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From My Perspective: The Growth of The Dance Music Scene
There was a time in the very recent past where you could walk into a club and hear nothing but top40 and rap. That was the dance music. Nights with EDM were special nights, usually with less of a crowd, and mostly people twirling glowsticks and dancing around in their big pants and visors. Its been a slow journey. People like myself pushing club promoters to bring EDM events to the mainstream. To incorporate house music into ordinary club nights and yes, we've created something. We've helped to create a genre of music that's led to artists winning Grammy's, we've helped to bring to the masses a genre of music that can be heard on the radio, can be heard in commercials, and in movies. We've helped to create an entire market for Electronic Music because it deserved to be heard. Now in every corner of the US you have hundreds of thousands of dance music fans attending festivals that we could only dream about back in the day. Chicago, Atlanta, Las Vegas, LA, New York, Miami. Yes, these places are acting as a catalyst for an even bigger scene and even more of an enjoyable experience. The sound has gotten bigger, the lights brighter, the people more massive. This has helped to create an electrofying scene that we should all be thrilled to participate in. I for one am glad that our hard-work and efforts have paid off. But there's still work to do.
Going forward my fear is that the corporate conglomerate will take our scene over. It will be even more commercialized causing prices to explode, talent to become comparable to your late 90's boy-bands. Here today and gone tomorrow. You'll encounter dj's who have not put here time in, but due to there financial backing, the ability to put on a big show with less than stellar music, take hold and deteriorate oour loving scene. Although I don't wish this to happen, we can already tell that organziations and media giants are positioning themselves to capitalize even moer on unsuspecting ravers.
Although the music is being brought to the mainstream, the mainstream will attract people not familiar to the ol school vibe that these events and parties used to incorporate. The familiar faces, hugs, and beads, will be replaced with the newest and trendiest fads, and what once was will be no more.
This is not what I envisioned in my effort to attract more people to the scene. What I had envisioned was more outlets for people other thanmyself to hear electronic dance music, and attract more people to our shows. Well, we got what we wanted- sort of.
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