The rise and fall of musical genres

grindy · 08-05-2015, 07:52 AM

Does anyone know what the current situation with EDM is?
In the 90s techno was huge, when I was in my late teens/early twenties it was all about Jungle/DnB and House. Last trend I consciously witnessed was dubstep.
Is there a leading genre nowadays? Or is it pretty much fractured by now?

EPOCH6 · 08-05-2015, 09:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by grindy

Does anyone know what the current situation with EDM is?
In the 90s techno was huge, when I was in my late teens/early twenties it was all about Jungle/DnB and House. Last trend I consciously witnessed was dubstep.
Is there a leading genre nowadays? Or is it pretty much fractured by now?

I've thought about this a lot too and it seems that with electronic music, since being mostly instrumental it doesn't really lend itself as significantly to particular subcultures, the popularity of subgenres over time seems to be dependent moreso on the actual sounds and production techniques used. Reese bass is extremely popular right now, so the dominant subgenres in electronic music are the genres that utilize it the most; Glitch Hop, Neurofunk, Electro-House, Dubstep etc. High hat trills and big synth stabs are also really popular right now so Trap is huge.

Aux-In · 08-05-2015, 11:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by grindy

Does anyone know what the current situation with EDM is?
In the 90s techno was huge, when I was in my late teens/early twenties it was all about Jungle/DnB and House. Last trend I consciously witnessed was dubstep.
Is there a leading genre nowadays? Or is it pretty much fractured by now?

Progressive house and dubstep seemed to have been popular from about 2007-2012 or so, but both those genres have given way to a lot of electro house (either the commercial radio stuff or the festival-type sound -- two very different sounds), as well as future house, deep house and trap. Deep house being somewhat of a '90s revival thing in some respect and future house being deep house on steroids. Maybe some trance too with artists such as Armin van Buuren, Gareth Emery, etc. David Guetta, Zedd and Pitbull do more house music, just to give examples.

I subscribe to over 20 YouTube channels as well as listen to other outlets such as Pandora, and I'd say that most of the genres are represented as if there's been no shift in anything, but that's from an underground perspective and is determinate based on my individual preferences and which artists I did or did not seek out on my own. When it comes to the mainstream stuff, it is more like what I mentioned in my first sentence IMO. If you're wanting an analysis by charts, I can respect that, but I never look at them so I can't give a further analysis based on that. I'd say that house -- when including all its variants -- is ruling at the moment.

TechnicLePanther · 08-05-2015, 09:04 AM

Dang, those kids be dissing jazz? They probably just never heard Kind of Blue.

EPOCH6 · 08-05-2015, 09:46 AM

The prominence of particular genres is very much tied to the prominence of particular subcultures, and the rise and fall of subcultures is very much tied to historical events. Listening to the most significant and successful albums of an era often feels like a bit of a history lesson, whether the music is directly addressing the events of the times or the mood simply reflects the general paradigm of the era, it acts as a sort of window into the overall mentality of that time.

I think approaching old music with this in mind really enriches the experience. Don't compare it to modern music or some standard you have built up listening to other genres, listen to it for what it is and what it's trying to say. Listen to the tone of the instruments and the production quality and realize that those sounds were the limits of what was possible at the time. Imagine what it must have it must have been like in the 60's to hear distorted amplifiers for the first time, how powerful and visceral it must have been to hear even a single note ring out with that edge to it. Or how mind boggling and sinister the first Black Sabbath album must have been, seeming to come out of nowhere with this atmosphere never touched before in popular music. Chuck Berry was revolutionary for youth music, Jerry Lee Lewis was a ****ing demon, Duke Ellington was a wizard.

Micco · 08-05-2015, 01:37 PM

Hip-Hop started in 79', it was being majorly pioneered in all aspects through 79' to around 86' then from 87' to a little after 94' is what is considered the Golden Era im which the Highest quality music came out of, from 94' to 00' it was good but becoming gradually more and more commercialized and is also the time when Master P and his record label got highly successful and Southern Hip-Hop started to dominate the scene, from 00' to around 07' Hip-Hop de-evolved into Rap and became extremely commercial and RnB thugs and nightclub rappers became the forefront and Emcees hardly existed on a successful front, from 06' to now rap has become an almost entirely different type of music sounding nothing like anything previous with the likes of the artists on the scene. Hip-Hop is still around but only in the cracks of the music scene and is mostly underground, so it's death started in the early 2000's and is gradually happening and everything becomes more commercialized, although the fan base for Oldschool Hip-Hop is growing so maybe in coming years there will be a resurgence in Hip-Hop oriented style of rap music.

