Is America killing dance music?

Short answer: No. America is not killing dance music.

In fact, I doubt that the developments in the States had much impact on the electronic music scene outside of the US. The only “evidence” in the Article, that there’s some effect is his Sander Van Doorn anecdote and I don’t see how is representative at all. Things might be different for other regions and genres, but from a house music perspective in Europe, things are not nearly as bad as they might seem… in fact there are some exciting things happening right now.

Take for Instance Resident Advisor’s Interview with Solomun about his Diynamic Residency in Ibiza. I highly recommend reading the whole interview, but here are some of the most interesting quotes:

About Ibiza:
“I was not so into the Ibiza thing, to be honest. I had only played one or two times the last three years there, and I didn’t find it so interesting. […] Last Year I was playing [at Sankeys], and it was not finished. [But] I was very impressed because I had a feeling it was the very frist club in Ibiza that I saw that was more like an underground club. It’s also, for me, a very fresh club. It [really] opens this year – not last year. So we thought this could fit together, these two new brands on the island.”
About lots of “underground” people doing things there this year:
“Yeah, the word I heard last weekend the most on Ibiza was “change”. A lot of different people asked me if I can play this year and looking around you can see that there are so many new things happening now. We are not the only ones who are doing something new here.”
About having Lucy Pearl’s 80s Track Don’t mess with my man in his Watergate Mix:
“Yeah, it’s a mainstream pop track, but I Know sometimes when you drop it in the right time in a set that people go crazy. Nowadays I have a feeling you have more space. You can feel free to do that. It’s not like before – a couple of years ago or longer – where you have to check, ‘Oh, I’m not able to play more than two tracks with vocals…’ “

Also I think that Americans have got that festival thing all wrong. At least whit Electronic Music. This might have to do something with the American “clubbing culture” (If you want to call it like that), that Richie Hawtin criticized recently. It’s not like that there aren’t any examples of EDM festivals that manage to combine Mainstream with Underground. The best example is probably Belgium’s Tomorrowland where the Big Artists play prime-time shows on the Mainstage while underground labels showcase their talent on smaller stages around that. In the best case, People new to EDM decide to visit a festival like that for the main acts and then get dragged deeper into the fascinating world that is Electronic Music. And Tomorrowland is not that special in Europe, if you check out Barcelona’s Sónar or Melt! in Germany.

Again, I don’t know how the situation is in other parts of the world, but for Europe I don’t really see a threat for dance music culture.

My answer is no…its always been this way…the underground will always be the underground and the mainstream will be the mainstream…and at times they overlap……this should be accepted as we are and dance music is part of a capitalist system that relies on creativity and cross-fertilization, sometimes results are bad and sometimes they are great, its about longevity, the ‘underground’ has endured and it will continue to do so…..