How Rave Music Conquered America
/Simon Reynolds wrote an excellent article about the history of EDM in America and how we got to this point of popularity. Here are some points that I found interesting:
While festivals like Electric Daisy Carnival have amplified the fantasy and fancy dress side of 90s rave, other sectors in the resurgent scene have gone in the opposite direction, concentrating on the music. Hard Festival's Richards wanted to lose the "goofy fashion" side of rave that EDC revels in. "Why do we have to dress up like idiots to listen to this music? All those girls in the furry boots, they look like Clydesdale horses!" As "hard" suggests, Richards presents electronic music as modern rock: an old spirit encased in new digital flesh.
There seems to be dividing phisolophies here but overall this battle can only benefit the consumer with more choice and variety of events.
Origins of the term 'Brostep':
A key moment was another widely circulated mix, this time created by the Vancouver-based deejay Excision for the 2008 Shambalaya festival. "Excision isolated the most aggressive, industrial sounding tracks around," says Best. "Nothing but the hardest dubstep. People here ate that up."
Meanwhile, many original dubstep believers were recoiling from the rowdy, macho atmosphere that had descended on the scene. "Brostep" was the derisive term coined to discourage the masculinist tendency, mock it out of existence. According to Best, "bro" brings to mind steroid-stacked frat boys and truck-driving dudes into Monster Energy drinks.
I never liked the term brostep and never will. The term is a favourite among internet hipsters who use it to put down whatever dubstep sound they don't like. FYI - the Excision set a few weeks back in Toronto was some of the hardest dancing I've done all year.
Check out the article, it's a long read but well worth the effort.