Dance
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On a hulking gray building on a wide boulevard once bisected by the Berlin Wall, a silver call button grants access to an expansive, shadowy, unfurnished foyer. Ascend a winding set of stairs and open the door at the top, and you’ll find the office of the CEO: South Korea-born Peggy Gou, who has swiftly become the world’s most in-demand female DJ-producer working in dance music today.
Inside Gou HQ, the bright overhead lights contrast with the early-April rain outside. The sprawling room — which has a vibe that’s more “friend’s apartment” than sterile corporate sanctum — is outfitted with a wooden meeting table, full bookshelves and a plush green velvet couch from which Tasos Filippou, Gou’s touring manager, arises to serve Gou and me black coffee in little terra cotta mugs on peace sign-shaped coasters. Gou wears baggy jeans, a black sweater that covers her many tattoos and sunglasses with silver reflective lenses that offer only occasional glimpses of her eyes. Her hair is piled in a loose bun, her skin is flawless, and even in casual mode, she’s giving cool-girl glamour. She offers a quick handshake, closes the window to make sure the room is quiet, then sits down to attend to business.
In the last 12 days, her slick brand of house has taken her to Miami, Mexico City and Buenos Aires. Of course, it’s not unusual for DJs to party hop across continents — what’s less typical for a DJ is having an office. But Gou’s story is defined by a business acumen that could be characterized as corporate hustle if it didn’t also happen inside dark techno clubs.
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A Korean woman in a scene dominated by white men, Gou, 32, has orchestrated her own dizzying rise, immersing herself in Berlin’s electronic scene upon moving here 10 years ago, then ascending to white-hot producer/fashion tastemaker thanks to last summer’s viral single, and her first Billboard chart hit, “It Goes Like (Nanana).” This new ubiquity — ever-higher billing at the world’s major music festivals, a German Vogue cover, a 2024 BRIT Award nomination for international song of the year — has neatly teed up Gou’s debut album, I Hear You, coming June 7 through eminent indie label XL Recordings.
The rare self-managed marquee artist, Gou has achieved much of her success on her own, and the room we’re sitting in functions as an extension of the command center in her mind.
“I remember meeting managers who told me, ‘I can make your life easier,’ ” Gou recalls. “I was like, ‘How? Tell me.’ Even if you take care of all these emails, you still have to come back to me because no one can make decisions for me. Every decision has to come from me.”
Peggy Gou photographed March 26, 2024 at Maison Celeste in Mexico City. Sentimiento tracksuit, Tercer Mundo vest, Cruda shoes, AYANEGUI earrings and necklace.
Aaron Sinclair
These decisions have produced an expansive business that includes heavy touring; A-list brand deals; her label, Gudu Records; and a merchandise line, Peggy Goods. With strong fan bases across continents, Gou will next be raising her profile even more in the United States ahead of and beyond I Hear You’s release.
“Because Peggy has such an incredible touring footprint globally,” XL Recordings head of U.S. campaigns Laura Lyons says, “in the U.S., we’re in a position where, because we haven’t historically had her in the market as much, we need to build on the moments when she’s here in person and also translate the excitement of an international, globe-trotting DJ to the local market.”
One week and 6,000 miles later, the odds will look clearly in Gou’s favor.
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The first time Gou played Coachella, in 2018, the line to get into her show wrapped around the at-capacity Yuma Tent where she was performing at three in the afternoon. “Even one person not being able to see my set, that upsets me,” she says. “So I was like, ‘Maybe next time, I play a bigger stage.’ ”
On the first night of the 2024 festival, that “maybe” has become a firm “for sure.” Gou presides over the Sahara Tent — Coachella’s biggest and most established dance music mecca — from atop a towering stage as an emoji version of herself smiles at the audience from massive LED screens. With the newly expanded Sahara Tent stretching 320 feet, not including spillover — almost a football field long — it’s likely Gou’s crowd is the largest ever assembled to see a female producer in Coachella history. (After the set, she shares Instagram Stories of herself backstage hanging with J Balvin, getting chummy with Will Smith and then getting a burger from an In-N-Out somewhere in the Coachella Valley.)
In March, Gou made her debut at Miami’s Ultra Music Festival, and in May, she’ll play dance mega-festival EDC Las Vegas for the first time. These shows, “from a perception point of view,” Lyons says, “are going to broaden [her] audience from this more underground electronic fan to a more mainstream kind of electronic base.”
