Many musical genres emerged and evolved throughout the 20th century. In the 1990s, a genre known as electronica became popular in the United Kingdom and made its way to the United States and other countries. The term electronica can refer to the specific genre from the United Kingdom, or have a broader meaning which includes all electronic music in general. Electronica became a popular dance form, especially at clubs.
In the early 1990s, electronica began as an experimental form of techno music intended for dance parties. A giant of the scene was New Electronica, which began marketing the genre for home listening instead of just dance clubs. It also became known as ambient techno or intelligent techno and shifted away from other genres such as trip hop and jungle music. Popular artists such as Daft Punk, Fatboy Slim, and Moby who recorded in the late 1980s began to identify as electronica musicians in the early 1990s.
In the mid 1990s, artists based in the United Kingdom, such as the Chemical Brothers and The Prodigy, became known for the “big beat” sound. Big beat features heavy backbeats, moderate tempos, and prominent synthesizer lines. The term was coined by Big Bang, a duo creating electronic music in the UK. The group was known for incorporating Arabic and other languages and ethnic music into their albums supported by trance-like beats, which were later utilized by club DJs. Madonna was one of the first mainstream artists to incorporate this style into her music, specifically in her album Ray of Light. Icelandic musician Bjork also brought big beat and electronica into the spotlight with two of her albums, Post and Homogenic.
In the late 1990s, mainstream music in North America began to use electronica as an umbrella term for many styles of electronic music, such as techno, downbeat, and ambient genres. It was used to describe underground club music as well as music produced by mainstream labels and artists. Electronica became a popular genre alongside alternative rock, which became a significant musical force in the 1990s.
In the late 1990's, the ability to create music using a simple personal computer became available to anyone armed with a soundcard and a MIDI keyboard. Siobahn Hotaling started making music in this fashion in 1999, building trip-hop instrumentals under the moniker Equipoise. Her love of electronic music led to studies in recording technology and becoming adept at software platforms like Ableton Live and Pro Tools.
By the 2010s, the genre had morphed into the umbrella term of electronic dance music (EDM). All of the genres within electronica and EDM relied heavily on advances in music technology, such as synthesizers, drum machines, and digital audio workstations. Further advances in technology made this equipment accessible to smaller studios and finally to individuals, making the creation of electronic music easier than ever.
One of the most popular instruments was the synthesizer, an electronic workstation first created as an academic experiment in sound production. The instrument featured frequency modulation (FM) and was created at Stanford University in the 1960s. Synthesizers first began as analog machines, often laid out like a piano keyboard with a mixing board to control sounds and volume levels. As synthesizers became more popular, the machines eventually shifted to digital controls, giving musicians the ability to easily create complex electronic sounds using computer software. This software, known as “softsynth,” ran on traditional PC hardware, using sound cards and algorithms manipulated by user-friendly controls. Mainstream bands such as Duran Duran and Talking Heads used digital synthesizers in the 1980s before the rise of the electronica genre of the 1990s.
