the ldquopoprdquo ar tists they love today are world-renowned DJs
Of course as any genre crosses into the main-stream it is going to become increasingly popular
FeverEDMS BOOMING SUCCESS IN THE FESTIVAL MARKET HAS HEADS
TURNING FROM AROUND THE INDUSTRY TO INVEST IN LIVE MUSIC
38 we live for live music
with the masses but EDMrsquos explosion is unparal-leled Hundreds of thousands of people attended EDC Vegas and that was just one of dozens of elec-tronic dance festivals and all-night events this year
Because the live experience is EDMrsquos native for-mat the genre is par ticularly nuanced to success on the road Matt Adell of Beatport the online mecca of the DJ community explains one of the reasons why
ldquoPer formers such as Skr illex are incredibly ef f i -cient touring operations compared to rock bands Itrsquos less expensive than a rock group because therersquos just one per former Therersquos much less gear and it rsquos easier to set up because therersquos no live micro-phones So the suppor t team required is so much smallerrdquo
Bobby Clay head of the electronic division at C3 Presents touches on another aspect of EDM that primes the genre for the road ldquoIt rsquos like you donrsquot need to have a full studio on your tour bus to create the next banger or the next huge club track or the next Rihanna remix You can do it from the comfort of a tour bus or the green room of whatever arena some of these big people are playing in nowrdquo EDM ar tists have the luxury of not having to break from tour to create new songs
Although EDM is pr imed for tour ing i t is only in the past couple of years that the genre took on this rock and roll mentality As shows star ted to be booked in rock and roll venues and DJproducers took to the road stopping in every middle town and college campus in America like a rock band would DJs became rock stars in their own right One ar tist in par ticular is noted for condensing the drawn out peaks and falls of dance music into four and a half minute radio-ready tracks the half-shaved goofy-glasses wearing kid known as Skrillex Love him or hate him his genre-fusing in your face style helped to launch EDM to the place it is at today
With mega-DJs such as Skrillex earning up to $1 million per festival appearance and groups such as Swedish House Mafia selling out Madison Square Garden in nine minutes it is no surprise that corpo-rate heads have turned to this once-ignored market Over the summer Live Nation bought Hard Events one of the original promoters of the genre whose brands of Hardfest Holy Ship and Haunted Hard Mansion have gone on to great success Shor t ly af ter media mogul Robert FX Sillerman pledged to invest $1 billion dollars in EDM ventures
As the money pours in 2013 is looking to be the biggest year yet for EDM Having finally solidified i t s place in the music industr y (and at the fore-front nevertheless) Electronic Dance Music is ready to guide the music industry in a new directionmdasha direction towards the future towards a more diver-sified music industry towards a music industry that lives for live music
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
39live live issue 1
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
AT LEAST 32 NEW FESTIVALS BEGAN IN THE UNITED STATES IN 2012 OF THESE FESTIVALS FIFTEEN OF THEM ARE DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC
40 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL WONDERLANDDowntown TexasApril 27-28 2012An inside look into the modern electronic music festival
41live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL WONDERLAND
42 we live for live music
43live live issue 1
A new generation neo-age hippies
44 we live for live musicWelcome to Wonderland
45live live issue 1
46 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
47live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Dillon Francis plays The Queenrsquos Ground
48 we live for live music
49live live issue 1
Visual explosions to coordinate with the
audio attack of a drop
50 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
51live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
EDM shows are known for their
high-impact visuals
52 we live for live music
53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
Button 7
Button 8
Button 9
Button 10
Button 11
Button 12
button13
Button 52
Button 54
Button 56
Button 55
Button 43
Button 44
Button 49
Button 50
Button 48
21live live issue 1
Bob Moogrsquos synthesizer brought electronic music out of the realm of academia and into
the hands of musicians
Rock nrsquo roll becomes the sound of modern life It continues to grow
until splits into factions in the 1970s
The Moog Company develops the first modular synthesizer
The Beach Boysrsquo Good Vibrations is the first pop hit to feature
electronic sounds
Etta James releases ldquoSomethingrsquos Got a Hold of Merdquo a sample of which resonates
through the EDM explosion of late
1962
timeline 1949 - 1970
1962
1960s
1967
1964
1960sYouth start to attend rock concerts
instead of going to sock hops
King Tubby of Jamaica births the dub which will later give rise to the remix
(CAPITOL RECORDS)
(MOOG MUSIC)
null
21222783
22 we live for live music
Disco makes streaming music continuously cool and
popularizes the club scene Jim Morrison predicts
the future of music
The Mini Moog is invented becoming the first portable synthesizer
Synth music and space age pop is starting to impact TV
film and commercials
Disco is born
Hot Butterrsquos Popcorn becomes the first electronic pop hit
DJ Herc invents BreakbeatItalo Disco becomes the
first complete EDM genre
1970s
EARLY1970s
1972-1974 1973
1970 1978
1978
1972
1970
the 1970sldquoI can envision one person with l ike a lot of machines tapes and electronic setups
singing or speaking and using machinesrdquo-Jim Morrison
The Technics 1200 Mark II is released and becomes the industry standard
(PBS)
(RCO RECORDS)
timeline
null
2677309
23live live issue 1
Saturday Night Fever
Kraftwerk releases Autobahn
David Bowie and Blondie bring in New Wave
Sugar Hill Gangrsquos ldquoRapperrsquos Delightrdquo brings hip hop into the Top 40
Brian Eno births ambient music
The first digital sampler the Fairlight CMI (Computer Musical Instrument) is released
Disco declines as sentiments such as ldquoDisco Sucksrdquo and ldquoDeath to
Discordquo become popular
1977
L AT E1970s
1978 1978
1979
1979
1975
the 1970s
These days many people falsly associate this iconic soundtrack with the
beginning of disco
Kraftwerk members are considered tobe the ldquogodfathersrdquo of electronic music
(UNKNOWN)
timeline
24 we live for live music
Disco is thought to be dead but it just went underground where it morphed into house and techno
Video game music is born as a genre
Computers video games and electronic equipment become more affordable
efficient and put to great use
Roland TR 808 Rhythm Machine
Frankie Knuckles invents house music at the
Warehouse in Chicago
E-mu Emulator becomes the first affordable
digital sampler
The Hacienda Club opens in Manchester
The rave scene grows from acid house music in the United Kingdom
the 1980rsquos
1981
1982 1987
1980
1980 1981
1980s 1980s
(UNKOWN)
In the 1980s a host of new instruments based on synthet-ic sounds and sampl ing technolo-gy contributed to the formation of new genres of electronic mu-sic and the electronic sound on the whole Whi le these days the sounds of most of these instruments can be repl icated on a computer outfit-ted with the proper audio software DJs sti l l seek the retro instruments for the unique characteristics that come from analog instruments
timeline
25live live issue 1
Sampling and breakbeat become important features for both
hip-hop and EDM
MIDI inventedRoland TB 303
Baseline released
Techno rises out of the industrial
sounds of Detroit
Roland TR 909 Drum Machine
Acid house is born at the Hacienda Club in
Manchester
Electronic Dance Music first Summer of Love begins as the free-party scene takes the sound out of the club and into the open
Ambient music becomes just as important as the dance floor during EDMrsquos second
Summer of Love
Trip Hop and other downtempo genres find success with acts like Massive Attack and Portishead
the 1980rsquos
19871983-1985
1989-1991
1988
1989
1982 19841983
1980
MIDI is a protocol not a hardware which provided a standard for electronic instrument manufacturers
(MASSIVE ATTACK)
London becomes the hub of
EDM
timeline
Computer-based production allows for DJs to recreate the sounds found in traditional analog instruments as
well as new sounds that have never been heard before (eg the Dubstep wob) It also opened up the realm of
EDM creation to anyone with the right software
Responsible for EDC Nocturnal and Wonderland Festivals
Rise of the super club and superstar DJs
The media dubs of all electronic music
ldquotechnordquo
Hardcore music begins to dominate the British
rave scene
Jungle forms out of hardcore
Paul Oakenfold Paul Van Dyk and DJ Tiesto bring trance
music to the forefront
Insomniac Events is established in Southern California
Tommy Boy Records releases the first Jock Jams album
timeline the 1990rsquos
MP3 digital audio format is introduced
1990s
1990s
1992
1990s 1990s
1993
1991
1995
Rave music sees slight mainstream success with artists such as C amp C Music Factory and
Snap and begins to infuence pop music
With the growth of personal computing electronic artists began to migrate from analog electronic
instruments to computer-based production
EARLY1990s
EARLY1990s
(TOMMY BOY RECORDS)
>
>
null
19304054
Although electronica failed to go main-stream its loops and textures find their
way into pop and hip hop
They are the developers of Ableton Live one of the premiere loop-based
sequencers used in modern production
EDC begins as a one day event
Drum and bass evolves out of jungle
Record companies try to market techno under a new namemdash
ldquoelectronicardquomdash but fail
Fatboy Slim makes $0 off of Rockafeller Skank after giving 25 of the royalties to each of
the four artists he used samples from
Moby licenses every track on his
Play album
timeline the 1990rsquos
Napster launchesAbleton is founded
19991994
1995
1991 19991999
1997 1998
1997In the UK raves are forced back underground with the passing of
the Criminal Justice Act
ProTools released at a price of $6000
LATE1990s
LATE1990s
As artists begin to use computers in production
glitch hop evolves
This new law defined gatherings of more than 20 people listening to
ldquorepetitive beatsrdquo as illegal
(SKINT RECORDS)
EDMrsquoS non-descript beats are perfect for marketing
28 we live for live music
In an interview with the New York Times David Bowie claims copyright and intellectual property
will cease to exist in the next ten years
Congress passes a law holding club owners responsible for their patronsrsquo actions and
affecting the whole industry
Tiesto DJs the Athens Olympic Opening Ceremonies
The GRAMMYs add a Best DanceElectronica
Album category
Dubstep nights begin to pop up in the underground music
scene around the USDubstep begins to grow
out of South London
timeline
Limewire introducedCD sales peak iTunes launchedThe iPod brings digital music players to the masses
2002
2000 2001 2001 2003
2003
20062001
2004 2005
ldquoYoursquod better be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation
thatrsquos going to be leftrdquo
Ruskorsquos ldquoCockney Thugrdquo i l lustrates the wob sound
2000-2009
(COURTESY OF RUSK0)
(DTSIABAIFLICKR CC)
null
24417967
29live live issue 1
Daft Punkrsquos pyramid setup at Coachella sets a
new bar for visuals
Kanye West spawns electro-rap with 808rsquos amp Heartbreak prominently fea-
turing the TR 808 drum machine
Lady Gaga and the Black Eyed Peas bring the Euro-house
sound to the Top 40
Guettarsquos ldquoWhen Love Take Overrdquo becomes an international pop hit and the Euro-house sound
starts to creep its way into popular music
timeline
2004 2004 2007
2008 2009
20072006
20092007-2009
Long-established one-day raves such as EDC and Ultra transform
into two-day festivals
Guetta co-wrote ldquoBoom Boom Powrdquo
Gagarsquos Bad Romance has nearly 05 bi l l ion YouTube views
Gary Richards starts Hard Events
Youtube launched Beatport launched
2000-2009
iPhone released
(KARL WALTERGETTY IMAGES)
(INTERSCOPE RECORDS)
2010-2011
Technics SL-1200 turntable the industry standard for thirty
years is discontinued
Limewire the top P2P file-sharing client
is shut downSpotify launches in the US
When an underage girl dies at EDC in LA EDM gets a lot backlash but this
also gives it a lot of exposure
EDC is forced out of LA and moves to Vegas which becomes the home of
EDM in the United States
Bassnectar plays Red Rocks where he incurs $100000 in noise violations
after bringing his own speakers
Skrillex is nominated for five Grammy Awards he
wins three
timeline
2010
2010
2010
2010 2010 2011
2011 2011
2011
2011
Black Eyed Peasrsquo house-based ldquoThe TimeDirty Bitrdquo tops the
charts in over 15 countries
Hip hop and EDM production styles have always mirrored one another now they are morphing
EDM finally has a home in America
Moombahton a fusion of house music and reggae is
born at a house party in DC
Skrillex explodes onto the main-stream music scene bringing the ldquodroprdquo and heavy bass with him
DJAY app
(COURTESY OF SKRILLEX)
2010-2011
Britneyrsquos Hold it Against Me acts as the catalyst for replacing the pop
bridge with the dubstep drop
EDC Vegas has over 230000 attendees in
three days
The Victoria Secret Fashion Show features rave-inspired
outfits for the final walk
timeline
2011 2011
2011 2011 2011
2011
Tiesto plays the biggest single headliner DJ show in US
history to 26000 in Carson CA
Nielsen Soundscan reports digital music sales in the US are larger than
physical sales for the first time
Absoulte Vodka sponsors Swedish House Mafiarsquos
sold out MSG show
According to Bil lboard this is considered a watershed moment
brands adopting EDM
EDM technology is large-ly based now around
software programs and
their coordinating hard-
ware--control lers for Ableton
Scratch decks for Serato
and more There is an entire
spectrum of modern DJ tech-
nology avai lable and the path
one takes depends on what
sound they are trying to achieve
(JIVE RECORDS)
(ZUMA PRESS)
(SAMANTHA HOFFER)
The neon colors associated with EDM can be found al l over
the fashion world
With the laptop as instrument EDM
producers constantly
blend and mix elements
of different genres lead-
ing to the prol iferation of
microgenres which are difficult to
distinguish
null
26177792
32 we live for live music
EDC Vegas sees 300000+ people
over 3 days
Family-friendly animated film Wreck It Ralph uses
dance music in trailer
Feature-length EDM documentary ldquoThe Drop The EDM Culture
Explosionrdquo enters production
A system of alerts are set up to notify users when they
infringe on copyright law
Night Culture Inc becomes the first EDM-oriented publicly
traded company
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline 2012
Queen Latifah sings the National Anthem at the opening game of
the NFL seasonover a beat
JAN
OCTJULY SEPT
SEPTAUG
JUNE JUNEMARUltra Music Festival in Miami
has 40000 viewers watching its online stream over YouTube
Universal closes on EMI becoming the largest of the remaining three
major record labels
(DANNY MOLOSHOK REUTERS)
(BIG MACHINE)
null
21255588
33live live issue 1
After exploding onto the mainstream music scene and pop culture in the past year the industry has set its signts on EDM ventures proved the genre has final ly conquered the final frontiermdashAmerica
Live Nation purchases Hard Events
Media mogul Robert FX Sillerman says he will spend
$1B on EDM enterprises
EDM artists get the spotlight at the Grammys for the 1st time with addi-tion of a dance music performance
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline
Taylor Swift adopts the dubstep drop with her single ldquoI Knew You
Were Troublerdquo
JUNEFEB JULY
JUNE JUNE
OCT OCT NOV
NOVOCT
Bieber drops his first dub-step-influenced track ldquoAs
Long as You Love Merdquo
Dance-based songs can be found all across the radio
The first professional media outlet for EDM is announced
NYU introduces a course on the Business of Electronic amp
Dance Music
Billboard hosts the 2nd Annual FutureSound conference to ad-dress the future of the industry
NOVEMBERBLACK WIDOW
MUSIC PUBLISHES A LIST OF 230+ EDM SUB-GENRESAND
COUNTING
(BIG MACHINE)
34 we live for live music
BACK TO THE
FUTUREThirty years after the ldquodeathrdquo of disco dance music is back in America and bigger than ever To understand
where it is going we must take a look at the past
35live live issue 1
The most recent main-stream movement to hit the United States
E l e c t r o n i c D a n c e M u s i c (EDM) did so as an explosion of lights neon and pulsating beats But dance music is nothing new Although EDM seems entirely novel to many of Amer icarsquos youth dance music has a long and storied history
In the beginning mus ic c r e a t e d v i a e l e c t r o n i c ins t r ument s was focused on academic pursuit s and high ar t The use of elec-t ron ic s i n popu la r mus ic c rea t ion b egan w i t h t he commerc ia l i z a t ion o f t he synthesizer in the 1960s As technology evolved so did experimentation with elec-tronic instruments
In the 1970s the days of disco led to the develop-ment of e lec t ronic dance mus ic when DJs invented the traditional two-turntable setup to continuously stream together music so that the dancing never had to stop U n f o r t u na te l y f o r d a n c e music just as quickly as disco was embraced ant i -d isco sentiments fueled by racism and fear of change pushed it into the underground
It was in this underground s p a c e d u r i n g t h e lsquo 8 0 s that modern dance music evo lved St r ides made in elec tronic ins trumentation developed the synthesizer machines that would form the backbones of house and techno music the Roland TB 303 baseline and Roland TR 909 drum machine
A c c o r d i n g t o T h e Guard ianrsquos recent l y pub -lished timeline A History of Modern Music DJ Frankie Knuckles is responsible for the development of house music characterized by its
44 beats Techno rose out of Detroit a few years later inspired by the indus tr ial sounds of the city
While wildly popular in the underground music scene techno and house did not find commercial success in Amer ica I t was not unt i l the lat ter par t of the lsquo80s when the sounds of house and techno found their way to t he UK and mor phed into a new sub-genre acid house that the commercial club culture was born albeit exclusively in Europe
While dance music took of f r unning on the other side of the pond in America a dif ferent s tor y began to unfold As rap and hip-hop took a s t ronghold of the music industr y in the late eighties and nineties dance music remained confined to the peripheries
A s d a n c e - m u s i c D J s w o r ke d t o e v o l v e t h e i r sound and keep up w i th technology hip -hop DJs who adopted the traditional turntable setup from the DJs of disco as well as their pro-duction techniques began to work in the record ing s tudios and inf luence the industr y especially in the realm of pop music
I n t h e 19 9 0 s i n s i d e r s thought EDM had f ina l l y hit the jackpot and found mainstream success In an inter v iew with PaperMag industry vet Gary Richards explains ldquothe f irst farewell to the undergroundrdquo
ldquoBy 1993 i t felt l ike the music wasnrsquot underground anymore so I threw a par ty c a l l e d R ave A m e r i c a a t Knot t s Ber r y Farm which i s an amusement par k in O r a n g e C o u n t y I t s o l d out with l ike 20000 peo-ple Rick Rubin came with
Anthony K ied is f rom the Red Hot Chili Peppers and a couple guys from ZZ Top and he asked me if I wanted to work in the record busi-ness and help them s ign some EDM ar t i s t s I sa id sure the Prodigy were super hot and it seemed like it was blowing up But we star ted signing all these techno art-ists thinking theyrsquod catch on too but nobody was buying it Nobodyrdquo
Jus t l i ke R ichards says n o b o d y w a s b u y i n g i t D a n c e m u s i c w a s n o t catching on in the way the industr y would have liked so in 1997 the entire music industry and press put their full force behind ldquoelectron-icardquo the new catch-all name they had given to the genre in an attempt to successfully market it
Despite the gl impses of success seen froma handful of artists the genre failed to succeed and the industr y distanced itself from dance music far ther than i t had when disco ldquodiedrdquo
T h i s f a i l u r e c a n b e accounted to EDM not f it-t i ng i n to t h e ma r ke t i ng machinery of the industr y The t radit ional setup was f ixed for four-minute rock and pop singles and album tour s not t he ex tended club mixes and residencies that were the basis of the EDM world Not only was the indus t r y i l l - equipped to market electronic music but many consumers also felt it abrasive and awkward attempting to listen to this machine-made glitch-based music that was so unfamiliar to their ears It was not until the digital revolution of the new millennium that elec-tronic dance music f inal ly found its place
36 we live for live music
Festival
MAJOR LAZER AT SUMMERFEST IN HOUSTON JUNE 2012
37live live issue 1
If music in 2012 could talk it would sound a lot like the Bill Orsquo Reillyrsquos blooper ldquoLetrsquos do it liverdquo While attending concerts has been popular since rock and roll shows in the 1950s the recent electronic music boom has made it exponentially more so
One reason accord ing to Forbes i s that as resource constraints have t ightened people are spending thei r money more on exper iences as opposed to manufactured products But it is more than that EDM has managed to ent i re ly t rans -form the concept of a concer t by blurring the lines between going out dancing and going out to see music These days one would pay the same amount to see superstar-DJ David Guetta in an arena that they would if they were simply dancing to him spin-ning in a club
But this popularity was not always the case As a genre born in the world of nightclubs EDMrsquos parties were lambasted for years as depraved raves Now many kids will go to a rave before they attend a rock concert Why the sudden change A major factor is rebranding
Raves became festivals Electronic became EDMOnce shed of the negative associations with raves
and the bad memories of the electronicarsquos failure EDM shows and festivals began to proliferate across the countr y No longer hiding in remote f ields or empt y warehouse e lec t ronic mus ic promoter s looked to book DJs in public arenas and concer t halls
Elec tr ic Daisy Carnival (EDC) 2010 a rave put on by one of the major EDM promoters Insomniac
Event s ser ved as a turning point for the genre when an underage gir l died at the event causing severe backlash against Insomniac but also giving the genre lots of exposure EDC was run out of Los Angeles but found refuge in the always-accepting city of Las Vegas It was here in Vegas that EDM finally found a homemdashnow playing the same role to America as Ibiza did to Europe when the rave scene star ted there in the 1980s Superstar DJs can be found any week as a resident DJ to Tao XS or one of the many other posh clubs and the landmark event of the year EDC Vegas is now one of the largest raves in the world with over 300000 attendees last year
EDC is not the only big festival on the market now though Festivals are becoming trendymdashan indicator of direction the music industry is headed in towards the live and away from the recorded According to Metrowizecom an online nightli fe guide in 2012 alone at leas t thir t y-two new fes t ivals began in Americamdashfif teen of them dedicated solely to EDM
Long-standing traditions in the music industry fes-tivals typically only attracted people who spent a lot of time at live music and concertshellipuntil recently
As EDM crossed over into pop music the l ines became blur red between a night of going out to dance at a club and night of going out to see your favorite ar tist at a concer t People who a few years ago never attended a concert beyond the major pop ar tists are now concer t-fiends as the ldquopoprdquo ar tists they love today are world-renowned DJs
Of course as any genre crosses into the main-stream it is going to become increasingly popular
FeverEDMS BOOMING SUCCESS IN THE FESTIVAL MARKET HAS HEADS
TURNING FROM AROUND THE INDUSTRY TO INVEST IN LIVE MUSIC
38 we live for live music
with the masses but EDMrsquos explosion is unparal-leled Hundreds of thousands of people attended EDC Vegas and that was just one of dozens of elec-tronic dance festivals and all-night events this year
Because the live experience is EDMrsquos native for-mat the genre is par ticularly nuanced to success on the road Matt Adell of Beatport the online mecca of the DJ community explains one of the reasons why
ldquoPer formers such as Skr illex are incredibly ef f i -cient touring operations compared to rock bands Itrsquos less expensive than a rock group because therersquos just one per former Therersquos much less gear and it rsquos easier to set up because therersquos no live micro-phones So the suppor t team required is so much smallerrdquo
Bobby Clay head of the electronic division at C3 Presents touches on another aspect of EDM that primes the genre for the road ldquoIt rsquos like you donrsquot need to have a full studio on your tour bus to create the next banger or the next huge club track or the next Rihanna remix You can do it from the comfort of a tour bus or the green room of whatever arena some of these big people are playing in nowrdquo EDM ar tists have the luxury of not having to break from tour to create new songs
Although EDM is pr imed for tour ing i t is only in the past couple of years that the genre took on this rock and roll mentality As shows star ted to be booked in rock and roll venues and DJproducers took to the road stopping in every middle town and college campus in America like a rock band would DJs became rock stars in their own right One ar tist in par ticular is noted for condensing the drawn out peaks and falls of dance music into four and a half minute radio-ready tracks the half-shaved goofy-glasses wearing kid known as Skrillex Love him or hate him his genre-fusing in your face style helped to launch EDM to the place it is at today
With mega-DJs such as Skrillex earning up to $1 million per festival appearance and groups such as Swedish House Mafia selling out Madison Square Garden in nine minutes it is no surprise that corpo-rate heads have turned to this once-ignored market Over the summer Live Nation bought Hard Events one of the original promoters of the genre whose brands of Hardfest Holy Ship and Haunted Hard Mansion have gone on to great success Shor t ly af ter media mogul Robert FX Sillerman pledged to invest $1 billion dollars in EDM ventures
As the money pours in 2013 is looking to be the biggest year yet for EDM Having finally solidified i t s place in the music industr y (and at the fore-front nevertheless) Electronic Dance Music is ready to guide the music industry in a new directionmdasha direction towards the future towards a more diver-sified music industry towards a music industry that lives for live music
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
39live live issue 1
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
AT LEAST 32 NEW FESTIVALS BEGAN IN THE UNITED STATES IN 2012 OF THESE FESTIVALS FIFTEEN OF THEM ARE DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC
40 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL WONDERLANDDowntown TexasApril 27-28 2012An inside look into the modern electronic music festival
41live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL WONDERLAND
42 we live for live music
43live live issue 1
A new generation neo-age hippies
44 we live for live musicWelcome to Wonderland
45live live issue 1
46 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
47live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Dillon Francis plays The Queenrsquos Ground
48 we live for live music
49live live issue 1
Visual explosions to coordinate with the
audio attack of a drop
50 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
51live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
EDM shows are known for their
high-impact visuals
52 we live for live music
53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
Button 7
Button 8
Button 9
Button 10
Button 11
Button 12
button13
Button 52
Button 54
Button 56
Button 55
Button 43
Button 44
Button 49
Button 50
Button 48
22 we live for live music
Disco makes streaming music continuously cool and
popularizes the club scene Jim Morrison predicts
the future of music
The Mini Moog is invented becoming the first portable synthesizer
Synth music and space age pop is starting to impact TV
film and commercials
Disco is born
Hot Butterrsquos Popcorn becomes the first electronic pop hit
DJ Herc invents BreakbeatItalo Disco becomes the
first complete EDM genre
1970s
EARLY1970s
1972-1974 1973
1970 1978
1978
1972
1970
the 1970sldquoI can envision one person with l ike a lot of machines tapes and electronic setups
singing or speaking and using machinesrdquo-Jim Morrison
The Technics 1200 Mark II is released and becomes the industry standard
(PBS)
(RCO RECORDS)
timeline
null
2677309
23live live issue 1
Saturday Night Fever
Kraftwerk releases Autobahn
David Bowie and Blondie bring in New Wave
Sugar Hill Gangrsquos ldquoRapperrsquos Delightrdquo brings hip hop into the Top 40
Brian Eno births ambient music
The first digital sampler the Fairlight CMI (Computer Musical Instrument) is released
Disco declines as sentiments such as ldquoDisco Sucksrdquo and ldquoDeath to
Discordquo become popular
1977
L AT E1970s
1978 1978
1979
1979
1975
the 1970s
These days many people falsly associate this iconic soundtrack with the
beginning of disco
Kraftwerk members are considered tobe the ldquogodfathersrdquo of electronic music
(UNKNOWN)
timeline
24 we live for live music
Disco is thought to be dead but it just went underground where it morphed into house and techno
Video game music is born as a genre
Computers video games and electronic equipment become more affordable
efficient and put to great use
Roland TR 808 Rhythm Machine
Frankie Knuckles invents house music at the
Warehouse in Chicago
E-mu Emulator becomes the first affordable
digital sampler
The Hacienda Club opens in Manchester
The rave scene grows from acid house music in the United Kingdom
the 1980rsquos
1981
1982 1987
1980
1980 1981
1980s 1980s
(UNKOWN)
In the 1980s a host of new instruments based on synthet-ic sounds and sampl ing technolo-gy contributed to the formation of new genres of electronic mu-sic and the electronic sound on the whole Whi le these days the sounds of most of these instruments can be repl icated on a computer outfit-ted with the proper audio software DJs sti l l seek the retro instruments for the unique characteristics that come from analog instruments
timeline
25live live issue 1
Sampling and breakbeat become important features for both
hip-hop and EDM
MIDI inventedRoland TB 303
Baseline released
Techno rises out of the industrial
sounds of Detroit
Roland TR 909 Drum Machine
Acid house is born at the Hacienda Club in
Manchester
Electronic Dance Music first Summer of Love begins as the free-party scene takes the sound out of the club and into the open
Ambient music becomes just as important as the dance floor during EDMrsquos second
Summer of Love
Trip Hop and other downtempo genres find success with acts like Massive Attack and Portishead
the 1980rsquos
19871983-1985
1989-1991
1988
1989
1982 19841983
1980
MIDI is a protocol not a hardware which provided a standard for electronic instrument manufacturers
(MASSIVE ATTACK)
London becomes the hub of
EDM
timeline
Computer-based production allows for DJs to recreate the sounds found in traditional analog instruments as
well as new sounds that have never been heard before (eg the Dubstep wob) It also opened up the realm of
EDM creation to anyone with the right software
Responsible for EDC Nocturnal and Wonderland Festivals
Rise of the super club and superstar DJs
The media dubs of all electronic music
ldquotechnordquo
Hardcore music begins to dominate the British
rave scene
Jungle forms out of hardcore
Paul Oakenfold Paul Van Dyk and DJ Tiesto bring trance
music to the forefront
Insomniac Events is established in Southern California
Tommy Boy Records releases the first Jock Jams album
timeline the 1990rsquos
MP3 digital audio format is introduced
1990s
1990s
1992
1990s 1990s
1993
1991
1995
Rave music sees slight mainstream success with artists such as C amp C Music Factory and
Snap and begins to infuence pop music
With the growth of personal computing electronic artists began to migrate from analog electronic
instruments to computer-based production
EARLY1990s
EARLY1990s
(TOMMY BOY RECORDS)
>
>
null
19304054
Although electronica failed to go main-stream its loops and textures find their
way into pop and hip hop
They are the developers of Ableton Live one of the premiere loop-based
sequencers used in modern production
EDC begins as a one day event
Drum and bass evolves out of jungle
Record companies try to market techno under a new namemdash
ldquoelectronicardquomdash but fail
Fatboy Slim makes $0 off of Rockafeller Skank after giving 25 of the royalties to each of
the four artists he used samples from
Moby licenses every track on his
Play album
timeline the 1990rsquos
Napster launchesAbleton is founded
19991994
1995
1991 19991999
1997 1998
1997In the UK raves are forced back underground with the passing of
the Criminal Justice Act
ProTools released at a price of $6000
LATE1990s
LATE1990s
As artists begin to use computers in production
glitch hop evolves
This new law defined gatherings of more than 20 people listening to
ldquorepetitive beatsrdquo as illegal
(SKINT RECORDS)
EDMrsquoS non-descript beats are perfect for marketing
28 we live for live music
In an interview with the New York Times David Bowie claims copyright and intellectual property
will cease to exist in the next ten years
Congress passes a law holding club owners responsible for their patronsrsquo actions and
affecting the whole industry
Tiesto DJs the Athens Olympic Opening Ceremonies
The GRAMMYs add a Best DanceElectronica
Album category
Dubstep nights begin to pop up in the underground music
scene around the USDubstep begins to grow
out of South London
timeline
Limewire introducedCD sales peak iTunes launchedThe iPod brings digital music players to the masses
2002
2000 2001 2001 2003
2003
20062001
2004 2005
ldquoYoursquod better be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation
thatrsquos going to be leftrdquo
Ruskorsquos ldquoCockney Thugrdquo i l lustrates the wob sound
2000-2009
(COURTESY OF RUSK0)
(DTSIABAIFLICKR CC)
null
24417967
29live live issue 1
Daft Punkrsquos pyramid setup at Coachella sets a
new bar for visuals
Kanye West spawns electro-rap with 808rsquos amp Heartbreak prominently fea-
turing the TR 808 drum machine
Lady Gaga and the Black Eyed Peas bring the Euro-house
sound to the Top 40
Guettarsquos ldquoWhen Love Take Overrdquo becomes an international pop hit and the Euro-house sound
starts to creep its way into popular music
timeline
2004 2004 2007
2008 2009
20072006
20092007-2009
Long-established one-day raves such as EDC and Ultra transform
into two-day festivals
Guetta co-wrote ldquoBoom Boom Powrdquo
Gagarsquos Bad Romance has nearly 05 bi l l ion YouTube views
Gary Richards starts Hard Events
Youtube launched Beatport launched
2000-2009
iPhone released
(KARL WALTERGETTY IMAGES)
(INTERSCOPE RECORDS)
2010-2011
Technics SL-1200 turntable the industry standard for thirty
years is discontinued
Limewire the top P2P file-sharing client
is shut downSpotify launches in the US
When an underage girl dies at EDC in LA EDM gets a lot backlash but this
also gives it a lot of exposure
EDC is forced out of LA and moves to Vegas which becomes the home of
EDM in the United States
Bassnectar plays Red Rocks where he incurs $100000 in noise violations
after bringing his own speakers
Skrillex is nominated for five Grammy Awards he
wins three
timeline
2010
2010
2010
2010 2010 2011
2011 2011
2011
2011
Black Eyed Peasrsquo house-based ldquoThe TimeDirty Bitrdquo tops the
charts in over 15 countries
Hip hop and EDM production styles have always mirrored one another now they are morphing
EDM finally has a home in America
Moombahton a fusion of house music and reggae is
born at a house party in DC
Skrillex explodes onto the main-stream music scene bringing the ldquodroprdquo and heavy bass with him
DJAY app
(COURTESY OF SKRILLEX)
2010-2011
Britneyrsquos Hold it Against Me acts as the catalyst for replacing the pop
bridge with the dubstep drop
EDC Vegas has over 230000 attendees in
three days
The Victoria Secret Fashion Show features rave-inspired
outfits for the final walk
timeline
2011 2011
2011 2011 2011
2011
Tiesto plays the biggest single headliner DJ show in US
history to 26000 in Carson CA
Nielsen Soundscan reports digital music sales in the US are larger than
physical sales for the first time
Absoulte Vodka sponsors Swedish House Mafiarsquos
sold out MSG show
According to Bil lboard this is considered a watershed moment
brands adopting EDM
EDM technology is large-ly based now around
software programs and
their coordinating hard-
ware--control lers for Ableton
Scratch decks for Serato
and more There is an entire
spectrum of modern DJ tech-
nology avai lable and the path
one takes depends on what
sound they are trying to achieve
(JIVE RECORDS)
(ZUMA PRESS)
(SAMANTHA HOFFER)
The neon colors associated with EDM can be found al l over
the fashion world
With the laptop as instrument EDM
producers constantly
blend and mix elements
of different genres lead-
ing to the prol iferation of
microgenres which are difficult to
distinguish
null
26177792
32 we live for live music
EDC Vegas sees 300000+ people
over 3 days
Family-friendly animated film Wreck It Ralph uses
dance music in trailer
Feature-length EDM documentary ldquoThe Drop The EDM Culture
Explosionrdquo enters production
A system of alerts are set up to notify users when they
infringe on copyright law
Night Culture Inc becomes the first EDM-oriented publicly
traded company
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline 2012
Queen Latifah sings the National Anthem at the opening game of
the NFL seasonover a beat
JAN
OCTJULY SEPT
SEPTAUG
JUNE JUNEMARUltra Music Festival in Miami
has 40000 viewers watching its online stream over YouTube
Universal closes on EMI becoming the largest of the remaining three
major record labels
(DANNY MOLOSHOK REUTERS)
(BIG MACHINE)
null
21255588
33live live issue 1
After exploding onto the mainstream music scene and pop culture in the past year the industry has set its signts on EDM ventures proved the genre has final ly conquered the final frontiermdashAmerica
Live Nation purchases Hard Events
Media mogul Robert FX Sillerman says he will spend
$1B on EDM enterprises
EDM artists get the spotlight at the Grammys for the 1st time with addi-tion of a dance music performance
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline
Taylor Swift adopts the dubstep drop with her single ldquoI Knew You
Were Troublerdquo
JUNEFEB JULY
JUNE JUNE
OCT OCT NOV
NOVOCT
Bieber drops his first dub-step-influenced track ldquoAs
Long as You Love Merdquo
Dance-based songs can be found all across the radio
The first professional media outlet for EDM is announced
NYU introduces a course on the Business of Electronic amp
Dance Music
Billboard hosts the 2nd Annual FutureSound conference to ad-dress the future of the industry
NOVEMBERBLACK WIDOW
MUSIC PUBLISHES A LIST OF 230+ EDM SUB-GENRESAND
COUNTING
(BIG MACHINE)
34 we live for live music
BACK TO THE
FUTUREThirty years after the ldquodeathrdquo of disco dance music is back in America and bigger than ever To understand
where it is going we must take a look at the past
35live live issue 1
The most recent main-stream movement to hit the United States
E l e c t r o n i c D a n c e M u s i c (EDM) did so as an explosion of lights neon and pulsating beats But dance music is nothing new Although EDM seems entirely novel to many of Amer icarsquos youth dance music has a long and storied history
In the beginning mus ic c r e a t e d v i a e l e c t r o n i c ins t r ument s was focused on academic pursuit s and high ar t The use of elec-t ron ic s i n popu la r mus ic c rea t ion b egan w i t h t he commerc ia l i z a t ion o f t he synthesizer in the 1960s As technology evolved so did experimentation with elec-tronic instruments
In the 1970s the days of disco led to the develop-ment of e lec t ronic dance mus ic when DJs invented the traditional two-turntable setup to continuously stream together music so that the dancing never had to stop U n f o r t u na te l y f o r d a n c e music just as quickly as disco was embraced ant i -d isco sentiments fueled by racism and fear of change pushed it into the underground
It was in this underground s p a c e d u r i n g t h e lsquo 8 0 s that modern dance music evo lved St r ides made in elec tronic ins trumentation developed the synthesizer machines that would form the backbones of house and techno music the Roland TB 303 baseline and Roland TR 909 drum machine
A c c o r d i n g t o T h e Guard ianrsquos recent l y pub -lished timeline A History of Modern Music DJ Frankie Knuckles is responsible for the development of house music characterized by its
44 beats Techno rose out of Detroit a few years later inspired by the indus tr ial sounds of the city
While wildly popular in the underground music scene techno and house did not find commercial success in Amer ica I t was not unt i l the lat ter par t of the lsquo80s when the sounds of house and techno found their way to t he UK and mor phed into a new sub-genre acid house that the commercial club culture was born albeit exclusively in Europe