Cueva top and skirt, Ket Void jacket, Cruda shoes. Floral Art Installation by Flores Cosmos.
Aaron Sinclair
That might be anathema to some purists, particularly those steeped in the techno-as-religion culture of Berlin. But Gou has been able to maintain her underground cred even while blowing up. The early-April screening of the music video for I Hear You’s third single, “1+1=11,” happened at a smoky Berlin club where the techno went until 3 a.m. on a Wednesday, and her friend group includes revered producers like Four Tet and Floating Points, whom she was recently hanging with in Mexico City. “I love those guys,” she says. “So nerdy. Like, ‘Guys, stop talking about how fat your drum is.’ ”
I suggest to Gou that her underground pedigree, paired with a forthcoming debut album that’s refreshingly accessible, might make her uniquely well-suited for the United States, where the so-called “underground” styles of house and techno have become the scene’s prevailing commercial forces in the live space. For her, that idea is beside the point. “Some people are like, ‘She’s really underground,’ or ‘She’s commercial,’ ” Gou says. “I don’t care. I’m just going to keep doing my thing and you can say what you want.”
Growing up in South Korea’s third-most populous city, Incheon — where she was born Kim Min-ji — Gou listened to “sh-t,” “good music” and “everything.” She lived in the shadow of her older brother, who’s “like super genius, one of the crazy Mensa IQ people.” Meanwhile, “Study wasn’t my thing. I was kind of rebel. So if you tell me to stay here, I will not stay there. If you tell me to go, I will stay. I didn’t like people telling me what to do even from when I was a kid.”
Her parents, recognizing that their 14-year-old was not “doing well” in South Korea, asked if she wanted to study English in London; she did. In the United Kingdom, Gou lived with guardians but snuck out to parties, fostering a clubbing habit that matriculated with her into the London College of Fashion. She began DJ’ing, booked her own residency at a club in Shoreditch, finished school, moved to Berlin and worked at a record store by day while she was indoctrinated into techno by night. “After one month, I’m like, ‘OK,’ ” she says flatly of her first trips to the city’s notoriously exclusive techno institution, Berghain. “Three months later” — her voice grows louder and more forceful — “ ‘OK.’ Five months later, I was like, ‘I finally get it.’ ”
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By 2016, she was making her own music, and by 2018, revered dance label Ninja Tune was releasing it. She started her own Gudu Records in 2019; that same year, she released the groovy house track “Starry Night,” which featured her singing in Korean and became a dance world hit.
All the while, she was touring. As her own manager, “I was the only person who was pushing me,” she says. “I didn’t need to be there. I didn’t have to do that. I think I got hyped. I got too excited about the shows and getting many shows.” In 2019, she played in 25 countries, including some, like Lebanon, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, that are far from the well-trod dance world circuit.
“Imagine a bullet train,” Gou says, speaking rapidly. “This was me in 2019. When it stopped, it didn’t stop slowly; it had to stop super fast.”
When the pandemic started, she returned to South Korea and spent three months at home — the longest amount of time she had been with her family since she was 14. She recharged even as life in South Korea — which introduced what many considered one of the world’s best COVID-19 control programs — continued without large-scale lockdowns. (“Asian culture is different because when you have a flu, you wear a mask,” she says, “so it was not that difficult for Asian people to keep the rules.”)
In Incheon, Gou had the time and head space to focus on music. She echoes a pandemic-related refrain prevalent among DJs who tour heavily: “It was a hard time for a lot of people, but for me, it was one of the best things that happened to me.”
Peggy Gou photographed March 26, 2024 at Maison Celeste in Mexico City. Sentimiento top, Tiempos pants, Tercer Mundo belt, Frank Zapata shoes, AYANEGUI necklace. Batán Chairs by Taller Batán.
Aaron Sinclair
She kept working upon her return to Berlin in mid-2020, finding that the ’90s dance music she was listening to during the pandemic had “changed my taste.” While she had been making her debut album for a while, she decided to make ’90s dance the center of the project, evident in the interplay of the bass and chimes on a track like “Lobster Telephone,” which sounds like it’s sprinkled with powdered sugar. The “It Goes Like (Nanana)” bassline is pure Jock Jams — the 1995 compilation that introduced a generation of suburban adolescents to dance music — and has helped the song aggregate 72.2 million on-demand official U.S. streams and 565.3 million on-demand official global streams to date, according to Luminate. Altogether, the album, on which she sings in both Korean and English, is dance music distilled down to its most polished essentials — and you don’t have to be a hardcore fan of the genre to get into it.
