Delving into EDM: An Insightful Journey through the Evolution of Electronic Dance Music with Magnus Erin

Can we summarize what the subgenres of EDM are?

There are many of them. Techno, trance, drum&bass, dubstep, house music, electro house, brosteps, ambient, hardcore, speed garage, acid house, acid techno, italo house, trip hop. And each of these directions has other sub-directions. Very often people discuss about it – what one person thinks is dubstep, another associates it with a completely different direction. For example, Skrillex’s 2010 album “Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites” is still called dubstep, but the sound on this album contributed to the formation of a new subgenre that we know today as brostep. Music perception is subjective, just like taste in art. All of this has been collectively referred to as electronic dance music, or the acronym EDM, since about 2010, but in this forest of sounds, polyphony reigns, figuratively speaking. People who say they don’t like EDM often have no idea that they enjoy listening to any form of EDM.

Today, EDM is closely intertwined with the radio and some of the European and American charts are filled with EDM hits as well. These are words we all know well. When did EDM break into the radio and actually become part of the modern sound?

It happened in the 2000s. David Guetta, Tiesto, Martin Solveig, Daft Punk, Chemical Brothers have been a big influence here.

This music gradually moved from the club niche to daytime radio airwaves. It was paving the way for EDM to come.