EDM Report June 2021

With 3 David Guetta records and a Calvin Harris record currently in the Top 40 it seemed the right time to do an update on the state of EDM in the charts.

To recap, back at the end of 2018 Liam Howlett said the charts were in a better place now EDM was dead. Calvin Harris had a Top 40 hit at the beginning of 2019 and the next time he appeared in the Top 40 was September 2020 with an R&B record. None of David Guetta's singles in 2019 or 2020 made the Top 40. The charts weren't completely free of EDM music during this period but there was notably less of it than in previous years.

This year though it appears to be on the rise again and both David Guetta and Calvin Harris have returned to the Top 40. After rap it's the 2nd most popular genre in the Top 40 this year in terms of quantity.

It's now 12 years since David Guetta topped the charts with "When Love Takes Over". Historically you'd expect a dance genre to have 12 months at the top before the world moves onto something new. The records currently in the charts by David Guetta and Calvin Harris could just as easily have been written in 2009.

The main difference now in the case of 2 of the David Guetta records in the Top 40 is that instead of being David Guetta featuring random singers it's David Guetta featuring other producers and random singers. It's often been questioned whether David Guetta actually writes any of his music. Here it looks like David Guetta is simply allowing his name to be used on the record for promotional purposes. 

The question though is why has it lasted so long? I think its to do with the fact it's not music for music lovers. It's for people who are influenced by Instagram influencers or people who watch "The Only Way Is Essex". The music is secondary, it's all about the image. 

I'm not going to pretend that sort of thing wasn't there before. House music has always been a bit up it's own backside in my opinion evident by the fact that at almost every event I went to you'd get people in the queue being turned away for not meeting the dress code requirements. 

But EDM is the music of what's considered cool in the modern world. Its music to dance to in the club or to work out. I've never watched "The Only Way Is Essex" or any of those other reality TV shows but I get the impression it's people going to the club and working out. As long as that sort of thing is popular then so will EDM.

David Guetta

 

On August 24th 2009 I was in HMV debating whether to buy the standard or deluxe edition of the new David Guetta album "One Love" which had been released that day. I bought the standard edition. On 31st December 2010 having not listened to it for a long time, I gave it to a friend.

I first came across David Guetta around 2002, I can't remember whether it was "Love Don't Let Me Go" or "Just A Little More Love" that I heard first, but needless to say it had little impact on me at the time. I was predominantly listening to rap and R&B back then and dance music was very much on the back burner.

Fast forward to 2006 and I was very much into dance music again. Every Sunday I would watch the Galaxy Chart on MTV Dance. You'd get a mix of some genuinely good dance music and some pretty awful crap like Cascada. The presenter Jo Good appeared to have a similar opinion to me when it came to the music, she made no secret that she didn't like Cascada and all the other cheesy crap that would feature and seemed to like the good stuff. She would also mention several times that she prefers dance records not to have vocals, which is something I could relate to.

There was one exception though, as you may have guessed that was David Guetta. She was always quite complimentary towards David Guetta, but to me it was too commercial sounding for my liking. However, through hearing him on the Galaxy Chart week after week his music started to grow on me, so much so that I ended up buying his "Pop Life" album after it got released in 2007.

It was a commercial record for sure, but with the likes of Tocadisco and a pre-Swedish House Mafia Sebastian Ingrosso and Steve Angello featuring it had at least a bit of credibility in my book. 

Then in 2009 he went very commercial by collaborating with Kelly Rowland and topping the charts with "When Love Takes Over". Follow up "Sexy Bitch" featuring Akon also topped the charts.

I wasn't convinced by either of these records, but remembered that it had taken a while for his music to grow on me previously so thought I'd give them a chance, hence I bought the album.

After a few listens of the album it became apparent that it was never going to grow on me. I wasn't expecting anything underground sounding, I knew it would be commercial and I was fine with that. I was never a fan of having well known singers on almost every track, this was before pretty much every EDM record followed that formula. 

The worst thing though was the actual music. It was just so poor, no substance to it whatsoever. Yet it made him one of the biggest DJs in the world over the next decade or so. 

Although it clearly worked for him, one question is why did the quality of the music deteriorate so rapidly? This was a man who was already successful and already had a commercial sound.

The answer is Joachim Garraud. It's always been questioned whether David Guetta actually has anything to do with the writing of his music. If you look at the credits of any of his tunes you will find none of them have been written by David Guetta by himself. The co-writer on every track on every album up to and including "Pop Life" is Joachim Garraud. He doesn't co-write anything by David Guetta after this.

The tune I've posted is "133" which was from his first album. 

EDM in the charts - September 2020

A year ago I made a post questioning whether the era of EDM is over, citing the dwindling number of EDM Top 40 hits and the lack of Calvin Harris and David Guetta in the charts as the reason.

I thought it would be interesting to see what's happened in the year since. 