While dance music took of f r unning on the other side of the pond in America a dif ferent s tor y began to unfold As rap and hip-hop took a s t ronghold of the music industr y in the late eighties and nineties dance music remained confined to the peripheries
A s d a n c e - m u s i c D J s w o r ke d t o e v o l v e t h e i r sound and keep up w i th technology hip -hop DJs who adopted the traditional turntable setup from the DJs of disco as well as their pro-duction techniques began to work in the record ing s tudios and inf luence the industr y especially in the realm of pop music
I n t h e 19 9 0 s i n s i d e r s thought EDM had f ina l l y hit the jackpot and found mainstream success In an inter v iew with PaperMag industry vet Gary Richards explains ldquothe f irst farewell to the undergroundrdquo
ldquoBy 1993 i t felt l ike the music wasnrsquot underground anymore so I threw a par ty c a l l e d R ave A m e r i c a a t Knot t s Ber r y Farm which i s an amusement par k in O r a n g e C o u n t y I t s o l d out with l ike 20000 peo-ple Rick Rubin came with
Anthony K ied is f rom the Red Hot Chili Peppers and a couple guys from ZZ Top and he asked me if I wanted to work in the record busi-ness and help them s ign some EDM ar t i s t s I sa id sure the Prodigy were super hot and it seemed like it was blowing up But we star ted signing all these techno art-ists thinking theyrsquod catch on too but nobody was buying it Nobodyrdquo
Jus t l i ke R ichards says n o b o d y w a s b u y i n g i t D a n c e m u s i c w a s n o t catching on in the way the industr y would have liked so in 1997 the entire music industry and press put their full force behind ldquoelectron-icardquo the new catch-all name they had given to the genre in an attempt to successfully market it
Despite the gl impses of success seen froma handful of artists the genre failed to succeed and the industr y distanced itself from dance music far ther than i t had when disco ldquodiedrdquo
T h i s f a i l u r e c a n b e accounted to EDM not f it-t i ng i n to t h e ma r ke t i ng machinery of the industr y The t radit ional setup was f ixed for four-minute rock and pop singles and album tour s not t he ex tended club mixes and residencies that were the basis of the EDM world Not only was the indus t r y i l l - equipped to market electronic music but many consumers also felt it abrasive and awkward attempting to listen to this machine-made glitch-based music that was so unfamiliar to their ears It was not until the digital revolution of the new millennium that elec-tronic dance music f inal ly found its place
36 we live for live music
Festival
MAJOR LAZER AT SUMMERFEST IN HOUSTON JUNE 2012
37live live issue 1
If music in 2012 could talk it would sound a lot like the Bill Orsquo Reillyrsquos blooper ldquoLetrsquos do it liverdquo While attending concerts has been popular since rock and roll shows in the 1950s the recent electronic music boom has made it exponentially more so
One reason accord ing to Forbes i s that as resource constraints have t ightened people are spending thei r money more on exper iences as opposed to manufactured products But it is more than that EDM has managed to ent i re ly t rans -form the concept of a concer t by blurring the lines between going out dancing and going out to see music These days one would pay the same amount to see superstar-DJ David Guetta in an arena that they would if they were simply dancing to him spin-ning in a club
But this popularity was not always the case As a genre born in the world of nightclubs EDMrsquos parties were lambasted for years as depraved raves Now many kids will go to a rave before they attend a rock concert Why the sudden change A major factor is rebranding
Raves became festivals Electronic became EDMOnce shed of the negative associations with raves
and the bad memories of the electronicarsquos failure EDM shows and festivals began to proliferate across the countr y No longer hiding in remote f ields or empt y warehouse e lec t ronic mus ic promoter s looked to book DJs in public arenas and concer t halls
Elec tr ic Daisy Carnival (EDC) 2010 a rave put on by one of the major EDM promoters Insomniac
Event s ser ved as a turning point for the genre when an underage gir l died at the event causing severe backlash against Insomniac but also giving the genre lots of exposure EDC was run out of Los Angeles but found refuge in the always-accepting city of Las Vegas It was here in Vegas that EDM finally found a homemdashnow playing the same role to America as Ibiza did to Europe when the rave scene star ted there in the 1980s Superstar DJs can be found any week as a resident DJ to Tao XS or one of the many other posh clubs and the landmark event of the year EDC Vegas is now one of the largest raves in the world with over 300000 attendees last year
EDC is not the only big festival on the market now though Festivals are becoming trendymdashan indicator of direction the music industry is headed in towards the live and away from the recorded According to Metrowizecom an online nightli fe guide in 2012 alone at leas t thir t y-two new fes t ivals began in Americamdashfif teen of them dedicated solely to EDM
Long-standing traditions in the music industry fes-tivals typically only attracted people who spent a lot of time at live music and concertshellipuntil recently
As EDM crossed over into pop music the l ines became blur red between a night of going out to dance at a club and night of going out to see your favorite ar tist at a concer t People who a few years ago never attended a concert beyond the major pop ar tists are now concer t-fiends as the ldquopoprdquo ar tists they love today are world-renowned DJs
Of course as any genre crosses into the main-stream it is going to become increasingly popular
FeverEDMS BOOMING SUCCESS IN THE FESTIVAL MARKET HAS HEADS
TURNING FROM AROUND THE INDUSTRY TO INVEST IN LIVE MUSIC
38 we live for live music
with the masses but EDMrsquos explosion is unparal-leled Hundreds of thousands of people attended EDC Vegas and that was just one of dozens of elec-tronic dance festivals and all-night events this year
Because the live experience is EDMrsquos native for-mat the genre is par ticularly nuanced to success on the road Matt Adell of Beatport the online mecca of the DJ community explains one of the reasons why
ldquoPer formers such as Skr illex are incredibly ef f i -cient touring operations compared to rock bands Itrsquos less expensive than a rock group because therersquos just one per former Therersquos much less gear and it rsquos easier to set up because therersquos no live micro-phones So the suppor t team required is so much smallerrdquo
Bobby Clay head of the electronic division at C3 Presents touches on another aspect of EDM that primes the genre for the road ldquoIt rsquos like you donrsquot need to have a full studio on your tour bus to create the next banger or the next huge club track or the next Rihanna remix You can do it from the comfort of a tour bus or the green room of whatever arena some of these big people are playing in nowrdquo EDM ar tists have the luxury of not having to break from tour to create new songs
Although EDM is pr imed for tour ing i t is only in the past couple of years that the genre took on this rock and roll mentality As shows star ted to be booked in rock and roll venues and DJproducers took to the road stopping in every middle town and college campus in America like a rock band would DJs became rock stars in their own right One ar tist in par ticular is noted for condensing the drawn out peaks and falls of dance music into four and a half minute radio-ready tracks the half-shaved goofy-glasses wearing kid known as Skrillex Love him or hate him his genre-fusing in your face style helped to launch EDM to the place it is at today
With mega-DJs such as Skrillex earning up to $1 million per festival appearance and groups such as Swedish House Mafia selling out Madison Square Garden in nine minutes it is no surprise that corpo-rate heads have turned to this once-ignored market Over the summer Live Nation bought Hard Events one of the original promoters of the genre whose brands of Hardfest Holy Ship and Haunted Hard Mansion have gone on to great success Shor t ly af ter media mogul Robert FX Sillerman pledged to invest $1 billion dollars in EDM ventures
As the money pours in 2013 is looking to be the biggest year yet for EDM Having finally solidified i t s place in the music industr y (and at the fore-front nevertheless) Electronic Dance Music is ready to guide the music industry in a new directionmdasha direction towards the future towards a more diver-sified music industry towards a music industry that lives for live music
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
39live live issue 1
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
AT LEAST 32 NEW FESTIVALS BEGAN IN THE UNITED STATES IN 2012 OF THESE FESTIVALS FIFTEEN OF THEM ARE DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC
40 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL WONDERLANDDowntown TexasApril 27-28 2012An inside look into the modern electronic music festival
41live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL WONDERLAND
42 we live for live music
43live live issue 1
A new generation neo-age hippies
44 we live for live musicWelcome to Wonderland
45live live issue 1
46 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
47live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Dillon Francis plays The Queenrsquos Ground
48 we live for live music
49live live issue 1
Visual explosions to coordinate with the
audio attack of a drop
50 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
51live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
EDM shows are known for their
high-impact visuals
52 we live for live music
53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
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Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
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23live live issue 1
Saturday Night Fever
Kraftwerk releases Autobahn
David Bowie and Blondie bring in New Wave
Sugar Hill Gangrsquos ldquoRapperrsquos Delightrdquo brings hip hop into the Top 40
Brian Eno births ambient music
The first digital sampler the Fairlight CMI (Computer Musical Instrument) is released
Disco declines as sentiments such as ldquoDisco Sucksrdquo and ldquoDeath to
Discordquo become popular
1977
L AT E1970s
1978 1978
1979
1979
1975
the 1970s
These days many people falsly associate this iconic soundtrack with the
beginning of disco
Kraftwerk members are considered tobe the ldquogodfathersrdquo of electronic music
(UNKNOWN)
timeline
24 we live for live music
Disco is thought to be dead but it just went underground where it morphed into house and techno
Video game music is born as a genre
Computers video games and electronic equipment become more affordable
efficient and put to great use
Roland TR 808 Rhythm Machine
Frankie Knuckles invents house music at the
Warehouse in Chicago
E-mu Emulator becomes the first affordable
digital sampler
The Hacienda Club opens in Manchester
The rave scene grows from acid house music in the United Kingdom
the 1980rsquos
1981
1982 1987
1980
1980 1981
1980s 1980s
(UNKOWN)
In the 1980s a host of new instruments based on synthet-ic sounds and sampl ing technolo-gy contributed to the formation of new genres of electronic mu-sic and the electronic sound on the whole Whi le these days the sounds of most of these instruments can be repl icated on a computer outfit-ted with the proper audio software DJs sti l l seek the retro instruments for the unique characteristics that come from analog instruments
timeline
25live live issue 1
Sampling and breakbeat become important features for both
hip-hop and EDM
MIDI inventedRoland TB 303
Baseline released
Techno rises out of the industrial
sounds of Detroit
Roland TR 909 Drum Machine
Acid house is born at the Hacienda Club in
Manchester
Electronic Dance Music first Summer of Love begins as the free-party scene takes the sound out of the club and into the open
Ambient music becomes just as important as the dance floor during EDMrsquos second
Summer of Love
Trip Hop and other downtempo genres find success with acts like Massive Attack and Portishead
the 1980rsquos
19871983-1985
1989-1991
1988
1989
1982 19841983
1980
MIDI is a protocol not a hardware which provided a standard for electronic instrument manufacturers
(MASSIVE ATTACK)
London becomes the hub of
EDM
timeline
Computer-based production allows for DJs to recreate the sounds found in traditional analog instruments as
well as new sounds that have never been heard before (eg the Dubstep wob) It also opened up the realm of
EDM creation to anyone with the right software
Responsible for EDC Nocturnal and Wonderland Festivals
Rise of the super club and superstar DJs
The media dubs of all electronic music
ldquotechnordquo
Hardcore music begins to dominate the British
rave scene
Jungle forms out of hardcore
Paul Oakenfold Paul Van Dyk and DJ Tiesto bring trance
music to the forefront
Insomniac Events is established in Southern California
Tommy Boy Records releases the first Jock Jams album
timeline the 1990rsquos
MP3 digital audio format is introduced
1990s
1990s
1992
1990s 1990s
1993
1991
1995
Rave music sees slight mainstream success with artists such as C amp C Music Factory and
Snap and begins to infuence pop music
With the growth of personal computing electronic artists began to migrate from analog electronic
instruments to computer-based production
EARLY1990s
EARLY1990s
(TOMMY BOY RECORDS)
>
>
null
19304054
Although electronica failed to go main-stream its loops and textures find their
way into pop and hip hop
They are the developers of Ableton Live one of the premiere loop-based
sequencers used in modern production
EDC begins as a one day event
Drum and bass evolves out of jungle
Record companies try to market techno under a new namemdash
ldquoelectronicardquomdash but fail
Fatboy Slim makes $0 off of Rockafeller Skank after giving 25 of the royalties to each of
the four artists he used samples from
Moby licenses every track on his
Play album
timeline the 1990rsquos
Napster launchesAbleton is founded
19991994
1995
1991 19991999
1997 1998
1997In the UK raves are forced back underground with the passing of
the Criminal Justice Act
ProTools released at a price of $6000
LATE1990s
LATE1990s
As artists begin to use computers in production
glitch hop evolves
This new law defined gatherings of more than 20 people listening to
ldquorepetitive beatsrdquo as illegal
(SKINT RECORDS)
EDMrsquoS non-descript beats are perfect for marketing
28 we live for live music
In an interview with the New York Times David Bowie claims copyright and intellectual property
will cease to exist in the next ten years
Congress passes a law holding club owners responsible for their patronsrsquo actions and
affecting the whole industry
Tiesto DJs the Athens Olympic Opening Ceremonies
The GRAMMYs add a Best DanceElectronica
Album category
Dubstep nights begin to pop up in the underground music
scene around the USDubstep begins to grow
out of South London
timeline
Limewire introducedCD sales peak iTunes launchedThe iPod brings digital music players to the masses
2002
2000 2001 2001 2003
2003
20062001
2004 2005
ldquoYoursquod better be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation
thatrsquos going to be leftrdquo
Ruskorsquos ldquoCockney Thugrdquo i l lustrates the wob sound
2000-2009
(COURTESY OF RUSK0)
(DTSIABAIFLICKR CC)
null
24417967
29live live issue 1
Daft Punkrsquos pyramid setup at Coachella sets a
new bar for visuals
Kanye West spawns electro-rap with 808rsquos amp Heartbreak prominently fea-
turing the TR 808 drum machine
Lady Gaga and the Black Eyed Peas bring the Euro-house
sound to the Top 40
Guettarsquos ldquoWhen Love Take Overrdquo becomes an international pop hit and the Euro-house sound
starts to creep its way into popular music
timeline
2004 2004 2007
2008 2009
20072006
20092007-2009
Long-established one-day raves such as EDC and Ultra transform
into two-day festivals
Guetta co-wrote ldquoBoom Boom Powrdquo
Gagarsquos Bad Romance has nearly 05 bi l l ion YouTube views
Gary Richards starts Hard Events
Youtube launched Beatport launched
2000-2009
iPhone released
(KARL WALTERGETTY IMAGES)
(INTERSCOPE RECORDS)
2010-2011
Technics SL-1200 turntable the industry standard for thirty
years is discontinued
Limewire the top P2P file-sharing client
is shut downSpotify launches in the US
When an underage girl dies at EDC in LA EDM gets a lot backlash but this
also gives it a lot of exposure
EDC is forced out of LA and moves to Vegas which becomes the home of
EDM in the United States
Bassnectar plays Red Rocks where he incurs $100000 in noise violations
after bringing his own speakers
Skrillex is nominated for five Grammy Awards he
wins three
timeline
2010
2010
2010
2010 2010 2011
2011 2011
2011
2011
Black Eyed Peasrsquo house-based ldquoThe TimeDirty Bitrdquo tops the
charts in over 15 countries
Hip hop and EDM production styles have always mirrored one another now they are morphing
EDM finally has a home in America
Moombahton a fusion of house music and reggae is
born at a house party in DC
Skrillex explodes onto the main-stream music scene bringing the ldquodroprdquo and heavy bass with him
DJAY app
(COURTESY OF SKRILLEX)
2010-2011
Britneyrsquos Hold it Against Me acts as the catalyst for replacing the pop
bridge with the dubstep drop
EDC Vegas has over 230000 attendees in
three days
The Victoria Secret Fashion Show features rave-inspired
outfits for the final walk
timeline
2011 2011
2011 2011 2011
2011
Tiesto plays the biggest single headliner DJ show in US
history to 26000 in Carson CA
Nielsen Soundscan reports digital music sales in the US are larger than
physical sales for the first time
Absoulte Vodka sponsors Swedish House Mafiarsquos
sold out MSG show
According to Bil lboard this is considered a watershed moment
brands adopting EDM
EDM technology is large-ly based now around
software programs and
their coordinating hard-
ware--control lers for Ableton
Scratch decks for Serato
and more There is an entire
spectrum of modern DJ tech-
nology avai lable and the path
one takes depends on what
sound they are trying to achieve
(JIVE RECORDS)
(ZUMA PRESS)
(SAMANTHA HOFFER)
The neon colors associated with EDM can be found al l over
the fashion world
With the laptop as instrument EDM
producers constantly
blend and mix elements
of different genres lead-
ing to the prol iferation of
microgenres which are difficult to
distinguish
null
26177792
32 we live for live music
EDC Vegas sees 300000+ people
over 3 days
Family-friendly animated film Wreck It Ralph uses
dance music in trailer
Feature-length EDM documentary ldquoThe Drop The EDM Culture
Explosionrdquo enters production
A system of alerts are set up to notify users when they
infringe on copyright law
Night Culture Inc becomes the first EDM-oriented publicly
traded company
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline 2012
Queen Latifah sings the National Anthem at the opening game of
the NFL seasonover a beat
JAN
OCTJULY SEPT
SEPTAUG
JUNE JUNEMARUltra Music Festival in Miami
has 40000 viewers watching its online stream over YouTube
Universal closes on EMI becoming the largest of the remaining three
major record labels
(DANNY MOLOSHOK REUTERS)
(BIG MACHINE)
null
21255588
33live live issue 1
After exploding onto the mainstream music scene and pop culture in the past year the industry has set its signts on EDM ventures proved the genre has final ly conquered the final frontiermdashAmerica
Live Nation purchases Hard Events
Media mogul Robert FX Sillerman says he will spend
$1B on EDM enterprises
EDM artists get the spotlight at the Grammys for the 1st time with addi-tion of a dance music performance
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline
Taylor Swift adopts the dubstep drop with her single ldquoI Knew You
Were Troublerdquo
JUNEFEB JULY
JUNE JUNE
OCT OCT NOV
NOVOCT
Bieber drops his first dub-step-influenced track ldquoAs
Long as You Love Merdquo
Dance-based songs can be found all across the radio
The first professional media outlet for EDM is announced
NYU introduces a course on the Business of Electronic amp
Dance Music
Billboard hosts the 2nd Annual FutureSound conference to ad-dress the future of the industry
NOVEMBERBLACK WIDOW
MUSIC PUBLISHES A LIST OF 230+ EDM SUB-GENRESAND
COUNTING
(BIG MACHINE)
34 we live for live music
BACK TO THE
FUTUREThirty years after the ldquodeathrdquo of disco dance music is back in America and bigger than ever To understand
where it is going we must take a look at the past
35live live issue 1
The most recent main-stream movement to hit the United States
E l e c t r o n i c D a n c e M u s i c (EDM) did so as an explosion of lights neon and pulsating beats But dance music is nothing new Although EDM seems entirely novel to many of Amer icarsquos youth dance music has a long and storied history
In the beginning mus ic c r e a t e d v i a e l e c t r o n i c ins t r ument s was focused on academic pursuit s and high ar t The use of elec-t ron ic s i n popu la r mus ic c rea t ion b egan w i t h t he commerc ia l i z a t ion o f t he synthesizer in the 1960s As technology evolved so did experimentation with elec-tronic instruments
In the 1970s the days of disco led to the develop-ment of e lec t ronic dance mus ic when DJs invented the traditional two-turntable setup to continuously stream together music so that the dancing never had to stop U n f o r t u na te l y f o r d a n c e music just as quickly as disco was embraced ant i -d isco sentiments fueled by racism and fear of change pushed it into the underground
It was in this underground s p a c e d u r i n g t h e lsquo 8 0 s that modern dance music evo lved St r ides made in elec tronic ins trumentation developed the synthesizer machines that would form the backbones of house and techno music the Roland TB 303 baseline and Roland TR 909 drum machine
A c c o r d i n g t o T h e Guard ianrsquos recent l y pub -lished timeline A History of Modern Music DJ Frankie Knuckles is responsible for the development of house music characterized by its
44 beats Techno rose out of Detroit a few years later inspired by the indus tr ial sounds of the city
While wildly popular in the underground music scene techno and house did not find commercial success in Amer ica I t was not unt i l the lat ter par t of the lsquo80s when the sounds of house and techno found their way to t he UK and mor phed into a new sub-genre acid house that the commercial club culture was born albeit exclusively in Europe
While dance music took of f r unning on the other side of the pond in America a dif ferent s tor y began to unfold As rap and hip-hop took a s t ronghold of the music industr y in the late eighties and nineties dance music remained confined to the peripheries
A s d a n c e - m u s i c D J s w o r ke d t o e v o l v e t h e i r sound and keep up w i th technology hip -hop DJs who adopted the traditional turntable setup from the DJs of disco as well as their pro-duction techniques began to work in the record ing s tudios and inf luence the industr y especially in the realm of pop music
I n t h e 19 9 0 s i n s i d e r s thought EDM had f ina l l y hit the jackpot and found mainstream success In an inter v iew with PaperMag industry vet Gary Richards explains ldquothe f irst farewell to the undergroundrdquo
ldquoBy 1993 i t felt l ike the music wasnrsquot underground anymore so I threw a par ty c a l l e d R ave A m e r i c a a t Knot t s Ber r y Farm which i s an amusement par k in O r a n g e C o u n t y I t s o l d out with l ike 20000 peo-ple Rick Rubin came with
Anthony K ied is f rom the Red Hot Chili Peppers and a couple guys from ZZ Top and he asked me if I wanted to work in the record busi-ness and help them s ign some EDM ar t i s t s I sa id sure the Prodigy were super hot and it seemed like it was blowing up But we star ted signing all these techno art-ists thinking theyrsquod catch on too but nobody was buying it Nobodyrdquo
Jus t l i ke R ichards says n o b o d y w a s b u y i n g i t D a n c e m u s i c w a s n o t catching on in the way the industr y would have liked so in 1997 the entire music industry and press put their full force behind ldquoelectron-icardquo the new catch-all name they had given to the genre in an attempt to successfully market it
Despite the gl impses of success seen froma handful of artists the genre failed to succeed and the industr y distanced itself from dance music far ther than i t had when disco ldquodiedrdquo
T h i s f a i l u r e c a n b e accounted to EDM not f it-t i ng i n to t h e ma r ke t i ng machinery of the industr y The t radit ional setup was f ixed for four-minute rock and pop singles and album tour s not t he ex tended club mixes and residencies that were the basis of the EDM world Not only was the indus t r y i l l - equipped to market electronic music but many consumers also felt it abrasive and awkward attempting to listen to this machine-made glitch-based music that was so unfamiliar to their ears It was not until the digital revolution of the new millennium that elec-tronic dance music f inal ly found its place
36 we live for live music
Festival
MAJOR LAZER AT SUMMERFEST IN HOUSTON JUNE 2012
37live live issue 1
If music in 2012 could talk it would sound a lot like the Bill Orsquo Reillyrsquos blooper ldquoLetrsquos do it liverdquo While attending concerts has been popular since rock and roll shows in the 1950s the recent electronic music boom has made it exponentially more so
One reason accord ing to Forbes i s that as resource constraints have t ightened people are spending thei r money more on exper iences as opposed to manufactured products But it is more than that EDM has managed to ent i re ly t rans -form the concept of a concer t by blurring the lines between going out dancing and going out to see music These days one would pay the same amount to see superstar-DJ David Guetta in an arena that they would if they were simply dancing to him spin-ning in a club
But this popularity was not always the case As a genre born in the world of nightclubs EDMrsquos parties were lambasted for years as depraved raves Now many kids will go to a rave before they attend a rock concert Why the sudden change A major factor is rebranding
Raves became festivals Electronic became EDMOnce shed of the negative associations with raves
and the bad memories of the electronicarsquos failure EDM shows and festivals began to proliferate across the countr y No longer hiding in remote f ields or empt y warehouse e lec t ronic mus ic promoter s looked to book DJs in public arenas and concer t halls
Elec tr ic Daisy Carnival (EDC) 2010 a rave put on by one of the major EDM promoters Insomniac
Event s ser ved as a turning point for the genre when an underage gir l died at the event causing severe backlash against Insomniac but also giving the genre lots of exposure EDC was run out of Los Angeles but found refuge in the always-accepting city of Las Vegas It was here in Vegas that EDM finally found a homemdashnow playing the same role to America as Ibiza did to Europe when the rave scene star ted there in the 1980s Superstar DJs can be found any week as a resident DJ to Tao XS or one of the many other posh clubs and the landmark event of the year EDC Vegas is now one of the largest raves in the world with over 300000 attendees last year
EDC is not the only big festival on the market now though Festivals are becoming trendymdashan indicator of direction the music industry is headed in towards the live and away from the recorded According to Metrowizecom an online nightli fe guide in 2012 alone at leas t thir t y-two new fes t ivals began in Americamdashfif teen of them dedicated solely to EDM
Long-standing traditions in the music industry fes-tivals typically only attracted people who spent a lot of time at live music and concertshellipuntil recently
As EDM crossed over into pop music the l ines became blur red between a night of going out to dance at a club and night of going out to see your favorite ar tist at a concer t People who a few years ago never attended a concert beyond the major pop ar tists are now concer t-fiends as the ldquopoprdquo ar tists they love today are world-renowned DJs
Of course as any genre crosses into the main-stream it is going to become increasingly popular
FeverEDMS BOOMING SUCCESS IN THE FESTIVAL MARKET HAS HEADS
TURNING FROM AROUND THE INDUSTRY TO INVEST IN LIVE MUSIC
38 we live for live music
with the masses but EDMrsquos explosion is unparal-leled Hundreds of thousands of people attended EDC Vegas and that was just one of dozens of elec-tronic dance festivals and all-night events this year
Because the live experience is EDMrsquos native for-mat the genre is par ticularly nuanced to success on the road Matt Adell of Beatport the online mecca of the DJ community explains one of the reasons why
ldquoPer formers such as Skr illex are incredibly ef f i -cient touring operations compared to rock bands Itrsquos less expensive than a rock group because therersquos just one per former Therersquos much less gear and it rsquos easier to set up because therersquos no live micro-phones So the suppor t team required is so much smallerrdquo
Bobby Clay head of the electronic division at C3 Presents touches on another aspect of EDM that primes the genre for the road ldquoIt rsquos like you donrsquot need to have a full studio on your tour bus to create the next banger or the next huge club track or the next Rihanna remix You can do it from the comfort of a tour bus or the green room of whatever arena some of these big people are playing in nowrdquo EDM ar tists have the luxury of not having to break from tour to create new songs
Although EDM is pr imed for tour ing i t is only in the past couple of years that the genre took on this rock and roll mentality As shows star ted to be booked in rock and roll venues and DJproducers took to the road stopping in every middle town and college campus in America like a rock band would DJs became rock stars in their own right One ar tist in par ticular is noted for condensing the drawn out peaks and falls of dance music into four and a half minute radio-ready tracks the half-shaved goofy-glasses wearing kid known as Skrillex Love him or hate him his genre-fusing in your face style helped to launch EDM to the place it is at today
With mega-DJs such as Skrillex earning up to $1 million per festival appearance and groups such as Swedish House Mafia selling out Madison Square Garden in nine minutes it is no surprise that corpo-rate heads have turned to this once-ignored market Over the summer Live Nation bought Hard Events one of the original promoters of the genre whose brands of Hardfest Holy Ship and Haunted Hard Mansion have gone on to great success Shor t ly af ter media mogul Robert FX Sillerman pledged to invest $1 billion dollars in EDM ventures
As the money pours in 2013 is looking to be the biggest year yet for EDM Having finally solidified i t s place in the music industr y (and at the fore-front nevertheless) Electronic Dance Music is ready to guide the music industry in a new directionmdasha direction towards the future towards a more diver-sified music industry towards a music industry that lives for live music
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
39live live issue 1
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
AT LEAST 32 NEW FESTIVALS BEGAN IN THE UNITED STATES IN 2012 OF THESE FESTIVALS FIFTEEN OF THEM ARE DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC
40 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL WONDERLANDDowntown TexasApril 27-28 2012An inside look into the modern electronic music festival
41live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL WONDERLAND
42 we live for live music
43live live issue 1
A new generation neo-age hippies
44 we live for live musicWelcome to Wonderland
45live live issue 1
46 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
47live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Dillon Francis plays The Queenrsquos Ground
48 we live for live music
49live live issue 1
Visual explosions to coordinate with the
audio attack of a drop
50 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
51live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
EDM shows are known for their
high-impact visuals
52 we live for live music
53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
Button 7
Button 8
Button 9
Button 10
Button 11
Button 12
button13
Button 52
Button 54
Button 56
Button 55
Button 43
Button 44
Button 49
Button 50
Button 48
24 we live for live music
Disco is thought to be dead but it just went underground where it morphed into house and techno
Video game music is born as a genre
Computers video games and electronic equipment become more affordable
efficient and put to great use
Roland TR 808 Rhythm Machine
Frankie Knuckles invents house music at the
Warehouse in Chicago
E-mu Emulator becomes the first affordable
digital sampler
The Hacienda Club opens in Manchester
The rave scene grows from acid house music in the United Kingdom
the 1980rsquos
1981
1982 1987
1980
1980 1981
1980s 1980s
(UNKOWN)
In the 1980s a host of new instruments based on synthet-ic sounds and sampl ing technolo-gy contributed to the formation of new genres of electronic mu-sic and the electronic sound on the whole Whi le these days the sounds of most of these instruments can be repl icated on a computer outfit-ted with the proper audio software DJs sti l l seek the retro instruments for the unique characteristics that come from analog instruments
timeline
25live live issue 1
Sampling and breakbeat become important features for both
hip-hop and EDM
MIDI inventedRoland TB 303
Baseline released
Techno rises out of the industrial
sounds of Detroit
Roland TR 909 Drum Machine
Acid house is born at the Hacienda Club in
Manchester
Electronic Dance Music first Summer of Love begins as the free-party scene takes the sound out of the club and into the open
Ambient music becomes just as important as the dance floor during EDMrsquos second
Summer of Love
Trip Hop and other downtempo genres find success with acts like Massive Attack and Portishead
the 1980rsquos
19871983-1985
1989-1991
1988
1989
1982 19841983
1980
MIDI is a protocol not a hardware which provided a standard for electronic instrument manufacturers
(MASSIVE ATTACK)
London becomes the hub of
EDM
timeline
Computer-based production allows for DJs to recreate the sounds found in traditional analog instruments as
well as new sounds that have never been heard before (eg the Dubstep wob) It also opened up the realm of
EDM creation to anyone with the right software
Responsible for EDC Nocturnal and Wonderland Festivals
Rise of the super club and superstar DJs
The media dubs of all electronic music
ldquotechnordquo
Hardcore music begins to dominate the British
rave scene
Jungle forms out of hardcore
Paul Oakenfold Paul Van Dyk and DJ Tiesto bring trance
music to the forefront
Insomniac Events is established in Southern California
Tommy Boy Records releases the first Jock Jams album
timeline the 1990rsquos
MP3 digital audio format is introduced
1990s
1990s
1992
1990s 1990s
1993
1991
1995
Rave music sees slight mainstream success with artists such as C amp C Music Factory and
Snap and begins to infuence pop music
With the growth of personal computing electronic artists began to migrate from analog electronic
instruments to computer-based production
EARLY1990s
EARLY1990s
(TOMMY BOY RECORDS)
>
>
null
19304054
Although electronica failed to go main-stream its loops and textures find their
way into pop and hip hop
They are the developers of Ableton Live one of the premiere loop-based
sequencers used in modern production
EDC begins as a one day event
Drum and bass evolves out of jungle
Record companies try to market techno under a new namemdash
ldquoelectronicardquomdash but fail
Fatboy Slim makes $0 off of Rockafeller Skank after giving 25 of the royalties to each of
the four artists he used samples from
Moby licenses every track on his
Play album
timeline the 1990rsquos
Napster launchesAbleton is founded
19991994
1995
1991 19991999
1997 1998
1997In the UK raves are forced back underground with the passing of
the Criminal Justice Act
ProTools released at a price of $6000
LATE1990s
LATE1990s
As artists begin to use computers in production
glitch hop evolves
This new law defined gatherings of more than 20 people listening to
ldquorepetitive beatsrdquo as illegal
(SKINT RECORDS)
EDMrsquoS non-descript beats are perfect for marketing
28 we live for live music
In an interview with the New York Times David Bowie claims copyright and intellectual property
will cease to exist in the next ten years
Congress passes a law holding club owners responsible for their patronsrsquo actions and
affecting the whole industry
Tiesto DJs the Athens Olympic Opening Ceremonies
The GRAMMYs add a Best DanceElectronica
Album category
Dubstep nights begin to pop up in the underground music
scene around the USDubstep begins to grow
out of South London
timeline
Limewire introducedCD sales peak iTunes launchedThe iPod brings digital music players to the masses
2002
2000 2001 2001 2003
2003
20062001
2004 2005
ldquoYoursquod better be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation
thatrsquos going to be leftrdquo
Ruskorsquos ldquoCockney Thugrdquo i l lustrates the wob sound
2000-2009
(COURTESY OF RUSK0)
(DTSIABAIFLICKR CC)
null
24417967
29live live issue 1
Daft Punkrsquos pyramid setup at Coachella sets a
new bar for visuals
Kanye West spawns electro-rap with 808rsquos amp Heartbreak prominently fea-
turing the TR 808 drum machine
Lady Gaga and the Black Eyed Peas bring the Euro-house
sound to the Top 40
Guettarsquos ldquoWhen Love Take Overrdquo becomes an international pop hit and the Euro-house sound
starts to creep its way into popular music
timeline
2004 2004 2007
2008 2009
20072006
20092007-2009
Long-established one-day raves such as EDC and Ultra transform
into two-day festivals
Guetta co-wrote ldquoBoom Boom Powrdquo
Gagarsquos Bad Romance has nearly 05 bi l l ion YouTube views
Gary Richards starts Hard Events
Youtube launched Beatport launched
2000-2009
iPhone released
(KARL WALTERGETTY IMAGES)
(INTERSCOPE RECORDS)
2010-2011
Technics SL-1200 turntable the industry standard for thirty
years is discontinued
Limewire the top P2P file-sharing client
is shut downSpotify launches in the US
When an underage girl dies at EDC in LA EDM gets a lot backlash but this
also gives it a lot of exposure
EDC is forced out of LA and moves to Vegas which becomes the home of
EDM in the United States
Bassnectar plays Red Rocks where he incurs $100000 in noise violations
after bringing his own speakers
Skrillex is nominated for five Grammy Awards he
wins three
timeline
2010
2010
2010
2010 2010 2011
2011 2011
2011
2011
Black Eyed Peasrsquo house-based ldquoThe TimeDirty Bitrdquo tops the
charts in over 15 countries
Hip hop and EDM production styles have always mirrored one another now they are morphing
EDM finally has a home in America
Moombahton a fusion of house music and reggae is
born at a house party in DC
Skrillex explodes onto the main-stream music scene bringing the ldquodroprdquo and heavy bass with him
DJAY app
(COURTESY OF SKRILLEX)
2010-2011
Britneyrsquos Hold it Against Me acts as the catalyst for replacing the pop
bridge with the dubstep drop
EDC Vegas has over 230000 attendees in
three days
The Victoria Secret Fashion Show features rave-inspired
outfits for the final walk
timeline
2011 2011
2011 2011 2011
2011
Tiesto plays the biggest single headliner DJ show in US
history to 26000 in Carson CA
Nielsen Soundscan reports digital music sales in the US are larger than
physical sales for the first time
Absoulte Vodka sponsors Swedish House Mafiarsquos
sold out MSG show
According to Bil lboard this is considered a watershed moment
brands adopting EDM
EDM technology is large-ly based now around
software programs and
their coordinating hard-
ware--control lers for Ableton
Scratch decks for Serato
and more There is an entire
spectrum of modern DJ tech-
nology avai lable and the path
one takes depends on what
sound they are trying to achieve
(JIVE RECORDS)
(ZUMA PRESS)
(SAMANTHA HOFFER)
The neon colors associated with EDM can be found al l over
the fashion world
With the laptop as instrument EDM
producers constantly
blend and mix elements
of different genres lead-
ing to the prol iferation of
microgenres which are difficult to
distinguish
null
26177792
32 we live for live music
EDC Vegas sees 300000+ people
over 3 days
Family-friendly animated film Wreck It Ralph uses
dance music in trailer
Feature-length EDM documentary ldquoThe Drop The EDM Culture
Explosionrdquo enters production
A system of alerts are set up to notify users when they
infringe on copyright law
Night Culture Inc becomes the first EDM-oriented publicly
traded company
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline 2012
Queen Latifah sings the National Anthem at the opening game of
the NFL seasonover a beat
JAN
OCTJULY SEPT
SEPTAUG
JUNE JUNEMARUltra Music Festival in Miami
has 40000 viewers watching its online stream over YouTube
Universal closes on EMI becoming the largest of the remaining three
major record labels
(DANNY MOLOSHOK REUTERS)
(BIG MACHINE)
null
21255588
33live live issue 1
After exploding onto the mainstream music scene and pop culture in the past year the industry has set its signts on EDM ventures proved the genre has final ly conquered the final frontiermdashAmerica
Live Nation purchases Hard Events
Media mogul Robert FX Sillerman says he will spend
$1B on EDM enterprises
