Anthony Bourdain Bemoans The Rise of EDM Over Live Music
Oh to go back to the day when country rap was the worst thing we had to worry about.
EDM, or Electronic Dance Music, has become so pervasive throughout popular music that even country—once thought to be immune from inhuman instrumentation in music—is now just as gripped with this phenomenon as any genre. From Jerrod Niemann to Tim McGraw, to the intro of just about any single you will hear on country radio, some sort of electronic dance element is almost sure to make an appearance in 2014.
On last week’s episode of CNN’s Emmy Award-winning program Parts Unknown hosted by Anthony Bourdain, the well-known chef spouted off about the state of live music and EDM’s involvement when touring Las Vegas. He talked to Penn of Penn & Teller (a well-known fan of David Allan Coe), and tried to discover what is so alluring about EDM, and where it puts live acts in the pantheon of modern music.
“These days for better or worse, live acts, live performers, are being squeezed out in favor of EDM: Electronic Dance Music,” Bourdain explains. “It’s a DJ’s world, and where they once used to say cocaine was God’s way of telling you you had too much money, now maybe EDM is…Come ye lords and princelings of douchedom. Hear my clarion call. Anointeth thyself with gel and heavenly body spray. Maketh the sign of the devil horns with thine hands. Let there be high-fiving and the hugging of many bros, for this is the kingdom and the power.”
READ: EDM Replacing Rap As The Scourge of Country Radio
As Bourdain points out, many of the big Vegas EDM clubs now make more money on a nightly basis than the casinos. In fairness, EDM at clubs is administered by a live DJ (though playing pre-recorded, electronic music), but the rapid growth of the genre does appear to put the future of live acts at risk. Country music now has its own superstar DJ’s like Deejay Silver who is currently touring with Brad Paisley. If you’ve been wondering what the mono-genre might sound like when it arrives, it might be heralded by a moronic bass beat, and waves of glowsticks being raised to the sky. EDM is the new generation’s rock music—pervasive and inescapable throughout society. Either get out of the way, or be run over.
April 25, 2014 @ 4:04 pm
HA! He’s so awesome. I don’t think this EDM thing sweeping the US is anything to worry about. For once, the US is lagging behind the rest of the world with this cultural (ahem) phenomenon. The EDM craze hit New Zealand well over 10 years ago and the parties were called ‘raves’. This scene was synonymous with ecstacy, glow sticks and young men in mesh singlets. I think the same can be said about the UK and Europe. It was just a fad for people who liked to get off their tits and have a dance. This too shall pass.
April 26, 2014 @ 3:54 pm
Sorry to burst your bubble but EDM and X were popular back in the early 80s so the US isn’t lagging.
April 29, 2014 @ 10:21 am
Definitely, I still dig me some New World Order every now and then.
April 25, 2014 @ 5:54 pm
I completely agree. Country music is supposed to have voices and fiddles and guitars and other instruments played by people. EDM is not meant to be part of the genre, that’s for pop music. “country””once thought to be immune from inhuman instrumentation in music””is now just as gripped with this phenomenon as any genre.” I couldn’t have phrased this better.
April 25, 2014 @ 6:26 pm
Anthony is a great character. I watch his show when I come across it. He’s an honest from the guy storyteller.
I must naturally be a wrong way kind of guy. Over the past decade or so I have slowly shifted to all acoustic music. There are some exceptions, but they are limited to cases where the bass player plays both stand-up bass and electric bass, or that a keyboardist uses an electric synth but has it play piano sounds.
Of course, I’m 52 yr old and don’t have any interest in hanging out at a twenty something club where they play dance music of any kind.
I’ll stick with my trusty old “Three Ring Circle”, “Sutton, Holt & Coleman”, “Tim O’Brien”, “Darrol Scott”, “Bryan Sutton”, “Matt Flinner”, “Jerry Douglas”, Bela Fleck”, “Infamous Stringdusters”, Trampled By Turtles”, Greensky Bluegrass”, YMSB”, “Rebecca Frazier”, and maybe some old “Townes Van Zant”, “Doc (and Merle) Watson”, “Guy Clark”, “Tony Rice”, “John Prine”or “Norman Blake”. And there’s some good acoustic stuff by “White Buffalo”, “Justin Townes Earle”, and “Robbie Fulks”.
