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How/why has bargain-basement recycled eurotrance from 15 years ago become the latest thing amongst american youth? As someone living in the south of the UK thi

How/why has bargain-basement recycled eurotrance from 15 years ago become the latest thing amongst american youth? As someone living in the south of the UK this is one of the strangest and most unexpected developments in global popular music in recent years. I'm sorry if this sounds snobbish but I genuinely want/need to understand this, and I would appreciate any opinions or theories from americans as to how/why this happened and who/what forces could be responsible. Email in profile.

driverdan 15y ago
This happens with every genre of music. When it's young it's well known in the area it starts. As it spreads the new areas tend to lag. As popularity grows the genre changes and people who knew about it since it was young bitch about how going mainstream killed it.
- JonnieCache 15y ago
  What you are saying is true. However that's not really my point. Firstly, I've never liked trance, so I'm not trying to defend my pet genre from infiltrators. On the contrary, I thought I'd seen the back of it ten years ago, outside certain areas of continental europe. then, suddenly, it's the thing in the US. Now, the united states has always had its own rich history of electronic dance music, indeed they invented it. Pretty much all electronic music from the last 30 years worldwide is derived from Detroit techno and Chicago house. That lineage has continued unbroken in those places to this day, yet that type of dance music has never really attained popular success in its own country. So, why is this form of very continentally-european music suddenly achieving populaity in what is actually its distant ancestral home? And why now? These things usually lag about three to five years as you say; trance has been a creative cul-de-sac for at least four of those cycles. The stateside rise of dubstep and electro house makes more sense to me: it's a substitute for nu-metal and radio rock. Trance, as I say, is an absolute non sequitur.
  - keypusher 15y ago
    Because the electronic wave of the 90's/00's was completely missed by most Americans, and it has just taken that long to break into the cultural mainstream here. Radio friendly DJ's who promoted their brands to the masses such as Oakenfold and Tiesto were a big factor, but it is also generational. For instance, my friends and I were pretty into the late 90's electronic scene in the NE US. We loved trance, progressive, house, jungle, dnb, breakbeat, and adored the ambient/experimental stuff as well. At that point though it felt like almost everything great was coming out of Europe and we were regarded as weirdos at school for being into this music. However, some of us had younger siblings, and cousins. And they grew up looking up to someone they though was cool and loved this music. So they thought it must be cool too, and showed their friends. At the same time, many of the people I grew up with were graduating college and started to work, and putting their favorite electronic music in advertising and websites and music soundtracks etc. Why didn't it catch on earlier, as it had in Europe? I think much of it had to with American attitudes and policy toward drugs and the control of the record companies on music promotion. The only place you might hear electronic back then was late night college radio or MTV late Saturday night. There was a sense that this was very much dirty underground druggy music, and event promotion was still very much by flyers and word of mouth. That kind of thing will never catch on in the US mainstream, where there needs to be a sexy, familiar face on the posters and TV advertisements.
    - JonnieCache 15y ago
      Thanks, this makes sense. 15 years is about a generation in this context. >However, some of us had younger siblings, and cousins. This in particular fits. The "cool older brother" thing is a perennial motif in the evolution of dance music. The race/class/geography aspects of EDM history are fascinating. First you have upper-middle-class often gay black kids in detroit rejecting the polyrhythms and rowdy attitude of the hiphop and funk around them in pursuit of the perceived sophistication of androgynous european synth-pop. Then this gets picked up by white working class british teenagers who add syncopated hip hop drums and dub bass in pursuit of the street legitimacy of US hiphop and jamaican dancehall. This leads eventually to dubstep, which then gets crossed with stadium rock and exported back to america, to the center of the mainstream. When music makes these geographical leaps it is shorn of its sociocultural context and meaning, leading to the sacking of old sacred grounds and the sanctification of new ones. The acceleration of this cycle in the internet age is fascinating. I'm sure many here will see parallels with the spread of hacker/startup culture. > I think much of it had to with American attitudes and policy toward drugs and the control of the record companies on music promotion ... That kind of thing will never catch on in the US mainstream, where there needs to be a sexy, familiar face on the posters and TV advertisements. All of that has always been true in the UK as well. When rave music started to penetrate the charts at the start of the 90s, that wasn't via involvement from the music industry. Those hardcore tracks were getting in the top 10 purely from ravers going out and buying 12"s in independent record shops, tracks which were pressed and distributed by companies owned and operated by the artists. The huge, often illegal events where people were going to dance to these records were similarly done with no involvement from the music industry, at least at first. The major difference, at least where the UK is concerned, is the impact of pirate radio, which until very recently provided a framework to promote the music, the events and the culture entirely unmolested by the establishment. This in turn is enabled by high population density: more people in your signal footprint, and social housing placed in convenient 20-storey towers on which to mount your antenna. The US's low population density, which you would have thought would make massive unregulated parties in remote locations easy to execute, makes pirate radio broadcasting uneconomical and unviable. Again, one could draw interesting comparisons to the communities based around local BBSes and how that changed with the spread of internet access.