The sonic opposite of EDM maximalism, I Hear You may very well represent the future of main-stage electronic music. “In my career, I never once thought, ‘I’m on the next level now,’ ” she says. “Only when ‘Nanana’ happened did I realize that people were recognizing my song before my face. That’s when I really realized, ‘F–k, this is different.’ ”
Gou’s North American agent, Stephanie LaFera of WME (which represents her worldwide), says the song’s success has created “significant growth in her U.S. audience” that’s “only increasing the demand for her.” LaFera is focused on opportunities that serve Gou’s “super-engaged fan base that cuts across a lot of different spheres” while also introducing her to new listeners.
“For [“It Goes Like”] to become this global song of the summer and be Peggy’s first song to hit No. 1 on the U.S. dance radio charts was just such a fantastic tone-setter for this album,” Lyons adds, “and for what we believe she’s capable of achieving in the U.S.”
If you’re Peggy Gou, it’s entirely possible that the person seated across from you at Thanksgiving dinner may turn out to be Lenny Kravitz — which was exactly the case when, in 2022, she went to a friend’s house in Miami for the holiday.
“He had absolutely no idea who I was,” Gou recalls. “The only thing I could mention was that I did [two songs] for [his daughter] Zoë’s movie [The Batman].” It was a solid in. The pair talked over turkey, and her friend told Kravitz to check out Gou’s music. Not long after, Kravitz asked if she wanted to collaborate.
She sent Kravitz a track — a song that she had struggled to find a singer for after artists including The Weeknd and Giveon turned it down — and heard nothing back. “So I decided to go to the Bahamas,” where Kravitz lives, she says. “My friend was like, ‘You want to have Lenny Kravitz on your album? F–king book your flight, go there and get it.’ ” There was, Gou says, some “opinion clash” during the recording process, as “I’m a perfectionist and he’s perfectionist.” She adds with a smile, however, that Kravitz did ultimately tell her she was right about a part of the song they had disagreed on. Their slinky “I Believe in Love Again,” the second I Hear You single, arrived in November.
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Gou’s single-minded professional chess moves manifested her deal with XL in the first place, years after she reached out to the label about an internship back when she was a student in London. XL didn’t respond then, but it got in touch after the success of her 2018 single “It Makes You Forget (Itgehane).” “I did make a joke,” she says of her first meeting with XL, “like, ‘Check your inbox.’ ”
Gou acknowledges that working with her can be “very difficult because I push the team always harder… If you have so many opinions and you’re a woman, people call you a b–ch, but [XL] doesn’t see it that way. They think it’s a pleasure to work with someone who has a clear vision.”
XL also most likely enjoys working with a talent who’s changing the face of electronic music simply by being one of the most popular artists making it. “As incredible as it is to see a Korean woman occupy this space in dance music culture,” says Lyons, who herself is Asian American, “it’s not the reason why I’m excited by her.”
While a new level of streaming and chart success would be a nice outcome for I Hear You, to Gou, they’re “very 1D hopes.” She’ll consider the album a success if people listen to it and — she puts a hand over her heart — “get a feeling.”
Bottega Veneta coat, AYANEGUI earrings.
Aaron Sinclair
The feelings are clearly being felt at Coachella, where people in the crowd — many of them, like Gou, also wearing sunglasses though the sun set long ago — are flailing around, arms in the air and dreamy smiles on their faces. A crew of six dancers pop and lock, vogue and gyrate onstage. Gou will take this show on the road this summer for a run that includes European festivals like Primavera Sound, Glastonbury and Creamfields. In August, she’s hosting and headlining her own one-day mini-fest at London’s Gunnersbury Park; the show’s 8,000 tickets sold out within days of going on sale.
Unlike her early years of touring alone, Gou now travels with her tour manager and a road assistant or two. She “doesn’t always fly private,” but says the primary appeal of a private jet is a preference for efficiency that she says is part of her heritage: “I’m someone who [doesn’t] like wasting my time. I’m very efficient. I think that’s from Korean culture. Efficiencies are very important in Korea.”
