We live in a beautiful and complex world in which so many marvelous “things” mother nature, God, or even Aliens (for some people) created; all those “things” constantly changing, in order to accommodate the surrounding elements’ changes.

This is called the evolution.

As Charles Darwin stated, “Les espèces qui survivent ne sont pas les espèces les plus fortes, ni les plus intelligentes, mais celles qui s’adaptent le mieux aux changements.” (Which means that the species that survive aren’t necessarily the most powerful, neither the most intelligent, but those who can best adapt to changes.)

It is exactly the same with music. Even if some people let themselves get waved smoothly into the world of music trends, some others will be aware of that evolution as it reflects almost everywhere; on the radio, on television, on the internet, in clubs, etc.

My goal today is to share with you my experience in the last year or so, of this evolution as a DJ in Montreal. I have to say I’ve been very lucky concerning my musical path since I’ve always loved electronic-made music at all its stages and even in my early teenage I was bringing “techno music” compils at my day camp pool day!

In early 2000, Hip-hop was Montreal’s hottest music to listen to, to bounce on and to produce. But as the years passed, electronic music occupied a heavier place in Montreal’s young citizen’s hearts and ears. Knowing that the first studio to record electronic music was created in Paris in 1951, it is not a surprise if I tell you that this electronic music tsunami came from Europe… From that tsunami came Justice and their Ed Banger Records, Boys Noize, Simian Mobile Disco, MSTRKRFT, Teenage Bad Girl, Tiga, Soulwax, Surkin and more… Those bands became extremely popular at an outrageous speed but faded as fast as they appeared. Why?

Well first of all, that is not entirely true. They didn’t faded completely since I’m still listening to Planishpère at this very moment. But remember what said Charles Darwin? Go ahead, have a second look at that beautiful quote. Nice, huh? Well let’s apply it to all those bands. Some (sometimes even without wanting to do so) adapted themselves in a better way to the evolution of electronic music. For example, the big electronic music trend after Justice and all their friends was what some people called “Crunk”. “Crunk” music, as they called it (even if the real definition does not refer to this) is a mix of electro music and hip-hop/rap music. Crookers were the masters of this art followed by a lot of others like The Bloody Beetroots. But only a few bands were able to adapt to this change. Teenage Bad Girl for example (even though they are excellent) had difficulty to adapt.

Then recently came the Tech and House wave that awaken the most talented electronic music artists of our beautiful planet such as Eric Prydz,  John Dahlbäck, the complete Sound Pellegrino Record team artists and more. And guess what? We’re in that tech-house era right now! Peanuts club, Afrojack’s Moombah remix, SonicC’s stickin’ and many more hit parade you can hear in almost any Montreal clubs are qualified as Dutch-House.

One last thing that I would like to draw your attention to, is not only artists but also DJs need to carefully follow the music evolution since the crowd don’t want to dance on out-of-date music!

I apologize for this horribly long post, but I hope you all agreed on it and learnt at least one thing about the evolution of electronic music. There is so much to say but I guess i’ll have to wait to next week! As for now, I will have you listen to awesome not-so-recent electro bangers and some more-recent nice tech-house. Take note that Maher Daniel is a Montreal artist, and I will talk about him in the weeks to come.

Old Good Bangers:

ZZT – Lower State of Consciousness (Justice Remix)

Boys Noize – Shine Shine (Shadow Dancer Unreleased Remix)

New excellent Tech House:

Maher Daniel – Casbar

Julien Chaptal – Joel Starr (Lauhaus Remix) <——

Have a good banger thursday everyone and I hope to see you on the second floor of Saphir NightClub! and if you want to explore further on the subject:

The Evolution of Electronic Music

JulianC