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The State of Electronic Music

by Dave Bulera

As we all know the state of music is changing.
It has been changing for years now.
Especially electronic music.

Electronic music has existed from as far back as the 1920s, but
it started becoming increasingly common starting in the late 1960s.
During the 1970s after the more affordable and portable synthesizers were released,
electronic music started to take off.
Rock bands started toying with electronic music, and this lead to synth rock.

As the 70s progressed so did electronic music. With the development of MIDI and digital audio.
Toward the end of the 70s and the early 80s, synthpop became more popular.

Through the 80s, electronic music changed into many forms.
New genres started to pop up.
Ambient, then Techno and Electronica, downtempo, and breakbeat.
These forms grew in popularity in the 90’s.
As the 2000s hit so did many more genres.
Different forms of the electronic sounds morphed into new sounds and styles.
This is about the time where Dubstep and EDM started gaining ground.

 

As time went by, many styles remained, but the electronic genre in mainstream music steadily declined.

Rock, metal, hip hop, and especially pop not only held their ground but took over the electronic scene.

The most recent figures show that electronic music only holds about 9% of the radio market.
Pop/Rock holds 24% of that same market.
EDM and Dubstep still tend to get the lion’s share of the plays worldwide in the electronic market.

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The reason for this trend is because of the record label structure world wide.
Universal holds most of the rights to music worldwide. With 57% of all music signed under Universal, it’s no wonder that Pop/Rock, and EDM are so much more popular, because Universal makes it that way.

Surprisingly independent labels hold 15% of the market,which is actually more than Sony at 13%.
But keeping in mind that this is all of the independents combined.

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Music has gone the way of streaming.
But if you add up all the streaming services, Spotify, Beats Music, Deezer, Rdio, Rhapsody, Xbox Music, Sony Music Unlimited, what you get is that paid, on-demand subscription services account for just 3% of overall music spending.

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This is the mountain we need to climb as electronic artists, and electronic music fans.
We somehow need to figure out how to get that 9% of the radio market to increase dramatically.

With the advancement of the Internet, and the the growth of streaming services, getting any music heard is becoming much more difficult.
Along with the fact that there are many more artists to compete with than ever before.

This is the reason why WEATNU was created. To try to bridge the gap, and give artists a better chance of getting heard.

A group of artists with a goal to help each other, and get the music out to the masses.
The big goal, to get that 9% of the market closer to that 24% at the top.

Sources: Wikipedia - Electronic Music; Google Research : Music Timeline - Dance/Electronic; Next Big Sound Presents 2014: State Of The Industry; Digital Music News - On-Demand Streaming Subscriptions Account for 3% of Music Spending.
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