Stop Calling EDM EDM – Here Is A Proper Definition

Stop Calling EDM EDM!

So it’s 2021, and we will add some updates to this classic with examples of genres below. This debate should be over, just in case you are still confused, Dive in and check yourself.

Yes, we’ve said this before – but you’ll don’t listen, so we will say it again. What you’re calling EDM falls under the umbrella of electronic dance music – but it’s not EDM. The reason why, is that there is no EDM sub-genre. Wait, you mean EDM is not a sub-genre of EDM? SHOCKING.

Both noobs and veterans make mistakes when using the term EDM. Noobs call everything EDM simply because they don’t know the history and the subgenres. Old heads call everything new they hear and don’t understand EDM because they can’t admit they are old and don’t understand it. The sounds have evolved since you were at your last rave in 1995. Got it? Good.

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We’ve included the graphic above and the Wikipedia description below to help you get this all sorted. The visual doesn’t break down all of the subgenres – but gives a good idea of how the major ones (like House, Detroit Techno, Breakbeat, and Ambient) developed.

After this, if you say you love house music but hate EDM or all EDM but house and techno music, well it’s pretty much “bye Felicia.”

Electronic dance music (also known as EDM, dance music, club music, or simply dance) is a set of percussive electronic music genres produced primarily for dance-based entertainment environments, such as nightclubs. Dance music is generally produced for use by DJs and is most often presented in the context of a DJ mix.[1] So called “DJ producers” often perform live sets of their own dance music productions via a live PA.[2][3]

In 2010, the acronym “EDM” was adopted by the American music industry and music press as a buzzword to describe the increasingly commercial US electronic dance music scene.[4][5] Other dance music communities have questioned the idea of EDM as blanket term for all electronic dance music and the term has instead been associated with specific dance sub-genres that became popular in the US, such as electro house and brostep. EDM is not a genre in its own. Younger dance music fans and more mainstream/new listeners to the dance music genre use EDM as a genre in itself simply because they do not know how to decipher the spectrum of dance sub genres. [6]

If that all makes sense, just understand that EDM was a word adopted by the US to describe the wave of festival-sized progressive house and big room and commercial dance music. One would not call a Defected Records or Drumcode track EDM.

Here are some examples to help you decipher the different genres, not everything, but we will keep adding to this post to get into the details. 

Commercial Dance Music 

(Often Mistakenly called “EDM” as a general term, but nah. It’s commercial dance music.)

House Music 

Deep House

Tech House

Jazzy House

Disco House

Techno

Minimal Techno

Trance

Interested in the evolution of trance music? Check out ’10 Classic Trance Tracks That Helped Shape the Genre’ – experience the foundational beats here.

Progressive House

Trap

Dubstep UK

Dubstep US/Brostep

Hardcore

Drum & Bass (Atmospheric or Liquid)

Drum & Bass (Jump Up)

Breakbeat

Downtempo/Chillout

Ambient

Neo-Classical

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