Quote: ' Daft Punk's Thomas Bangalter explained that electronic dance music is having an "identity crisis." He says "It's not moving one inch." ' I don't thin

Quote: ' Daft Punk's Thomas Bangalter explained that electronic dance music is having an "identity crisis." He says "It's not moving one inch." ' I don't think this is fair on electronic dance music at all. sure, if you look in the top 10 singles, it might be quite same-y, but if you branch out into the albums and the world of the sub-genres of electronic dance music, you find a world rich with imagination and experimentation: VNV Nation's album "Automatic" took the futurepop genre and incorporated elements from steam punk and art deco type themes. Whilst still recognisably them, it was a significant break from their previous work. On that theme, steampunk is breaking through, sometimes closer to dark cabaret, other times mixing in diesel/valvepunk elements and turning to the electronic dance scene. Mind.In.A.Box - whilst perhaps THE canonical example of robotic voices in the modern electronic dance scene, they experiment with bringing back the prog - the epic story telling and experimentation. Numerous bands are trying to find a middle ground between hardcore and industrial/futurepop, perhaps most notably Uberbyte. Their latest album, Five Year Plan, divided critics and fans alike by experimenting across many genres and styles. The irony, however, is that the more things change, the more things stay the same. Listen to Utah Saint's first two albums, and you'll hear them creating glitch and futurepop, well before those genres really came into being. A lot of modern dubstep/brostep would actually fit nicely in the middle of a mid-90s Jungle set. So in this respect, Daft Punk are /exactly/ like Apple - merging the best of what has been proven to work (rather than truly innovating), and creating a highly polished product that's finally ready for the masses.