If I see "EDM" one more time…

I get what you’re saying but it is EDM. Whereas techno as in “OMG I lovez techno” is an American misnomer, EDM is the overarching, catch-all term for music made with a computer rather than an instrument and that is produced with the purpose of playing out to a dance crowd. “Techno,” at least in America, is the term used by people who don’t know the music, not EDM.

Is it not the case that ‘EDM’ has become a genre in itself? Whenever I hear people talk about it they’re generally referring to the type of stuff that Guetta / aviici etc. are making. I never hear it being used to describe d&b or dubstep…

I think EDM is better than calling it all “techno” or “house”.

The only people I notice who get miffed at the EDM label are those who feel like they lost their “special individuality” by being lumped into the massive realm of it all.

Just because your favored music gets tossed into an arena with crappy cheese doesn’t mean your music took a step down or is any better/worse than it was.

People see long hair and guitars and immediately think “rock”. Only a few go ballistic and get mad that their deathcore group ended up sharing a “term” with the Jonas Brothers or Poison.

Just love your music and stop trying to fight to be “individual” or “unique”. It’s like I was told with hipsters. The true hipsters don’t run around letting everyone know they are hipsters.

I agree and disagree with D-Jam at the same time 🙂
I agree that if you are passionate about music you should not care and “just do it”.

However there are 2 problems that I think justify a little genre hacking:
1. Everyone wants to be special:
I will try to find that article I once read. It tells that many “extreme” genres (pain industrial, electronic body trance, gothic trash industrial,…) are founded on the principal of lifestyle and being different. Now if people would not know what to call it, they would not be “in on the crowd”. I agree this has nothing to do with music, only with the fact of “being a special snowflake”, but it comes with the deal and many people come to such events because of being different rather than their love for that extreme music genre. Now you can argue that EDM is far from extreme, which I agree (in most cases) which brings us to prolem 2….

2. Common language:
Speaking (or writing) to one another in the same language can be very difficult even if you know all the meanings of all the words. Now with things we are passionate about meaning can turn. Now if I would simply tell you “well I play house a lot” you could possibly identify a direction I will prolly play, but I guess I could really surprise you what house can be (hey Guetta says he plays house…). So you have to get more specific if we are talking to people who know about it and again different to people who possibly do not even know what house is… EDM is just a term that is easily explained and that includes many genres. However many people will also misunderstand it because basically all you tell with the term is that “it is music that you can dance to and mostly played by electronic/computer instruments”. So the worst that can happen you talk to a club manager, tell him “well I play EDM”, he hires you on the basis of his understanding of EDM and during your gig he fires you, because of wrong expectations…

Honestly, if giving it a cute buzzword helps turn people on and start loving the music then I’m all for it. “Techno” always sounded cheap to me, and if I used the word “Jungle” or “Breaks” I had to spend 20 minutes explaining it. Let them get turned onto this “EDM” they hear about then progress to finding the different styles.

Perhaps it’s for the best anyway, I fell away from electronic music for a few years but naturally gravitated back. It’s impossible to keep up with the insane amount of sub-genres that have sprung up in interim.

Nobody’s mentioned another big plus of the EDM term: distinguishing EDM from other genres of danceable music. Some people might only dance to Raggae, Polkas or World Music. Bob Marley and King Sunny Ade definitely ain’t EDM.

Personally, I like EDM as a catch-all. DJ-Quantum, you have it pretty much right. If people want to get more specific they can call it house, breaks, etc.