Do you feel people are getting tired of electronic music?

[Procyon]

I mean, electronic music in general, every subgenre and styles? I have this experience I want to tell you: some guys kept asking me to play electronic music in our lounge bar. As our trademark sound is chill-out, new age and ambient, I kept refusing to play uptempo music. But in order to please everyone, I decided that on Thursdays we would play electronica exclusively. I flyed up, paid Facebook promos, invited DJs of every genre. The first night was OK, a good crowd. But as the weeks went by, fewer and fewer people came to the electronic nights. I again, flyed up and paid FBs ads, and DJs involved practically demanded their friends to come. To no avail. So last Saturday a friend of mine told me: I can't stand electronic music anymore, no matter what genre. He said he's returning to heavy metal after years of house, techno, psy. Also, last Thursday, I killed the electronica night by replacing it with an event called REMEMBER NIGHTS, when we play hits of the 70s, 80s and 90s. It was our best Thu in months.

 

I don't know if this is a local thing, that is happening only in my city (other bars have also dropped their electronic nights), but the feeling I have is that electronid music will become a niche music in the next few years. What do you think?

 

For those who are going to say: invest more in deco, sound system, etc...it was all done.

[Veracohr]

Anyone can get tired of something, especially if they exclude alternatives. I'd say it's more an individual thing. I, personally, have continued to listen to other types of music even as I've gotten more into electronic music, so I don't get as tired of it.

 

Or maybe your parties didn't change enough to keep people interested? It can also be a seasonal thing; people don't necessarily want to do the same thing week after week after week. They could come back months down the line if you were to try the same thing again.

[radi6404]

It highly depents on the country you are living I would say. Because here in Bulgaria, Macedonia, Serbia and Germany, the countries I know stuff about electronica is liked like several years earlier. The Macedonian Antenna 5 radio plays house and other electronica regurarely and many other radio stations do. When I go out and listen to the music in the centre, many café´s play electronc music without vocals and singing, so I have really not noticed any declining of electronic music. Nor did I notice any grooth of electronic music in the last 5 - 6 years. When you own a café you have to care what you rcostumers want to listen and most importantly you have to choose a very varried collection of electronic music in order to please them. Normal electronic music is not that varried anyway because it lacks of melodies and changing synthlines, which is why I think the electronic night could have been better with some very good electronic music from the goa and psy genre. There is enough of music in that genre without psychedelic melodies and it represents the best electronic music in my opinion. Very varried filtersweeps and interesting percussion make the track sound changing even without having a lot of melody.

 

That is also the thing that probably annoys people in electronic music anyway, the mnotony that comes with it. Many tracks are just a one note bassline, simple filtersweeps and a kick and a clap. That is all and I can`t stand such music.

[ptn]

Speaking about mainstream music I hope some change is coming, look at the success of 'Get Lucky' and 'Blurred Lines' this year. They both of course have some electronics in it, but the sound has mainly retro-organic feel and I'm more than glad, cause pop has became very loud, screaming and unhuman, sometimes simply unbereable, most of the times they're not using the knobs correctly (imo of course ).

 

Focusing on local electronic scene, after d'n'b/jungle fever came breakbeat/dubstep hysteria and now there's everything and nothing depends of the week/month.

[needle ninja]

I mean, electronic music in general, every subgenre and styles? I have this experience I want to tell you: some guys kept asking me to play electronic music in our lounge bar. As our trademark sound is chill-out, new age and ambient, I kept refusing to play uptempo music. But in order to please everyone, I decided that on Thursdays we would play electronica exclusively. I flyed up, paid Facebook promos, invited DJs of every genre. The first night was OK, a good crowd. But as the weeks went by, fewer and fewer people came to the electronic nights. I again, flyed up and paid FBs ads, and DJs involved practically demanded their friends to come. To no avail. So last Saturday a friend of mine told me: I can't stand electronic music anymore, no matter what genre. He said he's returning to heavy metal after years of house, techno, psy. Also, last Thursday, I killed the electronica night by replacing it with an event called REMEMBER NIGHTS, when we play hits of the 70s, 80s and 90s. It was our best Thu in months.