DwnWthVwls · 08-06-2015, 09:05 AM

I think I've had this argument with William before but I feel like Rap as a genre is at an all time high (or peaked in the last ~10 years). It's made it's way into multiple genres and is having more mainstream success than I ever remember. You could argue it's not nearly as "good" as the Golden Era, but it's more commercially successful.

Black Francis · 08-06-2015, 10:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DwnWthVwls

I think I've had this argument with William before but I feel like Rap as a genre is at an all time high (or peaked in the last ~10 years). It's made it's way into multiple genres and is having more mainstream success than I ever remember. You could argue it's not nearly as "good" as the Golden Era, but it's more commercially successful.

I agree, the beats now are way better too.
The evolution of rap has amazed me, they changed the tempo and groove of it and they are still trying to find new ways to keep innovating on the genre.

William_the_Bloody · 08-07-2015, 01:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DwnWthVwls

I think I've had this argument with William before but I feel like Rap as a genre is at an all time high (or peaked in the last ~10 years). It's made it's way into multiple genres and is having more mainstream success than I ever remember. You could argue it's not nearly as "good" as the Golden Era, but it's more commercially successful.

Yes you have lol, but it is not aimed at rap, but rather all musical genres in general. Anyhow I disagree, I think we hit peak rap back in the early 00's when rap utilized through R&B completely dominated the pop charts, but the landscape of pop music has been changing over the last few years with the ascent of Lady Gaga in other artists. Don't get me wrong, rap is still immensely popular and will be for most likely the next two decades, but I do feel it has hit its peak, and I think time will bear that out.

**Janszoon** · 08-07-2015, 06:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DwnWthVwls

I think I've had this argument with William before but I feel like Rap as a genre is at an all time high (or peaked in the last ~10 years). It's made it's way into multiple genres and is having more mainstream success than I ever remember. You could argue it's not nearly as "good" as the Golden Era, but it's more commercially successful.

My understanding is that its popularity has been in decline over the past decade or so.

08-05-2015, 07:52 AM	#1 (permalink)
grindy . Join Date: Oct 2014 Location: . Posts: 7,201	Does anyone know what the current situation with EDM is? In the 90s techno was huge, when I was in my late teens/early twenties it was all about Jungle/DnB and House. Last trend I consciously witnessed was dubstep. Is there a leading genre nowadays? Or is it pretty much fractured by now? __________________ *A smell of petroleum prevails throughout.*

08-05-2015, 09:04 AM	#4 (permalink)
TechnicLePanther and the livin' is easy... Join Date: Jun 2015 Location: New York Posts: 1,997	Dang, those kids be dissing jazz? They probably just never heard Kind of Blue. __________________ Many have tried to destroy it... but... true evil never dies. It is only... REBORN *SUGGEST ME AN ALBUM* - I'm probably not going to listen to it but I will if you bother me enough.

08-05-2015, 01:37 PM	#6 (permalink)
Micco Karaoke Crooner Join Date: Jan 2015 Location: Denver, CO Posts: 170	Hip-Hop started in 79', it was being majorly pioneered in all aspects through 79' to around 86' then from 87' to a little after 94' is what is considered the Golden Era im which the Highest quality music came out of, from 94' to 00' it was good but becoming gradually more and more commercialized and is also the time when Master P and his record label got highly successful and Southern Hip-Hop started to dominate the scene, from 00' to around 07' Hip-Hop de-evolved into Rap and became extremely commercial and RnB thugs and nightclub rappers became the forefront and Emcees hardly existed on a successful front, from 06' to now rap has become an almost entirely different type of music sounding nothing like anything previous with the likes of the artists on the scene. Hip-Hop is still around but only in the cracks of the music scene and is mostly underground, so it's death started in the early 2000's and is gradually happening and everything becomes more commercialized, although the fan base for Oldschool Hip-Hop is growing so maybe in coming years there will be a resurgence in Hip-Hop oriented style of rap music. __________________ Follow me on instagram @HipHopLand, #salute!