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Decentralized Music Festival is returning next month, with the virtual event focusing entirely on electronic music for the first time in its four year history.
Happening Nov. 20-23, the lineup for the free event features future bass star San Holo, experimental artist Mat Zo, Canadian bass producer Whipped Cream and fellow bass mainstay Nghtmre along with a flurry of rising producers, including many from the global Decentralized community. See the complete 2024 lineup below.
Decentralized Music Festival is a product of Decentralized, an immersive digital world built using blockchain technology and owned and operated by its users through crypto technology, which differentiates it from corporate metaverses like Fortnite.
Decentralized launched its music festival in 2021 amid the pandemic. Originally called Metaverse Music Festival, in its first three years the event hosted artists including Deadmau5, 3LAU, RAC, Alison Wonderland, Ozzy Osbourne, Dillon Francis and Soulja Boy. A representative for the event says that the event drew roughly 50,000 unique attendees in 2021 and 2022. (In 2023, a smaller version of the event focusing on Decentraland community-based artists took place while the platform was being revamped.)
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“Our theme this year, ‘space traveler,’ speaks to this sense of discovery and exploration,” head producer at Decentralized and Decentralized Music Festival Bay Backner tells Billboard. “We also see Decentraland as a “third space” for music experience. It bridges the community fans find at live EDM festivals, like Tomorrowland and Ultra, with the accessibility and immediacy of streaming music at home. It is as easy to enter from your computer, but you’re simultaneously sharing an important, creative, transient experience with others from around the world. And importantly, Decentraland Music Festival is free and open to all.”
Decentralized has users in 159 countries, who, in addition to the music, can check out Decentralized Music Festival offerings like live talks on AI, the future of electronic music and “label round tables” hosted by dance imprints including Monstercat, Coop Records, Hospital Records and more.
“During the pandemic, I started a virtual events company where we were fortunate enough to put on shows with a relatively high degree of production value, and miraculously we were able to provide fees to the artists and staff involved,” Mat Zo tells Billboard. “After the pandemic ended, that fizzled out and I thought virtual events were a thing of the past. So when I was asked to perform at a virtual event this year, I was pleasantly surprised to say the least. I’m glad someone managed to take the concept further and make it work in a post pandemic context. I have a deep appreciation for the amount of work that goes into these events, and I’m extremely grateful to be a part of one.”
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Palestinian DJ Sama’ Abdulhadi says she “did not approve” the use of her image in a new ad from the Kamala Harris presidential campaign.
In a statement posted Tuesday (Oct. 22) to social media, the techno producer wrote that “the use of this footage was unauthorized and done without my consent. The use of this footage implies that I endorse Vice President Harris’s presidential candidacy, which is totally and utterly false; it is deeply offensive to my social, moral and political beliefs and is misleading political advertising by VP Harris’s presidential campaign.”
The commercial in question is titled “Detroit vs. Trump” and was released amid heavy campaigning by Harris and her running mate Tim Walz in the 2024 swing state. The ad contains footage of Adulhadi performing at Detroit’s annual Movement festival this past May.
“For the avoidance of doubt,” Abdulhadi’s statement continues, “I do not endorse nor have I ever endorsed, Vice President Harris, and I am taking the necessary legal steps to ensure that this video is promptly retracted, to dispel any notion of an association between myself and VP Harris’ campaign for the U.S. presidency.” In the caption, she writes that “I am Sama’ Abdulhadi, and I did not approve this message! I don’t endorse any US political party.”
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Abdulhadi’s statement comes amid continued criticism of the Harris campaign by many Muslim and Arab Americans, given the Biden administration’s support of Israel amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. This conflict is estimated to have killed more than 40,000 Palestinians since the war began last October.
The New York Times reports that in an effort to win the votes of Arab and Muslim voters, the Harris campaign has “launched Facebook ads targeting Muslims, created WhatsApp channels and distributed fact sheets with Ms. Harris’s most forceful statements on the war in Gaza. And in private meetings in living rooms and basements across the country, including in the battleground states of Michigan, Georgia and Pennsylvania, campaign workers are trying to reach voters who say they may stay home, vote third party or even vote for former President Donald J. Trump because of the Biden administration’s policies in the Middle East.”