 

I don't know if this is a local thing, that is happening only in my city (other bars have also dropped their electronic nights), but the feeling I have is that electronid music will become a niche music in the next few years. What do you think?

 

For those who are going to say: invest more in deco, sound system, etc...it was all done.

Electronic music is a small niche of music in the US. Most people do not like it and I think the younger kids don't listen anymore.

Only people like me who were a certain age in the 1990's still may listen to electronic music.

Europe I guess is the heart of were electronic music is popular with areas connected to Europe by travel being second.

My hobby is production and I know I will never make any sales at it because no one around here likes electronic music, it is like disco from the 70's.

[Shpongled247]

I thought the US had a fairly large dubstep scene? As rubbish as that has become.. :/

 

Australia and electronic music... Hmmm... Not sure your average Aussie bogan even knows what that is apart from extremely commercial pop stuff the radio plays.. Or the really bad club (dubstep included) music they hear once every year when they "get on the pingazz heyyy"... Ugh.. Australia isn't really a burgeoning electronic music centre I don't think. In general, not including psy heads etc..

 

London however I think electronic music is quite popular, in a lot of genres. And "producing" music is still quite a buzzword here.. They have tv shows about it ffs lol.

[Purple Sunray]

For the "classic" electronic stuff like tech-house, techno & co this true here too. Was a hype some years ago, but since than it's declining - even hard to find a mainstream club that only plays this pure electronic stuff whole night on a specific day (yes there are 'electro'-clubs around, but I don't rate em mainstream as it's the same audience you can meet there on any event since years.. )

 

What's played a lot however is this electro-/pop-house stuff. Don't really know what's it name. Still electronic beats, but it's very close the MTV-like-pop. There are lyrics, tracks only last 3min, no spicy themes that cloud upset someone and low bpm. This kind of sounds seems to fit quite good for the Rihanna, Justin Bieber & co listeners.

[Oopie]

There's definitely some insightful thought there, Procyon. I have to admit it; when I was recently organizing a party the 'kid in a candyshop' anticipation was long gone. Not excited the way I used to be. So we held a party on this island. Beautiful place. A year before we were there too, then it was a magnificent event - felt like goa gods were kindly smiling upon us back then.

 

But this time around... oh man. I could tell many reasons why it didn't turn out so well but one in thing in particular caught my attention. There's been a striking change in the communication of people (in their every day lifes) and these psychedelic events are now far from "gatherings" as they're so often promoted. Recently too many parties missed totally the collective, sharing vibe and they manifested more in "a lot of individuals taking drugs in the same place" kind of escapist manner.

 

And as I mentioned, this has some connection to our normal lifes. The way of living is different than it was even just a couple years back. Communicating is so largely moved to virtual reality, that we're beginning to be disconnected in our normal, physical life. LESS STUFF happens irl and that's the thing to be worried about (This is ofc just according to my experience being a Fin by nationality). There's less physical activity and this new way of being is really altering us in the most fundamental way. We're getting lazier and find too much of our attention revolving around virtual world. A world that has no common rules of behaviour, a world that doesn't really expect any standards from you. It drains our souls to be devoid of challenges!

 

So wrap things up a bit, I guess what people feel inside of them - even many of the "electronicados" - is that some sort of popular music with singing is what they really need at the end of the day, these days. In this age of individualism and separation, people rather want music with some strong message of love, feelings...HUMAN music to put it in a nutshell. Not these alienating electronic frequencies that makes us lose ourselves even deeper into our separate worlds.

[Panoptes]

so much good electronica out there its impossible to get bored imo.

Generally speaking people aren't too keen on electronica usually because they hear only certain types.

[laik]

There's definitely some insightful thought there, Procyon. I have to admit it; when I was recently organizing a party the 'kid in a candyshop' anticipation was long gone. Not excited the way I used to be. So we held a party on this island. Beautiful place. A year before we were there too, then it was a magnificent event - felt like goa gods were kindly smiling upon us back then.

 

But this time around... oh man. I could tell many reasons why it didn't turn out so well but one in thing in particular caught my attention. There's been a striking change in the communication of people (in their every day lifes) and these psychedelic events are now far from "gatherings" as they're so often promoted. Recently too many parties missed totally the collective, sharing vibe and they manifested more in "a lot of individuals taking drugs in the same place" kind of escapist manner.