EDM artists get the spotlight at the Grammys for the 1st time with addi-tion of a dance music performance
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline
Taylor Swift adopts the dubstep drop with her single ldquoI Knew You
Were Troublerdquo
JUNEFEB JULY
JUNE JUNE
OCT OCT NOV
NOVOCT
Bieber drops his first dub-step-influenced track ldquoAs
Long as You Love Merdquo
Dance-based songs can be found all across the radio
The first professional media outlet for EDM is announced
NYU introduces a course on the Business of Electronic amp
Dance Music
Billboard hosts the 2nd Annual FutureSound conference to ad-dress the future of the industry
NOVEMBERBLACK WIDOW
MUSIC PUBLISHES A LIST OF 230+ EDM SUB-GENRESAND
COUNTING
(BIG MACHINE)
34 we live for live music
BACK TO THE
FUTUREThirty years after the ldquodeathrdquo of disco dance music is back in America and bigger than ever To understand
where it is going we must take a look at the past
35live live issue 1
The most recent main-stream movement to hit the United States
E l e c t r o n i c D a n c e M u s i c (EDM) did so as an explosion of lights neon and pulsating beats But dance music is nothing new Although EDM seems entirely novel to many of Amer icarsquos youth dance music has a long and storied history
In the beginning mus ic c r e a t e d v i a e l e c t r o n i c ins t r ument s was focused on academic pursuit s and high ar t The use of elec-t ron ic s i n popu la r mus ic c rea t ion b egan w i t h t he commerc ia l i z a t ion o f t he synthesizer in the 1960s As technology evolved so did experimentation with elec-tronic instruments
In the 1970s the days of disco led to the develop-ment of e lec t ronic dance mus ic when DJs invented the traditional two-turntable setup to continuously stream together music so that the dancing never had to stop U n f o r t u na te l y f o r d a n c e music just as quickly as disco was embraced ant i -d isco sentiments fueled by racism and fear of change pushed it into the underground
It was in this underground s p a c e d u r i n g t h e lsquo 8 0 s that modern dance music evo lved St r ides made in elec tronic ins trumentation developed the synthesizer machines that would form the backbones of house and techno music the Roland TB 303 baseline and Roland TR 909 drum machine
A c c o r d i n g t o T h e Guard ianrsquos recent l y pub -lished timeline A History of Modern Music DJ Frankie Knuckles is responsible for the development of house music characterized by its
44 beats Techno rose out of Detroit a few years later inspired by the indus tr ial sounds of the city
While wildly popular in the underground music scene techno and house did not find commercial success in Amer ica I t was not unt i l the lat ter par t of the lsquo80s when the sounds of house and techno found their way to t he UK and mor phed into a new sub-genre acid house that the commercial club culture was born albeit exclusively in Europe
While dance music took of f r unning on the other side of the pond in America a dif ferent s tor y began to unfold As rap and hip-hop took a s t ronghold of the music industr y in the late eighties and nineties dance music remained confined to the peripheries
A s d a n c e - m u s i c D J s w o r ke d t o e v o l v e t h e i r sound and keep up w i th technology hip -hop DJs who adopted the traditional turntable setup from the DJs of disco as well as their pro-duction techniques began to work in the record ing s tudios and inf luence the industr y especially in the realm of pop music
I n t h e 19 9 0 s i n s i d e r s thought EDM had f ina l l y hit the jackpot and found mainstream success In an inter v iew with PaperMag industry vet Gary Richards explains ldquothe f irst farewell to the undergroundrdquo
ldquoBy 1993 i t felt l ike the music wasnrsquot underground anymore so I threw a par ty c a l l e d R ave A m e r i c a a t Knot t s Ber r y Farm which i s an amusement par k in O r a n g e C o u n t y I t s o l d out with l ike 20000 peo-ple Rick Rubin came with
Anthony K ied is f rom the Red Hot Chili Peppers and a couple guys from ZZ Top and he asked me if I wanted to work in the record busi-ness and help them s ign some EDM ar t i s t s I sa id sure the Prodigy were super hot and it seemed like it was blowing up But we star ted signing all these techno art-ists thinking theyrsquod catch on too but nobody was buying it Nobodyrdquo
Jus t l i ke R ichards says n o b o d y w a s b u y i n g i t D a n c e m u s i c w a s n o t catching on in the way the industr y would have liked so in 1997 the entire music industry and press put their full force behind ldquoelectron-icardquo the new catch-all name they had given to the genre in an attempt to successfully market it
Despite the gl impses of success seen froma handful of artists the genre failed to succeed and the industr y distanced itself from dance music far ther than i t had when disco ldquodiedrdquo
T h i s f a i l u r e c a n b e accounted to EDM not f it-t i ng i n to t h e ma r ke t i ng machinery of the industr y The t radit ional setup was f ixed for four-minute rock and pop singles and album tour s not t he ex tended club mixes and residencies that were the basis of the EDM world Not only was the indus t r y i l l - equipped to market electronic music but many consumers also felt it abrasive and awkward attempting to listen to this machine-made glitch-based music that was so unfamiliar to their ears It was not until the digital revolution of the new millennium that elec-tronic dance music f inal ly found its place
36 we live for live music
Festival
MAJOR LAZER AT SUMMERFEST IN HOUSTON JUNE 2012
37live live issue 1
If music in 2012 could talk it would sound a lot like the Bill Orsquo Reillyrsquos blooper ldquoLetrsquos do it liverdquo While attending concerts has been popular since rock and roll shows in the 1950s the recent electronic music boom has made it exponentially more so
One reason accord ing to Forbes i s that as resource constraints have t ightened people are spending thei r money more on exper iences as opposed to manufactured products But it is more than that EDM has managed to ent i re ly t rans -form the concept of a concer t by blurring the lines between going out dancing and going out to see music These days one would pay the same amount to see superstar-DJ David Guetta in an arena that they would if they were simply dancing to him spin-ning in a club
But this popularity was not always the case As a genre born in the world of nightclubs EDMrsquos parties were lambasted for years as depraved raves Now many kids will go to a rave before they attend a rock concert Why the sudden change A major factor is rebranding
Raves became festivals Electronic became EDMOnce shed of the negative associations with raves
and the bad memories of the electronicarsquos failure EDM shows and festivals began to proliferate across the countr y No longer hiding in remote f ields or empt y warehouse e lec t ronic mus ic promoter s looked to book DJs in public arenas and concer t halls
Elec tr ic Daisy Carnival (EDC) 2010 a rave put on by one of the major EDM promoters Insomniac
Event s ser ved as a turning point for the genre when an underage gir l died at the event causing severe backlash against Insomniac but also giving the genre lots of exposure EDC was run out of Los Angeles but found refuge in the always-accepting city of Las Vegas It was here in Vegas that EDM finally found a homemdashnow playing the same role to America as Ibiza did to Europe when the rave scene star ted there in the 1980s Superstar DJs can be found any week as a resident DJ to Tao XS or one of the many other posh clubs and the landmark event of the year EDC Vegas is now one of the largest raves in the world with over 300000 attendees last year
EDC is not the only big festival on the market now though Festivals are becoming trendymdashan indicator of direction the music industry is headed in towards the live and away from the recorded According to Metrowizecom an online nightli fe guide in 2012 alone at leas t thir t y-two new fes t ivals began in Americamdashfif teen of them dedicated solely to EDM
Long-standing traditions in the music industry fes-tivals typically only attracted people who spent a lot of time at live music and concertshellipuntil recently
As EDM crossed over into pop music the l ines became blur red between a night of going out to dance at a club and night of going out to see your favorite ar tist at a concer t People who a few years ago never attended a concert beyond the major pop ar tists are now concer t-fiends as the ldquopoprdquo ar tists they love today are world-renowned DJs
Of course as any genre crosses into the main-stream it is going to become increasingly popular
FeverEDMS BOOMING SUCCESS IN THE FESTIVAL MARKET HAS HEADS
TURNING FROM AROUND THE INDUSTRY TO INVEST IN LIVE MUSIC
38 we live for live music
with the masses but EDMrsquos explosion is unparal-leled Hundreds of thousands of people attended EDC Vegas and that was just one of dozens of elec-tronic dance festivals and all-night events this year
Because the live experience is EDMrsquos native for-mat the genre is par ticularly nuanced to success on the road Matt Adell of Beatport the online mecca of the DJ community explains one of the reasons why
ldquoPer formers such as Skr illex are incredibly ef f i -cient touring operations compared to rock bands Itrsquos less expensive than a rock group because therersquos just one per former Therersquos much less gear and it rsquos easier to set up because therersquos no live micro-phones So the suppor t team required is so much smallerrdquo
Bobby Clay head of the electronic division at C3 Presents touches on another aspect of EDM that primes the genre for the road ldquoIt rsquos like you donrsquot need to have a full studio on your tour bus to create the next banger or the next huge club track or the next Rihanna remix You can do it from the comfort of a tour bus or the green room of whatever arena some of these big people are playing in nowrdquo EDM ar tists have the luxury of not having to break from tour to create new songs
Although EDM is pr imed for tour ing i t is only in the past couple of years that the genre took on this rock and roll mentality As shows star ted to be booked in rock and roll venues and DJproducers took to the road stopping in every middle town and college campus in America like a rock band would DJs became rock stars in their own right One ar tist in par ticular is noted for condensing the drawn out peaks and falls of dance music into four and a half minute radio-ready tracks the half-shaved goofy-glasses wearing kid known as Skrillex Love him or hate him his genre-fusing in your face style helped to launch EDM to the place it is at today
With mega-DJs such as Skrillex earning up to $1 million per festival appearance and groups such as Swedish House Mafia selling out Madison Square Garden in nine minutes it is no surprise that corpo-rate heads have turned to this once-ignored market Over the summer Live Nation bought Hard Events one of the original promoters of the genre whose brands of Hardfest Holy Ship and Haunted Hard Mansion have gone on to great success Shor t ly af ter media mogul Robert FX Sillerman pledged to invest $1 billion dollars in EDM ventures
As the money pours in 2013 is looking to be the biggest year yet for EDM Having finally solidified i t s place in the music industr y (and at the fore-front nevertheless) Electronic Dance Music is ready to guide the music industry in a new directionmdasha direction towards the future towards a more diver-sified music industry towards a music industry that lives for live music
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
39live live issue 1
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
AT LEAST 32 NEW FESTIVALS BEGAN IN THE UNITED STATES IN 2012 OF THESE FESTIVALS FIFTEEN OF THEM ARE DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC
40 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL WONDERLANDDowntown TexasApril 27-28 2012An inside look into the modern electronic music festival
41live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL WONDERLAND
42 we live for live music
43live live issue 1
A new generation neo-age hippies
44 we live for live musicWelcome to Wonderland
45live live issue 1
46 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
47live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Dillon Francis plays The Queenrsquos Ground
48 we live for live music
49live live issue 1
Visual explosions to coordinate with the
audio attack of a drop
50 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
51live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
EDM shows are known for their
high-impact visuals
52 we live for live music
53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
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Button 52
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25live live issue 1
Sampling and breakbeat become important features for both
hip-hop and EDM
MIDI inventedRoland TB 303
Baseline released
Techno rises out of the industrial
sounds of Detroit
Roland TR 909 Drum Machine
Acid house is born at the Hacienda Club in
Manchester
Electronic Dance Music first Summer of Love begins as the free-party scene takes the sound out of the club and into the open
Ambient music becomes just as important as the dance floor during EDMrsquos second
Summer of Love
Trip Hop and other downtempo genres find success with acts like Massive Attack and Portishead
the 1980rsquos
19871983-1985
1989-1991
1988
1989
1982 19841983
1980
MIDI is a protocol not a hardware which provided a standard for electronic instrument manufacturers
(MASSIVE ATTACK)
London becomes the hub of
EDM
timeline
Computer-based production allows for DJs to recreate the sounds found in traditional analog instruments as
well as new sounds that have never been heard before (eg the Dubstep wob) It also opened up the realm of
EDM creation to anyone with the right software
Responsible for EDC Nocturnal and Wonderland Festivals
Rise of the super club and superstar DJs
The media dubs of all electronic music
ldquotechnordquo
Hardcore music begins to dominate the British
rave scene
Jungle forms out of hardcore
Paul Oakenfold Paul Van Dyk and DJ Tiesto bring trance
music to the forefront
Insomniac Events is established in Southern California
Tommy Boy Records releases the first Jock Jams album
timeline the 1990rsquos
MP3 digital audio format is introduced
1990s
1990s
1992
1990s 1990s
1993
1991
1995
Rave music sees slight mainstream success with artists such as C amp C Music Factory and
Snap and begins to infuence pop music
With the growth of personal computing electronic artists began to migrate from analog electronic
instruments to computer-based production
EARLY1990s
EARLY1990s
(TOMMY BOY RECORDS)
>
>
null
19304054
Although electronica failed to go main-stream its loops and textures find their
way into pop and hip hop
They are the developers of Ableton Live one of the premiere loop-based
sequencers used in modern production
EDC begins as a one day event
Drum and bass evolves out of jungle
Record companies try to market techno under a new namemdash
ldquoelectronicardquomdash but fail
Fatboy Slim makes $0 off of Rockafeller Skank after giving 25 of the royalties to each of
the four artists he used samples from
Moby licenses every track on his
Play album
timeline the 1990rsquos
Napster launchesAbleton is founded
19991994
1995
1991 19991999
1997 1998
1997In the UK raves are forced back underground with the passing of
the Criminal Justice Act
ProTools released at a price of $6000
LATE1990s
LATE1990s
As artists begin to use computers in production
glitch hop evolves
This new law defined gatherings of more than 20 people listening to
ldquorepetitive beatsrdquo as illegal
(SKINT RECORDS)
EDMrsquoS non-descript beats are perfect for marketing
28 we live for live music
In an interview with the New York Times David Bowie claims copyright and intellectual property
will cease to exist in the next ten years
Congress passes a law holding club owners responsible for their patronsrsquo actions and
affecting the whole industry
Tiesto DJs the Athens Olympic Opening Ceremonies
The GRAMMYs add a Best DanceElectronica
Album category
Dubstep nights begin to pop up in the underground music
scene around the USDubstep begins to grow
out of South London
timeline
Limewire introducedCD sales peak iTunes launchedThe iPod brings digital music players to the masses
2002
2000 2001 2001 2003
2003
20062001
2004 2005
ldquoYoursquod better be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation
thatrsquos going to be leftrdquo
Ruskorsquos ldquoCockney Thugrdquo i l lustrates the wob sound
2000-2009
(COURTESY OF RUSK0)
(DTSIABAIFLICKR CC)
null
24417967
29live live issue 1
Daft Punkrsquos pyramid setup at Coachella sets a
new bar for visuals
Kanye West spawns electro-rap with 808rsquos amp Heartbreak prominently fea-
turing the TR 808 drum machine
Lady Gaga and the Black Eyed Peas bring the Euro-house
sound to the Top 40
Guettarsquos ldquoWhen Love Take Overrdquo becomes an international pop hit and the Euro-house sound
starts to creep its way into popular music
timeline
2004 2004 2007
2008 2009
20072006
20092007-2009
Long-established one-day raves such as EDC and Ultra transform
into two-day festivals
Guetta co-wrote ldquoBoom Boom Powrdquo
Gagarsquos Bad Romance has nearly 05 bi l l ion YouTube views
Gary Richards starts Hard Events
Youtube launched Beatport launched
2000-2009
iPhone released
(KARL WALTERGETTY IMAGES)
(INTERSCOPE RECORDS)
2010-2011
Technics SL-1200 turntable the industry standard for thirty
years is discontinued
Limewire the top P2P file-sharing client
is shut downSpotify launches in the US
When an underage girl dies at EDC in LA EDM gets a lot backlash but this
also gives it a lot of exposure
EDC is forced out of LA and moves to Vegas which becomes the home of
EDM in the United States
Bassnectar plays Red Rocks where he incurs $100000 in noise violations
after bringing his own speakers
Skrillex is nominated for five Grammy Awards he
wins three
timeline
2010
2010
2010
2010 2010 2011
2011 2011
2011
2011
Black Eyed Peasrsquo house-based ldquoThe TimeDirty Bitrdquo tops the
charts in over 15 countries
Hip hop and EDM production styles have always mirrored one another now they are morphing
EDM finally has a home in America
Moombahton a fusion of house music and reggae is
born at a house party in DC
Skrillex explodes onto the main-stream music scene bringing the ldquodroprdquo and heavy bass with him
DJAY app
(COURTESY OF SKRILLEX)
2010-2011
Britneyrsquos Hold it Against Me acts as the catalyst for replacing the pop
bridge with the dubstep drop
EDC Vegas has over 230000 attendees in
three days
The Victoria Secret Fashion Show features rave-inspired
outfits for the final walk
timeline
2011 2011
2011 2011 2011
2011
Tiesto plays the biggest single headliner DJ show in US
history to 26000 in Carson CA
Nielsen Soundscan reports digital music sales in the US are larger than
physical sales for the first time
Absoulte Vodka sponsors Swedish House Mafiarsquos
sold out MSG show
According to Bil lboard this is considered a watershed moment
brands adopting EDM
EDM technology is large-ly based now around
software programs and
their coordinating hard-
ware--control lers for Ableton
Scratch decks for Serato
and more There is an entire
spectrum of modern DJ tech-
nology avai lable and the path
one takes depends on what
sound they are trying to achieve
(JIVE RECORDS)
(ZUMA PRESS)
(SAMANTHA HOFFER)
The neon colors associated with EDM can be found al l over
the fashion world
With the laptop as instrument EDM
producers constantly
blend and mix elements
of different genres lead-
ing to the prol iferation of
microgenres which are difficult to
distinguish
null
26177792
32 we live for live music
EDC Vegas sees 300000+ people
over 3 days
Family-friendly animated film Wreck It Ralph uses
dance music in trailer
Feature-length EDM documentary ldquoThe Drop The EDM Culture
Explosionrdquo enters production
A system of alerts are set up to notify users when they
infringe on copyright law
Night Culture Inc becomes the first EDM-oriented publicly
traded company
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline 2012
Queen Latifah sings the National Anthem at the opening game of
the NFL seasonover a beat
JAN
OCTJULY SEPT
SEPTAUG
JUNE JUNEMARUltra Music Festival in Miami
has 40000 viewers watching its online stream over YouTube
Universal closes on EMI becoming the largest of the remaining three
major record labels
(DANNY MOLOSHOK REUTERS)
(BIG MACHINE)
null
21255588
33live live issue 1
After exploding onto the mainstream music scene and pop culture in the past year the industry has set its signts on EDM ventures proved the genre has final ly conquered the final frontiermdashAmerica
Live Nation purchases Hard Events
Media mogul Robert FX Sillerman says he will spend
$1B on EDM enterprises
EDM artists get the spotlight at the Grammys for the 1st time with addi-tion of a dance music performance
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline
Taylor Swift adopts the dubstep drop with her single ldquoI Knew You
Were Troublerdquo
JUNEFEB JULY
JUNE JUNE
OCT OCT NOV
NOVOCT
Bieber drops his first dub-step-influenced track ldquoAs
Long as You Love Merdquo
Dance-based songs can be found all across the radio
The first professional media outlet for EDM is announced
NYU introduces a course on the Business of Electronic amp
Dance Music
Billboard hosts the 2nd Annual FutureSound conference to ad-dress the future of the industry
NOVEMBERBLACK WIDOW
MUSIC PUBLISHES A LIST OF 230+ EDM SUB-GENRESAND
COUNTING
(BIG MACHINE)
34 we live for live music
BACK TO THE
FUTUREThirty years after the ldquodeathrdquo of disco dance music is back in America and bigger than ever To understand
where it is going we must take a look at the past
35live live issue 1
The most recent main-stream movement to hit the United States
E l e c t r o n i c D a n c e M u s i c (EDM) did so as an explosion of lights neon and pulsating beats But dance music is nothing new Although EDM seems entirely novel to many of Amer icarsquos youth dance music has a long and storied history
In the beginning mus ic c r e a t e d v i a e l e c t r o n i c ins t r ument s was focused on academic pursuit s and high ar t The use of elec-t ron ic s i n popu la r mus ic c rea t ion b egan w i t h t he commerc ia l i z a t ion o f t he synthesizer in the 1960s As technology evolved so did experimentation with elec-tronic instruments
In the 1970s the days of disco led to the develop-ment of e lec t ronic dance mus ic when DJs invented the traditional two-turntable setup to continuously stream together music so that the dancing never had to stop U n f o r t u na te l y f o r d a n c e music just as quickly as disco was embraced ant i -d isco sentiments fueled by racism and fear of change pushed it into the underground
It was in this underground s p a c e d u r i n g t h e lsquo 8 0 s that modern dance music evo lved St r ides made in elec tronic ins trumentation developed the synthesizer machines that would form the backbones of house and techno music the Roland TB 303 baseline and Roland TR 909 drum machine
A c c o r d i n g t o T h e Guard ianrsquos recent l y pub -lished timeline A History of Modern Music DJ Frankie Knuckles is responsible for the development of house music characterized by its
44 beats Techno rose out of Detroit a few years later inspired by the indus tr ial sounds of the city
While wildly popular in the underground music scene techno and house did not find commercial success in Amer ica I t was not unt i l the lat ter par t of the lsquo80s when the sounds of house and techno found their way to t he UK and mor phed into a new sub-genre acid house that the commercial club culture was born albeit exclusively in Europe
While dance music took of f r unning on the other side of the pond in America a dif ferent s tor y began to unfold As rap and hip-hop took a s t ronghold of the music industr y in the late eighties and nineties dance music remained confined to the peripheries
A s d a n c e - m u s i c D J s w o r ke d t o e v o l v e t h e i r sound and keep up w i th technology hip -hop DJs who adopted the traditional turntable setup from the DJs of disco as well as their pro-duction techniques began to work in the record ing s tudios and inf luence the industr y especially in the realm of pop music
I n t h e 19 9 0 s i n s i d e r s thought EDM had f ina l l y hit the jackpot and found mainstream success In an inter v iew with PaperMag industry vet Gary Richards explains ldquothe f irst farewell to the undergroundrdquo
ldquoBy 1993 i t felt l ike the music wasnrsquot underground anymore so I threw a par ty c a l l e d R ave A m e r i c a a t Knot t s Ber r y Farm which i s an amusement par k in O r a n g e C o u n t y I t s o l d out with l ike 20000 peo-ple Rick Rubin came with
Anthony K ied is f rom the Red Hot Chili Peppers and a couple guys from ZZ Top and he asked me if I wanted to work in the record busi-ness and help them s ign some EDM ar t i s t s I sa id sure the Prodigy were super hot and it seemed like it was blowing up But we star ted signing all these techno art-ists thinking theyrsquod catch on too but nobody was buying it Nobodyrdquo
Jus t l i ke R ichards says n o b o d y w a s b u y i n g i t D a n c e m u s i c w a s n o t catching on in the way the industr y would have liked so in 1997 the entire music industry and press put their full force behind ldquoelectron-icardquo the new catch-all name they had given to the genre in an attempt to successfully market it
Despite the gl impses of success seen froma handful of artists the genre failed to succeed and the industr y distanced itself from dance music far ther than i t had when disco ldquodiedrdquo
T h i s f a i l u r e c a n b e accounted to EDM not f it-t i ng i n to t h e ma r ke t i ng machinery of the industr y The t radit ional setup was f ixed for four-minute rock and pop singles and album tour s not t he ex tended club mixes and residencies that were the basis of the EDM world Not only was the indus t r y i l l - equipped to market electronic music but many consumers also felt it abrasive and awkward attempting to listen to this machine-made glitch-based music that was so unfamiliar to their ears It was not until the digital revolution of the new millennium that elec-tronic dance music f inal ly found its place
36 we live for live music
Festival
MAJOR LAZER AT SUMMERFEST IN HOUSTON JUNE 2012
37live live issue 1
If music in 2012 could talk it would sound a lot like the Bill Orsquo Reillyrsquos blooper ldquoLetrsquos do it liverdquo While attending concerts has been popular since rock and roll shows in the 1950s the recent electronic music boom has made it exponentially more so
One reason accord ing to Forbes i s that as resource constraints have t ightened people are spending thei r money more on exper iences as opposed to manufactured products But it is more than that EDM has managed to ent i re ly t rans -form the concept of a concer t by blurring the lines between going out dancing and going out to see music These days one would pay the same amount to see superstar-DJ David Guetta in an arena that they would if they were simply dancing to him spin-ning in a club
But this popularity was not always the case As a genre born in the world of nightclubs EDMrsquos parties were lambasted for years as depraved raves Now many kids will go to a rave before they attend a rock concert Why the sudden change A major factor is rebranding
Raves became festivals Electronic became EDMOnce shed of the negative associations with raves
and the bad memories of the electronicarsquos failure EDM shows and festivals began to proliferate across the countr y No longer hiding in remote f ields or empt y warehouse e lec t ronic mus ic promoter s looked to book DJs in public arenas and concer t halls
Elec tr ic Daisy Carnival (EDC) 2010 a rave put on by one of the major EDM promoters Insomniac
Event s ser ved as a turning point for the genre when an underage gir l died at the event causing severe backlash against Insomniac but also giving the genre lots of exposure EDC was run out of Los Angeles but found refuge in the always-accepting city of Las Vegas It was here in Vegas that EDM finally found a homemdashnow playing the same role to America as Ibiza did to Europe when the rave scene star ted there in the 1980s Superstar DJs can be found any week as a resident DJ to Tao XS or one of the many other posh clubs and the landmark event of the year EDC Vegas is now one of the largest raves in the world with over 300000 attendees last year
EDC is not the only big festival on the market now though Festivals are becoming trendymdashan indicator of direction the music industry is headed in towards the live and away from the recorded According to Metrowizecom an online nightli fe guide in 2012 alone at leas t thir t y-two new fes t ivals began in Americamdashfif teen of them dedicated solely to EDM
Long-standing traditions in the music industry fes-tivals typically only attracted people who spent a lot of time at live music and concertshellipuntil recently
As EDM crossed over into pop music the l ines became blur red between a night of going out to dance at a club and night of going out to see your favorite ar tist at a concer t People who a few years ago never attended a concert beyond the major pop ar tists are now concer t-fiends as the ldquopoprdquo ar tists they love today are world-renowned DJs
Of course as any genre crosses into the main-stream it is going to become increasingly popular
FeverEDMS BOOMING SUCCESS IN THE FESTIVAL MARKET HAS HEADS
TURNING FROM AROUND THE INDUSTRY TO INVEST IN LIVE MUSIC
38 we live for live music
with the masses but EDMrsquos explosion is unparal-leled Hundreds of thousands of people attended EDC Vegas and that was just one of dozens of elec-tronic dance festivals and all-night events this year
Because the live experience is EDMrsquos native for-mat the genre is par ticularly nuanced to success on the road Matt Adell of Beatport the online mecca of the DJ community explains one of the reasons why
ldquoPer formers such as Skr illex are incredibly ef f i -cient touring operations compared to rock bands Itrsquos less expensive than a rock group because therersquos just one per former Therersquos much less gear and it rsquos easier to set up because therersquos no live micro-phones So the suppor t team required is so much smallerrdquo
Bobby Clay head of the electronic division at C3 Presents touches on another aspect of EDM that primes the genre for the road ldquoIt rsquos like you donrsquot need to have a full studio on your tour bus to create the next banger or the next huge club track or the next Rihanna remix You can do it from the comfort of a tour bus or the green room of whatever arena some of these big people are playing in nowrdquo EDM ar tists have the luxury of not having to break from tour to create new songs
Although EDM is pr imed for tour ing i t is only in the past couple of years that the genre took on this rock and roll mentality As shows star ted to be booked in rock and roll venues and DJproducers took to the road stopping in every middle town and college campus in America like a rock band would DJs became rock stars in their own right One ar tist in par ticular is noted for condensing the drawn out peaks and falls of dance music into four and a half minute radio-ready tracks the half-shaved goofy-glasses wearing kid known as Skrillex Love him or hate him his genre-fusing in your face style helped to launch EDM to the place it is at today
With mega-DJs such as Skrillex earning up to $1 million per festival appearance and groups such as Swedish House Mafia selling out Madison Square Garden in nine minutes it is no surprise that corpo-rate heads have turned to this once-ignored market Over the summer Live Nation bought Hard Events one of the original promoters of the genre whose brands of Hardfest Holy Ship and Haunted Hard Mansion have gone on to great success Shor t ly af ter media mogul Robert FX Sillerman pledged to invest $1 billion dollars in EDM ventures
As the money pours in 2013 is looking to be the biggest year yet for EDM Having finally solidified i t s place in the music industr y (and at the fore-front nevertheless) Electronic Dance Music is ready to guide the music industry in a new directionmdasha direction towards the future towards a more diver-sified music industry towards a music industry that lives for live music
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
39live live issue 1
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
AT LEAST 32 NEW FESTIVALS BEGAN IN THE UNITED STATES IN 2012 OF THESE FESTIVALS FIFTEEN OF THEM ARE DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC
40 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL WONDERLANDDowntown TexasApril 27-28 2012An inside look into the modern electronic music festival
41live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL WONDERLAND
42 we live for live music
43live live issue 1
A new generation neo-age hippies
44 we live for live musicWelcome to Wonderland
45live live issue 1
46 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
47live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Dillon Francis plays The Queenrsquos Ground
48 we live for live music
49live live issue 1
Visual explosions to coordinate with the
audio attack of a drop
50 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
51live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
EDM shows are known for their
high-impact visuals
52 we live for live music
53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
Button 7
Button 8
Button 9
Button 10
Button 11
Button 12
button13
Button 52
Button 54
Button 56
Button 55
Button 43
Button 44
Button 49
Button 50
Button 48
Computer-based production allows for DJs to recreate the sounds found in traditional analog instruments as
well as new sounds that have never been heard before (eg the Dubstep wob) It also opened up the realm of
EDM creation to anyone with the right software
Responsible for EDC Nocturnal and Wonderland Festivals
Rise of the super club and superstar DJs
The media dubs of all electronic music
ldquotechnordquo
Hardcore music begins to dominate the British
rave scene
Jungle forms out of hardcore
Paul Oakenfold Paul Van Dyk and DJ Tiesto bring trance
music to the forefront
Insomniac Events is established in Southern California
Tommy Boy Records releases the first Jock Jams album
timeline the 1990rsquos
MP3 digital audio format is introduced
1990s
1990s
1992
1990s 1990s
1993
1991
1995
Rave music sees slight mainstream success with artists such as C amp C Music Factory and
Snap and begins to infuence pop music
With the growth of personal computing electronic artists began to migrate from analog electronic
instruments to computer-based production
EARLY1990s
EARLY1990s
(TOMMY BOY RECORDS)
>
>
null
19304054
Although electronica failed to go main-stream its loops and textures find their
way into pop and hip hop
They are the developers of Ableton Live one of the premiere loop-based
sequencers used in modern production
EDC begins as a one day event
Drum and bass evolves out of jungle
Record companies try to market techno under a new namemdash
ldquoelectronicardquomdash but fail
Fatboy Slim makes $0 off of Rockafeller Skank after giving 25 of the royalties to each of
the four artists he used samples from
Moby licenses every track on his
Play album
timeline the 1990rsquos
Napster launchesAbleton is founded
19991994
1995
1991 19991999
1997 1998
1997In the UK raves are forced back underground with the passing of
the Criminal Justice Act
ProTools released at a price of $6000
LATE1990s
LATE1990s
As artists begin to use computers in production
glitch hop evolves
This new law defined gatherings of more than 20 people listening to
ldquorepetitive beatsrdquo as illegal
(SKINT RECORDS)
EDMrsquoS non-descript beats are perfect for marketing
28 we live for live music
In an interview with the New York Times David Bowie claims copyright and intellectual property
will cease to exist in the next ten years
Congress passes a law holding club owners responsible for their patronsrsquo actions and
affecting the whole industry
Tiesto DJs the Athens Olympic Opening Ceremonies
The GRAMMYs add a Best DanceElectronica
Album category
Dubstep nights begin to pop up in the underground music
scene around the USDubstep begins to grow
out of South London
timeline
Limewire introducedCD sales peak iTunes launchedThe iPod brings digital music players to the masses
2002
2000 2001 2001 2003
2003
20062001
2004 2005
ldquoYoursquod better be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation
thatrsquos going to be leftrdquo
Ruskorsquos ldquoCockney Thugrdquo i l lustrates the wob sound
2000-2009
(COURTESY OF RUSK0)
(DTSIABAIFLICKR CC)
null
24417967
29live live issue 1
Daft Punkrsquos pyramid setup at Coachella sets a
new bar for visuals
Kanye West spawns electro-rap with 808rsquos amp Heartbreak prominently fea-
turing the TR 808 drum machine
Lady Gaga and the Black Eyed Peas bring the Euro-house
sound to the Top 40
Guettarsquos ldquoWhen Love Take Overrdquo becomes an international pop hit and the Euro-house sound
starts to creep its way into popular music
timeline
2004 2004 2007
2008 2009
20072006
20092007-2009
Long-established one-day raves such as EDC and Ultra transform
into two-day festivals
Guetta co-wrote ldquoBoom Boom Powrdquo
Gagarsquos Bad Romance has nearly 05 bi l l ion YouTube views
Gary Richards starts Hard Events
Youtube launched Beatport launched
2000-2009
iPhone released
(KARL WALTERGETTY IMAGES)
(INTERSCOPE RECORDS)
2010-2011
Technics SL-1200 turntable the industry standard for thirty
years is discontinued
Limewire the top P2P file-sharing client
is shut downSpotify launches in the US
When an underage girl dies at EDC in LA EDM gets a lot backlash but this
also gives it a lot of exposure
EDC is forced out of LA and moves to Vegas which becomes the home of
EDM in the United States
Bassnectar plays Red Rocks where he incurs $100000 in noise violations
after bringing his own speakers
Skrillex is nominated for five Grammy Awards he
wins three
timeline
2010
2010
2010
2010 2010 2011
2011 2011
2011
2011
Black Eyed Peasrsquo house-based ldquoThe TimeDirty Bitrdquo tops the
charts in over 15 countries
Hip hop and EDM production styles have always mirrored one another now they are morphing
EDM finally has a home in America
Moombahton a fusion of house music and reggae is
born at a house party in DC
Skrillex explodes onto the main-stream music scene bringing the ldquodroprdquo and heavy bass with him
DJAY app
(COURTESY OF SKRILLEX)
2010-2011
Britneyrsquos Hold it Against Me acts as the catalyst for replacing the pop
bridge with the dubstep drop
EDC Vegas has over 230000 attendees in
three days
The Victoria Secret Fashion Show features rave-inspired
outfits for the final walk
timeline
2011 2011
2011 2011 2011
2011
Tiesto plays the biggest single headliner DJ show in US
history to 26000 in Carson CA
Nielsen Soundscan reports digital music sales in the US are larger than
physical sales for the first time
Absoulte Vodka sponsors Swedish House Mafiarsquos
sold out MSG show
According to Bil lboard this is considered a watershed moment
brands adopting EDM
EDM technology is large-ly based now around
software programs and
their coordinating hard-
ware--control lers for Ableton
Scratch decks for Serato
and more There is an entire
spectrum of modern DJ tech-
nology avai lable and the path
one takes depends on what
sound they are trying to achieve
(JIVE RECORDS)
(ZUMA PRESS)
(SAMANTHA HOFFER)
The neon colors associated with EDM can be found al l over
the fashion world
With the laptop as instrument EDM
producers constantly
blend and mix elements
of different genres lead-
ing to the prol iferation of
microgenres which are difficult to
distinguish
null
26177792
32 we live for live music
EDC Vegas sees 300000+ people
over 3 days
Family-friendly animated film Wreck It Ralph uses
dance music in trailer
Feature-length EDM documentary ldquoThe Drop The EDM Culture
Explosionrdquo enters production
A system of alerts are set up to notify users when they
infringe on copyright law
Night Culture Inc becomes the first EDM-oriented publicly
traded company
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline 2012
Queen Latifah sings the National Anthem at the opening game of
the NFL seasonover a beat
JAN
OCTJULY SEPT
SEPTAUG
JUNE JUNEMARUltra Music Festival in Miami
has 40000 viewers watching its online stream over YouTube
Universal closes on EMI becoming the largest of the remaining three
major record labels
(DANNY MOLOSHOK REUTERS)
(BIG MACHINE)
null
21255588
33live live issue 1
After exploding onto the mainstream music scene and pop culture in the past year the industry has set its signts on EDM ventures proved the genre has final ly conquered the final frontiermdashAmerica
Live Nation purchases Hard Events
Media mogul Robert FX Sillerman says he will spend
$1B on EDM enterprises
EDM artists get the spotlight at the Grammys for the 1st time with addi-tion of a dance music performance
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline
Taylor Swift adopts the dubstep drop with her single ldquoI Knew You
Were Troublerdquo
JUNEFEB JULY
JUNE JUNE
OCT OCT NOV
NOVOCT
Bieber drops his first dub-step-influenced track ldquoAs
Long as You Love Merdquo
Dance-based songs can be found all across the radio
The first professional media outlet for EDM is announced
NYU introduces a course on the Business of Electronic amp
Dance Music
Billboard hosts the 2nd Annual FutureSound conference to ad-dress the future of the industry
NOVEMBERBLACK WIDOW
MUSIC PUBLISHES A LIST OF 230+ EDM SUB-GENRESAND