A private jet “saves a lot of time,” she continues, “and you can sleep half an hour or even one hour more. Also, you don’t need to worry about the baggage weight.” Perhaps most crucially, though, flying private lets her move through the world while maintaining maximum control. “Hotel lobbies and the airport,” she says, “give me so much anxiety.”
These days, Gou’s team also includes a security detail, as she has experienced stalkers and people “waiting at the hotel or waiting at the airport for 10 hours.” She “can’t go to Italy alone” and brings two security guards to Argentina where the crowd is “quite wild.” She recalls spending the entirety of a commercial flight to Ibiza facing the window after half the plane recognized her while boarding. “I was like, ‘My neck,’ ” she says with a laugh, feigning pain. “It’s nice, but sometimes it gets a lot for me.”
“She can see 100 meters ahead in the airport. She notices the colors of things, remembers what people are wearing and is just super, super sensitive,” touring manager Filippou says, “especially when there’s a lot of people around.”
But her skin has gotten thicker as her career has grown. “In the beginning, I remember [people saying], ‘You will never be bigger than this person. No one’s going to buy your record. No one knows your name.’ I heard these things so many times.”
The criticisms “used to really affect me,” Gou continues. “I used to want to scream, like, ‘That’s not f–king true.’ ” But as time went on, she realized she was the reason her feelings were getting so hurt. “I was not happy,” she says of her pre-pandemic life. “I was so focused and tunnel-visioned. My relationship with boyfriend wasn’t doing well. Friends, workwise — nothing was happy. I learned a lot about myself during the pandemic.” Learning to listen first and react later has been huge for her. It’s why she’s wearing a mirrored headpiece that reflects her ears on her album cover and why she named the project I Hear You.
Sentimiento tracksuit, Tercer Mundo vest, AYANEGUI earrings and necklace.
Aaron Sinclair
One of the biggest early critiques Gou experienced side-eyed her interest in fashion, which made her fear “that people would never take me seriously.” So during her early years in Berlin, she sported the de facto DJ uniform of black (and sometimes, maybe, white) T-shirts — a fit that never felt authentic. Around this time, a mentor told her to turn her perceived weaknesses into strengths, so she ditched the tees for couture.
Dressing in brightly colored, flowing sets and racing gear helped her catch the attention of top fashion houses like Louis Vuitton, with which she has had two partnerships. She was good friends with late DJ-designer Virgil Abloh; after his 2021 death, she posted on Instagram that “I will forever be grateful that in the infancy of my career, Virgil showed support at a time when not many others would.” Her own Peggy Goods line creates custom merch for each of her shows; at the “1+1=11” music video screening party, more than one person wears a bomber jacket with the song’s title embroidered on the back.
Gou documents the fabulousness of it all on her Instagram, which has 4.1 million followers and which — yes — she runs herself. To her, the account is a natural evolution of her old Tumblr, where she would post photos of her outfits, meals and outings. She uses the same approach now on Instagram — except the outfits are by Ferragamo, the meals are on a beach in Ibiza and the outings are playing for tens of thousands of people screaming her name. Her glamorous aesthetic, and the size of her audience, has yielded deals with brands including Don Julio, Coca-Cola and Maybelline.
Now other DJs ask her how they can expand their own brands into the fashion world. It’s speculative, but the most obvious answer seems to be to work as hard as she has. “People see that I’m riding in a Rolls-Royce now, but I used to take a f–king bus,” she says. “I did an interview in Korea recently, and the first [comment] was, ‘I smell old money.’ No. My dad was poor. My mom was average. I’m not from a rich family. I worked hard to have a glamorous life.”
Like most anyone who has achieved major success and its attendant visibility, people still give Gou sh-t. But in a true boss move, she has come to enjoy it.
“Now when I hear criticism, it means I’m doing super well,” she says. “So go ahead: Say my name.”
This story will appear in the April 27, 2024, issue of Billboard.
In addition to our Peggy Gou cover story, check out this Q&A with Aaron Sinclair, who photographed Gou for Billboard‘s AAPI issue.Tell us a little about your own background.
I was born and raised in L.A. and spent most of my life growing up in downtown. I spent a lot of time with my Korean grandmother who moved around a lot, so I got to experience different parts of the city. When I became a teenager, I really dove into music making, photography and filmmaking. This led me to pursue photography at Art Center, where I continued to explore my interests and also took film classes.