 

And as I mentioned, this has some connection to our normal lifes. The way of living is different than it was even just a couple years back. Communicating is so largely moved to virtual reality, that we're beginning to be disconnected in our normal, physical life. LESS STUFF happens irl and that's the thing to be worried about (This is ofc just according to my experience being a Fin by nationality). There's less physical activity and this new way of being is really altering us in the most fundamental way. We're getting lazier and find too much of our attention revolving around virtual world. A world that has no common rules of behaviour, a world that doesn't really expect any standards from you. It drains our souls to be devoid of challenges!

 

So wrap things up a bit, I guess what people feel inside of them - even many of the "electronicados" - is that some sort of popular music with singing is what they really need at the end of the day, these days. In this age of individualism and separation, people rather want music with some strong message of love, feelings...HUMAN music to put it in a nutshell. Not these alienating electronic frequencies that makes us lose ourselves even deeper into our separate worlds.

good point. also we musn't forget another circumstance, that due to present moral values, other acceptable behaviours, role models, social networks etc. young people tend to feel more special than they should, their ego getting bigger, trying to be cool. well we all think that we are special to some degree but thats what makes us ordinary.

[Padmapani]

i don't know about brazil, but over here electronic music has never been a majority interest (if you exclude pop music, which although in many ways electronic imho focuses on something completely different and just isn't part of the edm family tree). 80s nights or something are (and have always been) immensely popular compared to any edm genre - even those "in" genres like electro house and minimal. but then again any event that's focused on drinking is much more popular than any event focused on music. the one thing that was most popular among the students at university while i was there was called russian something and their advertisements focused more on the size and cost of vodka bottles than on the seeminly random acts that were playing.

 

but yes, electronic music is much less popular than it has been in the past. 5 years ago most young people were still fascinated by the parties, dancing the whole night until sunrise, the drugs and the (seeminly) "wild" lifestyle of the partypeople. nowdays you often hear from people of the same age that they don't want to waste their time with parties and they rather talk about getting a job that pays good money or starting a family. these are 17-20 year olds; in my time in school or in the first years in university not a single one thought like that - even the most conservative ones would have fun getting drunk at rock concerts or dancing to crappy eurodance; sometimes you'd even find otherwise conservative people who'd confess that they love listening to psytrance when stoned. if that trend continues, i predict we will see a new counterculture emerge in 20-30 years consisting of old people rebelling against the conservative youth. i blame the rapid progression towards neoliberalism here. fun isn't what counts, productivity is...

[Trunksan]

Psy was big in Greece up until 2005-ish but I think it's loss in popularity mostly has to do with not many young people getting in the scene... At some parties the average age is 30+, we are the same people as a decade ago, it's logical that most people of this age have families and other responsibillities or are simply not the party animals they were in their early 20s. Also the 6 year recession we are in, definetly plays a huge role.

 

But this thread is about electronic music generaly... Although house and electro is now "mainstream" music around here (POP/Disco with English lyrics was never popular in Greece anyway), there aren't all that many club-trance, techno or progressive events. Again, about a decade ago, there were big events every weekend, now it's limited to smaller more specialized venues with a big event taking place every couple of months and again the age of the people in these events is more around ~30 rather than ~20. It seems the younger generations sticks to mainstream greek Pop and anything beyond that has a limited appeal.

 

Edit:

 

Oppie's post was great... A very nice insight that I've never had...

 

I will be the first to admit that I don't feel the whole gathering vibe, I go primarily for the music, I dance and then leave... most of the time I can't be bothered to socialize.

Edited September 27, 2013 by trunksan

[needle ninja]

I think that in countries where there is a greater % of younger people, electronic will be more popular overall.

In America the space between young people makes it less likely that new music will get passed around.

Physical spacing seems like a big indicator for increased culture spread in general. Countries like UK, Netherlands with high population densities have an advantage in increased awareness of emerging trends and less-than-mainstream culture creation.

Newer electronic music helps to keep the old stereotypes of repetition and 'boring beats' at bay but in America there is no way for people to hear newer music.