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I think you’re right but European dance music has little cultural relevancy.
Nobody cares what Armin van Buren or Afrojack has to say the way they did about the Beatles, Bob Dylan, or hell, even Taylor Swift.
As an art form, EDM is sterile, mere decoration. It has nothing to say about the cultural moment except as a monument to escapism and hedonism. Its closest historical parallel is disco.
All of the artists I named have major followings, and perform at festivals that attract tens of thousands of attendees. David Guetta has sold over 10 million albums and 65 millions singles globally, and has over 30 billion streams on Spotify. These artists’ music is played ubiquitously on the radio, and again, they collaborate with some of the most famous singers in the world.
Yes, you’re correct that nobody cares what Armin Van Buuren has to say about philosophy or geopolitics or whatever. This is a good thing! It’s actually a terrible thing for our culture that young people started taking the political opinions of drug-addicted twentysomething musicians seriously! Disco kicks ass! Hedonistic pop music is infinitely preferable to supposedly “deep and counter-cultural” music by midwit pseudo-intellectuals like Bob Dylan seeking to poison relationships between the generations.
Worth also noting that "luminary" artists like Dylan also seem to tend to lose favor and popularity, as people realize that these artists stop being/never were what people thought they were (as what happened to Dylan post-50's/60's) and/or these artists disappear up their own ass later in life.
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I like disco music and EDM for what it is, but it's not high art.
In some ways it really is the perfect European music. It's trans-national. Much like the disconnected global elite, it is not from a place. It is from anyplace. It is generic, bland, almost always in English, etc... Swedish, Dutch, Irish, who cares? It's all the same. Performance consists of a DJ pressing play and then bopping his head around.
Fair enough. Most artists are firmly midwits, and I'd put Dylan in that category, though he's smart enough to let his music stand on its own. But the music of Dylan, The Beatles, or Taylor Swift exists as an art form in a way that EDM music, which is inherently disposable, does not.
As an art form, American music is vastly superior to European music.
I'm sorry, did you really say Taylor Swift exists as an art form in way that EDM music cannot? Corporate Taylor Swift? Basic white girl Taylor Swift? The most generic music of the decade, Taylor Swift?
Also The Beatles were British. And if you retort that they don't really count because of their still Anglophone, there's Rammstein, Stromae, Bladee, for your none EDM music consideration.
I’m not a huge fan of Taylor Swift, but all your criticisms of her are ones that could be and were made about the Beatles when they were popular. The Beatles are only artistic giants now because of fifty years of Boomer propaganda.
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Yes. She's a talented songwriter. Maybe you're under the false impression that her music is ghostwritten like other pop artists. 🤷
I think Rammstein and Stromae are good and listen to them. It's not that good European music doesn't exist, it's just that there's less of it.
Acts like Tiesto and Purple Disco Machine are also good. But they are a fundamentally a different category of music that doesn't reflect on society, but exists outside of it.
You haven't really answered the question; in what way does Taylor Swift exist as an art form that EDM cannot? Whether she writes her songs herself or they're ghost-written has no bearing on their quality.
Earlier in this thread you said:
I'd argue that Taylor Swift is similarly sterile, whether ghost written or not, and I think most people who aren't part of her rabid fanbase would agree with that assessment. Yes, most EDM doesn't even attempt to have a message, but to me there really isn't much of a difference between a vapid and a non-existent message.
I'd also argue that any piece of music inherently reflects the society in it. EDM, as hedonistic as you may perceive it as, still has its rhythms and undercurrents.
I also think you are straight up wrong when it comes to how you describe EDM. You assume that EDM is different or lesser than other genres due it not saying anything about or reflecting on society or humanity, and that as a consequence people don't care about what EDM artists say or do. I think your just wrong about this. I know, personally, an individual who did a memorial post for Avicii when they died. Daft Punk was huge, and was sampled extensively by the 2010's biggest musician, Kanye. I can't see how you can say people don't care about EDM artists; clearly, America's biggest artists do care about them.
Obviously there's less European music, but I think you are engaging in a motte-and-bailey. The motte being that there is less good European music (true by definition). But the bailey you argued was that "As an art form, American music is vastly superior to European music". Is American music inherently better than European music, or is there still comparable music, just not as much?
My daughters have been giving me Spotify playlists of recent music. Swift stands out as one of the most idiosyncratic and emotionally complex lyricists working today. She captures a cognitive dissonance between introspection and compulsive habit that most pop songwriters would never consider. And yet is also so recognizably "normal" that she avoids the edgelordy bullshit of more progressive artists and easily appeals to a wider audience. I've become a huge fan.
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Based. The greatest European music has always been transnational. Classical music was very intentionally cosmopolitan, and even the more nationalist composers were still working within a template that was extremely recognizably Pan-European. Even when it came to opera, which requires the use of a specific language and thus presents some thorny questions of national specificity, composers would set their operas in languages other than their native tongues.
The development of a shared culture transcending borders is an extremely positive development in European history, and I’m happy to see it recapitulated in European pop music. It’s not true that these musicians could be “from anywhere”; I don’t see them taking much influence from Southeast Asian music, or Amerindian folk music, or anything like that. Their music is clearly descended from a European tradition.
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