Green Party candidate Jill Stein commented on Abdulhadi’s post, writing, “Wow…unbelievable.”
Speaking at the Amsterdam Dance Event last week in the Dutch capital, Abdulhadi spoke on her position as a Palestinian artist. “The resistance is doing what the people in the Arab world and what the young people in universities are doing,” she said. “The people’s movement is the thing that is now pushing me to do things, and that’s why I’m still DJing. I would have literally quit the industry a year ago if it wasn’t for for that; if it wasn’t for the crowds that I’m getting now. Every gig I do now is a protest.”
With two weeks to go until Election Day on Nov. 5, many other artists are rallying around the vice president. Eminem is scheduled to make a rare public appearance Tuesday night at a Detroit rally for Harris, where he will reportedly introduce former president Barack Obama at the event supporting the VP and Walz.
Kylie Minogue has done it all during her gold-dusted 45-year career. But even with two Grammys on the shelf and her mantle as the best-selling female artist ever from her native Australia, Kylie as a few “what-ifs?” in the closet.
She revealed one in a new chat with Audacy Check In, telling host Mike Adam that at one point she almost recorded one of Britney Spears’ most iconic songs. “Yeah, there’s a little song called ‘Toxic’ that was headed my way, and I was like, ‘Toxic? I don’t know if I want a song called Toxic’…,” said Minogue of the dance banger from Spears’ fourth album, 2003’s In the Zone. “As it’s turned out, it was meant to be a Britney Spears song, I can’t imagine it being anything else.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Minogue was asked to name which other vocalists she would tap if asked to put together an all-star “We Are the World”-type song. “It might be a girl group,” she said before rattling off a list that included Chappell Roan, Sabrina Carpenter, Lana Del Rey, Miley Cyrus and Madonna.
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Minogue also talked about pulling the set list together for her upcoming first U.S. tour in more than a dozen years, promising that she’ll hit songs from this month’s Tension II, as well as its 2023 predecessor Tension, 2002’s Disco and 2018’s Golden, and, of course, her 1987 breakthrough smash cover of “Locomotion.”
The 56-year-old singer who has tapped into a musical fountain of youth that has kept her relevant for decades — see her 2023 global dance hit “Padam Padam” — also delved into the changes she’s seen for women in the music industry.
“It’s very encouraging that I’m proof, I’m sat here. Now we bring up the age topic, but I think it’s at least with a positive spin on it,” she said. “It wasn’t that many years ago that I felt I was in quite awkward positions where people would question me to my face in an interview, ‘When are you too old to be a woman in this business?’ Firstly — rude, but secondly — I don’t know. I guess I’ve always had women in the industry that I’ve looked up to, I didn’t really think about their age at the time.”
Minogue recalled “obsessing” over fellow Aussie singer Olivia Newton-John as a grade schooler, as well well as disco diva Donna Summer, before moving on to worshipping Whitney Houston, Madonna and Cyndi Lauper as a teen. “I guess there wasn’t such an age gap between my teenage years and their years,” she said. “But I don’t know what happened where it was suddenly deemed distasteful or, I don’t know. But thankfully, it is becoming, certainly, for the younger generation… they’ve just got new minds and open minds.”
Watch Minogue on the Audacy Check In below.
This week in dance music: Fred again.. spoke with Nardwuar, and Rüfüs du Sol spoke with us. Charli XCX continued her winning streak by releasing a remix with Kesha and seeing Brat reach the apex of the U.K. album charts after last week’s release of Brat and It’s Completely Different But Also Still Brat. The managing director of the Amsterdam Dance Event ran down his top event picks for the conference happening this week in the Dutch capital, SoundCloud announced that electronic music fans are the platform’s most engaged, organizers of Breakaway Music Festival said the touring dance festival is expanding to six new markets next year, we ran down the 40 most played tracks at Pacha Ibiza this season and also debuted exclusive CRSSD fall 2024 sets from Idris Elba, Tinlicker, Confidence Man and Kerala Dust.
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And in the realm of marquee album releases, Kelly Lee Owens dropped her fourth studio LP Dreamstate, The Blessed Madonna put her out her major label debut Godspeed and LP Giobbi delivered her shimmering second album, Dotr.
