Effect of economic and technological trends on dance music phases?

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-- Effect of economic and technological trends on dance music phases?

Posted by MrJiveBoJingles on Apr-27-2008 16:05:

Effect of economic and technological trends on dance music phases?

In the early '90s, the U.S. was experiencing economic growth and Europe was also growing. The Eastern part of Europe was coming out of the fall of communism. Accelerating developments in computer and music technology were taking place.

In the late '90s, economies were still booming, but there was a new facet of this in the "dot com" sector, which experienced enormous growth. Computers and Internet access started playing a much bigger role in the global economy, and these two things also became much more affordable and usable for the general public.

These two stretches of time (roughly '91 - 95 and '98 - '00) are quite often what people cite as the most recent "glory days" of dance music.

Is it merely a coincidence that these social-economic-technological developments and these "flowerings" of dance music happened at the same time? Or is there some kind of connection here?

Can we expect to see some new "glory days" of dance music (or at least a period of time that people will remember as their "glory days") if the world's largest economies start to boom again?

Posted by LionsLair on Apr-27-2008 16:09:

There is no connection to the "glory days" creatively/artistically, the "boom" happened too late to really push dance music creatively...if were talking quality. Commercially sure, it pushed the scene. The main connection creatively/artistically that the "boom" and "technological trends" has had is the current disconnect and likely longterm disconnect from what inspired the "glory days."

Posted by MrJiveBoJingles on Apr-27-2008 16:19:

quote:
Originally posted by LionsLair
Commercially sure, it pushed the scene.

True, and that may be a huge part of why so many people see these as the "glory days," simply because the exposure of the music was growing at the time.

quote:
The main connection creatively/artistically that the "boom" and "technological trends" has had is the current disconnect and likely longterm disconnect from what inspired the "glory days."

Not sure what you mean by that...what do you think inspired the "glory days?" And what is causing the "disconnect," in your view?

Posted by PETRAN on Apr-27-2008 17:06:

I think that it is very simple to explain a major social/musical revolution/evolution in terms of simple dimensions such as economic growth. Thing is that "economic growth" would tend to correlate with numerous other factors making it difficult to trace-down the original cause(s).

My two cents would be that the explosion of dance music in those specific times you state, was more due to numerous social/political factors, including the economic growth and the rapid development of technology, although IMO, economic growth and the rapid development of technology were not the primary causes of this rapid "Bing-Bang-Style" EDM explosion.

For example, the neo-hippie-rave explosion of the first quarter of the 90s could reflect a youth-driven revolution after the European political climate (the cold war which resulted in the fall of the Berlin wall, Margaret Thatcher in the UK, and the whole political climate in Europe etc.) of the 80s. Furthermore, the 1997+ period could reflect the time that the sound of EDM got BIG and more musical, reaching to stadium audiences, giving birth to even more bigger, stadium-music in the process. Ofcourse the development of technology and economic prosperity could provide the "means" to the developments, assisting the evolution of the scene, but IMO, not being essential in itself for such development .