COUNTING
(BIG MACHINE)
34 we live for live music
BACK TO THE
FUTUREThirty years after the ldquodeathrdquo of disco dance music is back in America and bigger than ever To understand
where it is going we must take a look at the past
35live live issue 1
The most recent main-stream movement to hit the United States
E l e c t r o n i c D a n c e M u s i c (EDM) did so as an explosion of lights neon and pulsating beats But dance music is nothing new Although EDM seems entirely novel to many of Amer icarsquos youth dance music has a long and storied history
In the beginning mus ic c r e a t e d v i a e l e c t r o n i c ins t r ument s was focused on academic pursuit s and high ar t The use of elec-t ron ic s i n popu la r mus ic c rea t ion b egan w i t h t he commerc ia l i z a t ion o f t he synthesizer in the 1960s As technology evolved so did experimentation with elec-tronic instruments
In the 1970s the days of disco led to the develop-ment of e lec t ronic dance mus ic when DJs invented the traditional two-turntable setup to continuously stream together music so that the dancing never had to stop U n f o r t u na te l y f o r d a n c e music just as quickly as disco was embraced ant i -d isco sentiments fueled by racism and fear of change pushed it into the underground
It was in this underground s p a c e d u r i n g t h e lsquo 8 0 s that modern dance music evo lved St r ides made in elec tronic ins trumentation developed the synthesizer machines that would form the backbones of house and techno music the Roland TB 303 baseline and Roland TR 909 drum machine
A c c o r d i n g t o T h e Guard ianrsquos recent l y pub -lished timeline A History of Modern Music DJ Frankie Knuckles is responsible for the development of house music characterized by its
44 beats Techno rose out of Detroit a few years later inspired by the indus tr ial sounds of the city
While wildly popular in the underground music scene techno and house did not find commercial success in Amer ica I t was not unt i l the lat ter par t of the lsquo80s when the sounds of house and techno found their way to t he UK and mor phed into a new sub-genre acid house that the commercial club culture was born albeit exclusively in Europe
While dance music took of f r unning on the other side of the pond in America a dif ferent s tor y began to unfold As rap and hip-hop took a s t ronghold of the music industr y in the late eighties and nineties dance music remained confined to the peripheries
A s d a n c e - m u s i c D J s w o r ke d t o e v o l v e t h e i r sound and keep up w i th technology hip -hop DJs who adopted the traditional turntable setup from the DJs of disco as well as their pro-duction techniques began to work in the record ing s tudios and inf luence the industr y especially in the realm of pop music
I n t h e 19 9 0 s i n s i d e r s thought EDM had f ina l l y hit the jackpot and found mainstream success In an inter v iew with PaperMag industry vet Gary Richards explains ldquothe f irst farewell to the undergroundrdquo
ldquoBy 1993 i t felt l ike the music wasnrsquot underground anymore so I threw a par ty c a l l e d R ave A m e r i c a a t Knot t s Ber r y Farm which i s an amusement par k in O r a n g e C o u n t y I t s o l d out with l ike 20000 peo-ple Rick Rubin came with
Anthony K ied is f rom the Red Hot Chili Peppers and a couple guys from ZZ Top and he asked me if I wanted to work in the record busi-ness and help them s ign some EDM ar t i s t s I sa id sure the Prodigy were super hot and it seemed like it was blowing up But we star ted signing all these techno art-ists thinking theyrsquod catch on too but nobody was buying it Nobodyrdquo
Jus t l i ke R ichards says n o b o d y w a s b u y i n g i t D a n c e m u s i c w a s n o t catching on in the way the industr y would have liked so in 1997 the entire music industry and press put their full force behind ldquoelectron-icardquo the new catch-all name they had given to the genre in an attempt to successfully market it
Despite the gl impses of success seen froma handful of artists the genre failed to succeed and the industr y distanced itself from dance music far ther than i t had when disco ldquodiedrdquo
T h i s f a i l u r e c a n b e accounted to EDM not f it-t i ng i n to t h e ma r ke t i ng machinery of the industr y The t radit ional setup was f ixed for four-minute rock and pop singles and album tour s not t he ex tended club mixes and residencies that were the basis of the EDM world Not only was the indus t r y i l l - equipped to market electronic music but many consumers also felt it abrasive and awkward attempting to listen to this machine-made glitch-based music that was so unfamiliar to their ears It was not until the digital revolution of the new millennium that elec-tronic dance music f inal ly found its place
36 we live for live music
Festival
MAJOR LAZER AT SUMMERFEST IN HOUSTON JUNE 2012
37live live issue 1
If music in 2012 could talk it would sound a lot like the Bill Orsquo Reillyrsquos blooper ldquoLetrsquos do it liverdquo While attending concerts has been popular since rock and roll shows in the 1950s the recent electronic music boom has made it exponentially more so
One reason accord ing to Forbes i s that as resource constraints have t ightened people are spending thei r money more on exper iences as opposed to manufactured products But it is more than that EDM has managed to ent i re ly t rans -form the concept of a concer t by blurring the lines between going out dancing and going out to see music These days one would pay the same amount to see superstar-DJ David Guetta in an arena that they would if they were simply dancing to him spin-ning in a club
But this popularity was not always the case As a genre born in the world of nightclubs EDMrsquos parties were lambasted for years as depraved raves Now many kids will go to a rave before they attend a rock concert Why the sudden change A major factor is rebranding
Raves became festivals Electronic became EDMOnce shed of the negative associations with raves
and the bad memories of the electronicarsquos failure EDM shows and festivals began to proliferate across the countr y No longer hiding in remote f ields or empt y warehouse e lec t ronic mus ic promoter s looked to book DJs in public arenas and concer t halls
Elec tr ic Daisy Carnival (EDC) 2010 a rave put on by one of the major EDM promoters Insomniac
Event s ser ved as a turning point for the genre when an underage gir l died at the event causing severe backlash against Insomniac but also giving the genre lots of exposure EDC was run out of Los Angeles but found refuge in the always-accepting city of Las Vegas It was here in Vegas that EDM finally found a homemdashnow playing the same role to America as Ibiza did to Europe when the rave scene star ted there in the 1980s Superstar DJs can be found any week as a resident DJ to Tao XS or one of the many other posh clubs and the landmark event of the year EDC Vegas is now one of the largest raves in the world with over 300000 attendees last year
EDC is not the only big festival on the market now though Festivals are becoming trendymdashan indicator of direction the music industry is headed in towards the live and away from the recorded According to Metrowizecom an online nightli fe guide in 2012 alone at leas t thir t y-two new fes t ivals began in Americamdashfif teen of them dedicated solely to EDM
Long-standing traditions in the music industry fes-tivals typically only attracted people who spent a lot of time at live music and concertshellipuntil recently
As EDM crossed over into pop music the l ines became blur red between a night of going out to dance at a club and night of going out to see your favorite ar tist at a concer t People who a few years ago never attended a concert beyond the major pop ar tists are now concer t-fiends as the ldquopoprdquo ar tists they love today are world-renowned DJs
Of course as any genre crosses into the main-stream it is going to become increasingly popular
FeverEDMS BOOMING SUCCESS IN THE FESTIVAL MARKET HAS HEADS
TURNING FROM AROUND THE INDUSTRY TO INVEST IN LIVE MUSIC
38 we live for live music
with the masses but EDMrsquos explosion is unparal-leled Hundreds of thousands of people attended EDC Vegas and that was just one of dozens of elec-tronic dance festivals and all-night events this year
Because the live experience is EDMrsquos native for-mat the genre is par ticularly nuanced to success on the road Matt Adell of Beatport the online mecca of the DJ community explains one of the reasons why
ldquoPer formers such as Skr illex are incredibly ef f i -cient touring operations compared to rock bands Itrsquos less expensive than a rock group because therersquos just one per former Therersquos much less gear and it rsquos easier to set up because therersquos no live micro-phones So the suppor t team required is so much smallerrdquo
Bobby Clay head of the electronic division at C3 Presents touches on another aspect of EDM that primes the genre for the road ldquoIt rsquos like you donrsquot need to have a full studio on your tour bus to create the next banger or the next huge club track or the next Rihanna remix You can do it from the comfort of a tour bus or the green room of whatever arena some of these big people are playing in nowrdquo EDM ar tists have the luxury of not having to break from tour to create new songs
Although EDM is pr imed for tour ing i t is only in the past couple of years that the genre took on this rock and roll mentality As shows star ted to be booked in rock and roll venues and DJproducers took to the road stopping in every middle town and college campus in America like a rock band would DJs became rock stars in their own right One ar tist in par ticular is noted for condensing the drawn out peaks and falls of dance music into four and a half minute radio-ready tracks the half-shaved goofy-glasses wearing kid known as Skrillex Love him or hate him his genre-fusing in your face style helped to launch EDM to the place it is at today
With mega-DJs such as Skrillex earning up to $1 million per festival appearance and groups such as Swedish House Mafia selling out Madison Square Garden in nine minutes it is no surprise that corpo-rate heads have turned to this once-ignored market Over the summer Live Nation bought Hard Events one of the original promoters of the genre whose brands of Hardfest Holy Ship and Haunted Hard Mansion have gone on to great success Shor t ly af ter media mogul Robert FX Sillerman pledged to invest $1 billion dollars in EDM ventures
As the money pours in 2013 is looking to be the biggest year yet for EDM Having finally solidified i t s place in the music industr y (and at the fore-front nevertheless) Electronic Dance Music is ready to guide the music industry in a new directionmdasha direction towards the future towards a more diver-sified music industry towards a music industry that lives for live music
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
39live live issue 1
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
AT LEAST 32 NEW FESTIVALS BEGAN IN THE UNITED STATES IN 2012 OF THESE FESTIVALS FIFTEEN OF THEM ARE DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC
40 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL WONDERLANDDowntown TexasApril 27-28 2012An inside look into the modern electronic music festival
41live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL WONDERLAND
42 we live for live music
43live live issue 1
A new generation neo-age hippies
44 we live for live musicWelcome to Wonderland
45live live issue 1
46 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
47live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Dillon Francis plays The Queenrsquos Ground
48 we live for live music
49live live issue 1
Visual explosions to coordinate with the
audio attack of a drop
50 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
51live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
EDM shows are known for their
high-impact visuals
52 we live for live music
53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
Button 7
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Button 12
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Although electronica failed to go main-stream its loops and textures find their
way into pop and hip hop
They are the developers of Ableton Live one of the premiere loop-based
sequencers used in modern production
EDC begins as a one day event
Drum and bass evolves out of jungle
Record companies try to market techno under a new namemdash
ldquoelectronicardquomdash but fail
Fatboy Slim makes $0 off of Rockafeller Skank after giving 25 of the royalties to each of
the four artists he used samples from
Moby licenses every track on his
Play album
timeline the 1990rsquos
Napster launchesAbleton is founded
19991994
1995
1991 19991999
1997 1998
1997In the UK raves are forced back underground with the passing of
the Criminal Justice Act
ProTools released at a price of $6000
LATE1990s
LATE1990s
As artists begin to use computers in production
glitch hop evolves
This new law defined gatherings of more than 20 people listening to
ldquorepetitive beatsrdquo as illegal
(SKINT RECORDS)
EDMrsquoS non-descript beats are perfect for marketing
28 we live for live music
In an interview with the New York Times David Bowie claims copyright and intellectual property
will cease to exist in the next ten years
Congress passes a law holding club owners responsible for their patronsrsquo actions and
affecting the whole industry
Tiesto DJs the Athens Olympic Opening Ceremonies
The GRAMMYs add a Best DanceElectronica
Album category
Dubstep nights begin to pop up in the underground music
scene around the USDubstep begins to grow
out of South London
timeline
Limewire introducedCD sales peak iTunes launchedThe iPod brings digital music players to the masses
2002
2000 2001 2001 2003
2003
20062001
2004 2005
ldquoYoursquod better be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation
thatrsquos going to be leftrdquo
Ruskorsquos ldquoCockney Thugrdquo i l lustrates the wob sound
2000-2009
(COURTESY OF RUSK0)
(DTSIABAIFLICKR CC)
null
24417967
29live live issue 1
Daft Punkrsquos pyramid setup at Coachella sets a
new bar for visuals
Kanye West spawns electro-rap with 808rsquos amp Heartbreak prominently fea-
turing the TR 808 drum machine
Lady Gaga and the Black Eyed Peas bring the Euro-house
sound to the Top 40
Guettarsquos ldquoWhen Love Take Overrdquo becomes an international pop hit and the Euro-house sound
starts to creep its way into popular music
timeline
2004 2004 2007
2008 2009
20072006
20092007-2009
Long-established one-day raves such as EDC and Ultra transform
into two-day festivals
Guetta co-wrote ldquoBoom Boom Powrdquo
Gagarsquos Bad Romance has nearly 05 bi l l ion YouTube views
Gary Richards starts Hard Events
Youtube launched Beatport launched
2000-2009
iPhone released
(KARL WALTERGETTY IMAGES)
(INTERSCOPE RECORDS)
2010-2011
Technics SL-1200 turntable the industry standard for thirty
years is discontinued
Limewire the top P2P file-sharing client
is shut downSpotify launches in the US
When an underage girl dies at EDC in LA EDM gets a lot backlash but this
also gives it a lot of exposure
EDC is forced out of LA and moves to Vegas which becomes the home of
EDM in the United States
Bassnectar plays Red Rocks where he incurs $100000 in noise violations
after bringing his own speakers
Skrillex is nominated for five Grammy Awards he
wins three
timeline
2010
2010
2010
2010 2010 2011
2011 2011
2011
2011
Black Eyed Peasrsquo house-based ldquoThe TimeDirty Bitrdquo tops the
charts in over 15 countries
Hip hop and EDM production styles have always mirrored one another now they are morphing
EDM finally has a home in America
Moombahton a fusion of house music and reggae is
born at a house party in DC
Skrillex explodes onto the main-stream music scene bringing the ldquodroprdquo and heavy bass with him
DJAY app
(COURTESY OF SKRILLEX)
2010-2011
Britneyrsquos Hold it Against Me acts as the catalyst for replacing the pop
bridge with the dubstep drop
EDC Vegas has over 230000 attendees in
three days
The Victoria Secret Fashion Show features rave-inspired
outfits for the final walk
timeline
2011 2011
2011 2011 2011
2011
Tiesto plays the biggest single headliner DJ show in US
history to 26000 in Carson CA
Nielsen Soundscan reports digital music sales in the US are larger than
physical sales for the first time
Absoulte Vodka sponsors Swedish House Mafiarsquos
sold out MSG show
According to Bil lboard this is considered a watershed moment
brands adopting EDM
EDM technology is large-ly based now around
software programs and
their coordinating hard-
ware--control lers for Ableton
Scratch decks for Serato
and more There is an entire
spectrum of modern DJ tech-
nology avai lable and the path
one takes depends on what
sound they are trying to achieve
(JIVE RECORDS)
(ZUMA PRESS)
(SAMANTHA HOFFER)
The neon colors associated with EDM can be found al l over
the fashion world
With the laptop as instrument EDM
producers constantly
blend and mix elements
of different genres lead-
ing to the prol iferation of
microgenres which are difficult to
distinguish
null
26177792
32 we live for live music
EDC Vegas sees 300000+ people
over 3 days
Family-friendly animated film Wreck It Ralph uses
dance music in trailer
Feature-length EDM documentary ldquoThe Drop The EDM Culture
Explosionrdquo enters production
A system of alerts are set up to notify users when they
infringe on copyright law
Night Culture Inc becomes the first EDM-oriented publicly
traded company
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline 2012
Queen Latifah sings the National Anthem at the opening game of
the NFL seasonover a beat
JAN
OCTJULY SEPT
SEPTAUG
JUNE JUNEMARUltra Music Festival in Miami
has 40000 viewers watching its online stream over YouTube
Universal closes on EMI becoming the largest of the remaining three
major record labels
(DANNY MOLOSHOK REUTERS)
(BIG MACHINE)
null
21255588
33live live issue 1
After exploding onto the mainstream music scene and pop culture in the past year the industry has set its signts on EDM ventures proved the genre has final ly conquered the final frontiermdashAmerica
Live Nation purchases Hard Events
Media mogul Robert FX Sillerman says he will spend
$1B on EDM enterprises
EDM artists get the spotlight at the Grammys for the 1st time with addi-tion of a dance music performance
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline
Taylor Swift adopts the dubstep drop with her single ldquoI Knew You
Were Troublerdquo
JUNEFEB JULY
JUNE JUNE
OCT OCT NOV
NOVOCT
Bieber drops his first dub-step-influenced track ldquoAs
Long as You Love Merdquo
Dance-based songs can be found all across the radio
The first professional media outlet for EDM is announced
NYU introduces a course on the Business of Electronic amp
Dance Music
Billboard hosts the 2nd Annual FutureSound conference to ad-dress the future of the industry
NOVEMBERBLACK WIDOW
MUSIC PUBLISHES A LIST OF 230+ EDM SUB-GENRESAND
COUNTING
(BIG MACHINE)
34 we live for live music
BACK TO THE
FUTUREThirty years after the ldquodeathrdquo of disco dance music is back in America and bigger than ever To understand
where it is going we must take a look at the past
35live live issue 1
The most recent main-stream movement to hit the United States
E l e c t r o n i c D a n c e M u s i c (EDM) did so as an explosion of lights neon and pulsating beats But dance music is nothing new Although EDM seems entirely novel to many of Amer icarsquos youth dance music has a long and storied history
In the beginning mus ic c r e a t e d v i a e l e c t r o n i c ins t r ument s was focused on academic pursuit s and high ar t The use of elec-t ron ic s i n popu la r mus ic c rea t ion b egan w i t h t he commerc ia l i z a t ion o f t he synthesizer in the 1960s As technology evolved so did experimentation with elec-tronic instruments
In the 1970s the days of disco led to the develop-ment of e lec t ronic dance mus ic when DJs invented the traditional two-turntable setup to continuously stream together music so that the dancing never had to stop U n f o r t u na te l y f o r d a n c e music just as quickly as disco was embraced ant i -d isco sentiments fueled by racism and fear of change pushed it into the underground
It was in this underground s p a c e d u r i n g t h e lsquo 8 0 s that modern dance music evo lved St r ides made in elec tronic ins trumentation developed the synthesizer machines that would form the backbones of house and techno music the Roland TB 303 baseline and Roland TR 909 drum machine
A c c o r d i n g t o T h e Guard ianrsquos recent l y pub -lished timeline A History of Modern Music DJ Frankie Knuckles is responsible for the development of house music characterized by its
44 beats Techno rose out of Detroit a few years later inspired by the indus tr ial sounds of the city
While wildly popular in the underground music scene techno and house did not find commercial success in Amer ica I t was not unt i l the lat ter par t of the lsquo80s when the sounds of house and techno found their way to t he UK and mor phed into a new sub-genre acid house that the commercial club culture was born albeit exclusively in Europe
While dance music took of f r unning on the other side of the pond in America a dif ferent s tor y began to unfold As rap and hip-hop took a s t ronghold of the music industr y in the late eighties and nineties dance music remained confined to the peripheries
A s d a n c e - m u s i c D J s w o r ke d t o e v o l v e t h e i r sound and keep up w i th technology hip -hop DJs who adopted the traditional turntable setup from the DJs of disco as well as their pro-duction techniques began to work in the record ing s tudios and inf luence the industr y especially in the realm of pop music
I n t h e 19 9 0 s i n s i d e r s thought EDM had f ina l l y hit the jackpot and found mainstream success In an inter v iew with PaperMag industry vet Gary Richards explains ldquothe f irst farewell to the undergroundrdquo
ldquoBy 1993 i t felt l ike the music wasnrsquot underground anymore so I threw a par ty c a l l e d R ave A m e r i c a a t Knot t s Ber r y Farm which i s an amusement par k in O r a n g e C o u n t y I t s o l d out with l ike 20000 peo-ple Rick Rubin came with
Anthony K ied is f rom the Red Hot Chili Peppers and a couple guys from ZZ Top and he asked me if I wanted to work in the record busi-ness and help them s ign some EDM ar t i s t s I sa id sure the Prodigy were super hot and it seemed like it was blowing up But we star ted signing all these techno art-ists thinking theyrsquod catch on too but nobody was buying it Nobodyrdquo
Jus t l i ke R ichards says n o b o d y w a s b u y i n g i t D a n c e m u s i c w a s n o t catching on in the way the industr y would have liked so in 1997 the entire music industry and press put their full force behind ldquoelectron-icardquo the new catch-all name they had given to the genre in an attempt to successfully market it
Despite the gl impses of success seen froma handful of artists the genre failed to succeed and the industr y distanced itself from dance music far ther than i t had when disco ldquodiedrdquo
T h i s f a i l u r e c a n b e accounted to EDM not f it-t i ng i n to t h e ma r ke t i ng machinery of the industr y The t radit ional setup was f ixed for four-minute rock and pop singles and album tour s not t he ex tended club mixes and residencies that were the basis of the EDM world Not only was the indus t r y i l l - equipped to market electronic music but many consumers also felt it abrasive and awkward attempting to listen to this machine-made glitch-based music that was so unfamiliar to their ears It was not until the digital revolution of the new millennium that elec-tronic dance music f inal ly found its place
36 we live for live music
Festival
MAJOR LAZER AT SUMMERFEST IN HOUSTON JUNE 2012
37live live issue 1
If music in 2012 could talk it would sound a lot like the Bill Orsquo Reillyrsquos blooper ldquoLetrsquos do it liverdquo While attending concerts has been popular since rock and roll shows in the 1950s the recent electronic music boom has made it exponentially more so
One reason accord ing to Forbes i s that as resource constraints have t ightened people are spending thei r money more on exper iences as opposed to manufactured products But it is more than that EDM has managed to ent i re ly t rans -form the concept of a concer t by blurring the lines between going out dancing and going out to see music These days one would pay the same amount to see superstar-DJ David Guetta in an arena that they would if they were simply dancing to him spin-ning in a club
But this popularity was not always the case As a genre born in the world of nightclubs EDMrsquos parties were lambasted for years as depraved raves Now many kids will go to a rave before they attend a rock concert Why the sudden change A major factor is rebranding
Raves became festivals Electronic became EDMOnce shed of the negative associations with raves
and the bad memories of the electronicarsquos failure EDM shows and festivals began to proliferate across the countr y No longer hiding in remote f ields or empt y warehouse e lec t ronic mus ic promoter s looked to book DJs in public arenas and concer t halls
Elec tr ic Daisy Carnival (EDC) 2010 a rave put on by one of the major EDM promoters Insomniac
Event s ser ved as a turning point for the genre when an underage gir l died at the event causing severe backlash against Insomniac but also giving the genre lots of exposure EDC was run out of Los Angeles but found refuge in the always-accepting city of Las Vegas It was here in Vegas that EDM finally found a homemdashnow playing the same role to America as Ibiza did to Europe when the rave scene star ted there in the 1980s Superstar DJs can be found any week as a resident DJ to Tao XS or one of the many other posh clubs and the landmark event of the year EDC Vegas is now one of the largest raves in the world with over 300000 attendees last year
EDC is not the only big festival on the market now though Festivals are becoming trendymdashan indicator of direction the music industry is headed in towards the live and away from the recorded According to Metrowizecom an online nightli fe guide in 2012 alone at leas t thir t y-two new fes t ivals began in Americamdashfif teen of them dedicated solely to EDM
Long-standing traditions in the music industry fes-tivals typically only attracted people who spent a lot of time at live music and concertshellipuntil recently
As EDM crossed over into pop music the l ines became blur red between a night of going out to dance at a club and night of going out to see your favorite ar tist at a concer t People who a few years ago never attended a concert beyond the major pop ar tists are now concer t-fiends as the ldquopoprdquo ar tists they love today are world-renowned DJs
Of course as any genre crosses into the main-stream it is going to become increasingly popular
FeverEDMS BOOMING SUCCESS IN THE FESTIVAL MARKET HAS HEADS
TURNING FROM AROUND THE INDUSTRY TO INVEST IN LIVE MUSIC
38 we live for live music
with the masses but EDMrsquos explosion is unparal-leled Hundreds of thousands of people attended EDC Vegas and that was just one of dozens of elec-tronic dance festivals and all-night events this year
Because the live experience is EDMrsquos native for-mat the genre is par ticularly nuanced to success on the road Matt Adell of Beatport the online mecca of the DJ community explains one of the reasons why
ldquoPer formers such as Skr illex are incredibly ef f i -cient touring operations compared to rock bands Itrsquos less expensive than a rock group because therersquos just one per former Therersquos much less gear and it rsquos easier to set up because therersquos no live micro-phones So the suppor t team required is so much smallerrdquo
Bobby Clay head of the electronic division at C3 Presents touches on another aspect of EDM that primes the genre for the road ldquoIt rsquos like you donrsquot need to have a full studio on your tour bus to create the next banger or the next huge club track or the next Rihanna remix You can do it from the comfort of a tour bus or the green room of whatever arena some of these big people are playing in nowrdquo EDM ar tists have the luxury of not having to break from tour to create new songs
Although EDM is pr imed for tour ing i t is only in the past couple of years that the genre took on this rock and roll mentality As shows star ted to be booked in rock and roll venues and DJproducers took to the road stopping in every middle town and college campus in America like a rock band would DJs became rock stars in their own right One ar tist in par ticular is noted for condensing the drawn out peaks and falls of dance music into four and a half minute radio-ready tracks the half-shaved goofy-glasses wearing kid known as Skrillex Love him or hate him his genre-fusing in your face style helped to launch EDM to the place it is at today
With mega-DJs such as Skrillex earning up to $1 million per festival appearance and groups such as Swedish House Mafia selling out Madison Square Garden in nine minutes it is no surprise that corpo-rate heads have turned to this once-ignored market Over the summer Live Nation bought Hard Events one of the original promoters of the genre whose brands of Hardfest Holy Ship and Haunted Hard Mansion have gone on to great success Shor t ly af ter media mogul Robert FX Sillerman pledged to invest $1 billion dollars in EDM ventures
As the money pours in 2013 is looking to be the biggest year yet for EDM Having finally solidified i t s place in the music industr y (and at the fore-front nevertheless) Electronic Dance Music is ready to guide the music industry in a new directionmdasha direction towards the future towards a more diver-sified music industry towards a music industry that lives for live music
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
39live live issue 1
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
AT LEAST 32 NEW FESTIVALS BEGAN IN THE UNITED STATES IN 2012 OF THESE FESTIVALS FIFTEEN OF THEM ARE DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC
40 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL WONDERLANDDowntown TexasApril 27-28 2012An inside look into the modern electronic music festival
41live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL WONDERLAND
42 we live for live music
43live live issue 1
A new generation neo-age hippies
44 we live for live musicWelcome to Wonderland
45live live issue 1
46 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
47live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Dillon Francis plays The Queenrsquos Ground
48 we live for live music
49live live issue 1
Visual explosions to coordinate with the
audio attack of a drop
50 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
51live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
EDM shows are known for their
high-impact visuals
52 we live for live music
53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
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Button 10
Button 11
Button 12
button13
Button 52
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28 we live for live music
In an interview with the New York Times David Bowie claims copyright and intellectual property
will cease to exist in the next ten years
Congress passes a law holding club owners responsible for their patronsrsquo actions and
affecting the whole industry
Tiesto DJs the Athens Olympic Opening Ceremonies
The GRAMMYs add a Best DanceElectronica
Album category
Dubstep nights begin to pop up in the underground music
scene around the USDubstep begins to grow
out of South London
timeline
Limewire introducedCD sales peak iTunes launchedThe iPod brings digital music players to the masses
2002
2000 2001 2001 2003
2003
20062001
2004 2005
ldquoYoursquod better be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation
thatrsquos going to be leftrdquo
Ruskorsquos ldquoCockney Thugrdquo i l lustrates the wob sound
2000-2009
(COURTESY OF RUSK0)
(DTSIABAIFLICKR CC)
null
24417967
29live live issue 1
Daft Punkrsquos pyramid setup at Coachella sets a
new bar for visuals
Kanye West spawns electro-rap with 808rsquos amp Heartbreak prominently fea-
turing the TR 808 drum machine
Lady Gaga and the Black Eyed Peas bring the Euro-house
sound to the Top 40
Guettarsquos ldquoWhen Love Take Overrdquo becomes an international pop hit and the Euro-house sound
starts to creep its way into popular music
timeline
2004 2004 2007
2008 2009
20072006
20092007-2009
Long-established one-day raves such as EDC and Ultra transform
into two-day festivals
Guetta co-wrote ldquoBoom Boom Powrdquo
Gagarsquos Bad Romance has nearly 05 bi l l ion YouTube views
Gary Richards starts Hard Events
Youtube launched Beatport launched
2000-2009
iPhone released
(KARL WALTERGETTY IMAGES)
(INTERSCOPE RECORDS)
2010-2011
Technics SL-1200 turntable the industry standard for thirty
years is discontinued
Limewire the top P2P file-sharing client
is shut downSpotify launches in the US
When an underage girl dies at EDC in LA EDM gets a lot backlash but this
also gives it a lot of exposure
EDC is forced out of LA and moves to Vegas which becomes the home of
EDM in the United States
Bassnectar plays Red Rocks where he incurs $100000 in noise violations
after bringing his own speakers
Skrillex is nominated for five Grammy Awards he
wins three
timeline
2010
2010
2010
2010 2010 2011
2011 2011
2011
2011
Black Eyed Peasrsquo house-based ldquoThe TimeDirty Bitrdquo tops the
charts in over 15 countries
Hip hop and EDM production styles have always mirrored one another now they are morphing
EDM finally has a home in America
Moombahton a fusion of house music and reggae is
born at a house party in DC
Skrillex explodes onto the main-stream music scene bringing the ldquodroprdquo and heavy bass with him
DJAY app
(COURTESY OF SKRILLEX)
2010-2011
Britneyrsquos Hold it Against Me acts as the catalyst for replacing the pop
bridge with the dubstep drop
EDC Vegas has over 230000 attendees in
three days
The Victoria Secret Fashion Show features rave-inspired
outfits for the final walk
timeline
2011 2011
2011 2011 2011
2011
Tiesto plays the biggest single headliner DJ show in US
history to 26000 in Carson CA
Nielsen Soundscan reports digital music sales in the US are larger than
physical sales for the first time
Absoulte Vodka sponsors Swedish House Mafiarsquos
sold out MSG show
According to Bil lboard this is considered a watershed moment
brands adopting EDM
EDM technology is large-ly based now around
software programs and
their coordinating hard-
ware--control lers for Ableton
Scratch decks for Serato
and more There is an entire
spectrum of modern DJ tech-
nology avai lable and the path
one takes depends on what
sound they are trying to achieve
(JIVE RECORDS)
(ZUMA PRESS)
(SAMANTHA HOFFER)
The neon colors associated with EDM can be found al l over
the fashion world
With the laptop as instrument EDM
producers constantly
blend and mix elements
of different genres lead-
ing to the prol iferation of
microgenres which are difficult to
distinguish
null
26177792
32 we live for live music
EDC Vegas sees 300000+ people
over 3 days
Family-friendly animated film Wreck It Ralph uses
dance music in trailer
Feature-length EDM documentary ldquoThe Drop The EDM Culture
Explosionrdquo enters production
A system of alerts are set up to notify users when they
infringe on copyright law
Night Culture Inc becomes the first EDM-oriented publicly
traded company
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline 2012
Queen Latifah sings the National Anthem at the opening game of
the NFL seasonover a beat
JAN
OCTJULY SEPT
SEPTAUG
JUNE JUNEMARUltra Music Festival in Miami
has 40000 viewers watching its online stream over YouTube
Universal closes on EMI becoming the largest of the remaining three
major record labels
(DANNY MOLOSHOK REUTERS)
(BIG MACHINE)
null
21255588
33live live issue 1
After exploding onto the mainstream music scene and pop culture in the past year the industry has set its signts on EDM ventures proved the genre has final ly conquered the final frontiermdashAmerica
Live Nation purchases Hard Events
Media mogul Robert FX Sillerman says he will spend
$1B on EDM enterprises
EDM artists get the spotlight at the Grammys for the 1st time with addi-tion of a dance music performance
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline
Taylor Swift adopts the dubstep drop with her single ldquoI Knew You
Were Troublerdquo
JUNEFEB JULY
JUNE JUNE
OCT OCT NOV
NOVOCT
Bieber drops his first dub-step-influenced track ldquoAs
Long as You Love Merdquo
Dance-based songs can be found all across the radio
The first professional media outlet for EDM is announced
NYU introduces a course on the Business of Electronic amp
Dance Music
Billboard hosts the 2nd Annual FutureSound conference to ad-dress the future of the industry
NOVEMBERBLACK WIDOW
MUSIC PUBLISHES A LIST OF 230+ EDM SUB-GENRESAND
COUNTING
(BIG MACHINE)
34 we live for live music
BACK TO THE
FUTUREThirty years after the ldquodeathrdquo of disco dance music is back in America and bigger than ever To understand
where it is going we must take a look at the past
35live live issue 1
The most recent main-stream movement to hit the United States
E l e c t r o n i c D a n c e M u s i c (EDM) did so as an explosion of lights neon and pulsating beats But dance music is nothing new Although EDM seems entirely novel to many of Amer icarsquos youth dance music has a long and storied history
In the beginning mus ic c r e a t e d v i a e l e c t r o n i c ins t r ument s was focused on academic pursuit s and high ar t The use of elec-t ron ic s i n popu la r mus ic c rea t ion b egan w i t h t he commerc ia l i z a t ion o f t he synthesizer in the 1960s As technology evolved so did experimentation with elec-tronic instruments
In the 1970s the days of disco led to the develop-ment of e lec t ronic dance mus ic when DJs invented the traditional two-turntable setup to continuously stream together music so that the dancing never had to stop U n f o r t u na te l y f o r d a n c e music just as quickly as disco was embraced ant i -d isco sentiments fueled by racism and fear of change pushed it into the underground
It was in this underground s p a c e d u r i n g t h e lsquo 8 0 s that modern dance music evo lved St r ides made in elec tronic ins trumentation developed the synthesizer machines that would form the backbones of house and techno music the Roland TB 303 baseline and Roland TR 909 drum machine
A c c o r d i n g t o T h e Guard ianrsquos recent l y pub -lished timeline A History of Modern Music DJ Frankie Knuckles is responsible for the development of house music characterized by its
44 beats Techno rose out of Detroit a few years later inspired by the indus tr ial sounds of the city
While wildly popular in the underground music scene techno and house did not find commercial success in Amer ica I t was not unt i l the lat ter par t of the lsquo80s when the sounds of house and techno found their way to t he UK and mor phed into a new sub-genre acid house that the commercial club culture was born albeit exclusively in Europe
While dance music took of f r unning on the other side of the pond in America a dif ferent s tor y began to unfold As rap and hip-hop took a s t ronghold of the music industr y in the late eighties and nineties dance music remained confined to the peripheries
A s d a n c e - m u s i c D J s w o r ke d t o e v o l v e t h e i r sound and keep up w i th technology hip -hop DJs who adopted the traditional turntable setup from the DJs of disco as well as their pro-duction techniques began to work in the record ing s tudios and inf luence the industr y especially in the realm of pop music
I n t h e 19 9 0 s i n s i d e r s thought EDM had f ina l l y hit the jackpot and found mainstream success In an inter v iew with PaperMag industry vet Gary Richards explains ldquothe f irst farewell to the undergroundrdquo
ldquoBy 1993 i t felt l ike the music wasnrsquot underground anymore so I threw a par ty c a l l e d R ave A m e r i c a a t Knot t s Ber r y Farm which i s an amusement par k in O r a n g e C o u n t y I t s o l d out with l ike 20000 peo-ple Rick Rubin came with
Anthony K ied is f rom the Red Hot Chili Peppers and a couple guys from ZZ Top and he asked me if I wanted to work in the record busi-ness and help them s ign some EDM ar t i s t s I sa id sure the Prodigy were super hot and it seemed like it was blowing up But we star ted signing all these techno art-ists thinking theyrsquod catch on too but nobody was buying it Nobodyrdquo
Jus t l i ke R ichards says n o b o d y w a s b u y i n g i t D a n c e m u s i c w a s n o t catching on in the way the industr y would have liked so in 1997 the entire music industry and press put their full force behind ldquoelectron-icardquo the new catch-all name they had given to the genre in an attempt to successfully market it
Despite the gl impses of success seen froma handful of artists the genre failed to succeed and the industr y distanced itself from dance music far ther than i t had when disco ldquodiedrdquo
T h i s f a i l u r e c a n b e accounted to EDM not f it-t i ng i n to t h e ma r ke t i ng machinery of the industr y The t radit ional setup was f ixed for four-minute rock and pop singles and album tour s not t he ex tended club mixes and residencies that were the basis of the EDM world Not only was the indus t r y i l l - equipped to market electronic music but many consumers also felt it abrasive and awkward attempting to listen to this machine-made glitch-based music that was so unfamiliar to their ears It was not until the digital revolution of the new millennium that elec-tronic dance music f inal ly found its place