By my reckoning we've had 20 Top 40 hits you could put under the EDM banner over the past year. The first 4 of these came in the remainder of 2019. This included a Jax Jones hit that appeared on Christmas Top of the Pops.

None of the new entries in January this year were EDM and we had a solitary one in February from Joel Corry, who's apparently a fitness instructor and TV personality as well as a DJ. Then in March we had Jax Jones no doubt secure his place on this years Christmas Top of the Pops with the hit "Tequila" and then newcomer had a hit with an EDM cover of "Flowers" by Sweet Female Attitude.

By the end of April, a third of the way through the year, there had only been 3 EDM Top 40 hits. Then May gave us 3 more. By the end of June we were up to 7, but then July gave us a further 6 which included the number one hit "Head and Heart" by Joel Corry. 

In September we saw Calvin Harris return to the Top 40 for the first time since January last year. However, this was with an R&B record rather than EDM. In the same month David Guetta had a single out, but this failed to make the Top 40.

One has to go back to the 80s for the last time we had 20 or less dance records in the Top 40 over a given year when it was only just getting started. Even before EDM was a thing and mainstream dance music popularity was in decline we would still have more that 20 Top 40 hits that were dance. 

However, what we have to bear in mind is that we don't have the quantity of Top 40 hits overall that we used to have. Also, if we look at R&B, the genre Calvin Harris turned to with his latest hit, in the Top 40 over the past year we only have 9, so far less than EDM.

If you've been following my Top 40 leaderboard posts you'll know that the Top 40 these days is dominated by rap music. Between 2014-2016 we had less than 20 Top 40 hits each year that were rap.

The 2nd biggest genre in terms of number of hits in the past year is pop, which isn't really a genre as such more a generic term for popular music that doesn't fit a genre. The 3rd biggest is EDM.

It's not really dying then, it's just rap is much more popular. What will happen over the next year?

Is the EDM era now over?

Late last year, I read an interview with Liam Howlett where he said the UK charts were much better now EDM is dead. He said whilst it's still popular in America, it's dead in the UK and that's what counts.

Whilst there was notably less EDM music in the charts than there was a few years ago, the fact Calvin Harris collectively spent 14 weeks at number one last year means it wasn't exactly dead.

This year though, those who follow the charts may have spotted we have a notable absentee from the Top 40, David Guetta. He isn't on hiatus though, he's released 7 singles this year and none of them have made the Top 40. The closest he has got was 41.

Before we go any further though, we need to define what exactly EDM is. In my view, it's basically commercial dance music, made for the clubs and the charts.

Another thing to establish is whether Tropical House should be considered EDM? Well in my view, no. For a start, it's too slow to really be considered as dance music, but also it doesn't have it's roots in clubs like other forms of dance music, it came straight out of the bedrooms of the producers.

We've established there's been no David Guetta in the Top 40, but what about the other one, Calvin Harris? Well yes he had a big hit with "Giants" at the start of the year, but nothing since then.

Tiesto has been in the charts this year, but in reality it's been with pop music rather than dance music. It's the equivalent of Joey Negro giving himself a credit on "Relight My Fire" by Take That in the 90s, but whilst Joey Negro is generally considered to be dance music, it's a pop song. A similar thing could be said of Marshmello's hit this year featuring Chvrches, it's pop not dance.

We are now 3 quarters of the way through the year, and EDM tune wise in the Top 40 I've counted 9 including the Calvin Harris one. We also have "Breathe" by Camelphat ft Cristoph & Jem Cooke and "Piece of your Heart" by Meduza ft Goodboys. I'm not going to pretend these are underground sounding records, but at the same time they don't sound as commercial as your typical EDM record. They aren't exactly household names either, nor do they have vocals by a "name" just to sell more records.

We do have a couple of Top 40 hits by Jax Jones, plus one each from Martin Garrix and Sigala, all of which feature everybody and everybody else. The remaining 2 come from Avicii who for obvious reasons isn't going to be making any new EDM music.

The latter of the 2 Avicii hits, "Heaven", was the last EDM tune to make the Top 40, and it came out at the start of June. Nearly 4 months have passed since. In a way though, it seems quite appropriate for that to be the final EDM Top 40 hit.

Ok, I'm talking about the Top 40 and obviously there is more to music than the Top 40, particularly in this day and age. But then EDM is music for the charts, so if it isn't there then where is it?

Away from the charts though, if you look at the line up at SW4 this year it wasn't exactly what I'd call a dance music festival, maybe they needed the pop acts because dance music isn't popular enough to sell that many tickets anymore.

The thing is though, EDM did well to carry on for as long as it did. It was 10 years ago when David Guetta had number ones with "When Love Takes Over" and "Sexy Bitch" and Calvin Harris had a number one with "I'm Not Alone".

In 1989 Acid House was a big thing, in 1999 it was long gone. Similarly in 1999 UK Garage became a big thing, in 2009 it was long gone. We don't know if EDM is finished yet commercially, but if it is then it's about time.