My relationship with EDM

25/05/20

2.35am

I am not a person who is certain about many things. But there are two things I am quite certain about.

1.      I have pretty much completely lost it. As can be seen from this title and the sheer pointlessness and ridiculousness of it all.

2.      This title is an exaggeration because there are actually only 2 things that make up my journey / relationship with Electronic Dance Music.

It is currently 2am. I have a meeting later today at 1.30pm. and that is going to be a problem, considering that the last time I had a meeting at 2pm, I woke up just 20 minutes before it started and had to rush a lunch and coffee.

Ahh so, back to EDM. I will say that I first got acquainted with it in mid to late 2015. Where there was some stupid 5-minute sharing thing which our teacher made everyone take turns doing each week. And some kid gave a sharing about how much she loved EDM and all the different styles that existed. Amelia, again from Einsamkeit.

(The 5-minute sharing thing was a big fat embarrassment and humiliation for me because of fucking social anxiety, but that’s beside the point.)

And at that point in time 15-year-old me did not take an immediate liking to EDM. I thought it was overrated, because too many people liked it. And I thought it was extremely basic and lacking in artistry, considering how there were stereotypically no lyrics, and basically just drums and other fake synthesizer sounds on repeat. And it seemed really rough as well, with its drops and climaxing, and the sense that it would be good clubbing music.

To be honest, till now, I still do not completely appreciate all Electronic Dance Music, or even many subgenres or artistes. I am mostly only tolerant, and I have only taken a liking to songs by Alan Walker, and even then, only those with lyrics, and seeming to have a storyline.

Thus, I was not glad about how even Yao seems to like some EDM.

The first type of EDM that I “got into”, was techno. The hard stuff from the 70s or 80s about there. Mostly just one or two songs from Kraftwerk. And it was mainly an influence from being into 70s and 80s metal music. And in my opinion at that time, metal was basically the only genre of music that was actually music, because it was the “only thing” that had raw feelings and screaming and shit that makes it real. And that’s just my opinion.

But I never actually deeply explored EDM. Not then, and even now, still not.

My next experience with EDM was (And I realize that in saying this I am going to have to reveal certain things that, in the past, I tried to hard not to mention in name.) in competitive sport. Oh, and in trying to brush it off I have made it to be more than it really is. In fact, it is just a bit of recreational air gun shooting that I sank too deeply into and which basically consumed the whole of my two and a half years and caused me quite a lot of grief.

I don’t know much about the specifics, but that in sport shooting competitions, (not that I ever qualified for any of them, even though I dedicated so much of my more than two fucking years of time.) the organizers tend to play EDM music. I don’t know how to describe it. Chill-ish? Vigorous and distracting-ish? I don’t know if it was meant to help athletes get into the zone, or if it was meant to distract them.

But because of this fact, the coach started to play loud music, mostly non-copyrighted EDM music from YouTube or something, during training sessions. And since this sport that consumed over two years of my life meant so much to me, the music that I associate with it also became sentimental in my mind. On sad, emo nights, I would play some random EDM playlists just to reminiscence the days. Oh, and its particularly sad, since midway through the two years, the original coach left, and another coach took over. So, my sad EDM listening sessions were also to remember my coach and the memories of training under him.

EDM still didn’t play as major a role in my life as it does now.

What changed was a performance. Currently, it is about a year ago, or less. A journey where I got to know about Alan Walker and becoming obsessed with his music, when previously he was merely a name to me.

A contemporary lyrical dance piece choreographed to the first half of Tired by Alan Walker.

Compared to that competitive sport that ate two years of my life, but merely got me acquainted with EDM in general, this new dance thing was a much shorter portion of my life. But it is fresh in my memory, and very intense still, even though the memories are fading. Less than two months, to learn a difficult and complex dance, get into performance standard, and perform in front of a large crowd, and it was also a kind of dance competition between the different groups. It was a sort of a big thing…

The song, Tired, is rather gentle and blue-ish and emotional in style. Since we only had more than a month to learn this dance, dance practices were long and intense. Starting at twice a week and culminating in almost every day, nearing the date. I listened to this song, and sections of it, SO MANY GODDAMN TIMES, on repeat, during dance practice. I was told that after the performance, I would be so sick and tired of this song that I no longer wanted to hear it.

But that wasn’t near the truth. This song dug a hole in my heart and buried itself deep inside. Recently, I find myself, often, turning on this song on the YouTube on the TV, at 3am or later at night, when everyone was asleep, and I was all alone. Listening to this song, being alone with my thoughts, in the dark, dark night. Once, there was even alcohol involved, listening to Alan Walker’s Tired and other songs on repeat, and being sad, and feeling like every single line of the lyric was so, so meaningful.

Thanks to 3 very traumatizing binge drinking sessions with the dance crew, my brain and my heart now associates Tired, and Alan Walker, and booze, together. And in it a whole bunch of memories, reminiscence, and sadness.

Now, of course Tired isn’t the only song I listen too. There are also other Alan Walker songs, which kind of evoke the same set of feelings, though not as intensely. It’s a curious situation. My brain is fucked up. Linking things together, lumping them, and magnifying all the sadness I feel.

So, yeah. Now EDM, to me, is Alan Walker’s songs and emo-ing on the sofa.

And though this may be pure cognitive bias, but I would say that EDM has made more impact on my life than even Metal or Rock or Emo. And just a very small section of EDM can do so much. Indeed, it is magical.

Of course, there is also the aspect of EDM being very much associated to clubbing and drinks. And to the kind of alcoholic degenerate that I still am, EDM makes me reminiscence about drinking as well. And my strong desire to go to a club, get drunk, have it be so dark and so loud that I cant hear anyone and no one knows who I am and just dance and scream the night away, head bobbing and jumping and raving to some basic EDM that does the job in creating the atmosphere.

And sometimes I rave alone in my room, punching the air and stuff, while listening to EDM on loudspeaker.