Electronic Music and Me

So my experience with electronic music started when I was about 12 years old. Back then all my friends and I used to listen to nothing but dance and trance. I used to own a lot of compiltaion dance cd's such as cream anthems and euphoria. I'm not sure if these compilations are big in the US but back when I was younger they would contain artists like Paul Van Dyk, Darude, Tiesto,Faithless, Paul Oakenfold and others alike. Listening to these artists was alot of fun, you could just turn it up real loud and just enjoy it. It was hypnotic and these tunes would just be embedded in your head for weeks and weeks. A lot of these songs are actualy quite simplistic musically as well, I mean most of these artists are using simple scales to create something entirerly new and interesting. Keeping things simple in music can often be the best at times. My friends and I kind of got serious about buying turntables and stuff but I think it was just a bit of a phase at the time.





As I got older I kind of moved away from the whole dance scene and started listening to a lot of indie alternative. These days a lot of alternative artists are strongly linked with electronic music so I think a lot of what I still listen to is still very electronic. Alterntive bands like the Klaxons, MGMT, the Killers at times (particularly their newest album), Bloc Party, Daft Punk, etc. Some of these bands aren't strictly electronic but a lot of the stuff they produce is heavily digitalized to give it that sound. Judge for yourself,




I think I made this transistion from Dance to this alternative electro genre just from a spectator point of view. Going to see artists like Chemical Brothers or MGMT playing live is just unexplainable really.





Some of the new bands I'm listening to more these days include Ratatat and more Daft Punk. Even listening to some old Paul Van Dyk in class last week also made me realize how big a fan of dance music I still really am. I think its hard to say what I really like about electronic music, I think the fact that it sounds really good at all volumes is big thing for me. There's dance and trance you can turn up really loud and enjoy where as there's quiter stuff like ratatat which you can just have on the backround and relax to. The last two weeks have also given me a greater appreciation for the creativity and flair that goes into creating music electronically. Trying to make a gong sound into electronic music using the frequency programme was something I really enjoyed which just gave me that greater understanding for how impressive some of these artists really are.