36 we live for live music
Festival
MAJOR LAZER AT SUMMERFEST IN HOUSTON JUNE 2012
37live live issue 1
If music in 2012 could talk it would sound a lot like the Bill Orsquo Reillyrsquos blooper ldquoLetrsquos do it liverdquo While attending concerts has been popular since rock and roll shows in the 1950s the recent electronic music boom has made it exponentially more so
One reason accord ing to Forbes i s that as resource constraints have t ightened people are spending thei r money more on exper iences as opposed to manufactured products But it is more than that EDM has managed to ent i re ly t rans -form the concept of a concer t by blurring the lines between going out dancing and going out to see music These days one would pay the same amount to see superstar-DJ David Guetta in an arena that they would if they were simply dancing to him spin-ning in a club
But this popularity was not always the case As a genre born in the world of nightclubs EDMrsquos parties were lambasted for years as depraved raves Now many kids will go to a rave before they attend a rock concert Why the sudden change A major factor is rebranding
Raves became festivals Electronic became EDMOnce shed of the negative associations with raves
and the bad memories of the electronicarsquos failure EDM shows and festivals began to proliferate across the countr y No longer hiding in remote f ields or empt y warehouse e lec t ronic mus ic promoter s looked to book DJs in public arenas and concer t halls
Elec tr ic Daisy Carnival (EDC) 2010 a rave put on by one of the major EDM promoters Insomniac
Event s ser ved as a turning point for the genre when an underage gir l died at the event causing severe backlash against Insomniac but also giving the genre lots of exposure EDC was run out of Los Angeles but found refuge in the always-accepting city of Las Vegas It was here in Vegas that EDM finally found a homemdashnow playing the same role to America as Ibiza did to Europe when the rave scene star ted there in the 1980s Superstar DJs can be found any week as a resident DJ to Tao XS or one of the many other posh clubs and the landmark event of the year EDC Vegas is now one of the largest raves in the world with over 300000 attendees last year
EDC is not the only big festival on the market now though Festivals are becoming trendymdashan indicator of direction the music industry is headed in towards the live and away from the recorded According to Metrowizecom an online nightli fe guide in 2012 alone at leas t thir t y-two new fes t ivals began in Americamdashfif teen of them dedicated solely to EDM
Long-standing traditions in the music industry fes-tivals typically only attracted people who spent a lot of time at live music and concertshellipuntil recently
As EDM crossed over into pop music the l ines became blur red between a night of going out to dance at a club and night of going out to see your favorite ar tist at a concer t People who a few years ago never attended a concert beyond the major pop ar tists are now concer t-fiends as the ldquopoprdquo ar tists they love today are world-renowned DJs
Of course as any genre crosses into the main-stream it is going to become increasingly popular
FeverEDMS BOOMING SUCCESS IN THE FESTIVAL MARKET HAS HEADS
TURNING FROM AROUND THE INDUSTRY TO INVEST IN LIVE MUSIC
38 we live for live music
with the masses but EDMrsquos explosion is unparal-leled Hundreds of thousands of people attended EDC Vegas and that was just one of dozens of elec-tronic dance festivals and all-night events this year
Because the live experience is EDMrsquos native for-mat the genre is par ticularly nuanced to success on the road Matt Adell of Beatport the online mecca of the DJ community explains one of the reasons why
ldquoPer formers such as Skr illex are incredibly ef f i -cient touring operations compared to rock bands Itrsquos less expensive than a rock group because therersquos just one per former Therersquos much less gear and it rsquos easier to set up because therersquos no live micro-phones So the suppor t team required is so much smallerrdquo
Bobby Clay head of the electronic division at C3 Presents touches on another aspect of EDM that primes the genre for the road ldquoIt rsquos like you donrsquot need to have a full studio on your tour bus to create the next banger or the next huge club track or the next Rihanna remix You can do it from the comfort of a tour bus or the green room of whatever arena some of these big people are playing in nowrdquo EDM ar tists have the luxury of not having to break from tour to create new songs
Although EDM is pr imed for tour ing i t is only in the past couple of years that the genre took on this rock and roll mentality As shows star ted to be booked in rock and roll venues and DJproducers took to the road stopping in every middle town and college campus in America like a rock band would DJs became rock stars in their own right One ar tist in par ticular is noted for condensing the drawn out peaks and falls of dance music into four and a half minute radio-ready tracks the half-shaved goofy-glasses wearing kid known as Skrillex Love him or hate him his genre-fusing in your face style helped to launch EDM to the place it is at today
With mega-DJs such as Skrillex earning up to $1 million per festival appearance and groups such as Swedish House Mafia selling out Madison Square Garden in nine minutes it is no surprise that corpo-rate heads have turned to this once-ignored market Over the summer Live Nation bought Hard Events one of the original promoters of the genre whose brands of Hardfest Holy Ship and Haunted Hard Mansion have gone on to great success Shor t ly af ter media mogul Robert FX Sillerman pledged to invest $1 billion dollars in EDM ventures
As the money pours in 2013 is looking to be the biggest year yet for EDM Having finally solidified i t s place in the music industr y (and at the fore-front nevertheless) Electronic Dance Music is ready to guide the music industry in a new directionmdasha direction towards the future towards a more diver-sified music industry towards a music industry that lives for live music
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
39live live issue 1
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
AT LEAST 32 NEW FESTIVALS BEGAN IN THE UNITED STATES IN 2012 OF THESE FESTIVALS FIFTEEN OF THEM ARE DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC
40 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL WONDERLANDDowntown TexasApril 27-28 2012An inside look into the modern electronic music festival
41live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL WONDERLAND
42 we live for live music
43live live issue 1
A new generation neo-age hippies
44 we live for live musicWelcome to Wonderland
45live live issue 1
46 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
47live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Dillon Francis plays The Queenrsquos Ground
48 we live for live music
49live live issue 1
Visual explosions to coordinate with the
audio attack of a drop
50 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
51live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
EDM shows are known for their
high-impact visuals
52 we live for live music
53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
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29live live issue 1
Daft Punkrsquos pyramid setup at Coachella sets a
new bar for visuals
Kanye West spawns electro-rap with 808rsquos amp Heartbreak prominently fea-
turing the TR 808 drum machine
Lady Gaga and the Black Eyed Peas bring the Euro-house
sound to the Top 40
Guettarsquos ldquoWhen Love Take Overrdquo becomes an international pop hit and the Euro-house sound
starts to creep its way into popular music
timeline
2004 2004 2007
2008 2009
20072006
20092007-2009
Long-established one-day raves such as EDC and Ultra transform
into two-day festivals
Guetta co-wrote ldquoBoom Boom Powrdquo
Gagarsquos Bad Romance has nearly 05 bi l l ion YouTube views
Gary Richards starts Hard Events
Youtube launched Beatport launched
2000-2009
iPhone released
(KARL WALTERGETTY IMAGES)
(INTERSCOPE RECORDS)
2010-2011
Technics SL-1200 turntable the industry standard for thirty
years is discontinued
Limewire the top P2P file-sharing client
is shut downSpotify launches in the US
When an underage girl dies at EDC in LA EDM gets a lot backlash but this
also gives it a lot of exposure
EDC is forced out of LA and moves to Vegas which becomes the home of
EDM in the United States
Bassnectar plays Red Rocks where he incurs $100000 in noise violations
after bringing his own speakers
Skrillex is nominated for five Grammy Awards he
wins three
timeline
2010
2010
2010
2010 2010 2011
2011 2011
2011
2011
Black Eyed Peasrsquo house-based ldquoThe TimeDirty Bitrdquo tops the
charts in over 15 countries
Hip hop and EDM production styles have always mirrored one another now they are morphing
EDM finally has a home in America
Moombahton a fusion of house music and reggae is
born at a house party in DC
Skrillex explodes onto the main-stream music scene bringing the ldquodroprdquo and heavy bass with him
DJAY app
(COURTESY OF SKRILLEX)
2010-2011
Britneyrsquos Hold it Against Me acts as the catalyst for replacing the pop
bridge with the dubstep drop
EDC Vegas has over 230000 attendees in
three days
The Victoria Secret Fashion Show features rave-inspired
outfits for the final walk
timeline
2011 2011
2011 2011 2011
2011
Tiesto plays the biggest single headliner DJ show in US
history to 26000 in Carson CA
Nielsen Soundscan reports digital music sales in the US are larger than
physical sales for the first time
Absoulte Vodka sponsors Swedish House Mafiarsquos
sold out MSG show
According to Bil lboard this is considered a watershed moment
brands adopting EDM
EDM technology is large-ly based now around
software programs and
their coordinating hard-
ware--control lers for Ableton
Scratch decks for Serato
and more There is an entire
spectrum of modern DJ tech-
nology avai lable and the path
one takes depends on what
sound they are trying to achieve
(JIVE RECORDS)
(ZUMA PRESS)
(SAMANTHA HOFFER)
The neon colors associated with EDM can be found al l over
the fashion world
With the laptop as instrument EDM
producers constantly
blend and mix elements
of different genres lead-
ing to the prol iferation of
microgenres which are difficult to
distinguish
null
26177792
32 we live for live music
EDC Vegas sees 300000+ people
over 3 days
Family-friendly animated film Wreck It Ralph uses
dance music in trailer
Feature-length EDM documentary ldquoThe Drop The EDM Culture
Explosionrdquo enters production
A system of alerts are set up to notify users when they
infringe on copyright law
Night Culture Inc becomes the first EDM-oriented publicly
traded company
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline 2012
Queen Latifah sings the National Anthem at the opening game of
the NFL seasonover a beat
JAN
OCTJULY SEPT
SEPTAUG
JUNE JUNEMARUltra Music Festival in Miami
has 40000 viewers watching its online stream over YouTube
Universal closes on EMI becoming the largest of the remaining three
major record labels
(DANNY MOLOSHOK REUTERS)
(BIG MACHINE)
null
21255588
33live live issue 1
After exploding onto the mainstream music scene and pop culture in the past year the industry has set its signts on EDM ventures proved the genre has final ly conquered the final frontiermdashAmerica
Live Nation purchases Hard Events
Media mogul Robert FX Sillerman says he will spend
$1B on EDM enterprises
EDM artists get the spotlight at the Grammys for the 1st time with addi-tion of a dance music performance
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline
Taylor Swift adopts the dubstep drop with her single ldquoI Knew You
Were Troublerdquo
JUNEFEB JULY
JUNE JUNE
OCT OCT NOV
NOVOCT
Bieber drops his first dub-step-influenced track ldquoAs
Long as You Love Merdquo
Dance-based songs can be found all across the radio
The first professional media outlet for EDM is announced
NYU introduces a course on the Business of Electronic amp
Dance Music
Billboard hosts the 2nd Annual FutureSound conference to ad-dress the future of the industry
NOVEMBERBLACK WIDOW
MUSIC PUBLISHES A LIST OF 230+ EDM SUB-GENRESAND
COUNTING
(BIG MACHINE)
34 we live for live music
BACK TO THE
FUTUREThirty years after the ldquodeathrdquo of disco dance music is back in America and bigger than ever To understand
where it is going we must take a look at the past
35live live issue 1
The most recent main-stream movement to hit the United States
E l e c t r o n i c D a n c e M u s i c (EDM) did so as an explosion of lights neon and pulsating beats But dance music is nothing new Although EDM seems entirely novel to many of Amer icarsquos youth dance music has a long and storied history
In the beginning mus ic c r e a t e d v i a e l e c t r o n i c ins t r ument s was focused on academic pursuit s and high ar t The use of elec-t ron ic s i n popu la r mus ic c rea t ion b egan w i t h t he commerc ia l i z a t ion o f t he synthesizer in the 1960s As technology evolved so did experimentation with elec-tronic instruments
In the 1970s the days of disco led to the develop-ment of e lec t ronic dance mus ic when DJs invented the traditional two-turntable setup to continuously stream together music so that the dancing never had to stop U n f o r t u na te l y f o r d a n c e music just as quickly as disco was embraced ant i -d isco sentiments fueled by racism and fear of change pushed it into the underground
It was in this underground s p a c e d u r i n g t h e lsquo 8 0 s that modern dance music evo lved St r ides made in elec tronic ins trumentation developed the synthesizer machines that would form the backbones of house and techno music the Roland TB 303 baseline and Roland TR 909 drum machine
A c c o r d i n g t o T h e Guard ianrsquos recent l y pub -lished timeline A History of Modern Music DJ Frankie Knuckles is responsible for the development of house music characterized by its
44 beats Techno rose out of Detroit a few years later inspired by the indus tr ial sounds of the city
While wildly popular in the underground music scene techno and house did not find commercial success in Amer ica I t was not unt i l the lat ter par t of the lsquo80s when the sounds of house and techno found their way to t he UK and mor phed into a new sub-genre acid house that the commercial club culture was born albeit exclusively in Europe
While dance music took of f r unning on the other side of the pond in America a dif ferent s tor y began to unfold As rap and hip-hop took a s t ronghold of the music industr y in the late eighties and nineties dance music remained confined to the peripheries
A s d a n c e - m u s i c D J s w o r ke d t o e v o l v e t h e i r sound and keep up w i th technology hip -hop DJs who adopted the traditional turntable setup from the DJs of disco as well as their pro-duction techniques began to work in the record ing s tudios and inf luence the industr y especially in the realm of pop music
I n t h e 19 9 0 s i n s i d e r s thought EDM had f ina l l y hit the jackpot and found mainstream success In an inter v iew with PaperMag industry vet Gary Richards explains ldquothe f irst farewell to the undergroundrdquo
ldquoBy 1993 i t felt l ike the music wasnrsquot underground anymore so I threw a par ty c a l l e d R ave A m e r i c a a t Knot t s Ber r y Farm which i s an amusement par k in O r a n g e C o u n t y I t s o l d out with l ike 20000 peo-ple Rick Rubin came with
Anthony K ied is f rom the Red Hot Chili Peppers and a couple guys from ZZ Top and he asked me if I wanted to work in the record busi-ness and help them s ign some EDM ar t i s t s I sa id sure the Prodigy were super hot and it seemed like it was blowing up But we star ted signing all these techno art-ists thinking theyrsquod catch on too but nobody was buying it Nobodyrdquo
Jus t l i ke R ichards says n o b o d y w a s b u y i n g i t D a n c e m u s i c w a s n o t catching on in the way the industr y would have liked so in 1997 the entire music industry and press put their full force behind ldquoelectron-icardquo the new catch-all name they had given to the genre in an attempt to successfully market it
Despite the gl impses of success seen froma handful of artists the genre failed to succeed and the industr y distanced itself from dance music far ther than i t had when disco ldquodiedrdquo
T h i s f a i l u r e c a n b e accounted to EDM not f it-t i ng i n to t h e ma r ke t i ng machinery of the industr y The t radit ional setup was f ixed for four-minute rock and pop singles and album tour s not t he ex tended club mixes and residencies that were the basis of the EDM world Not only was the indus t r y i l l - equipped to market electronic music but many consumers also felt it abrasive and awkward attempting to listen to this machine-made glitch-based music that was so unfamiliar to their ears It was not until the digital revolution of the new millennium that elec-tronic dance music f inal ly found its place
36 we live for live music
Festival
MAJOR LAZER AT SUMMERFEST IN HOUSTON JUNE 2012
37live live issue 1
If music in 2012 could talk it would sound a lot like the Bill Orsquo Reillyrsquos blooper ldquoLetrsquos do it liverdquo While attending concerts has been popular since rock and roll shows in the 1950s the recent electronic music boom has made it exponentially more so
One reason accord ing to Forbes i s that as resource constraints have t ightened people are spending thei r money more on exper iences as opposed to manufactured products But it is more than that EDM has managed to ent i re ly t rans -form the concept of a concer t by blurring the lines between going out dancing and going out to see music These days one would pay the same amount to see superstar-DJ David Guetta in an arena that they would if they were simply dancing to him spin-ning in a club
But this popularity was not always the case As a genre born in the world of nightclubs EDMrsquos parties were lambasted for years as depraved raves Now many kids will go to a rave before they attend a rock concert Why the sudden change A major factor is rebranding
Raves became festivals Electronic became EDMOnce shed of the negative associations with raves
and the bad memories of the electronicarsquos failure EDM shows and festivals began to proliferate across the countr y No longer hiding in remote f ields or empt y warehouse e lec t ronic mus ic promoter s looked to book DJs in public arenas and concer t halls
Elec tr ic Daisy Carnival (EDC) 2010 a rave put on by one of the major EDM promoters Insomniac
Event s ser ved as a turning point for the genre when an underage gir l died at the event causing severe backlash against Insomniac but also giving the genre lots of exposure EDC was run out of Los Angeles but found refuge in the always-accepting city of Las Vegas It was here in Vegas that EDM finally found a homemdashnow playing the same role to America as Ibiza did to Europe when the rave scene star ted there in the 1980s Superstar DJs can be found any week as a resident DJ to Tao XS or one of the many other posh clubs and the landmark event of the year EDC Vegas is now one of the largest raves in the world with over 300000 attendees last year
EDC is not the only big festival on the market now though Festivals are becoming trendymdashan indicator of direction the music industry is headed in towards the live and away from the recorded According to Metrowizecom an online nightli fe guide in 2012 alone at leas t thir t y-two new fes t ivals began in Americamdashfif teen of them dedicated solely to EDM
Long-standing traditions in the music industry fes-tivals typically only attracted people who spent a lot of time at live music and concertshellipuntil recently
As EDM crossed over into pop music the l ines became blur red between a night of going out to dance at a club and night of going out to see your favorite ar tist at a concer t People who a few years ago never attended a concert beyond the major pop ar tists are now concer t-fiends as the ldquopoprdquo ar tists they love today are world-renowned DJs
Of course as any genre crosses into the main-stream it is going to become increasingly popular
FeverEDMS BOOMING SUCCESS IN THE FESTIVAL MARKET HAS HEADS
TURNING FROM AROUND THE INDUSTRY TO INVEST IN LIVE MUSIC
38 we live for live music
with the masses but EDMrsquos explosion is unparal-leled Hundreds of thousands of people attended EDC Vegas and that was just one of dozens of elec-tronic dance festivals and all-night events this year
Because the live experience is EDMrsquos native for-mat the genre is par ticularly nuanced to success on the road Matt Adell of Beatport the online mecca of the DJ community explains one of the reasons why
ldquoPer formers such as Skr illex are incredibly ef f i -cient touring operations compared to rock bands Itrsquos less expensive than a rock group because therersquos just one per former Therersquos much less gear and it rsquos easier to set up because therersquos no live micro-phones So the suppor t team required is so much smallerrdquo
Bobby Clay head of the electronic division at C3 Presents touches on another aspect of EDM that primes the genre for the road ldquoIt rsquos like you donrsquot need to have a full studio on your tour bus to create the next banger or the next huge club track or the next Rihanna remix You can do it from the comfort of a tour bus or the green room of whatever arena some of these big people are playing in nowrdquo EDM ar tists have the luxury of not having to break from tour to create new songs
Although EDM is pr imed for tour ing i t is only in the past couple of years that the genre took on this rock and roll mentality As shows star ted to be booked in rock and roll venues and DJproducers took to the road stopping in every middle town and college campus in America like a rock band would DJs became rock stars in their own right One ar tist in par ticular is noted for condensing the drawn out peaks and falls of dance music into four and a half minute radio-ready tracks the half-shaved goofy-glasses wearing kid known as Skrillex Love him or hate him his genre-fusing in your face style helped to launch EDM to the place it is at today
With mega-DJs such as Skrillex earning up to $1 million per festival appearance and groups such as Swedish House Mafia selling out Madison Square Garden in nine minutes it is no surprise that corpo-rate heads have turned to this once-ignored market Over the summer Live Nation bought Hard Events one of the original promoters of the genre whose brands of Hardfest Holy Ship and Haunted Hard Mansion have gone on to great success Shor t ly af ter media mogul Robert FX Sillerman pledged to invest $1 billion dollars in EDM ventures
As the money pours in 2013 is looking to be the biggest year yet for EDM Having finally solidified i t s place in the music industr y (and at the fore-front nevertheless) Electronic Dance Music is ready to guide the music industry in a new directionmdasha direction towards the future towards a more diver-sified music industry towards a music industry that lives for live music
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
39live live issue 1
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
AT LEAST 32 NEW FESTIVALS BEGAN IN THE UNITED STATES IN 2012 OF THESE FESTIVALS FIFTEEN OF THEM ARE DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC
40 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL WONDERLANDDowntown TexasApril 27-28 2012An inside look into the modern electronic music festival
41live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL WONDERLAND
42 we live for live music
43live live issue 1
A new generation neo-age hippies
44 we live for live musicWelcome to Wonderland
45live live issue 1
46 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
47live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Dillon Francis plays The Queenrsquos Ground
48 we live for live music
49live live issue 1
Visual explosions to coordinate with the
audio attack of a drop
50 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
51live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
EDM shows are known for their
high-impact visuals
52 we live for live music
53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
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Button 12
button13
Button 52
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Button 49
Button 50
Button 48
2010-2011
Technics SL-1200 turntable the industry standard for thirty
years is discontinued
Limewire the top P2P file-sharing client
is shut downSpotify launches in the US
When an underage girl dies at EDC in LA EDM gets a lot backlash but this
also gives it a lot of exposure
EDC is forced out of LA and moves to Vegas which becomes the home of
EDM in the United States
Bassnectar plays Red Rocks where he incurs $100000 in noise violations
after bringing his own speakers
Skrillex is nominated for five Grammy Awards he
wins three
timeline
2010
2010
2010
2010 2010 2011
2011 2011
2011
2011
Black Eyed Peasrsquo house-based ldquoThe TimeDirty Bitrdquo tops the
charts in over 15 countries
Hip hop and EDM production styles have always mirrored one another now they are morphing
EDM finally has a home in America
Moombahton a fusion of house music and reggae is
born at a house party in DC
Skrillex explodes onto the main-stream music scene bringing the ldquodroprdquo and heavy bass with him
DJAY app
(COURTESY OF SKRILLEX)
2010-2011
Britneyrsquos Hold it Against Me acts as the catalyst for replacing the pop
bridge with the dubstep drop
EDC Vegas has over 230000 attendees in
three days
The Victoria Secret Fashion Show features rave-inspired
outfits for the final walk
timeline
2011 2011
2011 2011 2011
2011
Tiesto plays the biggest single headliner DJ show in US
history to 26000 in Carson CA
Nielsen Soundscan reports digital music sales in the US are larger than
physical sales for the first time
Absoulte Vodka sponsors Swedish House Mafiarsquos
sold out MSG show
According to Bil lboard this is considered a watershed moment
brands adopting EDM
EDM technology is large-ly based now around
software programs and
their coordinating hard-
ware--control lers for Ableton
Scratch decks for Serato
and more There is an entire
spectrum of modern DJ tech-
nology avai lable and the path
one takes depends on what
sound they are trying to achieve
(JIVE RECORDS)
(ZUMA PRESS)
(SAMANTHA HOFFER)
The neon colors associated with EDM can be found al l over
the fashion world
With the laptop as instrument EDM
producers constantly
blend and mix elements
of different genres lead-
ing to the prol iferation of
microgenres which are difficult to
distinguish
null
26177792
32 we live for live music
EDC Vegas sees 300000+ people
over 3 days
Family-friendly animated film Wreck It Ralph uses
dance music in trailer
Feature-length EDM documentary ldquoThe Drop The EDM Culture
Explosionrdquo enters production
A system of alerts are set up to notify users when they
infringe on copyright law
Night Culture Inc becomes the first EDM-oriented publicly
traded company
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline 2012
Queen Latifah sings the National Anthem at the opening game of
the NFL seasonover a beat
JAN
OCTJULY SEPT
SEPTAUG
JUNE JUNEMARUltra Music Festival in Miami
has 40000 viewers watching its online stream over YouTube
Universal closes on EMI becoming the largest of the remaining three
major record labels
(DANNY MOLOSHOK REUTERS)
(BIG MACHINE)
null
21255588
33live live issue 1
After exploding onto the mainstream music scene and pop culture in the past year the industry has set its signts on EDM ventures proved the genre has final ly conquered the final frontiermdashAmerica
Live Nation purchases Hard Events
Media mogul Robert FX Sillerman says he will spend
$1B on EDM enterprises
EDM artists get the spotlight at the Grammys for the 1st time with addi-tion of a dance music performance
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline
Taylor Swift adopts the dubstep drop with her single ldquoI Knew You
Were Troublerdquo
JUNEFEB JULY
JUNE JUNE
OCT OCT NOV
NOVOCT
Bieber drops his first dub-step-influenced track ldquoAs
Long as You Love Merdquo
Dance-based songs can be found all across the radio
The first professional media outlet for EDM is announced
NYU introduces a course on the Business of Electronic amp
Dance Music
Billboard hosts the 2nd Annual FutureSound conference to ad-dress the future of the industry
NOVEMBERBLACK WIDOW
MUSIC PUBLISHES A LIST OF 230+ EDM SUB-GENRESAND
COUNTING
(BIG MACHINE)
34 we live for live music
BACK TO THE
FUTUREThirty years after the ldquodeathrdquo of disco dance music is back in America and bigger than ever To understand
where it is going we must take a look at the past
35live live issue 1
The most recent main-stream movement to hit the United States
E l e c t r o n i c D a n c e M u s i c (EDM) did so as an explosion of lights neon and pulsating beats But dance music is nothing new Although EDM seems entirely novel to many of Amer icarsquos youth dance music has a long and storied history
In the beginning mus ic c r e a t e d v i a e l e c t r o n i c ins t r ument s was focused on academic pursuit s and high ar t The use of elec-t ron ic s i n popu la r mus ic c rea t ion b egan w i t h t he commerc ia l i z a t ion o f t he synthesizer in the 1960s As technology evolved so did experimentation with elec-tronic instruments
In the 1970s the days of disco led to the develop-ment of e lec t ronic dance mus ic when DJs invented the traditional two-turntable setup to continuously stream together music so that the dancing never had to stop U n f o r t u na te l y f o r d a n c e music just as quickly as disco was embraced ant i -d isco sentiments fueled by racism and fear of change pushed it into the underground
It was in this underground s p a c e d u r i n g t h e lsquo 8 0 s that modern dance music evo lved St r ides made in elec tronic ins trumentation developed the synthesizer machines that would form the backbones of house and techno music the Roland TB 303 baseline and Roland TR 909 drum machine
A c c o r d i n g t o T h e Guard ianrsquos recent l y pub -lished timeline A History of Modern Music DJ Frankie Knuckles is responsible for the development of house music characterized by its
44 beats Techno rose out of Detroit a few years later inspired by the indus tr ial sounds of the city
While wildly popular in the underground music scene techno and house did not find commercial success in Amer ica I t was not unt i l the lat ter par t of the lsquo80s when the sounds of house and techno found their way to t he UK and mor phed into a new sub-genre acid house that the commercial club culture was born albeit exclusively in Europe
While dance music took of f r unning on the other side of the pond in America a dif ferent s tor y began to unfold As rap and hip-hop took a s t ronghold of the music industr y in the late eighties and nineties dance music remained confined to the peripheries
A s d a n c e - m u s i c D J s w o r ke d t o e v o l v e t h e i r sound and keep up w i th technology hip -hop DJs who adopted the traditional turntable setup from the DJs of disco as well as their pro-duction techniques began to work in the record ing s tudios and inf luence the industr y especially in the realm of pop music
I n t h e 19 9 0 s i n s i d e r s thought EDM had f ina l l y hit the jackpot and found mainstream success In an inter v iew with PaperMag industry vet Gary Richards explains ldquothe f irst farewell to the undergroundrdquo
ldquoBy 1993 i t felt l ike the music wasnrsquot underground anymore so I threw a par ty c a l l e d R ave A m e r i c a a t Knot t s Ber r y Farm which i s an amusement par k in O r a n g e C o u n t y I t s o l d out with l ike 20000 peo-ple Rick Rubin came with
Anthony K ied is f rom the Red Hot Chili Peppers and a couple guys from ZZ Top and he asked me if I wanted to work in the record busi-ness and help them s ign some EDM ar t i s t s I sa id sure the Prodigy were super hot and it seemed like it was blowing up But we star ted signing all these techno art-ists thinking theyrsquod catch on too but nobody was buying it Nobodyrdquo
Jus t l i ke R ichards says n o b o d y w a s b u y i n g i t D a n c e m u s i c w a s n o t catching on in the way the industr y would have liked so in 1997 the entire music industry and press put their full force behind ldquoelectron-icardquo the new catch-all name they had given to the genre in an attempt to successfully market it
Despite the gl impses of success seen froma handful of artists the genre failed to succeed and the industr y distanced itself from dance music far ther than i t had when disco ldquodiedrdquo
T h i s f a i l u r e c a n b e accounted to EDM not f it-t i ng i n to t h e ma r ke t i ng machinery of the industr y The t radit ional setup was f ixed for four-minute rock and pop singles and album tour s not t he ex tended club mixes and residencies that were the basis of the EDM world Not only was the indus t r y i l l - equipped to market electronic music but many consumers also felt it abrasive and awkward attempting to listen to this machine-made glitch-based music that was so unfamiliar to their ears It was not until the digital revolution of the new millennium that elec-tronic dance music f inal ly found its place
36 we live for live music
Festival
MAJOR LAZER AT SUMMERFEST IN HOUSTON JUNE 2012
37live live issue 1
If music in 2012 could talk it would sound a lot like the Bill Orsquo Reillyrsquos blooper ldquoLetrsquos do it liverdquo While attending concerts has been popular since rock and roll shows in the 1950s the recent electronic music boom has made it exponentially more so
One reason accord ing to Forbes i s that as resource constraints have t ightened people are spending thei r money more on exper iences as opposed to manufactured products But it is more than that EDM has managed to ent i re ly t rans -form the concept of a concer t by blurring the lines between going out dancing and going out to see music These days one would pay the same amount to see superstar-DJ David Guetta in an arena that they would if they were simply dancing to him spin-ning in a club
But this popularity was not always the case As a genre born in the world of nightclubs EDMrsquos parties were lambasted for years as depraved raves Now many kids will go to a rave before they attend a rock concert Why the sudden change A major factor is rebranding
Raves became festivals Electronic became EDMOnce shed of the negative associations with raves
and the bad memories of the electronicarsquos failure EDM shows and festivals began to proliferate across the countr y No longer hiding in remote f ields or empt y warehouse e lec t ronic mus ic promoter s looked to book DJs in public arenas and concer t halls
Elec tr ic Daisy Carnival (EDC) 2010 a rave put on by one of the major EDM promoters Insomniac
Event s ser ved as a turning point for the genre when an underage gir l died at the event causing severe backlash against Insomniac but also giving the genre lots of exposure EDC was run out of Los Angeles but found refuge in the always-accepting city of Las Vegas It was here in Vegas that EDM finally found a homemdashnow playing the same role to America as Ibiza did to Europe when the rave scene star ted there in the 1980s Superstar DJs can be found any week as a resident DJ to Tao XS or one of the many other posh clubs and the landmark event of the year EDC Vegas is now one of the largest raves in the world with over 300000 attendees last year
EDC is not the only big festival on the market now though Festivals are becoming trendymdashan indicator of direction the music industry is headed in towards the live and away from the recorded According to Metrowizecom an online nightli fe guide in 2012 alone at leas t thir t y-two new fes t ivals began in Americamdashfif teen of them dedicated solely to EDM
Long-standing traditions in the music industry fes-tivals typically only attracted people who spent a lot of time at live music and concertshellipuntil recently
As EDM crossed over into pop music the l ines became blur red between a night of going out to dance at a club and night of going out to see your favorite ar tist at a concer t People who a few years ago never attended a concert beyond the major pop ar tists are now concer t-fiends as the ldquopoprdquo ar tists they love today are world-renowned DJs
Of course as any genre crosses into the main-stream it is going to become increasingly popular
FeverEDMS BOOMING SUCCESS IN THE FESTIVAL MARKET HAS HEADS
TURNING FROM AROUND THE INDUSTRY TO INVEST IN LIVE MUSIC
38 we live for live music
with the masses but EDMrsquos explosion is unparal-leled Hundreds of thousands of people attended EDC Vegas and that was just one of dozens of elec-tronic dance festivals and all-night events this year
Because the live experience is EDMrsquos native for-mat the genre is par ticularly nuanced to success on the road Matt Adell of Beatport the online mecca of the DJ community explains one of the reasons why
ldquoPer formers such as Skr illex are incredibly ef f i -cient touring operations compared to rock bands Itrsquos less expensive than a rock group because therersquos just one per former Therersquos much less gear and it rsquos easier to set up because therersquos no live micro-phones So the suppor t team required is so much smallerrdquo
Bobby Clay head of the electronic division at C3 Presents touches on another aspect of EDM that primes the genre for the road ldquoIt rsquos like you donrsquot need to have a full studio on your tour bus to create the next banger or the next huge club track or the next Rihanna remix You can do it from the comfort of a tour bus or the green room of whatever arena some of these big people are playing in nowrdquo EDM ar tists have the luxury of not having to break from tour to create new songs
Although EDM is pr imed for tour ing i t is only in the past couple of years that the genre took on this rock and roll mentality As shows star ted to be booked in rock and roll venues and DJproducers took to the road stopping in every middle town and college campus in America like a rock band would DJs became rock stars in their own right One ar tist in par ticular is noted for condensing the drawn out peaks and falls of dance music into four and a half minute radio-ready tracks the half-shaved goofy-glasses wearing kid known as Skrillex Love him or hate him his genre-fusing in your face style helped to launch EDM to the place it is at today
With mega-DJs such as Skrillex earning up to $1 million per festival appearance and groups such as Swedish House Mafia selling out Madison Square Garden in nine minutes it is no surprise that corpo-rate heads have turned to this once-ignored market Over the summer Live Nation bought Hard Events one of the original promoters of the genre whose brands of Hardfest Holy Ship and Haunted Hard Mansion have gone on to great success Shor t ly af ter media mogul Robert FX Sillerman pledged to invest $1 billion dollars in EDM ventures
As the money pours in 2013 is looking to be the biggest year yet for EDM Having finally solidified i t s place in the music industr y (and at the fore-front nevertheless) Electronic Dance Music is ready to guide the music industry in a new directionmdasha direction towards the future towards a more diver-sified music industry towards a music industry that lives for live music
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
39live live issue 1
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
AT LEAST 32 NEW FESTIVALS BEGAN IN THE UNITED STATES IN 2012 OF THESE FESTIVALS FIFTEEN OF THEM ARE DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC
40 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL WONDERLANDDowntown TexasApril 27-28 2012An inside look into the modern electronic music festival
41live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL WONDERLAND
42 we live for live music
43live live issue 1
A new generation neo-age hippies
44 we live for live musicWelcome to Wonderland
45live live issue 1
46 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
47live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Dillon Francis plays The Queenrsquos Ground
48 we live for live music
49live live issue 1
Visual explosions to coordinate with the
audio attack of a drop
50 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
51live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
EDM shows are known for their
high-impact visuals
52 we live for live music
53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
Button 7
Button 8
Button 9
Button 10
Button 11
Button 12
button13
Button 52
Button 54
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Button 50
Button 48
2010-2011
Britneyrsquos Hold it Against Me acts as the catalyst for replacing the pop
bridge with the dubstep drop
EDC Vegas has over 230000 attendees in
three days
The Victoria Secret Fashion Show features rave-inspired
outfits for the final walk
timeline
2011 2011
2011 2011 2011
2011
Tiesto plays the biggest single headliner DJ show in US
history to 26000 in Carson CA
Nielsen Soundscan reports digital music sales in the US are larger than
physical sales for the first time
Absoulte Vodka sponsors Swedish House Mafiarsquos
sold out MSG show
According to Bil lboard this is considered a watershed moment
brands adopting EDM
EDM technology is large-ly based now around
software programs and
their coordinating hard-
ware--control lers for Ableton
Scratch decks for Serato
and more There is an entire
spectrum of modern DJ tech-
nology avai lable and the path
one takes depends on what
sound they are trying to achieve
(JIVE RECORDS)
(ZUMA PRESS)
(SAMANTHA HOFFER)
