The realm of electronic music is a central part of my life and I often find myself in debates about the validity, stability and value of the genre and culture as a whole. These debates often stir up a basket of mixed emotions in me and I can never really find the words to differentiate what’s going on in the mainstream and what made me fall in love with electronic music as a kid.

This was taken from a couple of my friends on Facebook who shared this on their news feed. It’s a quote from Steve Lawler that I think just embodies everything I’ve ever tried to say about electronic music and its culture and what it’s become and what it never will be.

Steve Lawler couldn’t have said it any better…

Do you think the spirit of rave culture as opposed to club culture is dead? Or could it come back?

Lawler: 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.

(Side Note: Alfredo Macias is the person who originally posted this on his feed, I then took it from Kassia)

  1. musicloveandsun posted this