For my final assignment in history of pop music I decided to tackle electronic dance music (EDM) and explore its start and the prominent artists featured today. I started by looking at were EDM music began and how it evolved into the dominating genre it is today. Ironically, as it turns out, we already technically talked about the start of EDM in class. EDM had its humble beginnings after disco died in the early 80s. the electronic sounds and fast paced beat of disco led to the main framework of EDM. Having remixes of popular and classical songs being the forefront in EDM today, the same can be said about early electronic and progressive dance music. Beethoven’s 5th symphony by Walter Murphy is a prime example of early EDM. It features no original words, I say original words meaning that none were recorded or added but rather taken  off of a sampling. This definitely reflects one of the main ideologies of EDM music. A modern day example being Skrillex’s song Scary Monsters and Nice Spirtes. The song itself has no words beside a voice clip taken from a youtube video of a girl cup stacking, in which she exclaims “YES OH MY GOD!”. Those lines are the only spoken word throughout the song. This song is usually considered to be in the genre of Dubstep by die-hard EDM fans, but I believe they fall under the same umbrella within EDM. The culture of EDM drastically changed in the late 90s and early 2000s when festivals, such as Bonaroo and Burning Man, gained popularity and began signing more electronic and techno artists to the roster of musicians. In a lot of ways EDM can relate to rap, hold on I’ll explain, in rap, as we have discussed in class, sampling is taken from other songs and the rappers talk over it with a certain “flow” to add their own musical input. EDM works in a similar way, taking samplings from older songs or, as mentioned above, random video clips in order to make a song out of it. Also with rap, there are remixes of other artists songs that include new words or input from other artists, EDM musicians do a similar practice when remix other artists songs and even their own. The criticisms I have run into with EDM music is that people, (usually those of an older generation) do not define it as music. The blast beat repetitiveness of the songs are so simplistic, they argue, that it doesn;t hold the same virtuosity that other genres like rock n’ roll hold. I can understand their frustration, spending your whole life perfecting an instrument, then seeing a kid with an iPod dock for a concert would make me a bit peeved off too. But these EDM artists are similar to MCs in a way, they make a concert or a festival seem nonstop by playing one track into the next, as long as it has a similar tempo, very close to how disco was done in the 70s. So, in my thinking, if you don’t like disco, you won’t like EDM, but I am going to try my best to make it fun for everyone,  even if it isn’t your cup of tea.

Looking at the list of megastars provided by Dr. Baumer I thought more of a band that revolutionized music versus a single person who did it. Looking at my own musical tastes as well as the time period of the 1980s I have decided to write about Metallica. Metallica helped to redefine the genre of thrash metal and throughout the years they have been able to make thrash metal into the mainstream pop music scene. In 1983 Metallica released Kill Em’ All, their first album and it was well received by critics for its interesting take on what they called “speed metal”.  When Metallica released the Black Album, they became a popular music commercial success. Before they released the Black Album, the band experienced some hardships. There was an accident on a tour bus and their bassist Cliff Burton was killed. At the time lead singer James Hetfield was drinking heavily while they were on tour and it was starting to affect their performance. James went into rehab and completed an alcoholic’s anonymous to quit his drinking, he has since been successful and continues to abstain from alcohol. During a concert in Montreal in 1992, pyrotechnic accident on stage caused Hetfield to be set on fire, resulting in the singer being hospitalized and delaying their tour. After Hetfield recovered from his injury he rejoined the band and continued to tour and release more albums.  One of the singles from that album, Enter Sandman, is one of the most widely known metal songs to date. Having 5 single tracks released made Metallica’s 7 minute songs a must to be played on the radio. They have even changed their own musical tastes with the times, having lighter songs featuring acoustic guitar and making music that is more methodical and virtuosic, such as the track One from their And Justice For All album. Michael Jackson became the king of pop and Metallica became the kings of metal, or the four horsemen of metal. Looking at major starts in the 80s we can see the beginnings of their musical development and how not only how their music has changed but how they evolved in an environment with metal music not being the most popular choice among listening audiences during the 1980s-1990. In addition, they have won 9 Grammy awards since 1990 and have since played concerts on all 7 continents in the world. They have had merchandising and commercial success with video games, actions figures, and documentary’s about the bands legacy and what they plan to do in the future. They have been steadily released albums every two years since 2008 and have just released their newest album, Hardwired to Self Destruct. As with a lot of metal music their is wither a cult following or a following of die-hard fans that have hundreds of dollars of Metallica merchandise, myself included. The current members of the band include lead singer and rhythm guitarist James Hetfield, lead guitarists Kirk Hammett, drummer Lars Ulrich, and Robert Trujillo and they are continuing to tour today.