I could go on for a couple hundred more. I have no need to ever listen to Radio or Club music.
April 26, 2014 @ 2:46 am
This EDM craze baffles me because it is basically house music/techno and that has been around since the seventies. I heard it at raves and clubs in the nineties and everyone is acting like this is some new thing. Even Dubstep isn’t new it’s a new name for house music.
What is new, however is people paying U2 or Eric Church prices to see some guy (usually) staring at his equipment for two or so hours like he is actually “playing” music. I can’t imagine this will last. A DJ cannot entertain people for very long. He cannot strut the stag like Mick Jagger or whip out a guitar solo like Rosie Flores. There is no live vocals, no charisma or connection to the audience. And for all his talent (I do think DJs and remixers can be talented) he will never be as musically talented as the guy who can spontaneously riff with a drummer or invite some guest audience member to stage and churn out a duet. Or you know, just wail on a sax for three minutes.
DJing is too clean and too polished, there is no change int one from air or you don’t get Tina Turner running out of breath from working the stage back and forth for three minutes. It is just a dude with headphones pushing buttons.
I recall being sent a YouTube video of a DJ prodigy performing live, he was 17 I think. He never once looked at the audience and the audience looked bored as hell and the videos comments complained about the lame audience, and I commented maybe it isn’t the audience that is lame.
April 26, 2014 @ 7:03 am
In time, it will pass. If people choose to remember this small shit-stain of a footnote in Country Music history, it’ll be scoffed at and mocked by the same people who denied ever liking Limp Bizkit.
April 26, 2014 @ 8:02 am
EDM is completely devoid of soul and mostly devoid of talent. Shame is that so many young people argue it’s virtues. I am only 35 but I feel so old when I argue with some dipshit in their 20s who claims that dubstep isn’t techno… I don’t think that live instrumentation will ever dissapear but unfortunately it will get harder and harder to get decent artists to come to my town.
April 28, 2014 @ 8:25 pm
Well, dubstep really isn’t techno. They are both different forms of electronic dance music, which encompasses several different genres of music.
January 11, 2019 @ 11:27 pm
Devoid of soul? I argue the opposite. It’s melodic, transcends, it’s ethereal – especially trance by Dash Berlin and Above & Beyond. For people that are moved by EDM, we are taken to another world. My body gets covered in goosebumps listening to it, even while driving down the coast at 2PM in the afternoon. A lot of sub-genres of EDM also feature insane vocals by incredible artists, it’s not all devoid of lyrics. Some of the artists are well-known, but not all.
The way that some of the producers are able to weave sounds and melodies, and create “peaks” and “valleys” in the songs is full of soul. A lot of the songs also feature literal soul artists, just check out Duke Dumont or Disclosure. Disclosure even features Sam Smith.
I know nothing about classical music besides Abel K, so I’m not going to comment on it. Maybe you shouldn’t comment on EDM *wink*
April 26, 2014 @ 8:49 pm
What is the purpose of the DJ ? Why can’t the bartender simply put a CD in the stereo and let it play out? The DJ isn’t “performing” in any way. Why should a person get paid for such a menial task?
January 11, 2019 @ 11:29 pm
They aren’t a DJ in that they stand up there and play other people’s music. They aren’t hitting play on a Rihanna song or a Beatles song. They are playing the music they created. They create music and melodies, and sometimes they work with vocalists to sing over their songs. Many of these DJ’s are producers, and are also song writers and work with talented artists on their songs.
April 27, 2014 @ 11:43 am
I am of the opinion that if it can’t be performed live, it’s not music. EDM falls into that category, most of the time.
January 11, 2019 @ 11:33 pm
That’s a very narrow view of music and expression, my friend. Many of these “DJ’s” are also producers. Many are also song writers, and they work with vocalists to sing over their melodies. Some vocalists are well known, like Sam Smith on Disclosure’s songs, and other vocalists are less known but equally as talented.
In my opinion, if these producers have the musical genius to weave sounds and melodies in such a way to take people to another world, then it’s talent. Dash Berlin and Above & Beyond, for instance. I could never create what they do. I could also never create the music Avicii did.
