2010s Electronic Essentials

2010s Electronic Essentials

The ’10s are electronic music’s anything-goes decade: A rejuvenated dance-music culture created bold new sounds, inspired a new generation of fans and dissolved the borders that once separated disparate styles and scenes. Dubstep, the first major electronic subgenre of the 21st century, shadowed its mainstream breakout success (hello, Skrillex) by burrowing through club music’s margins, with artists like Burial exploring new dimensions in bass music. Thanks to Jlin and DJ Rashad, Chicago footwork set off a fast-paced ripple effect. Other ‘90s styles like deep house and UK garage bounced back, given a stylish spin by future-focused revivalists like Jamie xx and Disclosure. The experimentalists, meanwhile—Grimes, Arca, Oneohtrix Point Never, Holly Herndon, Laurel Halo—were busy translating the contours of internet culture into mind-bending sounds as unsettling as they are enveloping. And South Korea’s Peggy Gou and Afro-Portuguese ambassador Nídia proved that electronic music is truly a global concern, bounded only by the imagination.

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