Amazing C21 electronic music
Our history concentrates on some of the main directions that electronic music took this century like dance music and EDM, but many other artists also deserve a mention and there are, of course, many more underground acts to search for.
And electronic music in this century really does, as you might expect, cover every spectrum of music, from the more pop leanings of The Killers, Future Islands and Chvrches to experimental composers like Jenny Hval, Boards of Canada and (at one time anyway) M83.
Then there are the once electronic producers who have broken through the ranks to the mainstream: Jon Hopkins is still widely regarded for his extremely dynamic electronic works, while also dabbling in tunes with Eno and Coldplay, while William Orbit went from Strange Cargo electronics to awards with Madonna – quite a journey in any electronic musician’s book.
Then are also many acts who have rejoined the dots and bought the electronic sound up to date while unashamedly nodding to its past. Will Gregory and Goldfrapp certainly helped bring back the ‘analogue’ in synth, LCD Soundsystem and Daft Punk took elements of everything electronic and simply made them cool, while Ulrich Schnauss occasionally nodded back to Tangerine Dream before actually becoming Tangerine Dream.
Finally, more than two billion Spotify streams can’t be wrong. The Weeknd’s Blinding Lights is probably the most high-profile synth pop tune of the last couple of years, having been number one the world over and shifting as many copies as any synth song. It wears its 80s roots well – those riffs could have come from any a-ha or OMD single – and proves that electronic music, in its purest form, is alive, well and as popular as ever.