Do you think the spirit of rave culture as opposed to club culture is dead? Or could it come back?
“It’s just changed. And I have to be brutally honest here … And this is something that I have wanted to say for a while now. Maybe it’s not a direct answer to your question, but I don’t believe “EDM” is even what we do. Dance music is not the same as house music. Yes, it makes you dance – we all know that! But what I have seen happen in America in the last two years is the explosion of commercial pop-electro-dance music and so many people think it’s the same culture, the same scene as what we do with house and techno, and it isn’t! It so isn’t. Just because they’re both electronic produced tracks does not mean they should exist in the same scene. If I wanted to listen to pop music, I would choose a ballad or a rock song or something that just means something. This electro-pop-dance that all the R&B artists are jumping on is the worst music I have ever heard in my whole life – cheap, no soul, no meaning. [It’s] only made to make money. I don’t even like calling what we do dance music, because some people think it’s a part of that. What we do is house and techno, and it does have a meaning and a feeling. Just as it’s always been, and just how it will always be for us that love house music”. Steve Lawler
I totally agree…but I also think house/techno is going that way too. With music being digital, its easy for anyone to come up with tracks, unlike the days of vinyl!
Alot of todays music regardless of genre is beginning to sound the same!
I mostly thought this was just a “back in my day” kind of perception and I didn’t realize quite how true this is until I listened to a bunch of 90s pop recently… it was certainly still cheesy, but at the very least you knew the difference between artist A and artist B. Now with the incredible accessibility to methods of production and distribution no one even tries anymore - its too easy to make money just copy and pasting track after track.
Throw together an untze, some pitch bent electro lead and a vocal loop about partying/drinking/fucking (maybe stopping every once in a while to instruct the listeners to raise their hands), and you just might top the charts this week… but only if you have 20 million twitter followers!
Steve Lawler is not my favorite house DJ, but he’s a lot of fun. I have very good memories of him in Atlanta a few years ago. It was one of the last times I saw my then girlfriend…we broke up not long after. He obviously has a tremendous passion for what he does, and he’s one of the youngest of the “intense, focused” type of DJ epitomized by people like Sasha who are more into listening to their own music, making a good night, and doing a good job than the more modern, dance around and headbang while redlining the mixer type crowd.
I look forward to seeing him again.
The only reason “EDM” is in my vocabulary is because “house, techno, breaks, trance, and hip hop” is a lot longer…and most people don’t actually know what any of those are.
Steve is right. There is a new culture of younger people at clubs that have no respect, perspective or knowledge of dance music culture. You’ve got scantily clad girls covered in self tanner & fratboy jocks who just wanna “RAGE” all night. Even most of the djs catering to them would not be able to play if it were not for technological advances in music software allowing anybody to seamlessly blend a couple songs together.
Taste is subjective and therefore irrelevant to the issue. The only time it rears it’s ugly head is when i’m dealing with some douche who hasn’t been around long enough to realize nobody wants to hear his requests.
No offense intended here either but “EDM” was an Acronym coined by the “Hipster-Doofus” Generation to encapsulate music they didn’t understand into a nice neat package.
those categorizations are boring. and old. it’s not about “underground” techno/house vs. “commercial” EDM. there is no simple relationship between popularity and quality of music. also, interesting music can come from any genre.
i have this t-shirt from a few years ago that neatly sums up what i would reply to mr. lawler: