It’s time to look ahead at the coming year. Based on the sounds, ideas and themes that emerged in 2014, where is the future of dance music going in 2015? Here are some of my predictions.
Progressively, more artists are going to be paying more attention to non-musical, web-based styles and incorporate them into most (if not all) of their productions. This is a tool used to expand marketing and a way to promote the music to a different audience.
Things that blew up on the Net “yesterday” scale, will soon literally be heard on the drop of next “tomorrow’s” club banger. These songs that were not yet discovered by the mainstream audience are becoming more and more valuable to club and radio DJs. Aim to be a DJ who brings the music that is familiar but different and more importantly though, has not yet been overplayed to the majority of the listeners. This is an important and active point in the overall conversation of dance music in 2015 and onward.
Dance music performances will soon dominate all festival lineups. Ever since Daft Punk’s performance at Coachella in 2006, the amount of electronic dance music performers doing live shows and multi-genre festivals have grown larger and larger.
This year, EDM acts are in the majority at Canadian events such as the Boonstock Music Festival, which did not primarily focus on dance music acts previously. The original Boonstock brought an entirely rock based lineup, proving the increase in the genre’s popularity.
Other larger scale events such as Lollapalooza and Coachella are going down the same road. In fact, Coachella’s lineup in 2015 is practically dominated by EDM artists.
Electronic dance music films are arriving. In the United Kingdom, it took several years for the “rave culture” to exist before it was implemented into feature films such as Trainspotting, Human
Traffic and Groove.
This year, EDM is going make major appearances in the big leagues – Hollywood.
Future films will include We Are Your Friends, named after the Justice vs. Simian song, starring Zac Efron. Will Ferrell is set to produce Sony pictures I’m In Love with the DJ. Eden, a movie loosely based on Daft Punk and about the French house music scene. The upcoming Entourage movie features electronic producer Calvin Harris and an HBO comedy is being developed by Calvin Harris, Jay-Z and the author of Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh.
Dance music no longer a thing that just belongs on our blockbuster soundtracks, the culture itself is now becoming substance for our silver screen pictures.
Dance music will increase in comedy performances. Saturday Night Live has a brilliant sketch called When Will the Bass Drop demonstrating that EDM is important enough to be a worthy target for our comedic acts. A self-parody presence exists in other music videos, like Knife Party’s song “Internet Friends” or the Chainsmokers track “Selfie.”
Even in the education world, there are new ideas beginning to be explored with dance music. The first “Techno Studies” conference was prepared and hosted in Berlin last year in December.
I believe that our electronic dance music culture will continue to be developed and, as it does, it will continue to establish itself through superior and more insightful approaches.
By Brett Bohl
@djBohLd
