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A Very Brief History of Electronic Music

There are countless numbers of electronic music genres and categories. It’s easy to get lost in what is house vs. dubstep vs. electronica vs. EDM vs. electro-house etc., as well as an endless number of subcategories of these genres. The advent of YouTube streaming along with DJs working from home all over the world (including novices, pros, & future stars alike!) has transformed how we think about and listen to electronic music. These “everyman DJs” popping up all over the world are able to mix and match their favorite or original beats with the most popular pop and R&B hits today into one long streaming mashup playlist that you can listen to whenever you want on YouTube, Spotify, Soundcloud or any other of the best music streaming apps today. Some of the most popular EDM stations on YouTube include the world-famous Tomorrowland’s “after movie,” which is as much a visual sensation festival as it is a music concert, Spinnin’ Records, NoCopyRightSounds and Ultra Music. So where did all this amazing electronic music begin: in Europe or in America? The answer is a bit of both, as you will learn here.

It is widely recognized that the original house music took place in the night clubs of Chicago and NYC during the 1970s, including in The Warehouse nightclub of Chicago. Many consider the origin of house music to be in Chicago’s The Warehouse under the then-musical director DJ Frankie Knuckles. At this time, there was a lack of new music being developed and many DJs in these clubs were forced to recycle old tunes and remix new music variants into the early forms of “mashups.” Mashups are now one of the most popular forms of electronic music, where DJs and listeners can listen to the top pop and R&B songs all mashed up together into one long mashup song. One of the top mashups of all time is “Rhythm is a Dancer” which remixes the original “Rhythm is a Dancer” from the German electronic group Snap! with some of the most well-known American pop stars including Katy Perry, Justin Timberlake, Jennifer Lopez/ J.Lo, Bruno Mars, Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears, Madonna, Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande and Rihanna (listen below). So did these hottest mashups today originate in Europe from groups like Snap! or from household-name American pop stars today? Likely a combination where one brick builds on another brick to create a great pyramid…the Great Electronic Music Pyramid!

Much of the current and trending electronic music today features a mix of the top pop and R&B vocals with electronic beats mixed in the background. Some examples of genres include electronica, hip hop house, Latin house and many other electronic music categories. Ambient electronic music doesn’t quite have the intensity of some of these other genres and may be more suitable for streaming while you work, especially if the vocals of a lot of the house music becomes distracting. Funky house is best epitomized by Daft Punk, the groovy electronic group from Paris, France. The full album of Random Access Memories, their most recent and popular album, can be streamed on YouTube. Metallica (love them or hate them) helped reinvent the way we listen to orchestral music, and repopularized traditional symphony music sounds, such as the violin, organ, cello, and viola by combining the best symphony sounds from a real orchestra playing alongside Metallica’s best hits like Master of Puppets, Nothing Else Matters, Enter Sandman and Hero of the Day. Lindsey Stirling is a great more recent example (and more mellow music example!), who combines a masterful use of the violin, combined with, and punctuated by, electronic sounds and stunning visuals. Eurodance is one of the top electronic music genres and is best listened to live at Tomorrowland, Ibiza, and London.

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