EDM got USA Today's attention, yesterday, in a feature explaining the jargon of the industry. Since EDM is feeble in Boston and we have many new followers(thank you), we figured this would be a great article to pass along. let us know what words you don't understand on twitter and facebook.
(USA TODAY) Break-what? Dub-who? For new fans of electronic dance music, the terminology is a
maze of genres and sub-genres. Let's let Moby help us sort them all out:
EDM: "The first thing to know," Moby says, "is that no
one calls it electronic dance music. The term is EDM,
and it's a catch-all term for the different forms of
electronic music."
BPM: "All EDM is rooted in bpms (beats per minute),"
says Moby, who set a Guinness World Record for fastest
tempo in a single with his 1,000-bpm song Thousand.
"So trance music is faster, house music is slower."
Dubstep: "It's a descendant of jungle, an early '90s,
very fast form of EDM with reggae and breakbeat
influences. Jungle morphed into drum and bass, and
then there was an offshoot of that, two-step, which
slowed the bass lines way down," Moby says. "Heavy
metal and hip-hop, interestingly, share the same tempo,
around 75 bpm. Dubstep is an amalgamation of the
two."
House and techno: "They're both offshoots of '80s
disco," Moby says. "House has a slower bpm, techno is
faster." Both house and techno adhere to a steady 4/4
drum pattern.
Breakbeat: This rhythm breaks up 4/4 patterns with
syncopation and is often used in dubstep.
"It uses a lot of samples and is not as fast as house
music, but faster than hip-hop," Moby says. "The Chemical Brothers made it very
popular, but I'd credit Fatboy Slim with bringing it to the mainstream."
Acid: "It's not the drug," Moby says. "Acid specifically refers to the sound of a bass line,
and it's very synthetic. It was a sound created in the late '80s with the Roland TB 303
bass synthesizer, which has a very harsh sound." Acid can also be used to distinguish
between subgenres, such as acid house and acid breaks.
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