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Electro House

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Electro house is perhaps the most popular and ubiquitous form of Electronic Music in The New '10s. It is, unsurprisingly, a derivative of House Music incorporated with a whole slew of elements from other popular electronic music subgenres, such as Synth-Pop, Trance and Techno. Musically, electro house is written in Common Time at a moderate tempo (usually from 120-140 BPM) and features the simple, pulsating drum beats of regular house, verse-chorus-verse songwriting where the chorus portions (or "drops") are preceded by long buildups, and a mix of prominent basslines and short, high-pitched synth riffs. Vocals are not very common and are usually optional.

It is perhaps one of the biggest examples of Older Than They Think in modern EDM, having been around since The '90s, and only gaining notice by the Turn of the Millennium. Thanks in part to the mainstream successes of musicians and producers such as Madeon, Swedish House Mafia, Tiësto, Skrillex and Zedd, electro house experienced a surge in popularity by The New '10s, spawning a wave of both upcoming electro house artists and artists moving to electro house from other genres. The Tomorrowland Music Festival, hosted annually in Belgium since 2005, prominently features electro house artists from all over the world.

As with other electronic music genres, electro house has numerous spin-off genres, the most notable being:

  • Complextro - Electro house that features prominent, glitchy basslines and sharp synth riffs that sound like they've been cut and pasted together. Often takes cues from dubstep, crossovers are fairly common. Notable artists include Kill the Noise, Knife Party, Madeon, Porter Robinson (especially in his earlier material), Wolfgang Gartner, Botnek, and Skrillex.

  • Dutch House, also called "Dirty Dutch" - Electro house that features Latin or tribal-influenced beats, soft bass, and squeaky high-pitched synths. Most of it comes from The Netherlands, hence the name. Often seen as the Ur-Example to the big room movement. Notable artists include Afrojack, Hardwell, Martin Garrix, Oliver Heldens, and W&W

  • Big Room House - Electro house that features sparse 4/4 beats played at a moderate tempo, high-pitched synths akin to Dutch and progressive house, long, drawn out buildups, and a distinctive, minimalistic drop where all instrumentation is reduced to a pulsing beat (often acid or hoover) and short synth stabs. Notable for abusing the Boléro Effect and for the (perceived) similarity in composition, especially in the drops. It is a divisive genre within electro house, frequently panned by music critics as oversaturated and lacking in originality (so much as to prompt a certain Swedish EDM duo, Daleri, to create a parody mashup of Beatport's top 15 big room tracks) and at the same time, loved by a good portion of the EDM community who thinks that the simplicity of the genre is its main appeal. Notable artists include Dimitri Vegas and Like Mike, DVBBS, Hardwell, Martin Garrix, W&W, Ummet Ozcan, Nicky Romero, and Showtek. The record label, Spinnin' Records, primarily caters to big room artists.

  • Moombahton - Electro house mixed with Reggae. Often bassy, slow electro house with quick drum fills. There's also 'Moombahcore, which has dubstep influences. Notable artists include Dillon Francis, Major Lazer, Flux Pavilion, and Zeds Dead.

  • Subground - A subgenre of Electro House and Hard Dance that combines mainstream electro house with hardstyle. Abrasive sounds such as hoovers, acid sounds, screeches, and pitched/gated kicks are set to typical electro house tempos and groovy rhythms. Notable artists include ACTI, Borgore, Congorock, Geck-o, and Organ Donors.

Notable Artists

Tropes associated with electro house include the following:

  • Boléro Effect: As with regular House Music, however it is much more pronounced in electro house, with simplistic beats ultimately building up to titanic drops, and is pretty much the norm in big room house. Played with in some tracks that feature "anticlimax" drops where melodic elements are disposed, leaving only the beat and rhythmic elements like plucks and synth stabs to linger on for a while before the music builds up again.
  • Broken Base: Arguably the most divisive of electronic music genres, with fans literally at each others' throats arguing about what qualifies as "real" electro house due to the countless directions the genre has been taking and the increasing commercialization of the genre as a whole.
  • Genre-Busting: Electro house freely allows for the inclusion of whatever EDM element an artist/producer would like to include, as the core element of making electro house is usually the 4/4 house beat, a punchy bassline and the verse-drop-verse songwriting.
  • Older Than They Think: The genre has been around since the 90's, only bursting into the mainstream in the wake of the 2010s EDM boom and superseding earlier mainstream styles such as Hardcore Techno and Dubstep during the earlier half of that decade.

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