Sure, Avicii wasn’t up there creating the sounds live that he produced. But he sure was a talented producer 🙂
April 28, 2014 @ 12:43 am
As a 30-year old who listens to all kinds of music but was raised predominantly on country music and power pop, I believe all these various genres have a use value in variegated forms.
Country music speaks most to my heart chakra with its lyrical tradition, while modern dance music and electronica speaks more to my pelvic chakra with its metronome and emphasis on kineticism, while world music and power pop speak deeper still to other chakras.
There’s a place for all of these day to day in my life. All I ask for is contrast. I insist EDM DJs and producers leave the country format alone and not further erode the heart of the genre by remixing all of the hits and classics on radio playlists and diluting the instrumental mustard seed of the genre further. And, of course, allowing breathing space for introspective songwriting and storytelling (which was already in short supply preceding the EDM invasion)
April 28, 2014 @ 5:35 am
Seems to me that, like Boy Bands, EDM sees a cyclical revival every decade or so. We used to call it house, then techno, now EDM. This too shall pass…
…then rise again… then pass…
April 28, 2014 @ 8:56 am
With all due respect to “EDM”, which means none, I say it’s bullshit.
All a “DJ” does is push buttons on pieces of equipment that plug into the wall. Those are called APPLIANCES.
My wife, God bless her, pushes buttons on appliances like the dishwasher and the washing machine every day. Should she be getting paid? (She thinks so! LOL)
Random noises and repetitive keyboard notes synchronized to a synthetic “drum” noise doesn’t constitute MUSIC. Music is played by people on INSTRUMENTS.
Whatever drug-fueled craze this EDM crap is, which used to be called house, club, acid and then “rave”, it’s not MUSIC. It’s simply a symptom of and a by-product of the worthlessness that this latest generation is feeling. They are dissatisfied with the pursuit of all the pointless “pleasure” and material possessions that are “must haves”, and so they entertain themselves with noise and drugs to try and hypnotize themselves into not caring about their sadness for a few hours. It’s pathetic.
Is EDM ever going to produce a song like “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry”? Is EDM ever going to give us “Stand By Your Man” or “I Walk The Line” or “Crazy”?
No… because EDM isn’t made by people for their KIN, for their FAMILY, for their kind of folks, their people. EDM is noise that is trying to drown out true feelings and make believe that “party all night” is the answer to everything.
REAL music, that is, country music, TALKS SENSE to our family, our neighbor, our nation. We don’t write songs that HIDE feelings. We don’t tell people to just stop giving a crap and just “partay”. We SHARE what we’re going through, we use the language of our kin, our hollers and farms and valleys and highways and truckstops. Ray Price could headline tours at 80 just like he could at 40 or 50 because his appeal, his genuine spirit, his talent were all just as potent at the latter end of his career as they were at the beginning.
EDM and the bro-back-mountain hog-slop that they call “music” out of Nashville today are just the scribblings of a slow child with a busted crayon. They’re the teenager who doesn’t yet know shit from Shine-Ola, sticking their fingers in their ears and going “la la la” instead of growing up and learning some old-fashioned horse sense.
Don’t worry about this “mono-genre” nonsense. As long as there are fiddles to be sold, there will be fiddlers to play breakdowns. As long as there are honky-tonks and truck stops, there will always be men and women ready to tell the stories of real folks.
Let these “DJs” go press buttons. Let them go pound sand, too.
April 28, 2014 @ 8:17 pm
While I’m not exactly a fan of most EDM, to imply that it isn’t music is a bit fallacious. If you can produce musical notes with a computer, then it can be considered a musical instrument the same as a guitar or a drum. I’d never want to go see a live EDM event, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t music.
April 28, 2014 @ 8:49 pm
I’m going to have to respectfully disagree with you. All that noise they’re making isn’t music. Would you say someone PLAYED a trumpet if they played a RECORDING of one? Of course not; otherwise, I’m George-by-gosh-Jones himself, because I’ve played plenty of recordings of him! I must be Hag and Waylon, too!
