What effect does EDM culture have on London clubland? Article
Just reigniting done to death debate no doubt, but an interesting read nonetheless. The Legend that is Terry Farley shared on FB (sorry for the name drop 
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Thoughts? Personally I think it’s a well reasoned and accurate piece.
It’s not often I say this but I agree 100% with that blog, it’s pretty much exactly my view on all this EDM crap - This horrible dayglo McDonalds music will fade eventually and people into real house/techno will just keep on keeping on like we’ve always done.
When I started djing house music wasn’t considered to be cutting edge and fashionable (late 90s), I’ve been through two revivals since then (I remember when there were about 15 records each weekly in the deep house and tech house sections on Juno) and it’s made fuck all difference to what I buy and what I play.
Thanks for replying Jack, twas feeling a little lonely with just virtual tumbleweed for company 
Yep, totally with you. I was pleased to see an article properly tackling this ‘EDM’ bollocks but then thought, actually it hasn’t changed what I do and it will fade - doesn’t stop it grating me in the meantime though.
As much as I despise the current pop EDM, I do believe it’s a good thing. Once it all fades out and most fans move on to whatever the new fad is, those left behind will look deeper into the scene and end up fueling the more ‘underground’ side of house. As much as most of us hate pop, we need it at the same time.
Au contraire imo.
(a) I really like pop music, there’s a lot to be said for a catchy tune and a 3 minute pop song.
but
(b) Dance music doesn’t need it in any way, shape or form, in fact acceptance of dance trends within the mainstream has generally meant the death knell creatively for whatever is being accepted, eg, disco in the late 70s and early 80s, trance in the late 90s.
My love of pop music and my love of dance music have always been mutually exclusive, I didn’t get into one through the other and I don’t think a lot of other people did either.
Shouldn’t have said most of us, rather should have said “I”
[QUOTE]
(b) Dance music doesn’t need it in any way, shape or form, in fact acceptance of dance trends within the mainstream has generally meant the death knell creatively for whatever is being accepted, eg, disco in the late 70s and early 80s, trance in the late 90s.
My love of pop music and my love of dance music have always been mutually exclusive, I didn’t get into one through the other and I don’t think a lot of other people did either.[/QUOTE]
I agree and I don’t. It’s inevitable for something with a strong underground movement to eventually become popular, but I still think we need it. It brings in change, Trance got so popular that a lot of people got tired of it. Same thing happens in other genres of music as well. In the 1980s metal was huge, but then it got so big and so over the top cheese that people started to haaate it, and that brought in change. The same thing just happened to hip hop, it enjoyed over a decade of mainstream popularity until in the last few years it just got so over the top and ridiculous that people got tired of it, and now we have mainstream EDM.
I hope that makes sense, not saying you’re wrong or I’m right it’s just my opinion.
Yeah it does mate. Time for nice, healthy and natural wildfire I reckon.
I hear that! I’m hoping when the glitz and glam fades out, we see a nice and dark movement following it up.
The trick is just to go out and make it happen regardless of whatever fashion says. DIY it motherfuckers, that’s the beauty of dance music It makes me laugh when I see people on here advising people to get the latest and greatest macbook or controller or whatever, like the originators of house or techno had state of the art kit
You can put on a great party with a set of belt drives, a 2 channel mixer with no eq, a couple of spots, a mirrorball and home-made backdrops, a lot of folks forget this.
I hear that man! Simplicity is the best. You don’t need a laptop with 10 midi controllers (even though that’s cool too) to make good music and hold a good party.
The best parties (that I’ve been to) are the ones in a simple smaller room club, with dark lighting and a sound system that blows your face off.
Or just with a lot of hats
Don’t forget the glitter and moustaches
We had a nice feature in Exepose for Fresher’s Week last week -
(admittedly we are slightly more advanced than a couple of beltdrives and a Made2Fade these days )
As someone who got into dance music in the early 80’s and then saw it come back around in the late 90’s I can without a doubt say it will get better and we will continue to thrive regardless of how many dubstep editions of Spin magazine there are.
The final paragraph sums it up very well for me.
So I’m guessing all of you guys are from the US or something? I don’t get this stuff really. I’m from the EU and other then some mainstream EDM being played on the radio we have party’s and raves full of underground techno and house every week, and those are PACKED with people…
at the end of the day, the cream rises to the top. If people are seriously into dance music and have an element of taste, then they will seek out the more refined stuff in each genre. The others will go watch Guetta & deadmu5. If that keeps them away from where I go, then thats fine by me.
Well bugger me with a fish fork! Exepose, as in University of Exeter?!! I graduated in 99, used to help put on uni nights (RAG, Safer Sex Ball, Guild, Lemmy etc) as well as my own nights at Timepiece. Reform Records was my 2nd home! Spent most of my student loan in there.
Sold my Soundlab DLP1’s and Made2Fade in the 1st year to finance my 2nd 1210MK2 and Gemini mixer which I’ve still got!
I think most of the replies are from UK based DJs (I certainly am). I agree with you, I think many of us in Europe generally fail to see the excitement of the ‘EDM’ explosion going on in the US - underground dance music has been with us (in Europe) for a couple of decades and we’ve seen the odd mainstream foray such as the late 90’s with UK Garage and Trance at the end/start of the new millenium.
The underground stuff still remains strong here in the UK/EU I believe and will continue to do so after Steve Aoki et al have finished throwing perfectly good Mr Kipling’s jam jarts in to the crowd or whatever it is these EDM guys do.
(shameless self promotion: I’m starting a brand new radio show on Fri 5th Oct 6-8PM (UK) on nu-rave.com - Soulful/Deep/Classic House music)
So, I do not quite see why it took such a long article to answer the question in the title with: “Hardly any.”
To be honest, there are not many cities in the world that are blessed with such a diverse music scene as is London. If you check Resident Advisor’s events for one weekend it’s regularly the case that you have to choose between parties with world-class underground DJs and that’s for any genre. To give you an idea, take the first weekend in October:
Thursday: Carl Cox at Electric Brixton, LCD Soundsystem at fabric, James Zabiela at Xoyo.
Friday: Off Recordings Showcase at Fire, Bar25 Film presentation + party at Village Underground, Shlomi Aber + Agaric at Crucifix Lane Warehouse, Popof at Egg, Hernan Cattaneo at Ministry of Sound
Saturday: Crosstown Rebels Rebellion Rave at The Sidings Warehouse, Bedrock Anniversary with John Digweed, Marc Fanciulli, Amirali, Apparat at Fire, John Tejada at Corsica Studios, Layo & Bushwhacka! at Egg, Matthias Tanzmann at fabric, Toolroom Knights at Ministry of Sound
And that’s just for House and Techno and only the top and upper-middle tier of clubs. Besides that there’s tons of talent spinning at small parties in (particularly) East London (Dalston, Hackney Wick, still some places in Shoreditch) that is only waiting to be discovered.
So I really don’t see why a Londoner would write such an article besides for the fact that every site dealing with electronic music, DJing and anything related has to publish an article predicting the near end of every respectable form of dance music caused by American commercialism.
London is great, so is Bristol, Manchester, Leeds… and so on.
We have loved it since the days of Northern Soul.. ie getting shitfaced to good music played by djs in the context of all nighters.
EDM… should not be a concern for Europe. I now live in Berlin, moved here so i could play out in the underground clubs.. and baby this town rocks!