muyuu 15y ago
I think it's mainly because of the availability and popularity of very easy software to slap together something in your own computer. The influx of new people playing with sound loops and their close networks, basically.
kafkaesque 15y ago
Hm. There is quite a bit of misinformation (I like to think it was done unintentionally) that your comment caused when people replied to you. The biggest one being that the US 'invented' 'electronic dance music'. I can sit here and write an overly, but necessary long reply or recommend a couple of books. I'll do the latter, all of them by Simon Reynolds: Generation Ecstasy: Into the World of Techno and Rave Culture; Retromania: Pop Culture's Addiction to Its Own Past. Music history is filled with ambiguities and nebulous, complex definitions that have changed throughout history. What's more, how electronic dance music got from point A to B to C to D to E, and so on and so forth, usually sounds unintuitive to people who listen to mostly only very few music styles. A linear and extremely compressed timeline of electronic (dance) music can probably start as early as Kraftwerk in the early 70s, then NEU! and a lot of so-called 'krautrock', which morphed into things such as Joy Division, who is said to have influenced rave/club culture. Interestingly, the word 'rave' is actually 1960s British slang for modern day-like, club-like loud parties. These loans (both linguistically and musically from all periods in time) remain very common across all of music and makes it even more complex to explain. Anyway, the whole Hacienda club scene influenced club music in the 80s, especially when Ian Curtis died and New Order adopted a sound that allegedly Curtis had already thought of in the late 70s. The Human League shares a somewhat similar music development in the sense that early Human League incorporated more 'rock' elements with 'electronic' ones, and then mostly switched to pure 'electronic' elements. With the help of hip hop (borrowing and sampling music to form their own music), a type of 'explosion' in electronic music occurred. There were some artists already making electronic dance music but it hit mainstream in the early 80s when hip hop started sampling from other artists and using non-traditional (for that time) ways of making music with electronic equipment. You get bands such as Duran Duran to DJs 'mixing' to, basically, C+C Music Factory. Then comes probably the epitome of rave and electronic dance music: UK garage, dnb, 2-step, jungle, etc.; that all-encompassing term 'rave music'. This is probably when every type of electronic and electronic dance music was created and the rest is history. See, the problem is that by the 80s, electronic dance music had already been invented and various locations took those ideas at the same time, so people sometimes emphasise New York (electro), Chicago or Detroit (house), and at the point the music from these places 'sounded' more like what we relate to 'house music' now, many other places (in the UK, especially) were doing the same thing. If we look back at Chicago and Detroit before this time, they still had house, but it sounded like funk or disco or dance music with upgraded gear. In other words, it was funk, disco, or dance music using more electronic sounding equipment that we now equate to an '80s sound'. It wasn't electronic music using dance elements. It was dance music using electronic elements. The funny thing about the States is that in the 90s, electronic music switched to a mainstream emphasis. There were still raves in the States, interesting DJs, and a thriving club scene, but it was underground. The American 90s were characterized by the rise of underground 'indie music'/'rock'/'grunge'/'alternative' music. As much as I hate to admit it (because I don't like them), but Nirvana is a good example of this, as are bands such as Pavement, Sonic Youth, Soundgarden, and Alice in Chains. If that makes sense.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
moe 15y ago
In their defense, today's euro-trash is slightly better produced which makes it a little(!) more bearable. E.g. they largely got rid of the infamous "scooter kickdrum" (aka "poland kick") that was the hallmark of the 90s standard template. Still I agree. It's often a little embarrassing when americans suggest electronic music these days (for us euros that is - we should really pay more attention to what material we leak overseas...).
MisterMerkin 15y ago
Please enlighten us as to what's the thing now and any internet radio stations playing it. I'm always curious as to what's current elsewhere.

driverdan 15y ago

This happens with every genre of music. When it's young it's well known in the area it starts. As it spreads the new areas tend to lag. As popularity grows the genre changes and people who knew about it since it was young bitch about how going mainstream killed it.

