12 MusicWeek 25.05.12 DANCE SPECIAL SECTORFOCUS
WATCH BASS W
Electronic music is enjoying global success like never before in its storied history. Music Week investigates why the genre’s thriving - and how the industry is making the most of it
GENRE BY TIM INGHAM
e’ve all seen the figures. The kids, the stats suggest, are losing interest in paying for music. If they’re
not pirating it for free, they’re streaming it for pittance. And as for UK festival headliners, forget it: that’s a merry-go-round payday for wrinkly legacy artists or the ‘latest’ crop of rock giants – who are all more than a decade old. Simple conclusion: the youth just don’t value
music like they used to, and no-one massive is breaking through anymore. Erm… try telling that to the 65,000 dance-
heads who’ll swarm to see Swedish House Mafia at Milton Keynes Bowl next month. Or the 6.2 million fans who’ve ‘Liked’ rat-tailed tubthumper Skrillex on Facebook. Or the sweaty throng who
BELOW
Deadmau5: The Canadian artist released his first music more than a decade ago
witnessed Swedish House Mafia rule California’s Coachella 2012 – a rock festival fiercely and famously dogmatic about ‘proper’ music. To the ‘overground’ music industry, this
astoundingly gigantic resurgence of electronic music may have come as a shock. In truth, it’s been built on a gradually mutating community; an ever- spawning fanbase who reside in areas largely unknown to the traditional business. But then, that’s always been the dance music way. The scene might no longer rely on illegal
raves or late-night radio to share word of its most exciting cuts – but these days, Beatport, Twitter and online forums play much the same role; teeming with must-share remixes and tomorrow’s floorfillers-in-waiting. “If there was ever one genre of music perfect for
the Facebook generation, it’s electronic music,” says Cream and Creamfields founder James Barton. “Look at Deadmau5 or Skrillex; they’ve grown via social media and their constituency exists online.
He adds: “20 years ago when you had meetings
with managers, they’d say: ‘We got an Essential new tune on Pete Tong’s show.’ Now they say: ‘We’re No.1 on Beatport.’ It’s great being Pete’s Essential tune – he’s a legend – but today’s artists know that if they get a No.1 record on Beatport, it will be picked up by all the DJs and played in clubs. Only then will it hit radio.” Music Week spoke to a cross-section of UK
businesses at the centre of the current dance craze for this feature, and a feeling of happy restraint was prevalent. Most key dance execs have seen mainstream success before, at the end of the Nineties – albeit not on this scale. But they’ve also seen dance go out of fashion at the turn of the Millennium; swept aside in the charts by hip-hop and rock. The electronic music scene’s evolution will be
both mulled and partied over at IMS in Ibiza this week. IMS partner Ben Turner says: “When we
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“[As an electronic artist] you need a fuckin’ theme park - where you AND your music are the theme. Buncha rides, no two the same, some merch, special events, dolphins through
hoops and all that whack shit.” DEADMAU5, AKA JOEL ZIMMERMAN
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