Electronica

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Electronica is both a broad group of electronic-based music styles intended for listening rather than strictly for dancing [2] [1] and a music scene that came to prominence in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom. [1] In the United States, the term is mostly used to refer to electronic music generally. [3]

Contents

History

Early 1990s: Origins and UK scene

The original widespread use of the term "electronica" derives from the influential English experimental techno label New Electronica, which was one of the leading forces of the early 1990s introducing and supporting dance-based electronic music oriented towards home listening rather than dance-floor play, [1] although the word "electronica" had already begun to be associated with synthesizer generated music as early as 1983, when a "UK Electronica Festival" was first held. [4] [5] [6] At that time electronica became known as "electronic listening music", also becoming more or less synonymous to ambient techno and intelligent techno, and was considered distinct from other emerging genres such as jungle and trip hop. [1]

Electronica artists that would later become commercially successful began to record in the late 1980s, before the term had come into common usage, including for example the Prodigy, Fatboy Slim, Daft Punk, the Chemical Brothers, the Crystal Method, Moby, Underworld and Faithless. [7]

Around the mid-1990s, with the success of the big beat-sound exemplified by the Chemical Brothers and the Prodigy in the UK, and spurred by the attention from mainstream artists, including Madonna in her collaboration with William Orbit on her album Ray of Light [8] and Australian singer Dannii Minogue with her 1997 album Girl , [9] music of this period began to be produced with a higher budget, increased technical quality, and with more layers than most other forms of dance music, since it was backed by major record labels and MTV as the "next big thing". [10]

According to a 1997 Billboard article, "the union of the club community and independent labels" provided the experimental and trend-setting environment in which electronica acts developed and eventually reached the mainstream. It cites American labels such as Astralwerks (the Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim, the Future Sound of London, Fluke), Moonshine (DJ Keoki), Sims, and City of Angels (the Crystal Method) for playing a significant role in discovering and marketing artists who became popularized in the electronica scene. [11]

Madonna and Björk are said[ by whom? ] to be responsible for electronica's thrust into mainstream culture, with their albums Ray of Light (Madonna), [8] Post and Homogenic (Björk).

Late 1990s: American inclusion

In 1997, the North American mainstream music industry adopted and to some extent manufactured electronica as an umbrella term encompassing styles such as techno, big beat, drum and bass, trip hop, downtempo, and ambient, regardless of whether it was curated by indie labels catering to the "underground" nightclub and rave scenes, [11] [12] or licensed by major labels and marketed to mainstream audiences as a commercially viable alternative to alternative rock music. [13]

New York City became one center of experimentation and growth for the electronica sound, with DJs and music producers from areas as diverse as Southeast Asia and Brazil bringing their creative work to the nightclubs of that city. [14] [15]

Characteristics and definition

Electronica benefited from industry advancements in music technology, especially electronic musical instruments, synthesizers, music sequencers, drum machines, and digital audio workstations. As the technology developed, it became possible for individuals or smaller groups to produce electronic songs and recordings in smaller studios, even in project studios. At the same time, computers facilitated the use of music "samples" and "loops" as construction kits for sonic compositions. [16] This led to a period of creative experimentation and the development of new forms, some of which became known as electronica. [17] [18] Wide ranges of influences, both sonic and compositional, are combined in electronica recordings. [19]

Electronica includes a wide variety of musical acts and styles, linked by a penchant for overtly electronic production; [20] a range which includes more popular acts such as Björk, Madonna, Goldfrapp and IDM artists such as Autechre, and Aphex Twin.

Regional differences

The North American mainstream music industry uses the term as an umbrella category to refer any dance-based electronic music styles with a potential for pop appeal. [1] However, United States–based AllMusic still categorizes electronica as a top-level genre, stating that it includes danceable grooves, as well as music for headphones and chillout areas. [21]

In other parts of the world, especially in the UK, electronica is also a broad term, but is associated with non-dance-oriented music, including relatively experimental styles of listening electronic music. It partly overlaps what is known chiefly outside the UK as intelligent dance music (IDM). [1]

Included in contemporary media

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, electronica was increasingly used as background scores for television advertisements, initially for automobiles. It was also used for various video games, including the Wipeout series, for which the soundtrack was composed of many popular electronica tracks that helped create more interest in this type of music [22] —and later for other technological and business products such as computers and financial services.[ citation needed ] Then in 2011, Hyundai Veloster, in association with the Grammys, produced a project that became known as Re:Generation. [23]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Drum and bass</span> Type of electronic music

Drum and bass is a genre of electronic dance music characterised by fast breakbeats with heavy bass and sub-bass lines, samples, and synthesizers. The genre grew out of the UK's jungle scene in the 1990s.

