Tiësto on the Trance Purists: 'Very Hard to Please' — and He's Not Wrong
Ahead of a rumored trance-leaning album, Tiësto owns the gap between his genre-defining past and the pop path he took. It's an honest read on a fanbase that never forgave the pivot.
A $20 Billion Hollywood Composer Just Started an EDM Project. Take It Seriously.
Brian Tyler scored Iron Man 3 and half of Fast & Furious. His new alias Are We Dreaming isn't a vanity crossover — he's writing, directing, and cutting a full audio-visual universe himself.
GTA 6 Just Became the Most Powerful Tastemaker in Dance Music
Rockstar closed a trailer with a three-year-old house record and sent its streams up 1,070% overnight. That's not a nostalgia bump — it's a new distribution machine every label is about to chase.
Artists Stopped Waiting for a Festival Slot. Now They're Building the Room.
Skrillex took two nights at Navy Pier with an open-to-close set. Knock2 and ISOxo pushed Niteharts to three days. Wax Motif booked Grand Park. Three announcements, one shift in who actually controls the calendar.
The Two Biggest Sets of the Weekend Were About Somebody Who Wasn't There
Dimitri Vegas closed Tomorrowland's Mainstage without Like Mike. Chase & Status stopped mid-set at Let It Roll to say Lenzman's name. Two countries, two genres, same instinct — and it says something about where the scene is at right now.
Spotify Deleted 75 Million Songs. That's Not a Cleanup — It's an Admission.
Spotify says it's not banning AI music, just gutting the bot-farmed junk gaming its royalty pool. The bigger story: it took 75 million fake tracks before anyone acted.
Festivals Don't Get Decided by Lineups Anymore. They Get Decided by Airspace.
Monegros broke its attendance record and Mayan Warrior conquered Chicago. Outline got erased mid-setup over a drone threat. Three festivals, one week, and the deciding factor in none of them was the music.
Kavinsky Made One Record That Outran Dance Music Completely
Vincent Belorgey died at 50 in Paris this week. The tribute list — Guetta, The Weeknd, Justice, the President of France — is the clearest measure of how far 'Nightcall' got from the club it started in.
Dance Music Is America's Fastest-Growing Genre — and 2016 Is Doing Half the Work
Luminate's midyear report puts dance/electronic ahead of every other genre in US growth. The overlooked detail: a big share of that growth is coming from records that are already ten years old.
Fifteen Years On, Hardwell Let a Jacket Do the Talking for Avicii
Hardwell closed his Tomorrowland set in one of Avicii's own tour jackets — no speech, no spectacle. The quietest tribute of the weekend was also the loudest.
A Bot Went No. 1 on Beatport — and "You Can Always Tell" Just Died
A fully AI-made track topped a Beatport genre chart with zero disclosure. The scary part isn't that a machine made a good record. It's that nobody could tell.
The Nopia Synth Will Write Your Chord Progressions for You. At About $700, That's Exactly the Pitch.
After years of teasing, the viral pastel 'harmony machine' is basically finished. Chords, bass, arp, and pads in one box — a bet that the hardest part of production should be the easiest button to press.