The neon colors associated with EDM can be found al l over
the fashion world
With the laptop as instrument EDM
producers constantly
blend and mix elements
of different genres lead-
ing to the prol iferation of
microgenres which are difficult to
distinguish
null
26177792
32 we live for live music
EDC Vegas sees 300000+ people
over 3 days
Family-friendly animated film Wreck It Ralph uses
dance music in trailer
Feature-length EDM documentary ldquoThe Drop The EDM Culture
Explosionrdquo enters production
A system of alerts are set up to notify users when they
infringe on copyright law
Night Culture Inc becomes the first EDM-oriented publicly
traded company
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline 2012
Queen Latifah sings the National Anthem at the opening game of
the NFL seasonover a beat
JAN
OCTJULY SEPT
SEPTAUG
JUNE JUNEMARUltra Music Festival in Miami
has 40000 viewers watching its online stream over YouTube
Universal closes on EMI becoming the largest of the remaining three
major record labels
(DANNY MOLOSHOK REUTERS)
(BIG MACHINE)
null
21255588
33live live issue 1
After exploding onto the mainstream music scene and pop culture in the past year the industry has set its signts on EDM ventures proved the genre has final ly conquered the final frontiermdashAmerica
Live Nation purchases Hard Events
Media mogul Robert FX Sillerman says he will spend
$1B on EDM enterprises
EDM artists get the spotlight at the Grammys for the 1st time with addi-tion of a dance music performance
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline
Taylor Swift adopts the dubstep drop with her single ldquoI Knew You
Were Troublerdquo
JUNEFEB JULY
JUNE JUNE
OCT OCT NOV
NOVOCT
Bieber drops his first dub-step-influenced track ldquoAs
Long as You Love Merdquo
Dance-based songs can be found all across the radio
The first professional media outlet for EDM is announced
NYU introduces a course on the Business of Electronic amp
Dance Music
Billboard hosts the 2nd Annual FutureSound conference to ad-dress the future of the industry
NOVEMBERBLACK WIDOW
MUSIC PUBLISHES A LIST OF 230+ EDM SUB-GENRESAND
COUNTING
(BIG MACHINE)
34 we live for live music
BACK TO THE
FUTUREThirty years after the ldquodeathrdquo of disco dance music is back in America and bigger than ever To understand
where it is going we must take a look at the past
35live live issue 1
The most recent main-stream movement to hit the United States
E l e c t r o n i c D a n c e M u s i c (EDM) did so as an explosion of lights neon and pulsating beats But dance music is nothing new Although EDM seems entirely novel to many of Amer icarsquos youth dance music has a long and storied history
In the beginning mus ic c r e a t e d v i a e l e c t r o n i c ins t r ument s was focused on academic pursuit s and high ar t The use of elec-t ron ic s i n popu la r mus ic c rea t ion b egan w i t h t he commerc ia l i z a t ion o f t he synthesizer in the 1960s As technology evolved so did experimentation with elec-tronic instruments
In the 1970s the days of disco led to the develop-ment of e lec t ronic dance mus ic when DJs invented the traditional two-turntable setup to continuously stream together music so that the dancing never had to stop U n f o r t u na te l y f o r d a n c e music just as quickly as disco was embraced ant i -d isco sentiments fueled by racism and fear of change pushed it into the underground
It was in this underground s p a c e d u r i n g t h e lsquo 8 0 s that modern dance music evo lved St r ides made in elec tronic ins trumentation developed the synthesizer machines that would form the backbones of house and techno music the Roland TB 303 baseline and Roland TR 909 drum machine
A c c o r d i n g t o T h e Guard ianrsquos recent l y pub -lished timeline A History of Modern Music DJ Frankie Knuckles is responsible for the development of house music characterized by its
44 beats Techno rose out of Detroit a few years later inspired by the indus tr ial sounds of the city
While wildly popular in the underground music scene techno and house did not find commercial success in Amer ica I t was not unt i l the lat ter par t of the lsquo80s when the sounds of house and techno found their way to t he UK and mor phed into a new sub-genre acid house that the commercial club culture was born albeit exclusively in Europe
While dance music took of f r unning on the other side of the pond in America a dif ferent s tor y began to unfold As rap and hip-hop took a s t ronghold of the music industr y in the late eighties and nineties dance music remained confined to the peripheries
A s d a n c e - m u s i c D J s w o r ke d t o e v o l v e t h e i r sound and keep up w i th technology hip -hop DJs who adopted the traditional turntable setup from the DJs of disco as well as their pro-duction techniques began to work in the record ing s tudios and inf luence the industr y especially in the realm of pop music
I n t h e 19 9 0 s i n s i d e r s thought EDM had f ina l l y hit the jackpot and found mainstream success In an inter v iew with PaperMag industry vet Gary Richards explains ldquothe f irst farewell to the undergroundrdquo
ldquoBy 1993 i t felt l ike the music wasnrsquot underground anymore so I threw a par ty c a l l e d R ave A m e r i c a a t Knot t s Ber r y Farm which i s an amusement par k in O r a n g e C o u n t y I t s o l d out with l ike 20000 peo-ple Rick Rubin came with
Anthony K ied is f rom the Red Hot Chili Peppers and a couple guys from ZZ Top and he asked me if I wanted to work in the record busi-ness and help them s ign some EDM ar t i s t s I sa id sure the Prodigy were super hot and it seemed like it was blowing up But we star ted signing all these techno art-ists thinking theyrsquod catch on too but nobody was buying it Nobodyrdquo
Jus t l i ke R ichards says n o b o d y w a s b u y i n g i t D a n c e m u s i c w a s n o t catching on in the way the industr y would have liked so in 1997 the entire music industry and press put their full force behind ldquoelectron-icardquo the new catch-all name they had given to the genre in an attempt to successfully market it
Despite the gl impses of success seen froma handful of artists the genre failed to succeed and the industr y distanced itself from dance music far ther than i t had when disco ldquodiedrdquo
T h i s f a i l u r e c a n b e accounted to EDM not f it-t i ng i n to t h e ma r ke t i ng machinery of the industr y The t radit ional setup was f ixed for four-minute rock and pop singles and album tour s not t he ex tended club mixes and residencies that were the basis of the EDM world Not only was the indus t r y i l l - equipped to market electronic music but many consumers also felt it abrasive and awkward attempting to listen to this machine-made glitch-based music that was so unfamiliar to their ears It was not until the digital revolution of the new millennium that elec-tronic dance music f inal ly found its place
36 we live for live music
Festival
MAJOR LAZER AT SUMMERFEST IN HOUSTON JUNE 2012
37live live issue 1
If music in 2012 could talk it would sound a lot like the Bill Orsquo Reillyrsquos blooper ldquoLetrsquos do it liverdquo While attending concerts has been popular since rock and roll shows in the 1950s the recent electronic music boom has made it exponentially more so
One reason accord ing to Forbes i s that as resource constraints have t ightened people are spending thei r money more on exper iences as opposed to manufactured products But it is more than that EDM has managed to ent i re ly t rans -form the concept of a concer t by blurring the lines between going out dancing and going out to see music These days one would pay the same amount to see superstar-DJ David Guetta in an arena that they would if they were simply dancing to him spin-ning in a club
But this popularity was not always the case As a genre born in the world of nightclubs EDMrsquos parties were lambasted for years as depraved raves Now many kids will go to a rave before they attend a rock concert Why the sudden change A major factor is rebranding
Raves became festivals Electronic became EDMOnce shed of the negative associations with raves
and the bad memories of the electronicarsquos failure EDM shows and festivals began to proliferate across the countr y No longer hiding in remote f ields or empt y warehouse e lec t ronic mus ic promoter s looked to book DJs in public arenas and concer t halls
Elec tr ic Daisy Carnival (EDC) 2010 a rave put on by one of the major EDM promoters Insomniac
Event s ser ved as a turning point for the genre when an underage gir l died at the event causing severe backlash against Insomniac but also giving the genre lots of exposure EDC was run out of Los Angeles but found refuge in the always-accepting city of Las Vegas It was here in Vegas that EDM finally found a homemdashnow playing the same role to America as Ibiza did to Europe when the rave scene star ted there in the 1980s Superstar DJs can be found any week as a resident DJ to Tao XS or one of the many other posh clubs and the landmark event of the year EDC Vegas is now one of the largest raves in the world with over 300000 attendees last year
EDC is not the only big festival on the market now though Festivals are becoming trendymdashan indicator of direction the music industry is headed in towards the live and away from the recorded According to Metrowizecom an online nightli fe guide in 2012 alone at leas t thir t y-two new fes t ivals began in Americamdashfif teen of them dedicated solely to EDM
Long-standing traditions in the music industry fes-tivals typically only attracted people who spent a lot of time at live music and concertshellipuntil recently
As EDM crossed over into pop music the l ines became blur red between a night of going out to dance at a club and night of going out to see your favorite ar tist at a concer t People who a few years ago never attended a concert beyond the major pop ar tists are now concer t-fiends as the ldquopoprdquo ar tists they love today are world-renowned DJs
Of course as any genre crosses into the main-stream it is going to become increasingly popular
FeverEDMS BOOMING SUCCESS IN THE FESTIVAL MARKET HAS HEADS
TURNING FROM AROUND THE INDUSTRY TO INVEST IN LIVE MUSIC
38 we live for live music
with the masses but EDMrsquos explosion is unparal-leled Hundreds of thousands of people attended EDC Vegas and that was just one of dozens of elec-tronic dance festivals and all-night events this year
Because the live experience is EDMrsquos native for-mat the genre is par ticularly nuanced to success on the road Matt Adell of Beatport the online mecca of the DJ community explains one of the reasons why
ldquoPer formers such as Skr illex are incredibly ef f i -cient touring operations compared to rock bands Itrsquos less expensive than a rock group because therersquos just one per former Therersquos much less gear and it rsquos easier to set up because therersquos no live micro-phones So the suppor t team required is so much smallerrdquo
Bobby Clay head of the electronic division at C3 Presents touches on another aspect of EDM that primes the genre for the road ldquoIt rsquos like you donrsquot need to have a full studio on your tour bus to create the next banger or the next huge club track or the next Rihanna remix You can do it from the comfort of a tour bus or the green room of whatever arena some of these big people are playing in nowrdquo EDM ar tists have the luxury of not having to break from tour to create new songs
Although EDM is pr imed for tour ing i t is only in the past couple of years that the genre took on this rock and roll mentality As shows star ted to be booked in rock and roll venues and DJproducers took to the road stopping in every middle town and college campus in America like a rock band would DJs became rock stars in their own right One ar tist in par ticular is noted for condensing the drawn out peaks and falls of dance music into four and a half minute radio-ready tracks the half-shaved goofy-glasses wearing kid known as Skrillex Love him or hate him his genre-fusing in your face style helped to launch EDM to the place it is at today
With mega-DJs such as Skrillex earning up to $1 million per festival appearance and groups such as Swedish House Mafia selling out Madison Square Garden in nine minutes it is no surprise that corpo-rate heads have turned to this once-ignored market Over the summer Live Nation bought Hard Events one of the original promoters of the genre whose brands of Hardfest Holy Ship and Haunted Hard Mansion have gone on to great success Shor t ly af ter media mogul Robert FX Sillerman pledged to invest $1 billion dollars in EDM ventures
As the money pours in 2013 is looking to be the biggest year yet for EDM Having finally solidified i t s place in the music industr y (and at the fore-front nevertheless) Electronic Dance Music is ready to guide the music industry in a new directionmdasha direction towards the future towards a more diver-sified music industry towards a music industry that lives for live music
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
39live live issue 1
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
AT LEAST 32 NEW FESTIVALS BEGAN IN THE UNITED STATES IN 2012 OF THESE FESTIVALS FIFTEEN OF THEM ARE DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC
40 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL WONDERLANDDowntown TexasApril 27-28 2012An inside look into the modern electronic music festival
41live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL WONDERLAND
42 we live for live music
43live live issue 1
A new generation neo-age hippies
44 we live for live musicWelcome to Wonderland
45live live issue 1
46 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
47live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Dillon Francis plays The Queenrsquos Ground
48 we live for live music
49live live issue 1
Visual explosions to coordinate with the
audio attack of a drop
50 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
51live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
EDM shows are known for their
high-impact visuals
52 we live for live music
53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
Button 7
Button 8
Button 9
Button 10
Button 11
Button 12
button13
Button 52
Button 54
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32 we live for live music
EDC Vegas sees 300000+ people
over 3 days
Family-friendly animated film Wreck It Ralph uses
dance music in trailer
Feature-length EDM documentary ldquoThe Drop The EDM Culture
Explosionrdquo enters production
A system of alerts are set up to notify users when they
infringe on copyright law
Night Culture Inc becomes the first EDM-oriented publicly
traded company
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline 2012
Queen Latifah sings the National Anthem at the opening game of
the NFL seasonover a beat
JAN
OCTJULY SEPT
SEPTAUG
JUNE JUNEMARUltra Music Festival in Miami
has 40000 viewers watching its online stream over YouTube
Universal closes on EMI becoming the largest of the remaining three
major record labels
(DANNY MOLOSHOK REUTERS)
(BIG MACHINE)
null
21255588
33live live issue 1
After exploding onto the mainstream music scene and pop culture in the past year the industry has set its signts on EDM ventures proved the genre has final ly conquered the final frontiermdashAmerica
Live Nation purchases Hard Events
Media mogul Robert FX Sillerman says he will spend
$1B on EDM enterprises
EDM artists get the spotlight at the Grammys for the 1st time with addi-tion of a dance music performance
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline
Taylor Swift adopts the dubstep drop with her single ldquoI Knew You
Were Troublerdquo
JUNEFEB JULY
JUNE JUNE
OCT OCT NOV
NOVOCT
Bieber drops his first dub-step-influenced track ldquoAs
Long as You Love Merdquo
Dance-based songs can be found all across the radio
The first professional media outlet for EDM is announced
NYU introduces a course on the Business of Electronic amp
Dance Music
Billboard hosts the 2nd Annual FutureSound conference to ad-dress the future of the industry
NOVEMBERBLACK WIDOW
MUSIC PUBLISHES A LIST OF 230+ EDM SUB-GENRESAND
COUNTING
(BIG MACHINE)
34 we live for live music
BACK TO THE
FUTUREThirty years after the ldquodeathrdquo of disco dance music is back in America and bigger than ever To understand
where it is going we must take a look at the past
35live live issue 1
The most recent main-stream movement to hit the United States
E l e c t r o n i c D a n c e M u s i c (EDM) did so as an explosion of lights neon and pulsating beats But dance music is nothing new Although EDM seems entirely novel to many of Amer icarsquos youth dance music has a long and storied history
In the beginning mus ic c r e a t e d v i a e l e c t r o n i c ins t r ument s was focused on academic pursuit s and high ar t The use of elec-t ron ic s i n popu la r mus ic c rea t ion b egan w i t h t he commerc ia l i z a t ion o f t he synthesizer in the 1960s As technology evolved so did experimentation with elec-tronic instruments
In the 1970s the days of disco led to the develop-ment of e lec t ronic dance mus ic when DJs invented the traditional two-turntable setup to continuously stream together music so that the dancing never had to stop U n f o r t u na te l y f o r d a n c e music just as quickly as disco was embraced ant i -d isco sentiments fueled by racism and fear of change pushed it into the underground
It was in this underground s p a c e d u r i n g t h e lsquo 8 0 s that modern dance music evo lved St r ides made in elec tronic ins trumentation developed the synthesizer machines that would form the backbones of house and techno music the Roland TB 303 baseline and Roland TR 909 drum machine
A c c o r d i n g t o T h e Guard ianrsquos recent l y pub -lished timeline A History of Modern Music DJ Frankie Knuckles is responsible for the development of house music characterized by its
44 beats Techno rose out of Detroit a few years later inspired by the indus tr ial sounds of the city
While wildly popular in the underground music scene techno and house did not find commercial success in Amer ica I t was not unt i l the lat ter par t of the lsquo80s when the sounds of house and techno found their way to t he UK and mor phed into a new sub-genre acid house that the commercial club culture was born albeit exclusively in Europe
While dance music took of f r unning on the other side of the pond in America a dif ferent s tor y began to unfold As rap and hip-hop took a s t ronghold of the music industr y in the late eighties and nineties dance music remained confined to the peripheries
A s d a n c e - m u s i c D J s w o r ke d t o e v o l v e t h e i r sound and keep up w i th technology hip -hop DJs who adopted the traditional turntable setup from the DJs of disco as well as their pro-duction techniques began to work in the record ing s tudios and inf luence the industr y especially in the realm of pop music
I n t h e 19 9 0 s i n s i d e r s thought EDM had f ina l l y hit the jackpot and found mainstream success In an inter v iew with PaperMag industry vet Gary Richards explains ldquothe f irst farewell to the undergroundrdquo
ldquoBy 1993 i t felt l ike the music wasnrsquot underground anymore so I threw a par ty c a l l e d R ave A m e r i c a a t Knot t s Ber r y Farm which i s an amusement par k in O r a n g e C o u n t y I t s o l d out with l ike 20000 peo-ple Rick Rubin came with
Anthony K ied is f rom the Red Hot Chili Peppers and a couple guys from ZZ Top and he asked me if I wanted to work in the record busi-ness and help them s ign some EDM ar t i s t s I sa id sure the Prodigy were super hot and it seemed like it was blowing up But we star ted signing all these techno art-ists thinking theyrsquod catch on too but nobody was buying it Nobodyrdquo
Jus t l i ke R ichards says n o b o d y w a s b u y i n g i t D a n c e m u s i c w a s n o t catching on in the way the industr y would have liked so in 1997 the entire music industry and press put their full force behind ldquoelectron-icardquo the new catch-all name they had given to the genre in an attempt to successfully market it
Despite the gl impses of success seen froma handful of artists the genre failed to succeed and the industr y distanced itself from dance music far ther than i t had when disco ldquodiedrdquo
T h i s f a i l u r e c a n b e accounted to EDM not f it-t i ng i n to t h e ma r ke t i ng machinery of the industr y The t radit ional setup was f ixed for four-minute rock and pop singles and album tour s not t he ex tended club mixes and residencies that were the basis of the EDM world Not only was the indus t r y i l l - equipped to market electronic music but many consumers also felt it abrasive and awkward attempting to listen to this machine-made glitch-based music that was so unfamiliar to their ears It was not until the digital revolution of the new millennium that elec-tronic dance music f inal ly found its place
36 we live for live music
Festival
MAJOR LAZER AT SUMMERFEST IN HOUSTON JUNE 2012
37live live issue 1
If music in 2012 could talk it would sound a lot like the Bill Orsquo Reillyrsquos blooper ldquoLetrsquos do it liverdquo While attending concerts has been popular since rock and roll shows in the 1950s the recent electronic music boom has made it exponentially more so
One reason accord ing to Forbes i s that as resource constraints have t ightened people are spending thei r money more on exper iences as opposed to manufactured products But it is more than that EDM has managed to ent i re ly t rans -form the concept of a concer t by blurring the lines between going out dancing and going out to see music These days one would pay the same amount to see superstar-DJ David Guetta in an arena that they would if they were simply dancing to him spin-ning in a club
But this popularity was not always the case As a genre born in the world of nightclubs EDMrsquos parties were lambasted for years as depraved raves Now many kids will go to a rave before they attend a rock concert Why the sudden change A major factor is rebranding
Raves became festivals Electronic became EDMOnce shed of the negative associations with raves
and the bad memories of the electronicarsquos failure EDM shows and festivals began to proliferate across the countr y No longer hiding in remote f ields or empt y warehouse e lec t ronic mus ic promoter s looked to book DJs in public arenas and concer t halls
Elec tr ic Daisy Carnival (EDC) 2010 a rave put on by one of the major EDM promoters Insomniac
Event s ser ved as a turning point for the genre when an underage gir l died at the event causing severe backlash against Insomniac but also giving the genre lots of exposure EDC was run out of Los Angeles but found refuge in the always-accepting city of Las Vegas It was here in Vegas that EDM finally found a homemdashnow playing the same role to America as Ibiza did to Europe when the rave scene star ted there in the 1980s Superstar DJs can be found any week as a resident DJ to Tao XS or one of the many other posh clubs and the landmark event of the year EDC Vegas is now one of the largest raves in the world with over 300000 attendees last year
EDC is not the only big festival on the market now though Festivals are becoming trendymdashan indicator of direction the music industry is headed in towards the live and away from the recorded According to Metrowizecom an online nightli fe guide in 2012 alone at leas t thir t y-two new fes t ivals began in Americamdashfif teen of them dedicated solely to EDM
Long-standing traditions in the music industry fes-tivals typically only attracted people who spent a lot of time at live music and concertshellipuntil recently
As EDM crossed over into pop music the l ines became blur red between a night of going out to dance at a club and night of going out to see your favorite ar tist at a concer t People who a few years ago never attended a concert beyond the major pop ar tists are now concer t-fiends as the ldquopoprdquo ar tists they love today are world-renowned DJs
Of course as any genre crosses into the main-stream it is going to become increasingly popular
FeverEDMS BOOMING SUCCESS IN THE FESTIVAL MARKET HAS HEADS
TURNING FROM AROUND THE INDUSTRY TO INVEST IN LIVE MUSIC
38 we live for live music
with the masses but EDMrsquos explosion is unparal-leled Hundreds of thousands of people attended EDC Vegas and that was just one of dozens of elec-tronic dance festivals and all-night events this year
Because the live experience is EDMrsquos native for-mat the genre is par ticularly nuanced to success on the road Matt Adell of Beatport the online mecca of the DJ community explains one of the reasons why
ldquoPer formers such as Skr illex are incredibly ef f i -cient touring operations compared to rock bands Itrsquos less expensive than a rock group because therersquos just one per former Therersquos much less gear and it rsquos easier to set up because therersquos no live micro-phones So the suppor t team required is so much smallerrdquo
Bobby Clay head of the electronic division at C3 Presents touches on another aspect of EDM that primes the genre for the road ldquoIt rsquos like you donrsquot need to have a full studio on your tour bus to create the next banger or the next huge club track or the next Rihanna remix You can do it from the comfort of a tour bus or the green room of whatever arena some of these big people are playing in nowrdquo EDM ar tists have the luxury of not having to break from tour to create new songs
Although EDM is pr imed for tour ing i t is only in the past couple of years that the genre took on this rock and roll mentality As shows star ted to be booked in rock and roll venues and DJproducers took to the road stopping in every middle town and college campus in America like a rock band would DJs became rock stars in their own right One ar tist in par ticular is noted for condensing the drawn out peaks and falls of dance music into four and a half minute radio-ready tracks the half-shaved goofy-glasses wearing kid known as Skrillex Love him or hate him his genre-fusing in your face style helped to launch EDM to the place it is at today
With mega-DJs such as Skrillex earning up to $1 million per festival appearance and groups such as Swedish House Mafia selling out Madison Square Garden in nine minutes it is no surprise that corpo-rate heads have turned to this once-ignored market Over the summer Live Nation bought Hard Events one of the original promoters of the genre whose brands of Hardfest Holy Ship and Haunted Hard Mansion have gone on to great success Shor t ly af ter media mogul Robert FX Sillerman pledged to invest $1 billion dollars in EDM ventures
As the money pours in 2013 is looking to be the biggest year yet for EDM Having finally solidified i t s place in the music industr y (and at the fore-front nevertheless) Electronic Dance Music is ready to guide the music industry in a new directionmdasha direction towards the future towards a more diver-sified music industry towards a music industry that lives for live music
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
39live live issue 1
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
AT LEAST 32 NEW FESTIVALS BEGAN IN THE UNITED STATES IN 2012 OF THESE FESTIVALS FIFTEEN OF THEM ARE DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC
40 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL WONDERLANDDowntown TexasApril 27-28 2012An inside look into the modern electronic music festival
41live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL WONDERLAND
42 we live for live music
43live live issue 1
A new generation neo-age hippies
44 we live for live musicWelcome to Wonderland
45live live issue 1
46 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
47live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Dillon Francis plays The Queenrsquos Ground
48 we live for live music
49live live issue 1
Visual explosions to coordinate with the
audio attack of a drop
50 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
51live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
EDM shows are known for their
high-impact visuals
52 we live for live music
53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
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Button 42
Button 1
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33live live issue 1
After exploding onto the mainstream music scene and pop culture in the past year the industry has set its signts on EDM ventures proved the genre has final ly conquered the final frontiermdashAmerica
Live Nation purchases Hard Events
Media mogul Robert FX Sillerman says he will spend
$1B on EDM enterprises
EDM artists get the spotlight at the Grammys for the 1st time with addi-tion of a dance music performance
Charts shift when Billboard begins to include data from
streaming services
timeline
Taylor Swift adopts the dubstep drop with her single ldquoI Knew You
Were Troublerdquo
JUNEFEB JULY
JUNE JUNE
OCT OCT NOV
NOVOCT
Bieber drops his first dub-step-influenced track ldquoAs
Long as You Love Merdquo
Dance-based songs can be found all across the radio
The first professional media outlet for EDM is announced
NYU introduces a course on the Business of Electronic amp
Dance Music
Billboard hosts the 2nd Annual FutureSound conference to ad-dress the future of the industry
NOVEMBERBLACK WIDOW
MUSIC PUBLISHES A LIST OF 230+ EDM SUB-GENRESAND
COUNTING
(BIG MACHINE)
34 we live for live music
BACK TO THE
FUTUREThirty years after the ldquodeathrdquo of disco dance music is back in America and bigger than ever To understand
where it is going we must take a look at the past
35live live issue 1
The most recent main-stream movement to hit the United States
E l e c t r o n i c D a n c e M u s i c (EDM) did so as an explosion of lights neon and pulsating beats But dance music is nothing new Although EDM seems entirely novel to many of Amer icarsquos youth dance music has a long and storied history
In the beginning mus ic c r e a t e d v i a e l e c t r o n i c ins t r ument s was focused on academic pursuit s and high ar t The use of elec-t ron ic s i n popu la r mus ic c rea t ion b egan w i t h t he commerc ia l i z a t ion o f t he synthesizer in the 1960s As technology evolved so did experimentation with elec-tronic instruments
In the 1970s the days of disco led to the develop-ment of e lec t ronic dance mus ic when DJs invented the traditional two-turntable setup to continuously stream together music so that the dancing never had to stop U n f o r t u na te l y f o r d a n c e music just as quickly as disco was embraced ant i -d isco sentiments fueled by racism and fear of change pushed it into the underground
It was in this underground s p a c e d u r i n g t h e lsquo 8 0 s that modern dance music evo lved St r ides made in elec tronic ins trumentation developed the synthesizer machines that would form the backbones of house and techno music the Roland TB 303 baseline and Roland TR 909 drum machine
A c c o r d i n g t o T h e Guard ianrsquos recent l y pub -lished timeline A History of Modern Music DJ Frankie Knuckles is responsible for the development of house music characterized by its
44 beats Techno rose out of Detroit a few years later inspired by the indus tr ial sounds of the city
While wildly popular in the underground music scene techno and house did not find commercial success in Amer ica I t was not unt i l the lat ter par t of the lsquo80s when the sounds of house and techno found their way to t he UK and mor phed into a new sub-genre acid house that the commercial club culture was born albeit exclusively in Europe
While dance music took of f r unning on the other side of the pond in America a dif ferent s tor y began to unfold As rap and hip-hop took a s t ronghold of the music industr y in the late eighties and nineties dance music remained confined to the peripheries
A s d a n c e - m u s i c D J s w o r ke d t o e v o l v e t h e i r sound and keep up w i th technology hip -hop DJs who adopted the traditional turntable setup from the DJs of disco as well as their pro-duction techniques began to work in the record ing s tudios and inf luence the industr y especially in the realm of pop music
I n t h e 19 9 0 s i n s i d e r s thought EDM had f ina l l y hit the jackpot and found mainstream success In an inter v iew with PaperMag industry vet Gary Richards explains ldquothe f irst farewell to the undergroundrdquo
ldquoBy 1993 i t felt l ike the music wasnrsquot underground anymore so I threw a par ty c a l l e d R ave A m e r i c a a t Knot t s Ber r y Farm which i s an amusement par k in O r a n g e C o u n t y I t s o l d out with l ike 20000 peo-ple Rick Rubin came with
Anthony K ied is f rom the Red Hot Chili Peppers and a couple guys from ZZ Top and he asked me if I wanted to work in the record busi-ness and help them s ign some EDM ar t i s t s I sa id sure the Prodigy were super hot and it seemed like it was blowing up But we star ted signing all these techno art-ists thinking theyrsquod catch on too but nobody was buying it Nobodyrdquo
Jus t l i ke R ichards says n o b o d y w a s b u y i n g i t D a n c e m u s i c w a s n o t catching on in the way the industr y would have liked so in 1997 the entire music industry and press put their full force behind ldquoelectron-icardquo the new catch-all name they had given to the genre in an attempt to successfully market it
Despite the gl impses of success seen froma handful of artists the genre failed to succeed and the industr y distanced itself from dance music far ther than i t had when disco ldquodiedrdquo
T h i s f a i l u r e c a n b e accounted to EDM not f it-t i ng i n to t h e ma r ke t i ng machinery of the industr y The t radit ional setup was f ixed for four-minute rock and pop singles and album tour s not t he ex tended club mixes and residencies that were the basis of the EDM world Not only was the indus t r y i l l - equipped to market electronic music but many consumers also felt it abrasive and awkward attempting to listen to this machine-made glitch-based music that was so unfamiliar to their ears It was not until the digital revolution of the new millennium that elec-tronic dance music f inal ly found its place
36 we live for live music
Festival
MAJOR LAZER AT SUMMERFEST IN HOUSTON JUNE 2012
37live live issue 1
If music in 2012 could talk it would sound a lot like the Bill Orsquo Reillyrsquos blooper ldquoLetrsquos do it liverdquo While attending concerts has been popular since rock and roll shows in the 1950s the recent electronic music boom has made it exponentially more so
One reason accord ing to Forbes i s that as resource constraints have t ightened people are spending thei r money more on exper iences as opposed to manufactured products But it is more than that EDM has managed to ent i re ly t rans -form the concept of a concer t by blurring the lines between going out dancing and going out to see music These days one would pay the same amount to see superstar-DJ David Guetta in an arena that they would if they were simply dancing to him spin-ning in a club
But this popularity was not always the case As a genre born in the world of nightclubs EDMrsquos parties were lambasted for years as depraved raves Now many kids will go to a rave before they attend a rock concert Why the sudden change A major factor is rebranding
Raves became festivals Electronic became EDMOnce shed of the negative associations with raves
and the bad memories of the electronicarsquos failure EDM shows and festivals began to proliferate across the countr y No longer hiding in remote f ields or empt y warehouse e lec t ronic mus ic promoter s looked to book DJs in public arenas and concer t halls
Elec tr ic Daisy Carnival (EDC) 2010 a rave put on by one of the major EDM promoters Insomniac
Event s ser ved as a turning point for the genre when an underage gir l died at the event causing severe backlash against Insomniac but also giving the genre lots of exposure EDC was run out of Los Angeles but found refuge in the always-accepting city of Las Vegas It was here in Vegas that EDM finally found a homemdashnow playing the same role to America as Ibiza did to Europe when the rave scene star ted there in the 1980s Superstar DJs can be found any week as a resident DJ to Tao XS or one of the many other posh clubs and the landmark event of the year EDC Vegas is now one of the largest raves in the world with over 300000 attendees last year
EDC is not the only big festival on the market now though Festivals are becoming trendymdashan indicator of direction the music industry is headed in towards the live and away from the recorded According to Metrowizecom an online nightli fe guide in 2012 alone at leas t thir t y-two new fes t ivals began in Americamdashfif teen of them dedicated solely to EDM
Long-standing traditions in the music industry fes-tivals typically only attracted people who spent a lot of time at live music and concertshellipuntil recently
As EDM crossed over into pop music the l ines became blur red between a night of going out to dance at a club and night of going out to see your favorite ar tist at a concer t People who a few years ago never attended a concert beyond the major pop ar tists are now concer t-fiends as the ldquopoprdquo ar tists they love today are world-renowned DJs
Of course as any genre crosses into the main-stream it is going to become increasingly popular
FeverEDMS BOOMING SUCCESS IN THE FESTIVAL MARKET HAS HEADS
TURNING FROM AROUND THE INDUSTRY TO INVEST IN LIVE MUSIC
38 we live for live music
with the masses but EDMrsquos explosion is unparal-leled Hundreds of thousands of people attended EDC Vegas and that was just one of dozens of elec-tronic dance festivals and all-night events this year
Because the live experience is EDMrsquos native for-mat the genre is par ticularly nuanced to success on the road Matt Adell of Beatport the online mecca of the DJ community explains one of the reasons why
ldquoPer formers such as Skr illex are incredibly ef f i -cient touring operations compared to rock bands Itrsquos less expensive than a rock group because therersquos just one per former Therersquos much less gear and it rsquos easier to set up because therersquos no live micro-phones So the suppor t team required is so much smallerrdquo
Bobby Clay head of the electronic division at C3 Presents touches on another aspect of EDM that primes the genre for the road ldquoIt rsquos like you donrsquot need to have a full studio on your tour bus to create the next banger or the next huge club track or the next Rihanna remix You can do it from the comfort of a tour bus or the green room of whatever arena some of these big people are playing in nowrdquo EDM ar tists have the luxury of not having to break from tour to create new songs
Although EDM is pr imed for tour ing i t is only in the past couple of years that the genre took on this rock and roll mentality As shows star ted to be booked in rock and roll venues and DJproducers took to the road stopping in every middle town and college campus in America like a rock band would DJs became rock stars in their own right One ar tist in par ticular is noted for condensing the drawn out peaks and falls of dance music into four and a half minute radio-ready tracks the half-shaved goofy-glasses wearing kid known as Skrillex Love him or hate him his genre-fusing in your face style helped to launch EDM to the place it is at today
With mega-DJs such as Skrillex earning up to $1 million per festival appearance and groups such as Swedish House Mafia selling out Madison Square Garden in nine minutes it is no surprise that corpo-rate heads have turned to this once-ignored market Over the summer Live Nation bought Hard Events one of the original promoters of the genre whose brands of Hardfest Holy Ship and Haunted Hard Mansion have gone on to great success Shor t ly af ter media mogul Robert FX Sillerman pledged to invest $1 billion dollars in EDM ventures
As the money pours in 2013 is looking to be the biggest year yet for EDM Having finally solidified i t s place in the music industr y (and at the fore-front nevertheless) Electronic Dance Music is ready to guide the music industry in a new directionmdasha direction towards the future towards a more diver-sified music industry towards a music industry that lives for live music
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
39live live issue 1
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
AT LEAST 32 NEW FESTIVALS BEGAN IN THE UNITED STATES IN 2012 OF THESE FESTIVALS FIFTEEN OF THEM ARE DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC
40 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL WONDERLANDDowntown TexasApril 27-28 2012An inside look into the modern electronic music festival
41live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL WONDERLAND
42 we live for live music
43live live issue 1
A new generation neo-age hippies
44 we live for live musicWelcome to Wonderland
45live live issue 1
46 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
47live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Dillon Francis plays The Queenrsquos Ground
48 we live for live music
49live live issue 1
Visual explosions to coordinate with the
audio attack of a drop
50 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
51live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
EDM shows are known for their
high-impact visuals
52 we live for live music
53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
Button 7
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34 we live for live music
BACK TO THE
FUTUREThirty years after the ldquodeathrdquo of disco dance music is back in America and bigger than ever To understand
where it is going we must take a look at the past
