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As for me, I just wanna dance.

May 29, 2013 By Ben Hebert

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The main stage at any EDM festival you go to this summer is guaranteed to be a continual stream of mainstream top 40 progressive house / pop tracks. A few artists fall outside of this, but generally you can count on hearing the same set recycled over and over throughout the day.

Songs like “Epic”, “Save the World”, “Internet Friends” and “Clarity” have been played beyond the point of death. So why do they still keep appearing in DJ sets?

As a reader of WRR and other music blogs, you probably understand that you fall outside of what would be considered a casual fan. You’re involved and invested in electronic music, whereas the casual fan isn’t.

The casual fan goes to a music festival to explore their predefined “festival experience”. Sometimes it’s about the music, sometimes it’s about blacking out before noon. Comparatively speaking, the seasoned veterans know what to expect, how to act and are able to flow from one experience to the next. Casual fans have no flow.

Brand names draw numbers for festivals. Not the music. The casual fan probably can’t identify three tracks Steve Aoki has produced, but they know who Aoki is and will go for the experience. There’s nothing wrong with this from either perspective.

Here’s a regular conversation between an artist and an agent;

Artist: Why am I not getting booked for more shows?

Agent: The hype just isn’t there.

Artist: How do I create hype?

Agent: IDK.

Steve Aoki and Diplo are probably the two best examples of hype machine’s. Their ability to create and control the conversation about their brands online is unrivaled. If other artists could break through the noise and generate that same level of hype, they would. Maybe their shows would reflect it and they’d be able to display some level of artistic expression in their sets. Unfortunately most can’t and choose to avoid the risk of originality in any form.

Martin Solveig, the intended victim of Wolfgang Gartner’s recent fiery twitter tirade, probably played a bunch of Beatport Top 10 tracks at Neon Desert Music Festival. Why? Because the casual fan cannot identify with Martin Solveig. He’s nothing to them. Sorry Martin, but it’s the truth.

The main stage is a chance for Solveig to connect with an entirely new audience. By playing familiar mainstream music, he’s or anyone else for that matter is developing a relationship and connecting a new audience to his brand. No matter the quality, a lot of people will walk away from Solveig’s set saying… “Dude that set was f’ing incredible, the best of my life.”

Arguably there’s less integrity playing other people’s music to try and gain fans, but can you really hate Solveig or anyone else for taking this approach? Not everyone can be Eric Prydz.

When the EDM bubble bursts (and it will burst), only a select few number of DJs will be able to continue their careers the same way that they are now. The Tiesto’s, Armin van Buuren’s and Bassnectar’s will be able to keep touring and drawing audiences because they have legions of dedicated fans. DJs are aware of this.

So if someone on the main stage is trying to cultivate a larger audience by playing mainstream music, so be it. If the people there are too stupid to notice or care, that’s their loss.

Most of the headliners are booked for their ability to draw huge crowds in. Headliners let us all get groovy at the Sunday School Grove to the sounds of Luciano. Seasoned music festivals haven’t forgotten about the fans who used to come when you could get tickets for less than $100. Pop-ups are a different story.

With festival attendance higher than ever before, the people had to come from somewhere right? One glance down your newsfeed and you’ll see all of your friends updating about the festivals that they’re going to this summer. Many of them, taking the trip for the first time.

It’s a beautiful thing that our generation has rallied around live music and sort of defined it as the thing to do.

Generation-Y’s message to society is;