Why do you think so many country-music artists we all love today didn’t toss out their guitars 30 years ago when the synthesizer craze really started catching on? Why didn’t Buddy Emmons just start tapping buttons instead of playing the steel guitar? Maybe Willie Nelson should retire his Martin guitar and just smack a laptop key a few times every night.
No… EDM is not real music, and the people pushing the buttons are not musicians. There’s a deep, powerful current of emotion and connectedness to one another that makes musicians want to share our music. Please don’t cheapen the hard work we all put in by suggesting that we should have to share stages and airwaves with people who plug boxes into speakers and make them go “beep beep boop” for hours at a time.
God bless country music, America’s music, and God bless America.
April 28, 2014 @ 9:13 pm
I tend to think of EDM musicians as composers rather than live performance artists. While I don’t think it takes any amount of talent to hit the play button on a laptop at a live EDM concert, I respect the talent and ear for music it takes to compose EDM music. There are certain classical music composers that, while competent musicians, were unable to actually perform their own compositions. However, in my mind, that doesn’t make the music that they composed any less valid.
April 29, 2014 @ 9:35 pm
I know have made this point previously, but the synthesizers of 30 years ago were real instruments that had to be played by hand. The synth simply modified the sound of the piano.
This is very different from EDM.
December 14, 2014 @ 12:01 am
I would like to hear your thoughts on what I said. And I hope the writer of this article will let me voice my opinion as a fellow country listener.
December 14, 2014 @ 12:08 am
I have no problem letting you voice your opinion. But you have to understand this is a 9 month old article and it’s 1 AM on a Saturday night. We’ve all sort of moved on.
I personally have never asserted that EDM “isn’t music” per se. My beef is not just mixing it with country, but where it has become a given in a country song or it can’t be played on a radio. I’m all for EDM artists doing their thing. But when EDM and country sound the same, we all lose in my opinion. There’s nothing wrong with diversity in music.
December 14, 2014 @ 1:24 am
Both of those comments were mostly meant for the people who have commented on your article. And yes I’m sorry its a bit late but I was taking a break from studying and I felt like EDM got a really bad rep on this page. I wasn’t really expecting a reply at this hour especially from the writer of the article! I respect your article even though I don’t believe in all your opinions. I also can’t really see where the similarities are in country today and house music (because it definitely couldn’t be dubstep)
May 2, 2014 @ 1:32 pm
Just wondering why everyone seems so offended or angered by electronic music or specifically electronic “dance” music, on its own. Its been around since around the end of disco in some form or another and there are many great genres and sub-genres within electronic music that can be enjoyed. I understand its different from other forms of music in aspects of performance, but so what? That makes it no less enjoyable for me.
While not actually being a “musician” per se, it takes a lot of practice and skill to be a good DJ- its not just pushing buttons. It has probably gotten a bit easier with the switch to CDJ’s and laptop software, though.
Im sure there will be crossover songs with country and EDM, but I doubt its ever going to have any significant impact on country music itself. (see Cotton Eyed Joe). There is even a trend of taking pop/rap songs and making them into bluegrass tunes- which is actually pretty damn fun to listen too.
So, dont fret.
December 13, 2014 @ 11:53 pm
To all those country lovers (Big Rig and Bear, Yes I am a major country lover also I know pretty crazy ain’t it) who classify EDM/House Music/*beep boop Bop* as something that isn’t music, I challenge you to my first question, what is the definition of music? It is defined in many ways but it revolves around one thing, EXPRESSION. Music is a way to express yourself however you feel. The sounds that are put together by these artists could not possibly been made any other way besides a computer! Also each kind of EDM (there’s hundreds of kinds) has its own BPMs and ways of sounding much different then each other. Why do you think just because the instruments that are used to create Electronic Music aren’t instruments just because they are different than instruments that make country music? Please research into something before you hate on it so much. Like the MIDI keyboard cannot be considered “not an instrument” because you PLAY it. look at this link please
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Oq1G-IUNfg
Yes all those look like an instrument to me. IT IS DIFFERENT BUT that’s how music works it evolves. Unless you consider piano playing as “button pushing”. What if when the electric guitar came out the music world decided it “changed” music too much and stopped making them? You think the whammy bar sounded like a good idea to pre-rock listeners?
