Earlier this week, Rolling Stone Italia released a video that has undoubtedly caused unrest in the EDM community. The video does not only question electronic music as “real” music, but also dismisses it entirely. The video plays like a call to arms for rock stars to reclaim their stage, making fun of their DJ counterparts, and claiming that they’ll never have songs that people will sing along to and other ideas that allude to their claim that they’re “fake” musicians.
While I’ve only seen US reactions from EDM fans, responses show that fans feel personally attacked. It’s important to realize this piece of media is coming from another culture entirely. While music often pervades cultural, linguistic, racial, and age differences, in theory, the subcultures that build up around respective genres are not always universal. I studied abroad in Italy and just returned from a third trip there and I can tell you first hand that the current EDM/rave/PLUR/dubstep/every subgenre scene in America is not the same as the discoteque-based designer-wearing crowds in Italy.
Yet it should not matter where the music is being played or the crowd’s outfits who enjoy it. This video shallowly critiques artists, fans, and a musical genre that truly by scientific, artistic, musically theoretic and most importantly, soulful accounts, is legitimate music. It’s hard to believe a music magazine that began during the height of sixties counterculture could even support something like this, but the American parent magazine has supported many genres of music, including EDM, and it appears Italy’s editors have a different agenda entirely.
I’d like to end this article with a quote from Black Sabbath member Ronnie James Dio:
“Music, rock and roll music especially, is a generational thing. Each generation must have their own music I had mine, you had yours everyone I know has their own generation.”
Watch the video below and share your thoughts:
This was a guest editorial written by Jennifer Curley.
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