Trip hop is a musical genre that originated in the late 1980s in the United Kingdom, especially Bristol. It has been described as a psychedelic fusion of hip hop and electronica with slow tempos and an atmospheric sound, often incorporating elements of jazz, soul, funk, reggae, dub, R&B, and other genres, typically of electronic music, as well as sampling from movie soundtracks and other eclectic sources.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ambient music</span> Music genre

Ambient music is a genre of music that emphasizes tone and atmosphere over traditional musical structure or rhythm. It is often "peaceful" sounding and lacks composition, beat, and/or structured melody. It uses textural layers of sound that can reward both passive and active listening and encourage a sense of calm or contemplation. The genre is said to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual", or "unobtrusive" quality. Nature soundscapes may be included, and the sounds of acoustic instruments such as the piano, strings and flute may be emulated through a synthesizer.

Intelligent dance music (IDM) is a style of electronic music originating in the early 1990s, defined by idiosyncratic experimentation rather than specific genre constraints. The music often described with the term originally emerged in the early 1990s from the culture and sound palette of styles of electronic dance music such as acid house, ambient techno, Detroit techno and breakbeat; it has been regarded as better suited to home listening than dancing. Prominent artists in the style include Aphex Twin, Autechre, Squarepusher, μ-Ziq, the Black Dog and the later duo Plaid, as well as earlier acts such as the Future Sound of London and Orbital.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Electronic body music</span> Music genre

Electronic body music (EBM) is a genre of electronic music that combines elements of industrial music and synth-punk with elements of dance music. It developed in the early 1980s in Western Europe, as an outgrowth of both the punk and the industrial music cultures. It combines sequenced repetitive basslines, programmed disco rhythms, and mostly undistorted vocals and command-like shouts with confrontational or provocative themes.

Ambient techno is a subgenre of techno that incorporates the atmospheric textures of ambient music with the rhythmic elements and production of techno. It was pioneered by 1990s electronic artists such as Aphex Twin, Carl Craig, The Orb, The Future Sound of London, the Black Dog, Pete Namlook and Biosphere.

Glitch is a genre of electronic music that emerged in the 1990s which is distinguished by the deliberate use of glitch-based audio media and other sonic artifacts.

Tech house is a subgenre of house music that combines stylistic features of techno with house. The term tech house developed as a shorthand record store name for a category of electronic dance music that combined musical aspects of techno, such as "rugged basslines" and "steely beats", with the harmonies and grooves of progressive house. The music originally had a clean and minimal production style that was associated with techno from Detroit and the UK.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Acid jazz</span> Music genre

Acid jazz is a music genre that combines elements of funk, soul, and hip hop, as well as jazz and disco. Acid jazz originated in clubs in London during the 1980s with the rare groove movement and spread to the United States, Western Europe, Latin America and Japan. Acts included The Brand New Heavies, Incognito, James Taylor Quartet, Us3, and Jamiroquai from the UK, and Guru, Buckshot LeFonque and Digable Planets from the U.S. The rise of electronic club music in the middle to late 1990s led to a decline in interest, and in the twenty-first century, acid jazz became indistinct as a genre. Many acts that might have been defined as acid jazz are seen as jazz-funk, or nu jazz.

Downtempo is a broad label for electronic music that features an atmospheric sound and slower beats than would typically be found in dance music. Closely related to ambient music but with greater emphasis on rhythm, the style may be played in relaxation clubs or as "warm-up or cool-down" music during a DJ set. Examples of downtempo subgenres include trip hop, ambient house, chillwave, psybient and lofi hip hop.

Hi-NRG is a genre of uptempo disco or electronic dance music (EDM) that originated during the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Progressive house is a subgenre of house music. The progressive house style emerged in the early 1990s. It initially developed in the United Kingdom as a natural progression of North American and European house music of the late 1980s.

Minimal techno is a subgenre of techno music. It is characterized by a stripped-down aesthetic that exploits the use of repetition and understated development. Minimal techno is thought to have been originally developed in the early 1990s by Detroit-based producers Robert Hood and Daniel Bell.