35live live issue 1
The most recent main-stream movement to hit the United States
E l e c t r o n i c D a n c e M u s i c (EDM) did so as an explosion of lights neon and pulsating beats But dance music is nothing new Although EDM seems entirely novel to many of Amer icarsquos youth dance music has a long and storied history
In the beginning mus ic c r e a t e d v i a e l e c t r o n i c ins t r ument s was focused on academic pursuit s and high ar t The use of elec-t ron ic s i n popu la r mus ic c rea t ion b egan w i t h t he commerc ia l i z a t ion o f t he synthesizer in the 1960s As technology evolved so did experimentation with elec-tronic instruments
In the 1970s the days of disco led to the develop-ment of e lec t ronic dance mus ic when DJs invented the traditional two-turntable setup to continuously stream together music so that the dancing never had to stop U n f o r t u na te l y f o r d a n c e music just as quickly as disco was embraced ant i -d isco sentiments fueled by racism and fear of change pushed it into the underground
It was in this underground s p a c e d u r i n g t h e lsquo 8 0 s that modern dance music evo lved St r ides made in elec tronic ins trumentation developed the synthesizer machines that would form the backbones of house and techno music the Roland TB 303 baseline and Roland TR 909 drum machine
A c c o r d i n g t o T h e Guard ianrsquos recent l y pub -lished timeline A History of Modern Music DJ Frankie Knuckles is responsible for the development of house music characterized by its
44 beats Techno rose out of Detroit a few years later inspired by the indus tr ial sounds of the city
While wildly popular in the underground music scene techno and house did not find commercial success in Amer ica I t was not unt i l the lat ter par t of the lsquo80s when the sounds of house and techno found their way to t he UK and mor phed into a new sub-genre acid house that the commercial club culture was born albeit exclusively in Europe
While dance music took of f r unning on the other side of the pond in America a dif ferent s tor y began to unfold As rap and hip-hop took a s t ronghold of the music industr y in the late eighties and nineties dance music remained confined to the peripheries
A s d a n c e - m u s i c D J s w o r ke d t o e v o l v e t h e i r sound and keep up w i th technology hip -hop DJs who adopted the traditional turntable setup from the DJs of disco as well as their pro-duction techniques began to work in the record ing s tudios and inf luence the industr y especially in the realm of pop music
I n t h e 19 9 0 s i n s i d e r s thought EDM had f ina l l y hit the jackpot and found mainstream success In an inter v iew with PaperMag industry vet Gary Richards explains ldquothe f irst farewell to the undergroundrdquo
ldquoBy 1993 i t felt l ike the music wasnrsquot underground anymore so I threw a par ty c a l l e d R ave A m e r i c a a t Knot t s Ber r y Farm which i s an amusement par k in O r a n g e C o u n t y I t s o l d out with l ike 20000 peo-ple Rick Rubin came with
Anthony K ied is f rom the Red Hot Chili Peppers and a couple guys from ZZ Top and he asked me if I wanted to work in the record busi-ness and help them s ign some EDM ar t i s t s I sa id sure the Prodigy were super hot and it seemed like it was blowing up But we star ted signing all these techno art-ists thinking theyrsquod catch on too but nobody was buying it Nobodyrdquo
Jus t l i ke R ichards says n o b o d y w a s b u y i n g i t D a n c e m u s i c w a s n o t catching on in the way the industr y would have liked so in 1997 the entire music industry and press put their full force behind ldquoelectron-icardquo the new catch-all name they had given to the genre in an attempt to successfully market it
Despite the gl impses of success seen froma handful of artists the genre failed to succeed and the industr y distanced itself from dance music far ther than i t had when disco ldquodiedrdquo
T h i s f a i l u r e c a n b e accounted to EDM not f it-t i ng i n to t h e ma r ke t i ng machinery of the industr y The t radit ional setup was f ixed for four-minute rock and pop singles and album tour s not t he ex tended club mixes and residencies that were the basis of the EDM world Not only was the indus t r y i l l - equipped to market electronic music but many consumers also felt it abrasive and awkward attempting to listen to this machine-made glitch-based music that was so unfamiliar to their ears It was not until the digital revolution of the new millennium that elec-tronic dance music f inal ly found its place
36 we live for live music
Festival
MAJOR LAZER AT SUMMERFEST IN HOUSTON JUNE 2012
37live live issue 1
If music in 2012 could talk it would sound a lot like the Bill Orsquo Reillyrsquos blooper ldquoLetrsquos do it liverdquo While attending concerts has been popular since rock and roll shows in the 1950s the recent electronic music boom has made it exponentially more so
One reason accord ing to Forbes i s that as resource constraints have t ightened people are spending thei r money more on exper iences as opposed to manufactured products But it is more than that EDM has managed to ent i re ly t rans -form the concept of a concer t by blurring the lines between going out dancing and going out to see music These days one would pay the same amount to see superstar-DJ David Guetta in an arena that they would if they were simply dancing to him spin-ning in a club
But this popularity was not always the case As a genre born in the world of nightclubs EDMrsquos parties were lambasted for years as depraved raves Now many kids will go to a rave before they attend a rock concert Why the sudden change A major factor is rebranding
Raves became festivals Electronic became EDMOnce shed of the negative associations with raves
and the bad memories of the electronicarsquos failure EDM shows and festivals began to proliferate across the countr y No longer hiding in remote f ields or empt y warehouse e lec t ronic mus ic promoter s looked to book DJs in public arenas and concer t halls
Elec tr ic Daisy Carnival (EDC) 2010 a rave put on by one of the major EDM promoters Insomniac
Event s ser ved as a turning point for the genre when an underage gir l died at the event causing severe backlash against Insomniac but also giving the genre lots of exposure EDC was run out of Los Angeles but found refuge in the always-accepting city of Las Vegas It was here in Vegas that EDM finally found a homemdashnow playing the same role to America as Ibiza did to Europe when the rave scene star ted there in the 1980s Superstar DJs can be found any week as a resident DJ to Tao XS or one of the many other posh clubs and the landmark event of the year EDC Vegas is now one of the largest raves in the world with over 300000 attendees last year
EDC is not the only big festival on the market now though Festivals are becoming trendymdashan indicator of direction the music industry is headed in towards the live and away from the recorded According to Metrowizecom an online nightli fe guide in 2012 alone at leas t thir t y-two new fes t ivals began in Americamdashfif teen of them dedicated solely to EDM
Long-standing traditions in the music industry fes-tivals typically only attracted people who spent a lot of time at live music and concertshellipuntil recently
As EDM crossed over into pop music the l ines became blur red between a night of going out to dance at a club and night of going out to see your favorite ar tist at a concer t People who a few years ago never attended a concert beyond the major pop ar tists are now concer t-fiends as the ldquopoprdquo ar tists they love today are world-renowned DJs
Of course as any genre crosses into the main-stream it is going to become increasingly popular
FeverEDMS BOOMING SUCCESS IN THE FESTIVAL MARKET HAS HEADS
TURNING FROM AROUND THE INDUSTRY TO INVEST IN LIVE MUSIC
38 we live for live music
with the masses but EDMrsquos explosion is unparal-leled Hundreds of thousands of people attended EDC Vegas and that was just one of dozens of elec-tronic dance festivals and all-night events this year
Because the live experience is EDMrsquos native for-mat the genre is par ticularly nuanced to success on the road Matt Adell of Beatport the online mecca of the DJ community explains one of the reasons why
ldquoPer formers such as Skr illex are incredibly ef f i -cient touring operations compared to rock bands Itrsquos less expensive than a rock group because therersquos just one per former Therersquos much less gear and it rsquos easier to set up because therersquos no live micro-phones So the suppor t team required is so much smallerrdquo
Bobby Clay head of the electronic division at C3 Presents touches on another aspect of EDM that primes the genre for the road ldquoIt rsquos like you donrsquot need to have a full studio on your tour bus to create the next banger or the next huge club track or the next Rihanna remix You can do it from the comfort of a tour bus or the green room of whatever arena some of these big people are playing in nowrdquo EDM ar tists have the luxury of not having to break from tour to create new songs
Although EDM is pr imed for tour ing i t is only in the past couple of years that the genre took on this rock and roll mentality As shows star ted to be booked in rock and roll venues and DJproducers took to the road stopping in every middle town and college campus in America like a rock band would DJs became rock stars in their own right One ar tist in par ticular is noted for condensing the drawn out peaks and falls of dance music into four and a half minute radio-ready tracks the half-shaved goofy-glasses wearing kid known as Skrillex Love him or hate him his genre-fusing in your face style helped to launch EDM to the place it is at today
With mega-DJs such as Skrillex earning up to $1 million per festival appearance and groups such as Swedish House Mafia selling out Madison Square Garden in nine minutes it is no surprise that corpo-rate heads have turned to this once-ignored market Over the summer Live Nation bought Hard Events one of the original promoters of the genre whose brands of Hardfest Holy Ship and Haunted Hard Mansion have gone on to great success Shor t ly af ter media mogul Robert FX Sillerman pledged to invest $1 billion dollars in EDM ventures
As the money pours in 2013 is looking to be the biggest year yet for EDM Having finally solidified i t s place in the music industr y (and at the fore-front nevertheless) Electronic Dance Music is ready to guide the music industry in a new directionmdasha direction towards the future towards a more diver-sified music industry towards a music industry that lives for live music
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
39live live issue 1
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
AT LEAST 32 NEW FESTIVALS BEGAN IN THE UNITED STATES IN 2012 OF THESE FESTIVALS FIFTEEN OF THEM ARE DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC
40 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL WONDERLANDDowntown TexasApril 27-28 2012An inside look into the modern electronic music festival
41live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL WONDERLAND
42 we live for live music
43live live issue 1
A new generation neo-age hippies
44 we live for live musicWelcome to Wonderland
45live live issue 1
46 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
47live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Dillon Francis plays The Queenrsquos Ground
48 we live for live music
49live live issue 1
Visual explosions to coordinate with the
audio attack of a drop
50 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
51live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
EDM shows are known for their
high-impact visuals
52 we live for live music
53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
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Button 30
Button 31
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Button 33
Button 34
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Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
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35live live issue 1
The most recent main-stream movement to hit the United States
E l e c t r o n i c D a n c e M u s i c (EDM) did so as an explosion of lights neon and pulsating beats But dance music is nothing new Although EDM seems entirely novel to many of Amer icarsquos youth dance music has a long and storied history
In the beginning mus ic c r e a t e d v i a e l e c t r o n i c ins t r ument s was focused on academic pursuit s and high ar t The use of elec-t ron ic s i n popu la r mus ic c rea t ion b egan w i t h t he commerc ia l i z a t ion o f t he synthesizer in the 1960s As technology evolved so did experimentation with elec-tronic instruments
In the 1970s the days of disco led to the develop-ment of e lec t ronic dance mus ic when DJs invented the traditional two-turntable setup to continuously stream together music so that the dancing never had to stop U n f o r t u na te l y f o r d a n c e music just as quickly as disco was embraced ant i -d isco sentiments fueled by racism and fear of change pushed it into the underground
It was in this underground s p a c e d u r i n g t h e lsquo 8 0 s that modern dance music evo lved St r ides made in elec tronic ins trumentation developed the synthesizer machines that would form the backbones of house and techno music the Roland TB 303 baseline and Roland TR 909 drum machine
A c c o r d i n g t o T h e Guard ianrsquos recent l y pub -lished timeline A History of Modern Music DJ Frankie Knuckles is responsible for the development of house music characterized by its
44 beats Techno rose out of Detroit a few years later inspired by the indus tr ial sounds of the city
While wildly popular in the underground music scene techno and house did not find commercial success in Amer ica I t was not unt i l the lat ter par t of the lsquo80s when the sounds of house and techno found their way to t he UK and mor phed into a new sub-genre acid house that the commercial club culture was born albeit exclusively in Europe
While dance music took of f r unning on the other side of the pond in America a dif ferent s tor y began to unfold As rap and hip-hop took a s t ronghold of the music industr y in the late eighties and nineties dance music remained confined to the peripheries
A s d a n c e - m u s i c D J s w o r ke d t o e v o l v e t h e i r sound and keep up w i th technology hip -hop DJs who adopted the traditional turntable setup from the DJs of disco as well as their pro-duction techniques began to work in the record ing s tudios and inf luence the industr y especially in the realm of pop music
I n t h e 19 9 0 s i n s i d e r s thought EDM had f ina l l y hit the jackpot and found mainstream success In an inter v iew with PaperMag industry vet Gary Richards explains ldquothe f irst farewell to the undergroundrdquo
ldquoBy 1993 i t felt l ike the music wasnrsquot underground anymore so I threw a par ty c a l l e d R ave A m e r i c a a t Knot t s Ber r y Farm which i s an amusement par k in O r a n g e C o u n t y I t s o l d out with l ike 20000 peo-ple Rick Rubin came with
Anthony K ied is f rom the Red Hot Chili Peppers and a couple guys from ZZ Top and he asked me if I wanted to work in the record busi-ness and help them s ign some EDM ar t i s t s I sa id sure the Prodigy were super hot and it seemed like it was blowing up But we star ted signing all these techno art-ists thinking theyrsquod catch on too but nobody was buying it Nobodyrdquo
Jus t l i ke R ichards says n o b o d y w a s b u y i n g i t D a n c e m u s i c w a s n o t catching on in the way the industr y would have liked so in 1997 the entire music industry and press put their full force behind ldquoelectron-icardquo the new catch-all name they had given to the genre in an attempt to successfully market it
Despite the gl impses of success seen froma handful of artists the genre failed to succeed and the industr y distanced itself from dance music far ther than i t had when disco ldquodiedrdquo
T h i s f a i l u r e c a n b e accounted to EDM not f it-t i ng i n to t h e ma r ke t i ng machinery of the industr y The t radit ional setup was f ixed for four-minute rock and pop singles and album tour s not t he ex tended club mixes and residencies that were the basis of the EDM world Not only was the indus t r y i l l - equipped to market electronic music but many consumers also felt it abrasive and awkward attempting to listen to this machine-made glitch-based music that was so unfamiliar to their ears It was not until the digital revolution of the new millennium that elec-tronic dance music f inal ly found its place
36 we live for live music
Festival
MAJOR LAZER AT SUMMERFEST IN HOUSTON JUNE 2012
37live live issue 1
If music in 2012 could talk it would sound a lot like the Bill Orsquo Reillyrsquos blooper ldquoLetrsquos do it liverdquo While attending concerts has been popular since rock and roll shows in the 1950s the recent electronic music boom has made it exponentially more so
One reason accord ing to Forbes i s that as resource constraints have t ightened people are spending thei r money more on exper iences as opposed to manufactured products But it is more than that EDM has managed to ent i re ly t rans -form the concept of a concer t by blurring the lines between going out dancing and going out to see music These days one would pay the same amount to see superstar-DJ David Guetta in an arena that they would if they were simply dancing to him spin-ning in a club
But this popularity was not always the case As a genre born in the world of nightclubs EDMrsquos parties were lambasted for years as depraved raves Now many kids will go to a rave before they attend a rock concert Why the sudden change A major factor is rebranding
Raves became festivals Electronic became EDMOnce shed of the negative associations with raves
and the bad memories of the electronicarsquos failure EDM shows and festivals began to proliferate across the countr y No longer hiding in remote f ields or empt y warehouse e lec t ronic mus ic promoter s looked to book DJs in public arenas and concer t halls
Elec tr ic Daisy Carnival (EDC) 2010 a rave put on by one of the major EDM promoters Insomniac
Event s ser ved as a turning point for the genre when an underage gir l died at the event causing severe backlash against Insomniac but also giving the genre lots of exposure EDC was run out of Los Angeles but found refuge in the always-accepting city of Las Vegas It was here in Vegas that EDM finally found a homemdashnow playing the same role to America as Ibiza did to Europe when the rave scene star ted there in the 1980s Superstar DJs can be found any week as a resident DJ to Tao XS or one of the many other posh clubs and the landmark event of the year EDC Vegas is now one of the largest raves in the world with over 300000 attendees last year
EDC is not the only big festival on the market now though Festivals are becoming trendymdashan indicator of direction the music industry is headed in towards the live and away from the recorded According to Metrowizecom an online nightli fe guide in 2012 alone at leas t thir t y-two new fes t ivals began in Americamdashfif teen of them dedicated solely to EDM
Long-standing traditions in the music industry fes-tivals typically only attracted people who spent a lot of time at live music and concertshellipuntil recently
As EDM crossed over into pop music the l ines became blur red between a night of going out to dance at a club and night of going out to see your favorite ar tist at a concer t People who a few years ago never attended a concert beyond the major pop ar tists are now concer t-fiends as the ldquopoprdquo ar tists they love today are world-renowned DJs
Of course as any genre crosses into the main-stream it is going to become increasingly popular
FeverEDMS BOOMING SUCCESS IN THE FESTIVAL MARKET HAS HEADS
TURNING FROM AROUND THE INDUSTRY TO INVEST IN LIVE MUSIC
38 we live for live music
with the masses but EDMrsquos explosion is unparal-leled Hundreds of thousands of people attended EDC Vegas and that was just one of dozens of elec-tronic dance festivals and all-night events this year
Because the live experience is EDMrsquos native for-mat the genre is par ticularly nuanced to success on the road Matt Adell of Beatport the online mecca of the DJ community explains one of the reasons why
ldquoPer formers such as Skr illex are incredibly ef f i -cient touring operations compared to rock bands Itrsquos less expensive than a rock group because therersquos just one per former Therersquos much less gear and it rsquos easier to set up because therersquos no live micro-phones So the suppor t team required is so much smallerrdquo
Bobby Clay head of the electronic division at C3 Presents touches on another aspect of EDM that primes the genre for the road ldquoIt rsquos like you donrsquot need to have a full studio on your tour bus to create the next banger or the next huge club track or the next Rihanna remix You can do it from the comfort of a tour bus or the green room of whatever arena some of these big people are playing in nowrdquo EDM ar tists have the luxury of not having to break from tour to create new songs
Although EDM is pr imed for tour ing i t is only in the past couple of years that the genre took on this rock and roll mentality As shows star ted to be booked in rock and roll venues and DJproducers took to the road stopping in every middle town and college campus in America like a rock band would DJs became rock stars in their own right One ar tist in par ticular is noted for condensing the drawn out peaks and falls of dance music into four and a half minute radio-ready tracks the half-shaved goofy-glasses wearing kid known as Skrillex Love him or hate him his genre-fusing in your face style helped to launch EDM to the place it is at today
With mega-DJs such as Skrillex earning up to $1 million per festival appearance and groups such as Swedish House Mafia selling out Madison Square Garden in nine minutes it is no surprise that corpo-rate heads have turned to this once-ignored market Over the summer Live Nation bought Hard Events one of the original promoters of the genre whose brands of Hardfest Holy Ship and Haunted Hard Mansion have gone on to great success Shor t ly af ter media mogul Robert FX Sillerman pledged to invest $1 billion dollars in EDM ventures
As the money pours in 2013 is looking to be the biggest year yet for EDM Having finally solidified i t s place in the music industr y (and at the fore-front nevertheless) Electronic Dance Music is ready to guide the music industry in a new directionmdasha direction towards the future towards a more diver-sified music industry towards a music industry that lives for live music
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
39live live issue 1
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
AT LEAST 32 NEW FESTIVALS BEGAN IN THE UNITED STATES IN 2012 OF THESE FESTIVALS FIFTEEN OF THEM ARE DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC
40 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL WONDERLANDDowntown TexasApril 27-28 2012An inside look into the modern electronic music festival
41live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL WONDERLAND
42 we live for live music
43live live issue 1
A new generation neo-age hippies
44 we live for live musicWelcome to Wonderland
45live live issue 1
46 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
47live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Dillon Francis plays The Queenrsquos Ground
48 we live for live music
49live live issue 1
Visual explosions to coordinate with the
audio attack of a drop
50 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
51live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
EDM shows are known for their
high-impact visuals
52 we live for live music
53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
Button 7
Button 8
Button 9
Button 10
Button 11
Button 12
button13
Button 52
Button 54
Button 56
Button 55
Button 43
Button 44
Button 49
Button 50
Button 48
36 we live for live music
Festival
MAJOR LAZER AT SUMMERFEST IN HOUSTON JUNE 2012
37live live issue 1
If music in 2012 could talk it would sound a lot like the Bill Orsquo Reillyrsquos blooper ldquoLetrsquos do it liverdquo While attending concerts has been popular since rock and roll shows in the 1950s the recent electronic music boom has made it exponentially more so
One reason accord ing to Forbes i s that as resource constraints have t ightened people are spending thei r money more on exper iences as opposed to manufactured products But it is more than that EDM has managed to ent i re ly t rans -form the concept of a concer t by blurring the lines between going out dancing and going out to see music These days one would pay the same amount to see superstar-DJ David Guetta in an arena that they would if they were simply dancing to him spin-ning in a club
But this popularity was not always the case As a genre born in the world of nightclubs EDMrsquos parties were lambasted for years as depraved raves Now many kids will go to a rave before they attend a rock concert Why the sudden change A major factor is rebranding
Raves became festivals Electronic became EDMOnce shed of the negative associations with raves
and the bad memories of the electronicarsquos failure EDM shows and festivals began to proliferate across the countr y No longer hiding in remote f ields or empt y warehouse e lec t ronic mus ic promoter s looked to book DJs in public arenas and concer t halls
Elec tr ic Daisy Carnival (EDC) 2010 a rave put on by one of the major EDM promoters Insomniac
Event s ser ved as a turning point for the genre when an underage gir l died at the event causing severe backlash against Insomniac but also giving the genre lots of exposure EDC was run out of Los Angeles but found refuge in the always-accepting city of Las Vegas It was here in Vegas that EDM finally found a homemdashnow playing the same role to America as Ibiza did to Europe when the rave scene star ted there in the 1980s Superstar DJs can be found any week as a resident DJ to Tao XS or one of the many other posh clubs and the landmark event of the year EDC Vegas is now one of the largest raves in the world with over 300000 attendees last year
EDC is not the only big festival on the market now though Festivals are becoming trendymdashan indicator of direction the music industry is headed in towards the live and away from the recorded According to Metrowizecom an online nightli fe guide in 2012 alone at leas t thir t y-two new fes t ivals began in Americamdashfif teen of them dedicated solely to EDM
Long-standing traditions in the music industry fes-tivals typically only attracted people who spent a lot of time at live music and concertshellipuntil recently
As EDM crossed over into pop music the l ines became blur red between a night of going out to dance at a club and night of going out to see your favorite ar tist at a concer t People who a few years ago never attended a concert beyond the major pop ar tists are now concer t-fiends as the ldquopoprdquo ar tists they love today are world-renowned DJs
Of course as any genre crosses into the main-stream it is going to become increasingly popular
FeverEDMS BOOMING SUCCESS IN THE FESTIVAL MARKET HAS HEADS
TURNING FROM AROUND THE INDUSTRY TO INVEST IN LIVE MUSIC
38 we live for live music
with the masses but EDMrsquos explosion is unparal-leled Hundreds of thousands of people attended EDC Vegas and that was just one of dozens of elec-tronic dance festivals and all-night events this year
Because the live experience is EDMrsquos native for-mat the genre is par ticularly nuanced to success on the road Matt Adell of Beatport the online mecca of the DJ community explains one of the reasons why
ldquoPer formers such as Skr illex are incredibly ef f i -cient touring operations compared to rock bands Itrsquos less expensive than a rock group because therersquos just one per former Therersquos much less gear and it rsquos easier to set up because therersquos no live micro-phones So the suppor t team required is so much smallerrdquo
Bobby Clay head of the electronic division at C3 Presents touches on another aspect of EDM that primes the genre for the road ldquoIt rsquos like you donrsquot need to have a full studio on your tour bus to create the next banger or the next huge club track or the next Rihanna remix You can do it from the comfort of a tour bus or the green room of whatever arena some of these big people are playing in nowrdquo EDM ar tists have the luxury of not having to break from tour to create new songs
Although EDM is pr imed for tour ing i t is only in the past couple of years that the genre took on this rock and roll mentality As shows star ted to be booked in rock and roll venues and DJproducers took to the road stopping in every middle town and college campus in America like a rock band would DJs became rock stars in their own right One ar tist in par ticular is noted for condensing the drawn out peaks and falls of dance music into four and a half minute radio-ready tracks the half-shaved goofy-glasses wearing kid known as Skrillex Love him or hate him his genre-fusing in your face style helped to launch EDM to the place it is at today
With mega-DJs such as Skrillex earning up to $1 million per festival appearance and groups such as Swedish House Mafia selling out Madison Square Garden in nine minutes it is no surprise that corpo-rate heads have turned to this once-ignored market Over the summer Live Nation bought Hard Events one of the original promoters of the genre whose brands of Hardfest Holy Ship and Haunted Hard Mansion have gone on to great success Shor t ly af ter media mogul Robert FX Sillerman pledged to invest $1 billion dollars in EDM ventures
As the money pours in 2013 is looking to be the biggest year yet for EDM Having finally solidified i t s place in the music industr y (and at the fore-front nevertheless) Electronic Dance Music is ready to guide the music industry in a new directionmdasha direction towards the future towards a more diver-sified music industry towards a music industry that lives for live music
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
39live live issue 1
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
AT LEAST 32 NEW FESTIVALS BEGAN IN THE UNITED STATES IN 2012 OF THESE FESTIVALS FIFTEEN OF THEM ARE DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC
40 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL WONDERLANDDowntown TexasApril 27-28 2012An inside look into the modern electronic music festival
41live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL WONDERLAND
42 we live for live music
43live live issue 1
A new generation neo-age hippies
44 we live for live musicWelcome to Wonderland
45live live issue 1
46 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
47live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Dillon Francis plays The Queenrsquos Ground
48 we live for live music
49live live issue 1
Visual explosions to coordinate with the
audio attack of a drop
50 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
51live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
EDM shows are known for their
high-impact visuals
52 we live for live music
53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
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Button 30
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Button 34
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Button 36
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button13
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37live live issue 1
If music in 2012 could talk it would sound a lot like the Bill Orsquo Reillyrsquos blooper ldquoLetrsquos do it liverdquo While attending concerts has been popular since rock and roll shows in the 1950s the recent electronic music boom has made it exponentially more so
One reason accord ing to Forbes i s that as resource constraints have t ightened people are spending thei r money more on exper iences as opposed to manufactured products But it is more than that EDM has managed to ent i re ly t rans -form the concept of a concer t by blurring the lines between going out dancing and going out to see music These days one would pay the same amount to see superstar-DJ David Guetta in an arena that they would if they were simply dancing to him spin-ning in a club
But this popularity was not always the case As a genre born in the world of nightclubs EDMrsquos parties were lambasted for years as depraved raves Now many kids will go to a rave before they attend a rock concert Why the sudden change A major factor is rebranding
Raves became festivals Electronic became EDMOnce shed of the negative associations with raves
and the bad memories of the electronicarsquos failure EDM shows and festivals began to proliferate across the countr y No longer hiding in remote f ields or empt y warehouse e lec t ronic mus ic promoter s looked to book DJs in public arenas and concer t halls
Elec tr ic Daisy Carnival (EDC) 2010 a rave put on by one of the major EDM promoters Insomniac
Event s ser ved as a turning point for the genre when an underage gir l died at the event causing severe backlash against Insomniac but also giving the genre lots of exposure EDC was run out of Los Angeles but found refuge in the always-accepting city of Las Vegas It was here in Vegas that EDM finally found a homemdashnow playing the same role to America as Ibiza did to Europe when the rave scene star ted there in the 1980s Superstar DJs can be found any week as a resident DJ to Tao XS or one of the many other posh clubs and the landmark event of the year EDC Vegas is now one of the largest raves in the world with over 300000 attendees last year
EDC is not the only big festival on the market now though Festivals are becoming trendymdashan indicator of direction the music industry is headed in towards the live and away from the recorded According to Metrowizecom an online nightli fe guide in 2012 alone at leas t thir t y-two new fes t ivals began in Americamdashfif teen of them dedicated solely to EDM
Long-standing traditions in the music industry fes-tivals typically only attracted people who spent a lot of time at live music and concertshellipuntil recently
As EDM crossed over into pop music the l ines became blur red between a night of going out to dance at a club and night of going out to see your favorite ar tist at a concer t People who a few years ago never attended a concert beyond the major pop ar tists are now concer t-fiends as the ldquopoprdquo ar tists they love today are world-renowned DJs
Of course as any genre crosses into the main-stream it is going to become increasingly popular
FeverEDMS BOOMING SUCCESS IN THE FESTIVAL MARKET HAS HEADS
TURNING FROM AROUND THE INDUSTRY TO INVEST IN LIVE MUSIC
38 we live for live music
with the masses but EDMrsquos explosion is unparal-leled Hundreds of thousands of people attended EDC Vegas and that was just one of dozens of elec-tronic dance festivals and all-night events this year
Because the live experience is EDMrsquos native for-mat the genre is par ticularly nuanced to success on the road Matt Adell of Beatport the online mecca of the DJ community explains one of the reasons why
ldquoPer formers such as Skr illex are incredibly ef f i -cient touring operations compared to rock bands Itrsquos less expensive than a rock group because therersquos just one per former Therersquos much less gear and it rsquos easier to set up because therersquos no live micro-phones So the suppor t team required is so much smallerrdquo
Bobby Clay head of the electronic division at C3 Presents touches on another aspect of EDM that primes the genre for the road ldquoIt rsquos like you donrsquot need to have a full studio on your tour bus to create the next banger or the next huge club track or the next Rihanna remix You can do it from the comfort of a tour bus or the green room of whatever arena some of these big people are playing in nowrdquo EDM ar tists have the luxury of not having to break from tour to create new songs
Although EDM is pr imed for tour ing i t is only in the past couple of years that the genre took on this rock and roll mentality As shows star ted to be booked in rock and roll venues and DJproducers took to the road stopping in every middle town and college campus in America like a rock band would DJs became rock stars in their own right One ar tist in par ticular is noted for condensing the drawn out peaks and falls of dance music into four and a half minute radio-ready tracks the half-shaved goofy-glasses wearing kid known as Skrillex Love him or hate him his genre-fusing in your face style helped to launch EDM to the place it is at today
With mega-DJs such as Skrillex earning up to $1 million per festival appearance and groups such as Swedish House Mafia selling out Madison Square Garden in nine minutes it is no surprise that corpo-rate heads have turned to this once-ignored market Over the summer Live Nation bought Hard Events one of the original promoters of the genre whose brands of Hardfest Holy Ship and Haunted Hard Mansion have gone on to great success Shor t ly af ter media mogul Robert FX Sillerman pledged to invest $1 billion dollars in EDM ventures
As the money pours in 2013 is looking to be the biggest year yet for EDM Having finally solidified i t s place in the music industr y (and at the fore-front nevertheless) Electronic Dance Music is ready to guide the music industry in a new directionmdasha direction towards the future towards a more diver-sified music industry towards a music industry that lives for live music
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
39live live issue 1
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
AT LEAST 32 NEW FESTIVALS BEGAN IN THE UNITED STATES IN 2012 OF THESE FESTIVALS FIFTEEN OF THEM ARE DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC
40 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL WONDERLANDDowntown TexasApril 27-28 2012An inside look into the modern electronic music festival
41live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL WONDERLAND
42 we live for live music
43live live issue 1
A new generation neo-age hippies
44 we live for live musicWelcome to Wonderland
45live live issue 1
46 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
47live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Dillon Francis plays The Queenrsquos Ground
48 we live for live music
49live live issue 1
Visual explosions to coordinate with the
audio attack of a drop
50 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
51live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
EDM shows are known for their
high-impact visuals
52 we live for live music
53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
Button 7
Button 8
Button 9
Button 10
Button 11
Button 12
button13
Button 52
Button 54
Button 56
Button 55
Button 43
Button 44
Button 49
Button 50
Button 48
38 we live for live music
with the masses but EDMrsquos explosion is unparal-leled Hundreds of thousands of people attended EDC Vegas and that was just one of dozens of elec-tronic dance festivals and all-night events this year
Because the live experience is EDMrsquos native for-mat the genre is par ticularly nuanced to success on the road Matt Adell of Beatport the online mecca of the DJ community explains one of the reasons why
ldquoPer formers such as Skr illex are incredibly ef f i -cient touring operations compared to rock bands Itrsquos less expensive than a rock group because therersquos just one per former Therersquos much less gear and it rsquos easier to set up because therersquos no live micro-phones So the suppor t team required is so much smallerrdquo
Bobby Clay head of the electronic division at C3 Presents touches on another aspect of EDM that primes the genre for the road ldquoIt rsquos like you donrsquot need to have a full studio on your tour bus to create the next banger or the next huge club track or the next Rihanna remix You can do it from the comfort of a tour bus or the green room of whatever arena some of these big people are playing in nowrdquo EDM ar tists have the luxury of not having to break from tour to create new songs
Although EDM is pr imed for tour ing i t is only in the past couple of years that the genre took on this rock and roll mentality As shows star ted to be booked in rock and roll venues and DJproducers took to the road stopping in every middle town and college campus in America like a rock band would DJs became rock stars in their own right One ar tist in par ticular is noted for condensing the drawn out peaks and falls of dance music into four and a half minute radio-ready tracks the half-shaved goofy-glasses wearing kid known as Skrillex Love him or hate him his genre-fusing in your face style helped to launch EDM to the place it is at today
With mega-DJs such as Skrillex earning up to $1 million per festival appearance and groups such as Swedish House Mafia selling out Madison Square Garden in nine minutes it is no surprise that corpo-rate heads have turned to this once-ignored market Over the summer Live Nation bought Hard Events one of the original promoters of the genre whose brands of Hardfest Holy Ship and Haunted Hard Mansion have gone on to great success Shor t ly af ter media mogul Robert FX Sillerman pledged to invest $1 billion dollars in EDM ventures
As the money pours in 2013 is looking to be the biggest year yet for EDM Having finally solidified i t s place in the music industr y (and at the fore-front nevertheless) Electronic Dance Music is ready to guide the music industry in a new directionmdasha direction towards the future towards a more diver-sified music industry towards a music industry that lives for live music