During those years, I was really into the local music scene, going to shows almost every other night to watch my friends’ bands. These experiences heavily influenced my creative interests. Now, at 30, I’m still deeply engaged in these pursuits, always striving to improve.
What did you know of Peggy Gou before the shoot?
I actually DJ as well, and I think I was looking for new songs to add to my set when I came across her song “Starry Night.” I found the music video right after, and I was immediately blown away. The shots, the colors, and the way it worked so well with the song, it made me wish I had made it. The Korean element struck a chord with me too.
What was the vibe like on set?
The vibe on set was cool. I think Peggy and I are both pretty particular when it comes to our work, so doing the shoot together was a great match.
Peggy mentioned how happy she was to see “so many of my Asian brothers and sisters here” on set. What did that feel like for you? Is it rare to have that kind of representation on a shoot?
It’s not something you see often, but when it happens, it’s noticeable. I’ve only experienced it one other time, and each time, it’s a reminder of the importance of diversity in our industry.
This is Billboard‘s first AAPI issue. What does it mean to you to be part of it?
Being part of Billboard‘s first AAPI issue means a lot to me. It’s an opportunity to showcase the diversity and talent within the AAPI community on a prominent platform. It’s not just about representation; it’s about celebrating our stories and contributions in the music industry and beyond. I feel honored to be part of this historic moment and hope it paves the way for more recognition and visibility for AAPI artists and creators.
Blink and you might’ve missed it: Dua Lipa’s “Illusion” inched onto Billboard’s Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart a week ago at No. 42, from one day of activity.
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A week later, the song soars to No. 1 on the April 27-dated list, as Lipa makes history at Nos. 1, 2 and 3.
“Illusion” vaults to the summit with 9.1 million official streams, 7.4 million in radio airplay audience and 2,000 sold in the United States April 12-18 following its April 11 release, according to Luminate.
With the coronation, Lipa adds her third Hot Dance/Electronic Songs No. 1 – tying Ariana Grande and Lady Gaga for the most among women since the survey began in 2013. (The only acts with more overall: The Chainsmokers, with six, and Calvin Harris and Zedd, each with four; Marshmello also has three.)
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A new No. 1 song and matching the top mark among women would be enough reason to celebrate for Lipa, but that isn’t the end of her milestone week on Hot Dance/Electronic Songs. Her own “Houdini,” which reigned for 16 of the last 22 weeks, follows at No. 2, while “Training Season” sits snug at No. 3, making her the first woman to claim the top three in a single week. Among all acts, she scores just the third such triple, following The Chainsmokers, with “Something Just Like This ” (with Coldplay), “Paris,” and “Closer” (featuring Halsey; on the March 18, 2017-dated chart) and Drake, with “Falling Back,” “Texts Go Green” and “Massive” (July 2, 2022).
If Lipa’s trio of tracks can hold in the top three next week, she’ll become the first artist to achieve this feat twice.
Plus, rocketing 41 positions in just one week, “Illusion” achieves the biggest leap to No. 1 in the Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart’s 11-year history, nearly doubling the 22-1 jump for Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande’s “Rain on Me” in 2020. Further, “Illusion” ties Calvin Harris’ “Slide,” featuring Frank Ocean and Migos, for the chart’s biggest one-week surge overall (48-7; March 18, 2017).
“Illusion,” “Houdini” and “Training Season” are all slated to appear on Radical Optimism, Lipa’s forthcoming third studio album, due out May 3.
The 2024 IMS Ibiza conference began today (April 24) on the event’s namesake island electronic music mecca. The conference’s program includes three days of talks on multiple facets of the electronic music business, including streaming, labels, AI, wellness, the island clubbing economy and much more.
As is tradition, IMS started today with an introduction from the event’s founders, including BBC Radio legend Pete Tong, followed by the presentation of the annual IMS Business report, which looks at the trends, growth sectors and general health of the global electronic music industry.
Marking its tenth edition this year, the report was authored by MIDiA Research’s Mark Mulligan and is available here. Generally, the 2024 report found significant growth areas along with a higher year over year valuation of the industry as a whole. It also offered insights on the general music industry landscape, stating that “after a slower 2022, the global recorded music market returned to strong growth in 2023, up 10%.”
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These are ten key findings from the 2024 report.