JonnieCache 15y ago
What you are saying is true. However that's not really my point. Firstly, I've never liked trance, so I'm not trying to defend my pet genre from infiltrators. On the contrary, I thought I'd seen the back of it ten years ago, outside certain areas of continental europe. then, suddenly, it's the thing in the US. Now, the united states has always had its own rich history of electronic dance music, indeed they invented it. Pretty much all electronic music from the last 30 years worldwide is derived from Detroit techno and Chicago house. That lineage has continued unbroken in those places to this day, yet that type of dance music has never really attained popular success in its own country. So, why is this form of very continentally-european music suddenly achieving populaity in what is actually its distant ancestral home? And why now? These things usually lag about three to five years as you say; trance has been a creative cul-de-sac for at least four of those cycles. The stateside rise of dubstep and electro house makes more sense to me: it's a substitute for nu-metal and radio rock. Trance, as I say, is an absolute non sequitur.
- keypusher 15y ago
  Because the electronic wave of the 90's/00's was completely missed by most Americans, and it has just taken that long to break into the cultural mainstream here. Radio friendly DJ's who promoted their brands to the masses such as Oakenfold and Tiesto were a big factor, but it is also generational. For instance, my friends and I were pretty into the late 90's electronic scene in the NE US. We loved trance, progressive, house, jungle, dnb, breakbeat, and adored the ambient/experimental stuff as well. At that point though it felt like almost everything great was coming out of Europe and we were regarded as weirdos at school for being into this music. However, some of us had younger siblings, and cousins. And they grew up looking up to someone they though was cool and loved this music. So they thought it must be cool too, and showed their friends. At the same time, many of the people I grew up with were graduating college and started to work, and putting their favorite electronic music in advertising and websites and music soundtracks etc. Why didn't it catch on earlier, as it had in Europe? I think much of it had to with American attitudes and policy toward drugs and the control of the record companies on music promotion. The only place you might hear electronic back then was late night college radio or MTV late Saturday night. There was a sense that this was very much dirty underground druggy music, and event promotion was still very much by flyers and word of mouth. That kind of thing will never catch on in the US mainstream, where there needs to be a sexy, familiar face on the posters and TV advertisements.
  - JonnieCache 15y ago
    Thanks, this makes sense. 15 years is about a generation in this context. >However, some of us had younger siblings, and cousins. This in particular fits. The "cool older brother" thing is a perennial motif in the evolution of dance music. The race/class/geography aspects of EDM history are fascinating. First you have upper-middle-class often gay black kids in detroit rejecting the polyrhythms and rowdy attitude of the hiphop and funk around them in pursuit of the perceived sophistication of androgynous european synth-pop. Then this gets picked up by white working class british teenagers who add syncopated hip hop drums and dub bass in pursuit of the street legitimacy of US hiphop and jamaican dancehall. This leads eventually to dubstep, which then gets crossed with stadium rock and exported back to america, to the center of the mainstream. When music makes these geographical leaps it is shorn of its sociocultural context and meaning, leading to the sacking of old sacred grounds and the sanctification of new ones. The acceleration of this cycle in the internet age is fascinating. I'm sure many here will see parallels with the spread of hacker/startup culture. > I think much of it had to with American attitudes and policy toward drugs and the control of the record companies on music promotion ... That kind of thing will never catch on in the US mainstream, where there needs to be a sexy, familiar face on the posters and TV advertisements. All of that has always been true in the UK as well. When rave music started to penetrate the charts at the start of the 90s, that wasn't via involvement from the music industry. Those hardcore tracks were getting in the top 10 purely from ravers going out and buying 12"s in independent record shops, tracks which were pressed and distributed by companies owned and operated by the artists. The huge, often illegal events where people were going to dance to these records were similarly done with no involvement from the music industry, at least at first. The major difference, at least where the UK is concerned, is the impact of pirate radio, which until very recently provided a framework to promote the music, the events and the culture entirely unmolested by the establishment. This in turn is enabled by high population density: more people in your signal footprint, and social housing placed in convenient 20-storey towers on which to mount your antenna. The US's low population density, which you would have thought would make massive unregulated parties in remote locations easy to execute, makes pirate radio broadcasting uneconomical and unviable. Again, one could draw interesting comparisons to the communities based around local BBSes and how that changed with the spread of internet access.