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To all that, we add even more. These are the best new dance tracks of the week.
Kaleena Zanders, Glorified
After releasing the EP’s other three songs over the last few months, Kaleena Zanders rounds out the project with the release of its title track, “Glorified.” A bright blend of disco and soul, the song — like much of Zanders’ work — features her power-lunged vocals as the sonic and spiritual centerpiece. The corresponding video also manages to be simultaneously sexy and adorable. The artist is on tour with DJ Susan through the end of the year, with upcoming shows in Austin, Brookly and Denver. Glorified is out via Helix Records.
Confidence Man, 3am (La La La)
The prevailing response to the Australian act’s third album has thus far been a general adoration for and excitement about the way its dozen tracks capture the bright sound and breezy spirit of the ’90s rave world. Indeed there’s a lot of candy raving warehouse vibes — a sonic and fashion aesthetic that’s been very on trend in the current dance scene and which Conidence Man does with moxie across the project. But things get particularly interesting on “Sicko,” which take a sharp turn from the Deee-Lite references and swerves into darker, druggier, more sexed-up influences of Depeche Mode and INXS, with the group’s Aidan Moore) eventually admitting “I”m such a sicko” as the song again shifts gears into ambient, after-hours territory. 3am (La La La) is out on Casablanca Records.
Mau P, “Merther”
The Dutch producer samples Ini Kamoze’s essential 1984 single “World a Reggae (Out in the Street They Call It Murder)”, and effectively whips it into a tech house song, chopping up Kamoze’s vocals into a stuttering beat and going fully on the nose by adding a few siren sounds. It works so well that Solomun and Michael Bibi have been rinsing it in their sets lately.
Mau P says that after testing the track out on the road for a long time, “it’s sick that I get to put this out with the legendary sample from Ini Kamoze’s ‘World A Music.’ I didn’t think this would be remotely possible a few years ago, but here we are. My fans have also been asking for this one nonstop, so I’m happy they don’t have to keep listening to ripped versions online and can finally get the full finished version.” The track marks Mau P’s first release on Defected Records.
Sebastian Ingrosso, “Flood”
Of Swedish House Mafia’s three members, Sebastian Ingrosso puts out the least solo work, so anything new from him will naturally pique curiosity. His just-out single “Flood” delivers, with the 4:32-long track — a luxuriously long song in the world of two-minute tracks made for TikTok — unfolding across three movements, building from slinky IDM to an theatrically leaning vocal isolation into a peaktime heater. “It’s been a very long time since I worked on something of my own that represents who I have become since then,” Ingrosso wrote on social media. “I am on a journey of traveling inwards, and this is one of the many stories I hope to tell.”
Polo & Pan, “Nenuphar”
Polo & Pan’s output has always conjured a mood of lounging poolside in a silk robe in St. Tropez with a cocktail in your hand and not a care in the world. And so it goes on the French duo’s latest, “Nenuphar.” The track was recorded in Mexico City, with accompaniment by the Mexico-based all-female multi-genre collective I.M YONI (Independent Musicians of Yoni, who add a silky vocals over the layers of percussion and strings. “Nenuphar” is out on Hamburger Records.
Honey Dijon, “Finding My Way”
Honey Dijon and Ben Westbeech come together for the new “Finding My Way,” which comes from the latest edition of !K7’s enduring DJ Kicks series. Melding gospel vocals about searching for peace with a slowly unrolling house production (and a flute solo) the track has all the warmth and cool that have made Honey a global star for ages. “I’m a huge fan of research,” she says of her DJ Kicks compilation, “So putting this compilation together was basically going into my dancefloor experience and finding gems I wanted to present to people that they may not have been familiar with or that they didn’t even know existed.”
Charli XCXxc’s Brat has finally topped the U.K.’s Official Albums Charts, four months after its original release. The release of remix album Brat and It’s Completely Different But Also Still Brat, which had star turns from Ariana Grande, The 1975, The Strokes’ Julian Casablancas and more, gave a well-timed boost to the original record to […]
CRSSD started closing out the 2024 festival season when it brought the event’s fall edition back to its longtime home at Bayfront Park in San Diego on Sept. 28-29.