1. Spotify Gained Market Share, But Totaled Less Than a Third of The Global Streaming Market
The global streaming market currently has a whopping 713.4 million total subscribers, with this subscriber base growing by 14.4% between the third quarter of 2022 and the third quarter of 2023. This equates to 90 million added subscribers, which is 6.5 million more subscribers than were added over the same period a year earlier.
The report finds that Spotify remained the largest DSP, increasing its global share to 32% in the third quarter of 2023. Tencent Music Entertainment remained the third largest, overtaking Amazon Music in the third quarter of 2022. Meanwhile, Chinese platform NetEase Cloud Music also had strong growth and helped contribute to significant growth for the whole of the Chinese streaming market.
2. Revenues Grew Strongly Across The Industry, Especially In the Live Sector
Revenues of 15 of the world’s biggest music companies – across labels, publishers, DSPs and the live sector – grew by 18% in 2023, for a total value of $75.9 billion. “While less than the post-lockdown boom growth of 2022,” the report states, “this is still strong.”
2023’s largest growth sector was live, a function of the fact that “lingering pent-up lockdown interest fostered increased demand, and tickets were both more expensive and sold in larger quantities.” The growth of live was followed by growth of DSPs, which grew by 16% over the last year.
3. Major Labels Dominated, But Lost Market Share To New-Generation Labels
While record labels across the board experienced strong growth in 2023, “non-majors grew the fastest.” More specifically, major labels grew by 7% overall in 2023, with the publicly traded non-majors like HYBY and Believe growing by 17%. Additionally, 57% of HYBE’s revenue was in non-recorded products, compared to 23% for WMG.
“HYBE and Believe grew the fastest,” the report states, “representing the spearhead of a new generation of record labels that pursue revenue streams closely aligned with the dynamics of today’s fan and creator centered music business.”
4. The Top 10 Markets For Electronic Music As Determined By Monthly Spotify Listeners Are:
Germany
United States
Australia
United Kingdom
Brazil
India
Mexico
South Africa
Canada
France
Per the report, Australia is a standout on this list, as the country has 10 times more electronic music listeners than the entire country has people. (In the United States, this ratio is closer to 1:1.) Mexico, India and Brazil represent the newer wave of global electronic music markets, with listener numbers smaller than each country’s total population, which suggests that electronic music culture is still securing a foothold in these territories.
South Africa is also a standout, with nearly twice as many electronic listeners as people. The country’s strong listening figures, the report says, “reflect the degree to which South Africa has built its own electronic scenes and culture.”
5. Electronic Music’s Online Fandom Surged In 2023, Outperforming Other Genres
The genre gained significant followers across Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and Spotify, and saw vastly more follower growth than rock, hip hop and Latin. This online expansion saw electronic’s following surpass that of rock on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. Meanwhle, while hip-hop remains the dominant streaming genre, electronic is getting closer to the stream counts of Latin and rock.
6. Ibiza Clubs Are Still Booming Post-Pandemic
Clubs on the island continued their post-pandemic rebound, with Ibiza club ticketing revenue reaching €141 million (approximately $150 million) in 2023, up 14% from 2022 and 76% from 2019. “The strength of demand,” the report states, “was illustrated by the fact that average ticket prices increased from €44 in 2022 to €51 in 2023.”
In 2019, total ticket revenue across clubs on the island was €80 million ($85 million), with an average of 123 events per venue over the course of the season. In 2023, ticket revenue was €141 million ($150 million), with 147 events per venue.
7. Tech House Remained The Most Popular Dance Genre on Beatport
Like last year, tech house was the digital download platform’s most popular genre. This year, Afro House shot up from being in the 18th spot in the first quarter of 2022 to the ninth spot in the third quarter of 2023. The report notes that this rise “coupled with the rise of South Africa as a leading Spotify market for electronic music, further points to the rising importance of sub-Saharan Africa in electronic music culture.
Beatport’s ten most popular electronic subgenre’s overall were:
Tech House
House
Techno (peak/driving)
Melodic House & Techno
Drum & Bass
Dance/Electro Pop
Deep House
Minimal/Deep Tech
Progessive House
Afro House
8. SoundCloud Maintained Its Position As a Home For Electronic Music
Electronic music genres grew by 24% on SoundCloud in 2023, the second successive year this has happened. The platform is forecasted to have at least another 10% growth of the genre, with the report stating that “SoundCloud is both consolidating and expanding its long-term position as one of the global homes of electronic music fan communities.”
