everyone is electro

Having been following trance music and other electronic genres long before it became mainstream, I find it fascinating it has taken nearly 6 years from the time I started DJ'ing, as a 15year old kid, till now for it to become popular. Not entirely sure what to attribute as the cause for this phenomena. It was only a few years ago it seems urban music genres of rap and hiphop were all that you could find being played at a party. Even the guitar and rock related genres have seemingly lost some of the attention it once had. Electronic music was once simply generalized as "techno" and that was an incredibly derogatory term intended to deliver a sense of scorn to the stereotyped "alternative" crowds that listened to it. It was clear in one of Eminem's tracks that "nobody listens to techno".

Only 4 years ago when I was a freshman in college, the only music you would hear at a college party was all the "bumping 'n grinding" stuff. In only 4 years every single house party blasts electro and claims to emphatically be obsessed with Deadmau5, even though they probably only heard of Deadmau5 last night at some "techno" party they tried E at. Throughout my college experience, the only thing I could come to assume influenced this change, were changes in habits/practices of substance abuse. Ecstasy has definitely become a far more popular choice of drug, and the mass delusional association of that to the music is one speculation I have for electro's rise in status.

However, that really is only one aspect. When mainstream pop-stars like Kanye West rip off Daft Punk, Lady Gaga has beat mashing and Usher bases his little come back career on electronic tracks, you know something bigger is happening. Perhaps Lincoln Park's collaborations with a DJ were somewhat ahead of the times or forewarnings of future trends. Part of their role in this progress was also perchance the rock collaborations with rap music. Some speculation could analyze this is like many a other trends that come from Europe, such as what happened with Rock & Roll and is often the case with fashion. What ever it is, cultures and musical genres mixed and mashed and now there is predominately electronic pop music in the United States.

Is this a sign of a technocracy take over? Is it just a fad or trend? I think a little bit of both. Not entirely sure where music or society is going, but considering how civilization itself is becoming ever increasingly electronically orientated, it should be no surprise that so is our music.