It has always been a common misconception that all electronic music fans are “druggies”. That every electronic music show is some type of rave where no one is sober, and they all just jump up and down to the beat of the music until the break of dawn. Now, any sane person would pass this off as a ridiculous stereotype of an entire music community, but modern news media has a way of displaying the very worst of a group and nothing more. However, when talking about electronic music with many people who do not have much knowledge about this music culture, it still seems as if this stereotype plagues the genre to this day. When the acronym EDM (which stands for Electronic Dance Music) started becoming a term used as genre itself in the late 2000’s,…show more content… While EDM and electronic music are often lumped together under the same stereotype, the differences in setting, individual performances, and purpose of the music shows the differences and reasons why EDM and its poor reputation should be separated from the rest of electronic music.
If attending a festival for the first time, the amount of drug use that occurs may come as a bit of a shock, but there have been plenty of news headlines over the years about overdoses happening at festivals that it should not come as any real surprise. But this is a typical description of a festival, this is completely different from what might occur at a show. The easiest way to explain the difference is to put it like this; if a person were to go to the Taste of Chicago, they are probably going to eat a lot of different food. When going to Taco Bell, the goal is still the same, to eat food, but the setting and…show more content… The biggest criticism of all electronic music shows is that because it is music produced on a computer rather than an instrument that can be recorded is that it is very boring to watch. This was due to the limits of technology at the time combined with the lack of creativity by those who make EDM. In the last few years, the rest of the electronic community has redefined the boundaries of how electronic music shows can be performed by use of a multitrack. A multitrack allows the artist to cut out specific melodies, drums, or vocals from the song there are currently playing so they can be performed live on actual instruments. Artists like Porter Robinson, Glitch Mob, Purity Ring, Manic Focus and Lido have begun using this tool to make their performances more visually appealing, and they also give the artists themselves a chance to make songs more unique. In Porter Robinson’s case, his tour after releasing his album “Worlds” included many different versions of the songs on the album; each with a unique touch that he added with the multitrack capability. Artists that take advantage of these new tools in order to create better live performances for their fans deserve to be labelled as artists, the same cannot be said about those who make EDM and simply play off turntables and do not add anything special to their