Where exactly chill-out begins and other, more downtempo genres end, is a bit vague. Its bombastic character, minimal melodies and electro-house-style drops lend themselves particularly well to peak-time event slots, which is why it soon became one of the go-to sounds at the mainstages of many of the world’s biggest dance music festivals. Initially a subgenre of electro house, big room started its meteoric rise around the early 2010s through now-renowned acts such as Swedish House Mafia and Martin Garrix.
The term “ambient music” was reportedly coined by English producer Brian Eno, who is widely regarded as a legend within the genre.īig room (or big room house) is one of the newer genres in this list. Ambient surfaced in the 1970s when synthesizers were used to create experimental music. You’ll notice that the popularity gradually shifted from credible (now old-skool) house to the more hands-up, festival-oriented sound (progressive house/big room) once EDM started crossing over into pop culture more.įor a more detailed look into the history of electronic dance music, feel free to read our article titled ‘ The History of Dance Music’.Īmbient music focuses on the atmosphere and tonal textures of music as opposed to rhythm and structure. And now, EDM is one of the most thriving and popular entities in the entire music landscape.Ī great way to measure the popularity of genres within electronic dance music throughout the years is to run through the results of all annual DJ Mag Top 100 polls. Within a next few decades, countless new genres popped up within the electronic dance music spectrum. House music was born, a style of music so infectious it soon spread to the rest of the world. A man called Frankie Knuckles tried to recreate tracks and sounds by fusing various genres, adjusting the tempo and adding percussion. In the 1970s, when the disco era started coming to an end, a similar thing occurred. This certain style of music, which was called dub music, became popular in night clubs and bars and was essentially the first form of electronic dance music, even preceding disco. The artists there tried to create new forms of music by overlapping multiple tracks on reel-to-reel audio tape recorders. Keeping the above definition in mind, we can trace the origin of electronic dance music back to Jamaica in the 1960s. It’s that simple!Ī (BRIEF) HISTORY OF ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC See what we did there? Electronic(ally produced) dance(able) music. Often abbreviated to EDM, electronic dance music boils down to " all music produced electronically for people to dance to". As you may have concluded from the article intro, the definition of electronic dance music is a simple one.