EDM Has Flipped The Music World Around!

When Mannequins closed down in 2008, the club's electronic dance music format was broken.  So called" House" music had had its run during the 90's and so called "Dance" music had had a brief spike during the early 00's. But during the mid to late 00's Hip Hop was where it was at, dominating Pop and Top 40 music.  The Tiësto's, Ferry Corsten's, Paul Oakenfold's, etc. managed to put out hits but radio airplay in North America was generally non-existent and club play was limited in each city to places like Mannequins. You'll recall that even much of what Mannequins played were Hip Hop remixes; Hip Hop songs remixed by struggling DJ's to a faster EDM beat! Anyone remember hearing Dance remixes of songs like Rihanna's 'Umbrella' and Toni Braxton's 'Hit The Freeway', among many, at Mannequins? Heck, this whole Blog was created because it was its mission to not only "save Pleasure Island" but also let EDM fans know about the very few EDM options in Orlando at the time because everyone was playing Hip Hop!

But in 2009 things began to change and by 2011, Hip Hop was out and EDM was in! I have my theories about what has driven this huge paradigm shift:
1) People simply grew tired of Hip Hop. There's always a natural desire for something new and EDM was new for an entire generation now in their 20's. Too much Hip Hop and Rap in general was violent and degrading, especially for women. Hip Hop isn't going to die and many top songs will come from the genre but it will no longer dominate the purchases made by consumers as it once did.

2) Sirius/XM.  Very few radio stations were playing EDM in the early 2000's and they nearly all abandoned it for Hip Hop. Satellite radio mid-decade onward gave people an option they never had before.  As the decade progressed, nearly all cars came with satellite radio, free introductory subscriptions and addictive commercial-free formats.  Area 33 and Area 63 on Sirius and BPM and The Move on XM opened this world up to millions of people who could never hear EDM before. This continues today on the merged Sirius/XM channels 51 (BPM) and 52 (Electric Area).

3) DJ David Guetta. Probably not the first DJ to do it but certainly the biggest name, his work in 2009 with singer Kelly Rowland of Destiny's Child (When Love Takes Over) and then singer Akon (Sexy Bitch) was at the beginning stages of merging Hip Hop with EDM.

4) Black Eyed Peas.  In reverse in 2009-2010, we had Hip Hop acts like BEP put out an album full of Electrohouse songs. Who could forget 'Boom Boom Pow' and 'I Gotta Feeling' dominating the #1 spot on the Top 40 chart for more than a year!  Because of this dominance, many other Hip Hop artists have joined forces with EDM Producer/DJ's and are doing well quite profitably in this merged music world! The Top 10 right now includes the Calvin Harris produced 'We Found Love' by Rihanna, the David Guetta produced 'Turn Me On' by Nicki Minaj. Even Rock acts like Coldplay and Maroon 5 have Dance songs out right now.

As 2012 progresses we have Ultra Music Festival taking place in Miami next month and it is already sold out; April's Coachella Music Festival in Indio, California is also already sold out.  The Electric Daisy Carnival format of music festivals were so huge that they're returning to 5 of the cities visited last year (including Orlando) plus doing smaller EDM festivals in another 10 cities under a different brand name!  EDM DJ's are filling up arenas; think how Tiësto went from House of Blues to Hard Rock Live to UCF Arena in 3-years just as Avicii went from The Beacham to House of Blues to UCF Arena in less than 2 years!  DJ Deadmau5 supposedly vowed never to return to Orlando but he'd probably fill Amway Arena if he did! Such is the state of affairs in the world of Electronic Dance Music.

Wouldn't this would be a perfect time for the return of Mannequins!