If someone asked me what I thought of electronic music 10 years ago, I probably would laugh and launch into an expletive-laced tirade about how it was a joke and shouldn”t be considered music.
But considerable growth in the quality of electronic music in the last decade coupled with a change in my musical tastes made me revise my opinion.
However, there is one genre of music that I still rant and rave about: pop music.
While the clich?d “unce unce unce” electronica beat is still prevalent, the electronic artists of today are definitely what I would qualify as legitimate musicians.
The artists create their own music, perform at dance clubs and massive festivals the world over, often with a killer light show, and are signing record deals and releasing albums in stores.
The rave culture of the 1980s and ”90s that was full of drugs, sex and violence highlighted in movies such as “Go” and “Party Monster” prove mostly a thing of the past because the music is now mainstream.
Yes, people still go to electronic shows and take drugs and dance. But the drug culture that once surrounded electronic music is vanishing as many artists come out against the use of psychoactive drugs.
I can remember vowing to myself in my teens that I would never like electronic music, mostly because I associated it with hard drug use, also I didn”t see the value in the music because it didn”t seem complex enough.
I began warming up to it about two years ago and I keep finding more and more artists who captivate me with what they can do with a 4/4 time signature.
During the last few years, pop artists began turning to electronic artists to produce tracks for their albums, further entwining the genres.
For the most part pop music artists such as Britney Spears, Rihanna and Lady Gaga are adapting mainstream electronic music with great success.
To be honest, I really don”t have a problem with that because that”s the way modern pop artists function (though Lady Gaga is more an electronic music artist because she writes or co-writes all her own music).
What I have a problem with is boy bands and girl groups that are purely put together for the sake of making money, not music.
While the trend has mostly vanished in the American and European markets, it is flourishing in the Asian countries of Japan and South Korea.
Many “J-pop” and “K-pop” record labels follow the trend by marketing to teens with a constantly rotating cast of young, fashionable and hip groups that know all the latest dance moves and sing songs that tug at the heartstrings.
The syrupy trend has slowly spread to America since the late ”90s, first from Japan and now South Korea.
If you observe any form of news media today, odds are you”ve heard of Korean artist Psy and his mega-hit “Gangnam Style.”
The flashy and humorous music video first hit YouTube on July 15 and now has more than 474 million views, making it among the highest viewed videos on the site.
The song and video are both a celebration of, and sarcastic knock at, K-pop and the culture surrounding the genre.
Psy almost single-handedly brought K-pop to the mainstream.
As I watched a segment on “Nightline” about K-pop and its vaguely boot camp-esque way of auditioning and placing dancers and “singers” into groups such as Girls” Generation, my blood began to boil.
The nine-member girl group was formed by S.M. Entertainment in 2007 and endorses numerous products in South Korea, including Samsung, LG and numerous other Korean companies.
Call me old-fashioned, but that ain”t music to me.
Electronic music has come into the mainstream and with it came artist credibility.
The notable exception to that is in pop music, especially J-pop and K-pop groups that are formed by record labels and are marketed like products.
Music should be about connections, both the connection the artist has to the song he/she wrote and the connection the artist has with the fans enjoying the music.
Anything else is a product.
Kevin N. Hume can be reached at kevin.n.hume@gmail.com or call directly 263-5636 ext. 14. Follow on Twitter: @KevinNHume.
