The Fall of the Jet-Set Dancefloor: What the Cercle Crisis Teaches Us
For a decade, Cercle was the undisputed poster child of electronic music’s cinematic age. They gave us breathtaking, pristine imagery: Carl Cox at a French château, Nina Kraviz at the Eiffel Tower, FKJ on the Bolivian salt flats. It was high art meets high production, the ultimate translation of electronic music into viral luxury. But…
EDM PR Networks: How They Buy the Dance Music Press
Behind the headlines of major electronic music platforms lies a marketplace dominated by Sponsored Content. If you are an independent producer pitching to commercial EDM PR Networks like We Rave You or EDM.com, you are no longer seeking editorial coverage – you are purchasing space. Curation has been replaced by a commercial real estate market…
Ibizafication: The Enshittification of Dance Culture
The underground is not a product. But, the steady creep of Ibizafication has dismantled our culture’s resistance, transforming the raw narrative of the dance floor into a static, easily packaged commodity. When we look at the current state of our scene, we aren’t seeing a movement; we are seeing a marketplace. Defining Ibizafication Ibizafication is…
The Post-Rational Fallacy in Dance Music: Why Popularity Isn’t a Measure of Quality
In the world of dance music, there’s a specific kind of post-rational fallacy. It has become a standard defense. It’s the belief that an artist like David Guetta, Anyma, or Keinemusik must be good because they’re popular. This isn’t a rational argument. It’s a backwards-facing justification. It is created after the fact to explain a…
Vulgarity in Dance Music: A Dazzling but Empty Experience
The beat drops, the lasers cut through the smoke, and confetti rains down like a glitter storm. This is the vulgarity in the modern dance music experience, a ostentatious, pulsating universe (UNVRS) of overdone sound and spectacle. But peel back the layers of neon and pyrotechnics, and you find a disturbing truth. Dance music’s profit-oriented…
Is Your “Unforgettable” EDM / Dance Music Festival Selling You a Lie?
The allure of massive EDM / Dance Music festivals is often advertised through the sheer scale of attendance. Hundreds of thousands of people gather. Big-name headliners have massive social media followings and popular Spotify streams. This popularity is often due to name recognition rather than groundbreaking musical quality. Festivals feature over-produced visuals and stage design,…
The Problem with EDM: Unpacking the Commercialization and Whitewashing of Dance Music
The air can feel manufactured, the lights predictable, and the energy, at times, strangely uniform. This is the realm of heavily marketed pop dance music, often lumped under the increasingly diluted label of “EDM.” The genre is undeniably successful in filling stadiums and topping charts. However, a closer look reveals a complex history. It raises…
Underground Techno: Thriving Beyond the Instagram/TikTok Hype of Herd Techno
The homogenization of EDM: How internet algorithms are affecting the genre
The EDM (electronic dance music) scene has exploded in popularity in recent years, thanks in part to the rise of streaming platforms and social media. However, this newfound popularity has come at a cost: the homogenization of the genre. Internet algorithms are playing a major role in this homogenization. These algorithms are used by streaming…