muyuu 15y ago

I think it's mainly because of the availability and popularity of very easy software to slap together something in your own computer. The influx of new people playing with sound loops and their close networks, basically.

kafkaesque 15y ago

Hm. There is quite a bit of misinformation (I like to think it was done unintentionally) that your comment caused when people replied to you. The biggest one being that the US 'invented' 'electronic dance music'. I can sit here and write an overly, but necessary long reply or recommend a couple of books. I'll do the latter, all of them by Simon Reynolds: Generation Ecstasy: Into the World of Techno and Rave Culture; Retromania: Pop Culture's Addiction to Its Own Past. Music history is filled with ambiguities and nebulous, complex definitions that have changed throughout history. What's more, how electronic dance music got from point A to B to C to D to E, and so on and so forth, usually sounds unintuitive to people who listen to mostly only very few music styles. A linear and extremely compressed timeline of electronic (dance) music can probably start as early as Kraftwerk in the early 70s, then NEU! and a lot of so-called 'krautrock', which morphed into things such as Joy Division, who is said to have influenced rave/club culture. Interestingly, the word 'rave' is actually 1960s British slang for modern day-like, club-like loud parties. These loans (both linguistically and musically from all periods in time) remain very common across all of music and makes it even more complex to explain. Anyway, the whole Hacienda club scene influenced club music in the 80s, especially when Ian Curtis died and New Order adopted a sound that allegedly Curtis had already thought of in the late 70s. The Human League shares a somewhat similar music development in the sense that early Human League incorporated more 'rock' elements with 'electronic' ones, and then mostly switched to pure 'electronic' elements. With the help of hip hop (borrowing and sampling music to form their own music), a type of 'explosion' in electronic music occurred. There were some artists already making electronic dance music but it hit mainstream in the early 80s when hip hop started sampling from other artists and using non-traditional (for that time) ways of making music with electronic equipment. You get bands such as Duran Duran to DJs 'mixing' to, basically, C+C Music Factory. Then comes probably the epitome of rave and electronic dance music: UK garage, dnb, 2-step, jungle, etc.; that all-encompassing term 'rave music'. This is probably when every type of electronic and electronic dance music was created and the rest is history. See, the problem is that by the 80s, electronic dance music had already been invented and various locations took those ideas at the same time, so people sometimes emphasise New York (electro), Chicago or Detroit (house), and at the point the music from these places 'sounded' more like what we relate to 'house music' now, many other places (in the UK, especially) were doing the same thing. If we look back at Chicago and Detroit before this time, they still had house, but it sounded like funk or disco or dance music with upgraded gear. In other words, it was funk, disco, or dance music using more electronic sounding equipment that we now equate to an '80s sound'. It wasn't electronic music using dance elements. It was dance music using electronic elements. The funny thing about the States is that in the 90s, electronic music switched to a mainstream emphasis. There were still raves in the States, interesting DJs, and a thriving club scene, but it was underground. The American 90s were characterized by the rise of underground 'indie music'/'rock'/'grunge'/'alternative' music. As much as I hate to admit it (because I don't like them), but Nirvana is a good example of this, as are bands such as Pavement, Sonic Youth, Soundgarden, and Alice in Chains. If that makes sense.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

moe 15y ago

In their defense, today's euro-trash is slightly better produced which makes it a little(!) more bearable. E.g. they largely got rid of the infamous "scooter kickdrum" (aka "poland kick") that was the hallmark of the 90s standard template. Still I agree. It's often a little embarrassing when americans suggest electronic music these days (for us euros that is - we should really pay more attention to what material we leak overseas...).

MisterMerkin 15y ago

Please enlighten us as to what's the thing now and any internet radio stations playing it. I'm always curious as to what's current elsewhere.