Popular music of the United Kingdom in the 1990s continued to develop and diversify. While the singles charts were dominated by boy bands and girl groups, British soul and Indian-based music also enjoyed their greatest level of mainstream success to date, and the rise of World music helped revitalise the popularity of folk music. Electronic rock bands like The Prodigy and Chemical Brothers began to achieve a high profile. Alternative rock reached the mainstream, emerging from the Madchester scene to produce dream pop, shoegazing, post rock and indie pop, which led to the commercial success of Britpop bands like Blur and Oasis; followed by a stream of post-Britpop bands like Radiohead and The Verve.

Tribal house is a subgenre of house music combined with world music rhythms. It is broadly characterized by elements of indigenous musical percussions.

Psychedelic music is a wide range of popular music styles and genres influenced by 1960s psychedelia, a subculture of people who used psychedelic drugs such as DMT, LSD, mescaline, and psilocybin mushrooms, to experience synesthesia and altered states of consciousness. Psychedelic music may also aim to enhance the experience of using these drugs and has been found to have a significant influence on psychedelic therapy.

Ethnic electronica is a broad category of electronic music, where artists combine elements of electronic and world music. The music is primarily rooted in local music traditions and regional cultures, rarely relying on global trends of popular music.

Techno is a genre of electronic dance music which is generally produced for use in a continuous DJ set, with tempos being in the range from 120 to 150 beatrates per minute (bpm). The central rhythm is typically in common time and often characterized by a repetitive four on the floor beat. Artists may use electronic instruments such as drum machines, sequencers, and synthesizers, as well as digital audio workstations. Drum machines from the 1980s such as Roland's TR-808 and TR-909 are highly prized, and software emulations of such retro instruments are popular in this style.

