Exploring outside Top40

[loverocket]

You can't think of "Top 40" and "underground" as binary categories. There are literally dozens of genres that fall under the umbrella of "electronic," and 99% of electronic music would not be considered 'top 40.' It's only in the past five years or so that commercial EDM music became the most popular form of pop music.

So you need to find what it is you like and continue listening to it. Basically there are four broad genres of electronic: house, techno, trance, and bass. Each of these has a bunch of subgenres.

Solomun is deep house, so maybe that's a good place to start for you. Listen to his sets and look up the track lists. Find your favorite songs, see which DJs produced them, and then listen to those DJs. Rinse and repeat.

If you have good taste in music, over time your taste will naturally drift away from what is popular. But don't force it. It has to be organic or you'll end up stop listening to electronic altogether.

I first got into electronic music from a DJ called Grum. His sound is heavily influenced by New Order and indie rock, and I was coming from a rock background. He mentioned Guy J as his favorite (or one of his favorite) DJs a few times, so I checked him out. I thought it was really boring and repetitive music and too mellow. I liked listening to 90's trance because I saw Paul van Dyk around this time and found it really enjoyable to listen to. And some 90's house too (eg Paul Oakenfold). I was exposed to EDM and enjoyed it but then got into Buenos Aires's underground house scene. It was a bit EDMish (lots of Melbourne bounce as this was 2014) but they played mostly unknown music and a lot of local tracks. This music though was only played at after parties...during normal hours (before 7 AM), the clubs would mostly play techno and progressive house with international DJs coming in. I never really liked the music that much, it seemed repetitive and boring and lacking in melody. The drops never satisfied me.

After six months or so of this (but I listened to A LOT of music, as I would go out Friday and come back Monday afternoon every weekend, only sleeping on Saturday afternoons, and went out during the week sometimes, too, only going to electronic parties...I wasn't working at this time, just depleting my savings), I finally went to a techno party that blew my mind. It was this crazy house party off in the countryside with insane drugs and this one (local) DJ that absolutely destroyed it. I had never heard anything like it before. And since then, I've never looked back. I'm horrible with DJ names when it comes to techno or deep house, but I've gotten into progressive house. Upon returning to listening to Guy J, I discovered that he's the world's best DJ/producer, IMO. So I listen to him and similar DJs (Guy Mantzur, for example) and then find other DJs from their sets and listen to that music.

Hope this helps.

So you checked out Guy J and he sucked. Then you did drugs and listened to him and it was awesome???

[dolcem]

So you checked out Guy J and he sucked. Then you did drugs and listened to him and it was awesome???

Precisely!

I'll never forget the time I saw him live. I candyflipped and it was absolutely glorious. Probably the best set I've ever heard. I'm going to do the same in three weeks time after he plays here and Guy Mantzur (literally my second favorite DJ) opens for him...it's going to be Hiroshima times ten.

For the record I love listening to him sober now, too, and I completely stopped listening to mainstream house. But I guess it's just as my dad says, "Doing drugs opens doors that you can't close." Not that I wasn't on drugs in my early days when I was still listening to mainstream house, but if you do enough drugs and listen to the music long enough, that techno/progressive house stops sounding boring and repetitive and starts sounding really awesome.

[ImNotDedYet]

find record labels that have releases you like from the sets you've heard great tunes. Research the label - who runs it/owns it? Check out their tunes. Check out the labels that have other releases from the artists you like. Check out the top lists of music on vinyl retailers and RA. (many times vinyl releases wind up out electronically after a few months - if not, consider buying a turntable for vinyl only releases and recording digitally for your sets) Again, research other releases from the artists and labels. Eventually you'll have a nice list of underground stuff.