9. There’s an Apparent Perception Gap Regarding The Industry’s Gender Equality Advancements
In a survey of members of the Association For Electronic Music and IMS delegates, 82% of respondents said that the industry was doing well on gender issues related to diversity of lineups and employees. But a survey of male, female and gender expansive industry members found that women and gender expansive creators were more likely than men to be “interrupted, excluded, questioned and judged unfairly.”
Additionally, a tendency among women to undervalue their contributions is reflected in a industry pay gap, with women creators nearly twice as likely as men to discover they are being paid less than their peers in the same or similar roles.
10. The Global Electronic Music Industry Was Worth $11.8 Billion In 2023
Particularly significant growth happened in festivals and clubs, with this sector representing nearly half of the industry total. Recording and publishing were also significant contributors, with music hardware and software making up the next biggest segment — around a quarter of total — although growth in this hardware and software sector was relatively slow in 2023.
Given this $11.8 billion valuation, the report states that “the global dance music business is now firmly in its post-pandemic growth phase.”
Marshmello and PinkPantheress are stepping onto the field. The two artists have been announced as the performers for the 2024 MLS All-Star Concert presented by Target at Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio. Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news The July 21 event serves as the kickoff event for […]
This week in dance music: It’s been a busy few weeks, over which we’ve covered the return of Justice, the cancellation of Texas Eclipse Festival, the re-release of “The Green Album” by U.K. legends Orbital, the drama over Grimes’ Coachella set and the slate of dance music films debuting at the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival.
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And of course, there’s new music. These are the best new dance tracks of the week.
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Jamie xx feat. Honey Dijon, “Baddy on the Floor”
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After both christening Coachella’s new Quasar Stage last weekend, Jamie xx and Honey Dijon keep the rave momentum going with their first collaborative track, “Baddy on the Floor.” A punchy amalgamation of funky bass, hand percussion, a stuttering beat and a horn section that actually made us say “whoooo!” out loud to ourselves the first time we heard it, the track has origins in the pandemic, with xx and Dijon working on it over video calls while everyone was off the road. Out via Young Recordings, the songs come ahead of the British producer’s extremely anticipated new album coming later this year.
DJ Snake & Peso Pluma, “Teka”
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DJ Snake had two of the biggest flexes of Coachella weekend one, starting his set by bringing out the legend Robin S. to sing her dance music blueprint “Show Me Love,” then, later in the Sahara tent show, bringing out Peso Pluma to perform their new collaborative track “Teka.” Snake has always been adept at combining his production with styles of music from the around the world, with this take on Regional Mexican — outfitted with Pluma’s unmistakable vocals — expanding the French producer’s terrain. The crowd at Coachella loved it, and you might too.
LF System, “Lift You Up”
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If serotonin had a sound, it’d be a lot like the latest from U.K. outfit LF System. Pure soulful house music, the track is a dancing-with-your-eyes-closed-chest-beater with vocals from one of modern dance music’s greatest voices, Clementine Douglas. “This is a song we are really proud of, as it’s one of the first we wrote in session and is fully original,” the duo, Conor Larkman and Sean Finnigan, says. “We worked with a great team of people to make it happen and we hope that you’re lifted up while listening to it.” And in fact, we are.
Alok, “Pedju Kunumigwe”
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Brazilian producer Alok today releases a new album, The Future Is Ancestral, which features more than 50 instrumentalists and vocalists from eight different Indigenous Brazilian communities. Released in honor of Earth Day next week and the celebration of Indigenous People’s Day today in Brazil, the album is a unique and often joyful collection of vibrant Brazilian sounds paired with the producer’s nuanced, light touch, production. “Pedju Kunumigwe” features the sounds of bird calls, with the project echoing yesterday’s relates news that some songs featuring such sounds of nature now live on a new Nature-focused Spotify playlist to raise money for conservation. Royalties from The Future Is Ancestral, meanwhile, will go to the Indigenous communities who contributed to it.
Debby Friday, “To the Dancefloor”
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“I need the girls all to the dancefloor,” Toronto-based artist Debby Friday insists with increasing intensity on her latest, “To The Dancefloor.” Out via the venerable Sub Pop Records, the track gives a feeling of size, with the echo-y vocals and bashed drums at the forefront of the mix sounding like they’re resonating into a cavernous club where the ladies are in fact starting to congregate. And don’t sleep on the song’s video, which features Friday declaring “hey, I need a look” as the song begins and the artist rotates through a series of clubwear fits.