So if everything that I said still hasn’t made you arrogant supreme country listeners think any differently I have another thing to say. Please STOP stereotyping every single EDM artist as a “talent-less button pusher” that knows nothing about music. One they COMPOSE music. You know kind of like Mozart or Beethoven? The crowd that went to go see Mozart was there to see him play the 40 instruments that were involved in his piece. Heck, they weren’t there to see him play anything at all just wave his hands up and down while the many people in his orchestra played his masterpieces! Of course they are written in two completely different ways one on a paper and one on a computer but try to think of the music software as the producers “orchestra”. TWO If that isn’t enough to satisfy your envious beliefs then look at Zedd (instead of DEEJAY SILVER i have never even heard of this dude) he grew up not in MERICA (sorry big rig) but in Europe and is classically trained and can play both the drums and the piano beautifully. He’s taken the EDM world by storm and because I know you will not take the time to check him out by yourself here’s an example of him showing off his other MUSICAL skills by playing an acoustic version of his song Clarity
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPHhNuSdrYE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niBXg0MWhVo
I put another treat in there for you but anyways I went to one of Zedds concerts and experienced his “button pushing” and you know what? It didn’t take anything away from the concert because the music we all heard there was PRODUCED and MIXED by Zedd. We didn’t see him use all the instruments to create the sounds we were hearing but how is that any different than going to a symphony and watching a man conduct an orchestra? Do you think that orchestra could play the piece without him there? Does that make the creator of the piece not a musician? PLEASE DON’T SAY YES. I’ve been to many country concerts that have moved me and brought out emotion in many ways but to me and a lot of other people EDM is PURE EMOTION. Not necessarily through words but through sound.
Also one last thing please stop using the whole “drug crazed teenagers” as a way to make EDM look bad because we all know that almost every crowd for the most well-known rock band has been the exact same way its just history repeating itself. Unless you are trying to take on rock music also. (Yes I am a classic rock fan also cultured by my father just like country)
January 11, 2019 @ 11:22 pm
So many close-minded folks on this thread. Classical music doesn’t do anything for me. Glam rock? I want to bang my head into a wall. Journey? Audio water-boarding (to me). Jazz? There’s no beat or “peaks” and “valleys,” it just goes on and on – therefore, giving me anxiety. But EDM makes my entire body get covered in goosebumps. It can be 2PM and I’ll listen to a trance song while driving down the coast, and I’m covered in goosebumps. Also, a lot of “EDM” does feature incredible singing vocals by insanely good artists (some well known vocalists and others, not). There are so many “EDM” songs that have insane vocals that are sung live at electronic music festivals. Look, we can’t help what music gives us goosebumps. We can’t. So stop bashing on music that makes many people feel ALIVE all over the world – from India to Berlin. EDM got me through a rough period in my life; I listened to it constantly. It takes me to another place, especially the sub-genre of trance that has female vocals. Artists like Dash Berlin and Above and Beyond… My god, I’m taken to another world and goosebumps city.
The Beatles do nothing for me. Don’t make me want to dance. I’m dead inside when I listen to them. The Monkeys and all those oldies? No thank you. But I can’t deny that they moved an entire generation and they are incredibly talented. I love punk rock and “scream rock,” but I understand many people don’t see the talent and just hear noise. I just don’t think it’s “big minded” to literally demean and undercut a genre of art and melodies that you don’t understand. Let’s see you create music like Avicii did or like Duke Dumont or Disclosure or Above and Beyond, and write songs for vocalists, and fill a stadium of 100,000 people. Go ahead.
Your close mindedness is showing when you deny that many of these so-called DJ’s are also producers, and that these song producers are also song-writers for the vocalists that they feature. Avicii worked with so many different artists, from Incubus to Coldplay – and both praised his talents. Are you saying that Sam Smith’s vocals on Disclosure’s song “Latch” aren’t good? Because Disclosure is a straight sub-genre of EDM. You’re discrediting amazing vocalists that do, in fact, sing over the electronic melodies. There’s so much more to EDM then the absolute crap that makes it to the radio.
PLUR/ Peace, Love, Unity, Respect