Dub techno is a subgenre of electronic music that originated in the early 1990s, blending the repetitive, minimal structures of techno with the echo-laden, spacey production techniques of dub music. It is notable for its deep, atmospheric soundscapes, layers of elaborate basslines, slowly developing musical phrases featuring heavy delay and reverb effects. Vocals are either absent, or inspired by dub and ambient music.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Vladimir Bogdanov; Jason Ankeny (2001). All music guide to electronica: the definitive guide to electronic music (4th ed.). Backbeat Books. p. 634. ISBN   0-87930-628-9.
  2. ↑ Verderosa, Tony (2002). The Techno Primer: The Essential Reference for Loop-Based Music Styles. Hal Leonard Music/Songbooks. p. 28. ISBN   0-634-01788-8. Electronica is a broad term used to describe the emergence of electronic music that is geared for listening instead of strictly for dancing.
  3. ↑ Campbell, Michael (2012). "Electronica and Rap". Popular Music in America: The Beat Goes On (4th ed.). Cengage Learning. ISBN   978-0840029768.
  4. ↑ Levermore, Gary (March 2000). "Attrition reminiscence". Attrition . Archived from the original on 8 October 2006. Retrieved 17 October 2022.
  5. ↑ Gregory, Andy (2002). The International Who's Who in Popular Music 2002. Taylor & Francis Group. p. 466. ISBN   9781857431612.
  6. ↑ International Who's who in Music Popular music. Vol. two. Melrose Press. 2000. p. 429. ISBN   0948875070.
  7. ↑ "Crystal Method...grew from an obscure club-culture due to one of the most recognizable acts in electronica, ...", page 90, Wired: Musicians' Home Studios : Tools & Techniques of the Musical Mavericks, Megan Perry, Backbeat Books Music/Songbooks 2004, ISBN   0-87930-794-3
  8. 1 2 "Billboard: Madonna Hung Out on the Radio". Billboard. VNU Media. July 2006.
  9. ↑ Girl (Dannii Minogue album)
  10. ↑ "Electronica reached new heights within the culture of rave and techno music in the 1990s." Page 185, Music and Technoculture, Rene T. A. Lysloff, Tandem Library Books, 2003, ISBN   0-613-91250-0
  11. 1 2 Flick, Larry (May 24, 1997). "Dancing to the beat of an indie drum". Billboard . Vol. 109, no. 21. pp. 70–71. ISSN   0006-2510.
  12. ↑ Kim Cascone (Winter 2002). "The Aesthetics of Failure: 'Post-Digital' Tendencies in Contemporary Computer Music". Computer Music Journal. 24 (4). MIT Press. The glitch genre arrived on the back of the electronica movement, an umbrella term for alternative, largely dance-based electronic music (including house, techno, electro, drum'n'bass, ambient) that has come into vogue in the past five years. Most of the work in this area is released on labels peripherally associated with the dance music market, and is therefore removed from the contexts of academic consideration and acceptability that it might otherwise earn. Still, in spite of this odd pairing of fashion and art music, the composers of glitch often draw their inspiration from the masters of 20th-century music who they feel best describe its lineage.
  13. ↑ Norris, Chris (April 21, 1997). "Recycling the Future". New York : 64–65. With record sales slumping and alternative rock presumed over, the music industry is famously desperate for a new movement to replace its languishing grunge product. And so its gaze has fixed on a vital and international scene of knob-twiddling musicians and colorfully garbed clubgoers—a scene that, when it began in Detroit discos ten years ago, was called techno. If all goes according to marketing plan, 1997 will be the year "electronica" replaces "grunge" as linguistic plague, MTV buzz, ad soundtrack, and runway garb. The music has been freshly installed in Microsoft commercials, in the soundtrack to Hollywood's recycled action-hero pic The Saint, and in MTV's newest, hourlong all-electronica program, Amp.
  14. ↑ "In 2000, [Brazilian vocalist Bebel] Gilberto capitalized on New York's growing fixation with cocktail lounge ambient music, an offshoot of the dance club scene that focused on drum and bass remixes with Brazilian sources. ...Collaborating with club music maestros like Suba and Thievery Corporation, Gilberto thrust herself into the leading edge of the emerging Brazilian electronica movement. On her immensely popular Tanto Tempo (2000)..." Page 234, The Latin Beat: The Rhythms and Roots of Latin Music from Bossa Nova to Salsa and Beyond, Ed Morales, Da Capo Press, 2003, ISBN   0-306-81018-2
  15. ↑ "founded in 1997,...under the slogan 'Musical Insurgency Across All Borders', for six years [Manhattan nightclub] Mutiny was an international hub of the south Asian electronica music scene. Bringing together artists from different parts of the south Asia diaspora, the club was host to a roster of British Asian musicians and DJs..." Page 165, Youth Media , Bill Osgerby, Routledge, 2004, ISBN   0-415-23807-2
  16. ↑ "This loop slicing technique is common to the electronica genre and allows a live drum feel with added flexibility and variation." Page 380, DirectX Audio Exposed: Interactive Audio Development, Todd Fay, Wordware Publishing, 2003, ISBN   1-55622-288-2
  17. ↑ "Electronically produced music is part of the mainstream of popular culture. Musical concepts that were once considered radical - the use of environmental sounds, ambient music, turntable music, digital sampling, computer music, the electronic modification of acoustic sounds, and music made from fragments of speech-have now been subsumed by many kinds of popular music. Record store genres including new age, rap, hip-hop, electronica, techno, jazz, and popular song all rely heavily on production values and techniques that originated with classic electronic music." Page 1, Electronic and Experimental Music: Pioneers in Technology and Composition, Thomas B. Holmes, Routledge Music/Songbooks, 2002, ISBN   0-415-93643-8
  18. ↑ "Electronica and punk have a definite similarity: They both totally prescribe to a DIY aesthetic. We both tried to work within the constructs of the traditional music business, but the system didn't get us - so we found a way to do it for ourselves, before it became affordable.", quote from artist BT, page 45, Wired: Musicians' Home Studios : Tools & Techniques of the Musical Mavericks, Megan Perry, Backbeat Books Music/Songbooks 2004, ISBN   0-87930-794-3
  19. ↑ " For example, composers often render more than one version of their own compositions. This practice is not unique to the mod scene, of course, and occurs commonly in dance club music and related forms (such as ambient, jungle, etc.—all broadly designated 'electronica')." Page 48, Music and Technoculture, Rene T. A. Lysloff, Tandem Library Books, 2003, ISBN   0-613-91250-0
  20. ↑ "Electronica lives and dies by its grooves, fat synthesizer patches, and fliter sweeps.". Page 376, DirectX Audio Exposed: Interactive Audio Development, Todd Fay, Wordware Publishing, 2003, ISBN   1-55622-288-2
  21. ↑ "Electronica Music Style Overview". AllMusic .
  22. ↑ The Changing Shape of the Culture Industry; or, How Did Electronica Music Get into Television Commercials?, Timothy D. Taylor, University of California, Los Angeles, Television & New Media, Vol. 8, No. 3, 235-258 (2007) Archived 2007-12-03 at the Wayback Machine
  23. ↑ Ed. The Grammys.Hyundai Veloster, The Recording Academy, GreenLight Media & Marketing, Art Takes Over (ATO), & RSA Films, n.d. Web. 24 May 2013. <http://regenerationmusicproject.com/>.

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