Why Electronic Music is Essential to Pop Music’s Survival

			Why Electronic Music is Essential to Pop Music’s Survival
A common prediction in the past decade or so is that with the current glut of pop music that consumers have access to, the music will become boring and unbearable to listen to. These people claim that this supersaturation of the pop music market makes a new and exciting sound harder and harder to come by. Through the years, however, this genre full of algorithmic, repetitive music has lived on, and even thrived despite it being expected to fail. Something has allowed this genre to have such a massive hold on the music market, which can be largely attributed to electronic music. Whether that is autotuned music or music that falls under the electronic music genre, it is hard to ignore the impact its presence in pop music has had.
	The history of electronic music, as well as pop music, are essential when looking at electronic music’s influence on modern music. Electronic music had its earliest roots in a futuristic sounding instrument known as the theremin. The theremin was not initially supposed to be an instrument, but rather a proximity tool meant for the Soviet Union to use in the midst of their Civil war. It was, however, discovered later that it made pleasing noises that could be used in such a way to produce songs. The theremin worked by using human’s natural ability to conduct electricity and sounding a tone. When a human hand broke the electric field that the theremin let out, the tone would be altered a bit. By moving the hand up and down, the pitch changed People eventually realized this and began making music with it. The 1930s had a run of successful theremin artists, also known as thereminists, including Joseph Whitely and Hal Hope. The success of the theremin might be contributed to how strange of a sound it produced. “Some listeners were so puzzled by the performance that they walked round and round the platform that Musaire (Whitely) was standing on, staring at him and and trying to work out how he did it,” (Brend). Here, it becomes clear that electronic music is not the typical sound people hear, and so it gives a hint as to why electronic music thrives even today.
 	One of the pioneers of electronic music, Karlheinz Stockhausen, stated in a paper from 1970 that he and Karel Goeyvaerts wanted “absolutely pure, controllable sounds without the subjective emotional influence of ‘interpreters’,” (Stockhausen). This meant that they were looking for a sound that no one had heard before, as well as one that could be described as perfect. This could offer some insight as to why electronic music is so popular now. It was formed out of a need for intriguing sounds and a search for perfect sounds. By using varying sine waves and creating very unsettling tones compared to what people of that time were used to, they found the sound that they were searching for. It’s the search for this sound that led to the creation of incredibly important innovations in the electronic music world, the synthesizer.
	Robert “Bob” Moog, in the mid 1960s, invented what would become one of the most essential elements of electronic music’s success and survival, the Moog synthesizer. Moog actually did extensive work with the theremin in the 1950s and even started building them as a hobby, but he eventually sold kits to be assembled by his customers. During this time, Moog learned a lot about this strange new form of music, and he transferred his knowledge on how it works as well as how to make people feel the need to listen to it to go on to invent the synthesizer. Moog himself said that because of his work with the theremin, he was able to understand the electronic aspect of music creation much better. He credits the knowledge he gained working with the theremin as one of the most important aspects that went into creating the Moog synthesizer.
	In 1970, a new form of music, disco, was rising to a massive popularity. Disco was one of the first genres to fully embrace the synthesizer, with the importance of this being the fact that disco music had a very large listener base, and therefore the synthesizer was getting a lot more attention than it would have otherwise. In an interview, Moog says, “The time could not be more right. From my vantage point high on the hills of Trumansburg, I see a full blown fad in pop electronic music about to erupt. Several musical instrument makers have already come out with electronic sound modifiers. A couple of pop records have already been made with electronic sound and many more are about to come out,” (Trocco). Moog could see that his invention was already causing a revolution in the pop music world, and this was in the 1970s. It’s evident that given forty years, electronic music has had plenty of time to blend in with pop music.
	It’s important to note why electronic music was so easily adapted by pop musicians and why consumers accepted these strange sounds and even liked them. As stated above, the sounds that are associated with electronic music are very intriguing to the casual listener, so they like hearing it. There have to be other explanations as to why it has thrived as well as it has other than it having interesting sounds, though. One reason is that artists cannot recreate the feeling a live performance of music gives its listeners in a recording. It is an almost undisputed claim to say that live performances of a good musical act are better than recorded performances, as far as the energy of the performance goes. In more recent years, by using an electronic music software to postprocess the music, artists can get as close as possible to that feeling.
	According to choreographer and longtime dancer Mark Morris, “There’s no shortage of music composed on a computer and brought to market in electronic form. We like it and need it. The sophistication of the sound studio and its ability to apply layer upon layer of sound/music is exciting and important. Musical perfection is within reach!” (Morris) The fact that “we like it and need it” is another explanation as to why music listeners tend to enjoy a song with electronically produced music as opposed to something like a live recording. The phrase “Musical perfection is within reach!” is quite an interesting one. The idea of “perfection” in anything is hard to grasp, but in music? It seems like a totally impossible task for any art form to be “perfect”, let alone music. With postprocessing, however, with things like autotune and click removal, “musical perfection” truly is within reach. While the songs may not actually be considered perfect, they are as good as they can possibly be, which is what Morris might have meant when he said this.
	Opposers to this process of trying to perfect music claim that by doing this, the life and soul of music is slowly vanishing. If artists somehow do eventually make the “perfect” song, what then would there be to work towards? Any music produced after that time would just be made knowing that it will be perfect, so the creative process would be found obsolete. To these people, this could even lead possibly to songs being made exclusively by a computer. If that were to happen to music, people would not feel the need to learn how to play instruments because any song they want to hear is possible to be created using a computer. The problem with this claim is that this argument has been around for just about as long as music has been around. Opposition to change is nothing new, but this is especially true in music.