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Now in its ninth year, the lineup for this autumnal iteration of CRSSD included Disclosure, Gesaffelstein, Blond:ish, Four Tet, Boris Brejcha, Skream and many others. Produced by FNGRS CRSSD, the event has been a mainstay on the Southern California dance festival circuit since its launch in 2015 and is attended by roughly 15,000 fans per day.
Whether you where there or simply wish you were there, open up your ears to four hours of exclusive music from the festival from Idris Elba, Kerala Dust, Tinlicker and Confidence Man.
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Idris Elba
The DJ/producer/actor/noted good-looking person played 75 minutes of driving house, tech house, Afrobeat and more, with key selections including his take on Inner City’s 1998 classic “Good Life,” an extended mix of Mau P’s essential “Gimme Dat Bounce,” The Bucketheads’ ever-ravey 1995 hit “The Bomb (These Sounds Fall Into My Mind)” and of course, his own 2023 Solardo collab “Big Talk,” an extended edit of which ends the set.
Kerala Dust
The London-based foursome played a jammy and frequently psychedelic set that leaned heavy into live instrumentation, with the performance’s frequent guitar solos and a generally mystic mood bringing desert ambience to the waterfront fest.
Tinlicker
The Dutch duo wove progressive house and melodic techno into grandly cinematic soundscapes, with the set going to an especially hypnotic place at its climax. If you were there, you were likely dancing with your eyes closed and maybe tearing up a little.
Confidence Man
The Australian foursome are simply just A+ party starters, whipping up a breezy, blissful set heavy on energy and big singalong moments. The group — Grace Stephenson and Aidan Moore along with producers Lewis Stephenson and Sam Hales — packed a lot of heat into a tight 45 minute set, building to a euphoric place and giving classic ’90s U.K. rave vibes throughout.
Kaskade‘s wife, Naomi Raddon, has filed for divorce from the electronic music producer after nearly 28 years of marriage. A petition filed on October 16 in Los Angeles and reviewed by Billboard cites irreconcilable differences as the grounds for divorce. The couple married in August of 1996, with the filing listing July 22, 2024 as […]
After much fun and many late nights, the 2024 Ibiza season has come to a close. Some tracks commanded the dance floor more than others, with the 40 most-played songs over the summer at island clubbing mecca Pacha counted down below.
While the list includes a few global hits, like Tyla’s “Water,” and a few classic capital-B bangers (see: Beyoncé’s “Crazy in Love”), the list is largely composed of underground dance music made by known stars and emerging producers alike.
“Pacha Ibiza has its own singular sounds, driven by the world’s best DJs, and is where music lovers first discover new artists and new, previously unheard of, tracks” Aloki Batra, FIVE Hospitality and The Pacha Group CEO, tells Billboard.
The data that created this list was collected by KUVO in partnership with DJ Monitor, which installs technology in clubs like Pacha that functions much like Shazam, identifying tracks within its library. This library is comprised of a database of nearly 80 million songs submitted to DJ Monitor by PROs, which allows DJ Monitor to create setlists with 93% accuracy, the company reports.
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FIVE Holdings acquired the Pacha Group in 2023 in a deal worth approximately $330 million. The deal encompassed the Ibiza flagship club, which opened in 1973, along with two hotel island hotel properties, Toy Room Club, which has multiple locations in Europe, India and the Middle East and WooMoon Storytellers, a party that happens primarily in Ibiza and Tulum.
2024 resident DJS at Pacha included Solomun, Marco Carola, Bedouin and many more. This year the club was also graced with the presence of stars including Katy Perry, Rita Ora, Jason Statham, Naomi Campbell, Spanish tennis player Carlos Alcaraz and many others, the club reports.
“Pacha Ibiza believes in the universal language of music uniting a global community of music lovers for over 50 years. The central ethos of Pacha Ibiza remains the same as we move into a new chapter of our time tested values of love, joy, connection, celebration, inclusiveness and diversity. This is evident in Pacha Ibiza’s legendary Flower Power party that is reimagined for a new era in 2024 while preserving its core essence. Evolving from its roots, today’s Flower Power celebrations blend nostalgia with contemporary happy house sounds, offering an immersive experience that transcends generations.”
