melody, harmony, and rhythm [...] timbre You are missing the fifth and most important: meaning! To be fair meaning is extra-musical, and varies between listen

melody, harmony, and rhythm [...] timbre You are missing the fifth and most important: meaning! To be fair meaning is extra-musical, and varies between listeners. Other than that, you are absolutely correct: timber is the focus of modern electronic music. All previous genres simply lacked the instruments to do much of interest in the way of timber.