	Back in the 1700s when Bartolomeo Cristofori invented the pianoforte, or piano as people know it today, many people hated it. They felt that it took the effort out of learning music the traditional way. People felt like the piano had taken the life out of music. No longer would an aspiring musician have to slave away for hours just to learn how to play a simple song on something like a violin or cello. Music was made more accessible. Today, people can’t imagine a world without the piano. It has become one of the most influential instruments of all time. This is the same thing that electronic music is currently in the process of doing. One of the more influential instruments in the past 60 years or so is the electric guitar. It is generally loved by all music fans, but especially by rock fans. However, it hasn’t received the backlash that electronic music has received, despite it being an electronically based instrument. The thing is, just because a sound is produced using a computer does not mean it is any less worthy of the title of “music”.
	Live performances of electronic dance music (EDM) are regarded as some of the highest energy music performances that can be put on. It’s essential to understand why, though.  “One of the key ideas to come out of recent electronic pop culture is the “rave” sensibility in which the traditional notions of performer and audience are completely erased and redefined. In this type of event, the artists are not the center of attention; instead it is the role of the artist to channel the energy of the crowd and create the proper backdrop for their social interaction,” (Neill). Audience members have become accustomed to constant interactions, so they can associate social interaction with the music, thus making them like it more. This combination makes it seem obvious that electronic music could easily gain traction and popularity, so when they hear it in a pop song on the radio, they think of the live performance and remember the good times they had during the concert.
	Electronic music is also much more accessible than many other forms of music. In fact, when the theremin was first being marketed as a musical instrument, the selling point was, "Make music with the wave of a hand! Sound like an opera star! So easy, anyone can do it!” Getting into electronic music production requires less work than something like a guitar or drums. The highly skilled techniques needed to actually be able to play these instruments, whether that be finger/limb dependency or breathing capability, are not needed at all when producing music on a computer. There are more benefits in producing music with computers, however. For one, electronic music artists can start producing music by themselves. By using software, the artists do not need to rely on band members or practice space, as they can do it sitting in their room by themselves without bothering anyone. Because of this, there will be more people making the music, so more people will be performing the music. This, in response, makes it more accessible to listeners as well. The more listeners there are, the greater chance the artists have of reaching someone who likes the music.
	To put electronic music into pop music has proven to be an economically smart decision for many years. Taking a look at the top 100 songs at any given point in the past five years, one would be hard pressed to find a song that didn’t have any sort of electronic music or post processing within it. Whether it’s an album with heavy post-production, like Taylor Swift’s 1989 or Pharrell William’s GIRL or a full electronic music album like Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories or Deadmau5’s Ghosts ‘n Stuff, one thing is clear: these songs sell. Each album listed above had a number one hit on it at some point. It seems that these artists know what they’re doing, and they know that the electronic aspects of their music are extremely important to the overall success that they have achieved.
	Electronic music as a genre on its own is also proven to be profitable. According to an article on CNN, “The numbers don't lie. So far, Forbes' top 10 EDM artists have racked up a combined $268 million this year, an 11% increase from 2013, with top earner Harris bringing in $66 million,” (Alvarado). Electronic music as a whole is bringing in millions of dollars per year all on its own, so when world famous pop stars are added into the mix, the profits are bound to explode. It would seem that already famous pop artists who adapt to using electronic music in their music statistically have a higher probability to make more money than someone who does not. This makes sense, because more people will wanting to listening to it, so it has a higher probability of making money. Places like Spotify, Pandora, Grooveshark, or simple radio stations have allowed for artists to make vast amounts of money due to ad revenue. The music stations get ads to run on their sites and in turn have enough money to pay the artists for allowing them to use their music on their site. In general, the more a song or artist is played, the more money that artist will make, due to it generating more ad revenue than someone who isn’t played as much. With pop music using electronically produced music at its core, more people will be intrigued by its sound, so more people will listen to it, and therefore the artists will make more money off of ad revenue.
	As long as many of the people that listen to pop music have been alive, popular music has had some form of electronic aspect to it, whether that is actually having electronically produced sounds or postprocessing. Electronic music has been undeniably essential to the survival and success of pop music and musicians alike. The wide variety of sound it offers as well as its accessibility draws people to it, which in turn makes it more available to be heard. Its energy at live performance makes people remember the experience and associate the music with the happiness and excitement they had during the performance. The importance of this technology that has been developed to pop music is hard to ignore, and it is now known by music fans all over the world.





Works Cited
Eimert, Herbert. "What Is Electronic Music?" http://www.jaimeoliver.pe/. N.p., 1957. Web. 3
Apr. 2015.
Stockhausen, Karlheinz. “The Origins of Electronic Music.” JSTOR. JSTOR, July 1971. Web.
11 Mar. 2015.
Pinch, T. J., and Frank Trocco. Analog Days: The Invention and Impact of the Moog
Synthesizer. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2002. Print.
Brend, Mark. "The Sound of Tomorrow." Google Books. Bloomsbury Academic, 6 Dec. 2012.
Web. 5 Apr. 2015.
Morris, Mark. "A Symposium on Live Music." JSTOR. JSTOR, Fall 2011. Web. 11 Mar. 2015.
Neill, Ben. "Pleasure Beats: Rhythm and the Aesthetics of Current Electronic Music"
Millennium Web Catalog. Leonardo Music Journal, 2002. Web. 31 Mar. 2015.