The Top 40 Songs Played at Pacha Ibiza in 2024
“Move” – Samm (BE)
“Pick Up the Phone” – Pawsa Feat. Nate Dogg
“Last Night” – Serite
“Nocturnal” – Joezi
“See You Sweat (Extended Mix)” – Genesi & Max Styler
“Sweet Moment” – Snirco
“Walk In Amsterdam” – Ugo Banchi
“It’s That Time (FISHER Remix)” – Marlon Hoffstadt
“Sing It Back” – Moloko
“Fuma Ernesto” – Carrera (ve)
“Love Desire” – Cassimm
“Miss You” – DJ Agos
“Umbrella” – Oppaacha
“We Are The People” – Empire Of The Sun
“Dance With Ibiza” – Ugo Banchi
“Famax” – Raffa Guido
“Freddie’s Warmup” – Vlado
“Hope” – Camelphat Feat. Max Milner
“On My Mind” – Ajna (BE)
“Pakit” – Ban Marian
“Somebody That I Used To Know” – James Cole
“Spektrum” – Camelphat
“Still Pushin’” – Youniverse
“Water” – Tyla
“At Night” – Shakedown
“If You Want My Loving” – Prospa
“Kill The Vibe” – David Guetta, Mason & Princess Superstar
“Last Night (Anyma x Layton Giordani Remix)” – Loofy
“Se Acabo” – Cid & Guz
“Shook Part 3” – Nick Morgan
“4Real” – Piem
“Asa” – Âme
“Crazy In Love” – Beyoncé
“Miriam (Extended)” – Robin M
“No Guest List San” – Pacho
“The Rhythm Of Dancing” – &lez
“Work” – Chris Lorenzo
“Black Dress (Anyma Remix)” – 070 Shake & Anyma
“Chase The 80’s” – Ugo Banchi
“House Anthem” – Clüb De Combat
Breakaway is breaking out. The touring electronic music festival announced Thursday (Oct. 17) that it’s expanding to six new markets in 2025. These new cities are Atlanta; Dallas; Huntsville, Ala.; Philadelphia; Phoenix and a yet to be announced Northern California city. The festival will throw two-day events in these cities next year, along with previously […]
On Thursday (Oct. 17) at the Amsterdam Dance Event, representatives from SoundCloud, along with Dutch producer Mau P, took part in a panel during which SoundCloud revealed that electronic music listeners are the most engaged demographic on the platform, among other insights.
This takeaway is based on data that found that electronic music fans over-index for all music activities on SoundCloud, company representatives said, adding that compared to fans of other genres, electronic music fans are 52% more likely to comment, 104% more likely to share music and 85% more likely to repost.
SoundCloud has long been a key hub for electronic music producers, offering a place where remixes and live sets, which aren’t available on many other DSPs, can live alongside new productions, creating a catalog that’s unique to the platform. The way SoundCloud allows for direct artist-to-fan communication has also helped foster the kind of superfans the general industry has become increasingly interested in finding and cultivating. As Jack Bridges of SoundCloud said during a panel this past April, “A lot more artists and labels go to SoundCloud early… and build records from nothing and by artists messaging their fans directly because we have the tools to do that.”
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The platform is becoming increasingly popular among producers. The company reports that the platform is seeing increased uploads of electronic music, with those uploads projected to rise by approximately 21% in 2024 compared to last year. Plays of electronic music genres on the platform have also grown, by roughly 6% since 2022, with electronic music expected to account for nearly 22% of all plays on the platform this year.
And while electronic music is a truly global genre, some areas naturally over-index, with SoundCloud finding that Vietnam has the third largest electronic listener base. Elsewhere, Central and Northern Europe have the most consistent and engaged SoundCloud electronic listeners, while Belgium, Austria and Germany are among the top countries where electronic music is the platform’s most-streamed genre.
In terms of subgenres, house music gets the most SoundCloud plays, listening time and listeners. Hardcore is second in plays and listening time, while trance is second in the number of listeners and third in plays and listening time. SoundCloud reports that trance is also the fastest-growing genre, with a 24% increase in listening time and an 11% rise in listeners since 2023.