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
39live live issue 1
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
AT LEAST 32 NEW FESTIVALS BEGAN IN THE UNITED STATES IN 2012 OF THESE FESTIVALS FIFTEEN OF THEM ARE DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC
40 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL WONDERLANDDowntown TexasApril 27-28 2012An inside look into the modern electronic music festival
41live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL WONDERLAND
42 we live for live music
43live live issue 1
A new generation neo-age hippies
44 we live for live musicWelcome to Wonderland
45live live issue 1
46 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
47live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Dillon Francis plays The Queenrsquos Ground
48 we live for live music
49live live issue 1
Visual explosions to coordinate with the
audio attack of a drop
50 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
51live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
EDM shows are known for their
high-impact visuals
52 we live for live music
53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
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button13
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39live live issue 1
CATALPA EDC
FIREFLY
BUKU
LIFT FESTIVAL
SWEETLIFE
LOADED
I LOVE THIS CITY
H20
WAVE FRONT
IMPULSE
MASSV
BUNBURY
PEACH
SS C
OACHELLA
RIDE
COUNTERPOINT
WHAT THE FESTIVAL
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
CITY B
ISCO
MAD
E IN
AMER
ICA
STARRY NIGHTS
U R 1
ELSYIUM DESERT DAZE
ORION
SUMMER SET
FESTIVAL OF GNARNIA
SPRING AWAKENING
PARADISIO
HOLY SHIP
RIVERrsquoS EDGE
= DANCE FESTIVAL
AT LEAST 32 NEW FESTIVALS BEGAN IN THE UNITED STATES IN 2012 OF THESE FESTIVALS FIFTEEN OF THEM ARE DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC
40 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL WONDERLANDDowntown TexasApril 27-28 2012An inside look into the modern electronic music festival
41live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL WONDERLAND
42 we live for live music
43live live issue 1
A new generation neo-age hippies
44 we live for live musicWelcome to Wonderland
45live live issue 1
46 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
47live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Dillon Francis plays The Queenrsquos Ground
48 we live for live music
49live live issue 1
Visual explosions to coordinate with the
audio attack of a drop
50 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
51live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
EDM shows are known for their
high-impact visuals
52 we live for live music
53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
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button13
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40 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL WONDERLANDDowntown TexasApril 27-28 2012An inside look into the modern electronic music festival
41live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL WONDERLAND
42 we live for live music
43live live issue 1
A new generation neo-age hippies
44 we live for live musicWelcome to Wonderland
45live live issue 1
46 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
47live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Dillon Francis plays The Queenrsquos Ground
48 we live for live music
49live live issue 1
Visual explosions to coordinate with the
audio attack of a drop
50 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
51live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
EDM shows are known for their
high-impact visuals
52 we live for live music
53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
Button 7
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Button 11
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button13
Button 52
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Button 48
41live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL WONDERLAND
42 we live for live music
43live live issue 1
A new generation neo-age hippies
44 we live for live musicWelcome to Wonderland
45live live issue 1
46 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
47live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Dillon Francis plays The Queenrsquos Ground
48 we live for live music
49live live issue 1
Visual explosions to coordinate with the
audio attack of a drop
50 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
51live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
EDM shows are known for their
high-impact visuals
52 we live for live music
53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
Button 7
Button 8
Button 9
Button 10
Button 11
Button 12
button13
Button 52
Button 54
Button 56
Button 55
Button 43
Button 44
Button 49
Button 50
Button 48
42 we live for live music
43live live issue 1
A new generation neo-age hippies
44 we live for live musicWelcome to Wonderland
45live live issue 1
46 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
47live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Dillon Francis plays The Queenrsquos Ground
48 we live for live music
49live live issue 1
Visual explosions to coordinate with the
audio attack of a drop
50 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
51live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
EDM shows are known for their
high-impact visuals
52 we live for live music
53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
Button 7
Button 8
Button 9
Button 10
Button 11
Button 12
button13
Button 52
Button 54
Button 56
Button 55
Button 43
Button 44
Button 49
Button 50
Button 48
43live live issue 1
A new generation neo-age hippies
44 we live for live musicWelcome to Wonderland
45live live issue 1
46 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
47live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Dillon Francis plays The Queenrsquos Ground
48 we live for live music
49live live issue 1
Visual explosions to coordinate with the
audio attack of a drop
50 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
51live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
EDM shows are known for their
high-impact visuals
52 we live for live music
53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
Button 7
Button 8
Button 9
Button 10
Button 11
Button 12
button13
Button 52
Button 54
Button 56
Button 55
Button 43
Button 44
Button 49
Button 50
Button 48
44 we live for live musicWelcome to Wonderland
45live live issue 1
46 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
47live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Dillon Francis plays The Queenrsquos Ground
48 we live for live music
49live live issue 1
Visual explosions to coordinate with the
audio attack of a drop
50 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
51live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
EDM shows are known for their
high-impact visuals
52 we live for live music
53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
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button13
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45live live issue 1
46 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
47live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Dillon Francis plays The Queenrsquos Ground
48 we live for live music
49live live issue 1
Visual explosions to coordinate with the
audio attack of a drop
50 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
51live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
EDM shows are known for their
high-impact visuals
52 we live for live music
53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
Button 7
Button 8
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Button 10
Button 11
Button 12
button13
Button 52
Button 54
Button 56
Button 55
Button 43
Button 44
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Button 50
Button 48
46 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
47live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Dillon Francis plays The Queenrsquos Ground
48 we live for live music
49live live issue 1
Visual explosions to coordinate with the
audio attack of a drop
50 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
51live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
EDM shows are known for their
high-impact visuals
52 we live for live music
53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
Button 7
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Button 10
Button 11
Button 12
button13
Button 52
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Button 48
47live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Dillon Francis plays The Queenrsquos Ground
48 we live for live music
49live live issue 1
Visual explosions to coordinate with the
audio attack of a drop
50 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
51live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
EDM shows are known for their
high-impact visuals
52 we live for live music
53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
Button 7
Button 8
Button 9
Button 10
Button 11
Button 12
button13
Button 52
Button 54
Button 56
Button 55
Button 43
Button 44
Button 49
Button 50
Button 48
48 we live for live music
49live live issue 1
Visual explosions to coordinate with the
audio attack of a drop
50 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
51live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
EDM shows are known for their
high-impact visuals
52 we live for live music
53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
Button 7
Button 8
Button 9
Button 10
Button 11
Button 12
button13
Button 52
Button 54
Button 56
Button 55
Button 43
Button 44
Button 49
Button 50
Button 48
49live live issue 1
Visual explosions to coordinate with the
audio attack of a drop
50 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
51live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
EDM shows are known for their
high-impact visuals
52 we live for live music
53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
Button 7
Button 8
Button 9
Button 10
Button 11
Button 12
button13
Button 52
Button 54
Button 56
Button 55
Button 43
Button 44
Button 49
Button 50
Button 48
50 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
51live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
EDM shows are known for their
high-impact visuals
52 we live for live music
53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
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51live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
EDM shows are known for their
high-impact visuals
52 we live for live music
53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
Button 7
Button 8
Button 9
Button 10
Button 11
Button 12
button13
Button 52
Button 54
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Button 55
Button 43
Button 44
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Button 50
Button 48
52 we live for live music
53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
Button 7
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button13
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53live live issue 1
Modern gogo dancers add to the theatrics
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
Button 7
Button 8
Button 9
Button 10
Button 11
Button 12
button13
Button 52
Button 54
Button 56
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Button 43
Button 44
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Button 50
Button 48
54 we live for live music
NOCTURNAL
55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
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55live live issue 1
NOCTURNAL
Fans contribute to the spectacle treating EDM
festivals as an extra Halloween
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
Button 7
Button 8
Button 9
Button 10
Button 11
Button 12
button13
Button 52
Button 54
Button 56
Button 55
Button 43
Button 44
Button 49
Button 50
Button 48
56 we live for live music
57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
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button13
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57live live issue 1
A less boisterous (and older) crowd gathers to watch jamtronica
greats Lotus perform
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
Button 7
Button 8
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Button 10
Button 11
Button 12
button13
Button 52
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Button 48
58 we live for live music
59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
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59live live issue 1
STS9 once at the top of the electronic scene performs to a quaint crowd at the main stage
while the majority of the festivalrsquos attendees are dancing to house
DJs (Morgan Page and Steve Aoki) at the Queenrsquos Ground
60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
Button 7
Button 8
Button 9
Button 10
Button 11
Button 12
button13
Button 52
Button 54
Button 56
Button 55
Button 43
Button 44
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Button 50
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60 we live for live music
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
Button 7
Button 8
Button 9
Button 10
Button 11
Button 12
button13
Button 52
Button 54
Button 56
Button 55
Button 43
Button 44
Button 49
Button 50
Button 48
61live live issue 1
Power trio Nero concludes the night with their mixed set of drum nrsquo bass dubstep and house music The live vocalist Alana Watson adds a new dimension to the DJ duo
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
Button 7
Button 8
Button 9
Button 10
Button 11
Button 12
button13
Button 52
Button 54
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Button 50
Button 48
62 we live for live music
The two-day festival comes to a close around 400 am on Sunday After an entire weekend of living the Nocturnal life everybody is ready for some sleep
63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
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Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
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button13
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63live live issue 1
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
Button 7
Button 8
Button 9
Button 10
Button 11
Button 12
button13
Button 52
Button 54
Button 56
Button 55
Button 43
Button 44
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Button 50
Button 48
64 we live for live music
LETrsquoS GET DIGITALThe new millennium opened up a world of
change and the beginning of a new direc-tion for the music industrymdashone that EDM could succeed inmdashwith the digit izat ion of music Although this digitization began in the early lsquo90s when the MPEG lossy digital compression (MP3) format was invented digital music did not truly make its mark until the proliferation of the Internet in the new millennium
Up until this point the industry never faced any issues with format changes taking away from revenue When MP3s started to negatively af fec t album sales the industr y blamed the Internet and the consumers for the problems of file-sharing and copyright infringement instead of finding ways to adapt to the new realities of the Internet Age
The Internet as stated by Techdir t founder Mike Masnick in a recent report on the state of the enter tainment industry The Sky is Rising provides amazing ldquooppor tunit y for content creatorsrdquo and extraordinar y ldquoabundance for consumersrdquo
For content c reator s the In te r net i s an equalizing power that provides them with an oppor tunity to directly connect to their con-sumers bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry the record labels
Up until the past decade the distribution of music occurred through the traditional model in which the record labels worked in unison with the radio stations to play an ar tist rsquos new sin-gle on the airwaves in order to spark interest leading up to the album release This model is l imit ing to the popular ar t is t s and genres to which the labels suppor ted Before the Internet if an artist wanted to become success-ful they had to hope to get signed by a label in order to have the proper connections to market their music
This is no longer the case as technological advances now allow for artists to create record dis t r ibute and promote music on their own via their computers and the Internet By cir-cumventing the middlemen significantly more ar tists are able get their music to consumers
For consumers there is more music available to them and more ways to acquire it than ever before Fif teen years ago if someone wanted
new music it meant going to the record store and buying a new album I f they wanted to play music it meant sor ting through massive CD cases until they found the r ight one and hopefully the songs were written on the CD or they had the CD cover with the tracks because otherwise how was one to know which track number corresponded to the preferred song
In 2012 the options for finding acquiring and accessing music are endless and are a signif-icant factor in the new landscape of the music industr y First of f there is the now obvious distinction of physical versus digital copies of music Then within the realm of digital music there is the newly profound distinction of own-ership versus access
With the proliferation of smartphone and tab-let devices there is a greater desire to have all music available across all platforms According to the IFPI the past year has seen a sixty-five percent increase in users subscribed to music services such as Spotify iTunes Match Google Play Deezer and many more
Services such as iTunes Match and Google Play are for those that prefer to own their own library of music These services host the own-er rsquos library in the cloud so that he or she can access their music from any device
The real stars of subscription music services are those which provide access over ownership such as Spotif y and Deezer These ser vices allow users to search for and stream any song album or ar tist they desire (that is licensed by the service) without having to take up space on their device with a download or sync multiple devices
Beyond the plethora of options consumers now have for accessing and acquir ing music the amount of music available to them has also greatly increased Gracenote a global media database for music has increased ten-fold expanding its database from 11 million songs in 2001 to 100 million songs in 2011
The abundance of music consumers are sur-rounded by and the multitude of ways they have to access it shif ts the landscape of the industry yet again away f rom the tradit ional middle-men the record labels As consumers can now pull the types of music they want to listen to
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
Button 7
Button 8
Button 9
Button 10
Button 11
Button 12
button13
Button 52
Button 54
Button 56
Button 55
Button 43
Button 44
Button 49
Button 50
Button 48
65live live issue 1
How the digital revolution affected the music industry and paved the way for EDMrsquos successLETrsquoS GET DIGITAL
instead of having the labelsrsquo preferred ar tists and sounds pushed onto them they have sig-nificantly more influence in determining what is ldquopoprdquo music
The Internet Age provides an amazing equal-iz ing power for ar t is t s and consumers but where does this leave the traditional gatekeep-ersmdashthe record labels For them it is a time for adaptation which it seems they are just now beginning to grasp
Having spent the past decade pointing fin-gers at the public and looking to Washington for answers to piracy the record labels failed to evolve when ldquothey had the money and could have built the competence by buying concer t agencies and merchandise companiesrdquo says former Universal Music Group executive Tim Renner in The Sky is Rising
While the record industry was searching for answers to the problems of f i le -shar ing and copyright infringement inflicted by the Internet young artistsmdashespecially electronic music pro-ducers whose creations are already on their laptop in an upload-ready file-formatmdashunder-stood these realit ies and used them to their advantage
Many ar tists have found that addressing the piracy problem head-on by giving away their music for free when they are star ting out is a great way to gain a following For many the mentality is ldquoPiracy is going to happen so why not give my music away to get my name out thererdquo The social media generationrsquos tendency to share every thing can lead to an overnight viral sensation eg Psyrsquos ldquoGangnam Stylerdquo or Carly Rae Jaspenrsquos ldquoCall Me Mayberdquo
An ar t is t who found great success in this ldquogiveawayrdquo model Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smi th) ex p la ins in a 2010 in te r v iew w i th Jambandscom his rationale for putting up his music for free ldquoI just knew that the people I know a lot of the people I know were going to get music for free anyway That was just how it worked And I figured people were going to get it anyway but mainly at the time it was just me wanting to get it into as many peoplersquos stereos as possible and have people hear it so they could see what I was doing and hopefully be down with itrdquo For Pretty Lights his plan worked
perfectly as his sound spread by like wildfire ldquoA couple things happened from that that I didnrsquot really foresee I suppose which was the word of mouth spread like really big so when I put my second album out it jumped from probably like 200 downloads a month to 10000 in that one month and it was a one month jumprdquo
Pret ty Lights serves as a model for modern musicians to start their following by giving away their music because it allowed him not only to gain fans but fans who were happy to spread the word since his music could be accessed for free and you werenrsquot telling a friend to buy an album I was one of those fans Af ter seeing him for the first time in the fall of 2008 I told anyone who had a slight interest in electronic music at the time to go check him out Af ter that inaugural Pretty Lights show I went to with one disco ball and one light in a lit t le room above Sixth Street every show I went to of his grew exponentially Eventually he was selling out the Austin City Music Hall one of the larg-est venues in the city and his intr icate light setup came to match his name of Pretty Lights
If it were not for the Internet who knows if Pretty Lights would have been able to become the international sensation he is now For the first time in the history of music musicians and fans can directly connect with one another and are not beholden to the press and the industry to tell them what music to listen to
The ability to directly release your music to your fans is an opportunity EDM artists jumped upon As a genre that had always remained on the peripheries of the mainstream music indus-try EDM artists were not beholden to releasing music in the traditional manner This allowed them in par ticular over ar tists of other genres that had a place in the recorded music industry to seek alternative means of music distribution
The oppor tunit ies provided by the global digitization and the Internet Age are major fac-tors in the recent r ise of EDM The ability for content creators to create and distribute their own music and for consumers to have the entire spectrum of music available to them instanta-neously and without need for purchase has led to a changed landscape in the music industrymdashaway from the recorded and towards the live
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
Button 7
Button 8
Button 9
Button 10
Button 11
Button 12
button13
Button 52
Button 54
Button 56
Button 55
Button 43
Button 44
Button 49
Button 50
Button 48
66 we live for live music
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
Button 7
Button 8
Button 9
Button 10
Button 11
Button 12
button13
Button 52
Button 54
Button 56
Button 55
Button 43
Button 44
Button 49
Button 50
Button 48
67live live issue 1
THE STATEOF THE MUSICINDUSTRY
414 14
56
32
Overall music sales
Total Album sales
Digital Albums
Digital Tracks
LP sales
Includes CD Cassette LPVinyl Digital Albums
36BILLION
DOWNLOADS IN 2011
65 INCREASEIN EDM GENRE TRACK SALES
In the United States more than half of music revenue is now derived from digital channels
57
16 9
The number of people using P2P fi le-sharing services in the United States drops by almost half after Limewire shuts down
65 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR MUSIC SERVICES GLOBALLY
64 OF TEENS CITE YOUTUBE
AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCEFOR LISTENING TO MUSIC
14 INTERNET USERSACCESS UNAUTHORIZED SERVICES ON A MONTHLY BASIS
THE TRUTH IS IN THE NUMBERS
From1999 through2009US concert ticket sales tripled from $15 billion
to $46 billion
BEYOND SALESSTREAMING AND SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUES TO RECORD COMPANIES GREW BY 8 GLOBALLY IN 2011
FILE-SHARING REDUCED BUT STILL AN ISSUE
DIGITAL MUSIC FOR A DIGITAL WORLD
TOP 10 STREAMED SONGS OF 2012 ARE ALL DANCE-BASED
STATISTICS VIA IFPI DIGITAL MUSIC REPORT 2012 AND NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN DATA
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
Button 7
Button 8
Button 9
Button 10
Button 11
Button 12
button13
Button 52
Button 54
Button 56
Button 55
Button 43
Button 44
Button 49
Button 50
Button 48
68 we live for live music
The concept of a DJ as an artist or a musi-cian is one that seems to be dif f icult for many people to understand and leads to a lot of the criticism directed towards EDM
One of the main reasons for this confu-sion is that the word ldquoDJrdquo is an overly broad term for anyone who plays recorded music to an audience Due to modern technol-ogy the skill set and technical knowledge needed to accomplish that bare minimum is fairly basic
Nowadays a simple iPhone app with digital turntables and an auto-sync beat matching feature can do what used to take two turn-
tables a mixer and hours of commitment and practice so the opinion many have that DJs do not have the skill they once pos-sessed is not totally unfounded
The issue is that the word no longer carries the sense of ar tistry it once did because it now describes a much larger group of peo-ple than in the past
The term DJ was coined to describe DJing in the s implest of forms the radio disc jockey to describe someone who selects one track at a time with breaks in between each song
As disco grew in the 1970s a new style of
WHOrsquoS A DJ AND WHOrsquoS A PRODUCER UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
DJPRODUCER MIKE ABB USING HIS CUSTOM CONTROLLER 2012
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
Button 7
Button 8
Button 9
Button 10
Button 11
Button 12
button13
Button 52
Button 54
Button 56
Button 55
Button 43
Button 44
Button 49
Button 50
Button 48
69live live issue 1
DJ was bornmdashthe club DJmdashwhose purpose was to also mix the records on top of select-ing them This type of DJ marked by his presence behind two turntables connected through a mixer focuses on streaming tracks together to make songs longer to dance to for extended ldquoclub playrdquo
Hip-hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash borrowed from the production tech-niques of disco DJs to develop the beats that are the basis of hip-hop music
Both hip-hop and dance music and the DJs that created them were developed in the live setting hip hop on the streets of New York and dance music in the under-ground clubs of Chicago and Detroit But the concept of a DJ evolved into a new realm when hip-hop became embraced by the recorded music industr y It was then that that the techniques shared by hip-hop and dance music creators found their way into the s tudio and the DJ transformed into the producer
With the dawn of the d i g i t a l a g e a n d t h e advancement of technol-ogy these two types of mus ic c reator the l i ve DJ and the s tudio pro-ducer gradually morphed into one A DJ has also assumed the role of a producer who works on remixing sampling synthesizing and creating music on their own outside of the live medium These producers then trans-form into the role of DJ the live role the moment they step in front of a crowd
Unfor tunately this concept of DJpro-ducer is not one that is easily understood and even among DJs there is a confron-tation about where the ar tistry lies on the stage or in the studio
Some DJs think of themselves exclusively as producers and do not care as much about how ldquoliverdquo their DJ set is Others have the opinion that DJing is a complex activity that can be performed in many ways and at many dif ferent skill levels
Over the summer Deadmau5 who is notorious for his outspoken remarks against mainstream EDM (he calls it ldquoevent-driven marketingrdquo) was caught with his foot in his mouth yet again when he denounced fellow DJs in a Rolling Stone cover story for ldquojust pushing playrdquo
He wrote a post on his Tumblr a few days after the story was released in an attempt to clear up his statement by saying that ldquotruerdquo DJsrsquo skill shines while they are composing
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore performing live A lot of people argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo
-kidonwheels
the beats and compiling their sound data-bases in the ldquostudiordquo (The concept of the studio is a loose term as for the modern DJ this can be as little as a laptop and a pair of headphones)
He went on to say ldquoI think given about one hour of instruction anyone with mini-mal knowledge of Ableton and music tech in general could DO what I rsquom doing at a Deadmau5 concertrdquo implying that the live per formance of DJing is not what it once was at least not the way he ldquoperformsrdquo it
As laptops took over from analog elec-t ronic ins t ruments the poss ibi l i t ies for music creation became increasingly com-plex due to the endless variety of sound inputs available requir ing the production process to become more intricate And for some DJs like Deadmau5 it is now more important than the actual performance
He recently made this point in an inter-view during the Billboard FutureSound Conference ldquoIt rsquos ver y producer or i -ented now As in where a popular EDM act today would be more discussed and heralded for his pro-duction as opposed to his selectionback in the day we know he didnrsquot pro-duce it but it was about
the song selection and reading the crowd and about finding records and having the tracks to become purveyors of the soundrdquo
A few days later fellow DJproducer Bassnec tar helped to clear up some of the widespread confusion about what a DJ is and what they do with his blog post ldquoPushing buttons or pushing boundariesrdquo In the post Bassnectar (Lorin) responds to this fan question
ldquoHey Lorin ndash Irsquove always wondered and I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask this but what exactly do you do on stage when yoursquore per forming live A lot of peo-ple argue that electronic music is nothing more than a DJ pushing buttons and that it takes ldquono skillrdquo I always tell them it is much more than that ndash obviously it takes skill to produce everything that you have and I feel like your shows do in fact involve much more than just pressing play and pre-tending to mess with knobs but could you please elaborate on how you actually do perform I think that a lot of people are also curious Keep spreading the word brotha ndash kidonwheelsrdquo
Bassnectar begins his response by explain-ing that the verb ldquoto DJrdquo is like the verb ldquoto
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
Button 7
Button 8
Button 9
Button 10
Button 11
Button 12
button13
Button 52
Button 54
Button 56
Button 55
Button 43
Button 44
Button 49
Button 50
Button 48
70 we live for live music
runrdquomdashldquothere are a million ways to do itrdquo You can DJ a house par ty you can DJ on the radio you can DJ a mix of your favorite songs but what really matters is the inter-action with the audience and playing songs according to the mood of the crowd
He goes on to explain the di f ference between selec t ing songs versus mix ing songs Selecting songs involves picking the perfect song to play at that moment
Mixing songs encompasses ever y thing else that goes into a DJ per formance how the songs transition into one another how the songs are matched up (by melody or by the bass line) adding one element of a song to another song and essentially all of the components that allow a DJ to transform a pre-recorded song that is not their own into an entirely unique and original piece
As technology advanced DJs gained the opportunity to create their own songs from
scratch using synthetic chords to reproduce anything they wish from traditional bass lines and guitar r if fs to the glitch noises often associated with electronic music
For some DJs they feel they have worked in the studio per fecting their song so they would not want to add in any components while ldquoperformingrdquo in a live setting
These DJs should really only consider themselves producers They are the types of DJs who lead to sentiments such as ldquoall DJs do is push playrdquo because they do not hold up the expectations that come with being a traditional DJmdashmainly that there is a connection between the DJ and the dance floor and not one that is pre-determined ldquoPlay pushersrdquo in the electronic music world are the equivalent of pop-music ldquolip-sync-ersrdquo They taint the concept of a DJ on the whole
If an electronic ar tist wants to be consid-
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
Button 7
Button 8
Button 9
Button 10
Button 11
Button 12
button13
Button 52
Button 54
Button 56
Button 55
Button 43
Button 44
Button 49
Button 50
Button 48
71live live issue 1
ered a true DJ he or she will use their time in production to organize all of the com-ponents that go into making a song but not create the song in its entirety It is not until the DJ steps into the live setting that the components are mixed together into a song This is the mark of the modern DJ
The technical skill of the DJ often deter-mines the level of or iginalit y in a piece which can range from entirely original to 100 copied with maybe one or two slight changes But par t of the beauty of digital ar t is that it allows a wide range of people to become an ldquoar tistrdquo by giving them the opportunity to transform and create some-thing new out of an existing piece Digital ar t is much like Dada with its collage and assemblage and even ready-mades
You do not have to be entirely original to be a true DJ and realistically very few DJs compose an entire set without borrowing
something along the way but you do have to actually be working to compose music in the live setting as opposed to having it pre-mixed in the studio and just pushing play
B a s s n e c t a r w a s r i g h t a n d s o w a s Deadmau5 There are producers and there are DJs And there are DJs who are also producers All of these people are elec-tronic ar tis ts The term DJ is misused as an umbrella term to encompass any musi-cian who creates music with the production techniques of a DJ
A s e lec t ron ic mus ic p rogres ses and b e co me s mo r e p r ev a l e n t t he i n d u s -tr y should str ive to make the distinc tion between who simply produces electronic music and who per forms electronic music This may not prevent producers who pre-tend to DJ from continuing to ldquoplayrdquo live shows but at least the fans will know exactly what they are paying to see
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
Button 7
Button 8
Button 9
Button 10
Button 11
Button 12
button13
Button 52
Button 54
Button 56
Button 55
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Button 44
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Button 50
Button 48
72 we live for live music
sources
Ashton Lorin Pushing Buttons or Pushing Boundaries 2012
Beer David and Bary Sandywell ldquoSty-listic Morphing Notes on the Digitsa-tion of Contemporay Musicrdquo Conver-gence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technolo-gies 2005 106-121
Bogart Jonathan ldquoBuy the Hype Why Electronic Dance Music Really Could Be the New Rockrdquo The Atlan-tic 2012Zimmerman Joel We All Push Play 2012
IFPI Digital Music Report 2012
Lee Timothy B ldquoWhy We Shouldnrsquot Worry About the Alleged Decline of the Music Industryrdquo Forbes 2012
Masnick Mike The Sky is Rising 2012
Mason Kerri ldquoThe Beat Generation Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young Americardquo Bill-board 2011
McLeod Kembrew ldquoGenres Subge-nres Sub-Subgenres and More Mu-sical and Social Dif ferentiation Within ElectronicDance Music Communi-tiesrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2001 59-75
Montano Ed ldquoFestival Fever and In-ternational DJsrdquo Dancecult Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2009 81-93
Nielsen Online The Nielsen Com-pany amp Billboard 2012 Mid-Year US Music Industry Report 2012
Pareles Jon ldquoDavid Bowie 21st-Cen-tury Entrepreneurrdquo The New York Times 2002
Plagenhoef Scott ldquoDrop the Bass How the lsquo90s Won Againrdquo GQ 2012
Reynolds Simon ldquoHow Rave Music Conquered Americardquo The Guardian 2012
Suisman David ldquoSound Recordings and Popular Music Histories The Re-mixrdquo Journal of Popular Music Stud-ies 2011 1533-1598
Vanhanen Janne ldquoVir tual Sound Ex-amining Glitch and Productionrdquo Con-temporary Music Review 2003 45-52
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
Button 7
Button 8
Button 9
Button 10
Button 11
Button 12
button13
Button 52
Button 54
Button 56
Button 55
Button 43
Button 44
Button 49
Button 50
Button 48
73live live issue 1
sources
INTERVIEWS
Bobby Clay interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Dan Rosenwald interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Deadmau5 interview by Bill Werde Billboard FutureSound Keynote 2011
Gary Best interview by Megan Buerger Papermag 2012
Mike Abb interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Pretty Lights interview by Jonathan Juliano Jambandscom 2010
Scott Eiseman interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
Tyler Goldberg interview by Samantha Hoffer 2012
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
Button 7
Button 8
Button 9
Button 10
Button 11
Button 12
button13
Button 52
Button 54
Button 56
Button 55
Button 43
Button 44
Button 49
Button 50
Button 48
74 we live for live music
the finalE
ldquoI donrsquot even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I donrsquot think itrsquos going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way The absolute trans-formation of every thing that we have ever thought about music will take place within ten years and nothing is going to be able to stop it I see absolutely no point in pretending that itrsquos not going to happen Irsquom fully confident that copyright for instance will no longer exist in ten years and authorship and intellec-tual propert y ARE in for such a bashing Music itself is going to become like running water or electricit y So itrsquos like just take advantage of the last few years because none if this is ever going to happen again Yoursquod bet ter be prepared for a lot of touring because thatrsquos really the only unique situation thatrsquos going to be left Itrsquos terribly exciting But on the other hand it doesnrsquot mat ter if you think itrsquos exciting or not itrsquos whatrsquos going to happenrsquo
-david bowie 2002
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent
76 we live for live music
THE END
OR IS IT THE BEGINNING
Button 27
Button 28
Button 29
Button 30
Button 31
Button 32
Button 33
Button 34
Button 35
Button 36
Button 37
Button 38
Button 39
Button 40
Button 41
Button 42
Button 1
Button 2
Button 3
Button 4
Button 5
Button 6
Button 7
Button 8
Button 9
Button 10
Button 11
Button 12
button13
Button 52
Button 54
Button 56
Button 55
Button 43
Button 44
Button 49
Button 50
Button 48
75live live issue 1
the finalE
PRETTY LIGHTS AT LA ZONA ROSA | AUSTIN TX | 2009
A genre born of the electronic age Electronic Dance Music has finally evolved to be in the time and place it needed to find success and in doing so exemplifies the new
direction of the music industry beyond the major labels After forty years of struggles to become accepted by the mainstream music industry EDMrsquos recent booming success (while the traditional industry the record labels strug-gled) signifies that a new direction is needed to drive the industry into the future For years tales of doom and gloom surrounded the music industry but itrsquos not dying itrsquos just dif ferent The onset of the digital age created a new landscape for the music industry that essentially flipped the traditional dynamic on its head Instead of going on tours to promote an album and increase record sales artists are now giving away their music to increase their fan-base in order to have larger more profitable tours While the record labels were busy trying to figure out how to address the issues the digital age wrecked on their traditional business model of selling recorded music EDM artists and promoters many of whom were a part of the generation that started the piracy problem used their place outside of the traditional recorded music industry to achieve lif t off in the live experience that is dance musicrsquos native format The great success of EDM artists and promoters has heads turning from all around the industry to embrace this new direction for the music industry one that is diversified beyond the shadow of the major labels and where the live experience takes precedent