After returning to the upper echelons of popular music in 2023, Kylie Minogue is ready to bask in her achievement as one of the most influential people in the world. On Wednesday (April 17), TIME announced its annual list of the 100 most influential people of the year. Along with music peers such as Dua […]
04/15/2024
From YOASOBI and LE SSERAFIM’s sets to the combining of star power thanks to 88rising Futures, the promise of Asian pop music was on full display in Indio.
04/15/2024
Grimes is apologizing for her set at Coachella 2024.
On Sunday morning (April 14), the 36-year-old musician took to social media to share a lengthy statement about the “technical issues” during her Sahara tent performance at the Indio, Calif., music festival on Saturday night.
“I want to apologize for the technical issues with the show tonight. I wanted to come back rly strong and usually I always handle every aspect of my show myself – to save time this was one of the first times I’ve outsourced essential things like rekordbox bpm’s and letting someone else organize the tracks on the sd card etc.,” Grimes began her message on X (formerly Twitter).
“i had a bad feeling beforehand not having run everything thru the cdjs myself and tho I flagged it I wasn’t insistent. the big lesson for me was a mix of 1 if u want it done right, do it yrself 2 be a c–t even if ppl feel bad 3 probably pretend it’s fine and engage w the crowd rather than spend a whole show slumped over the desk trying to fix software when ur meant to be entertaining.”
At about the halfway point of her 50-minute set, Grimes was forced to restart “Music 4 Machines” multiple times because the track was playing at double the speed.
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“This s— always f—ing happens, all my tracks are twice as fast so I’m not mixing very well, so I’m going to keep trying, and I appreciate you being here,” she told the crowd. “There has never been a Grimes show without a major technical difficulty. But yes, it will continue.”
Fan-captured video of Grimes’ Coachella set shows her yelling out in frustration over the “major technical difficulties” during the performance.
In her statement on X, she continued, “I will personally organize all the files next week. I will not let such a thing happen again. I’ve spent months on this show, making music and visuals, and admittedly am not in the best mood atm … But, yeh – next week will be flawless, everything will run thru my hands.”
Grimes closed her note, writing, “Some good lessons learned. Bless y’all. The cdjs were showing me bpms like 370 so I couldn’t even mix manually by ear and the front monitors were off so it was literally sonic chaos on my end trying to guess how stuff was sounding for u guys … Plz forgive me! Love, always.”
Day three of Coachella continues on Sunday (April 14) with performances by Doja Cat, J Balvin, Jhené Aiko, Lil Yachty, and many more.
See Grimes’ Coachella apology on X below.
I want to apologize for the technical issues with the show tonight. I wanted to come back rly strong and usually I always handle every aspect of my show myself – to save time this was one of the first times I’ve outsourced essential things like rekordbox bpm’s and letting…— 𝖦𝗋𝗂𝗆𝖾𝗌 ⏳ (@Grimezsz) April 14, 2024
Back when “rave anthem” was still a burgeoning genre staple, Orbital released its 1989 debut single “Chime” and gave the nascent dance scene something to vibe to.
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The classic track by the English duo — brothers Paul and Phil Hartnoll — was forged from clean synth stabs over acid production, and became both an era-defining track and an eventual standout from the duo’s 1991 self titled debut LP, commonly referred to as “The Green Album” for its lime-toned cover. Dually celestial and hard-edged, the album also includes classics like “Belfast” and “Midnight” and put the Hartnolls on the map.
By the time they took the stage at Glastonbury three years later, they were in conquering heroes mode, with their set widely cited as the festival’s crossover moment into electronic music.
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“A lot of people [would] come up to me afterwards, saying ‘I used to be an indie rock kid, but when I saw you, it crossed the bridge between indie rock and electronica,’” recalls Phil. “[Glastonbury co-founder] Michael Eavis realized that when we played. It was like, ‘Wait a minute, maybe we should take a look at this electronic thing, because obviously people are really enjoying it.’”
They’re enjoying it still, with Orbital and the wave of U.K. artists that came up alongside them — the Chemical Brothers, Underworld, etc. — experiencing a renaissance, as ’90s rave and acid house have come back in fashion. Orbital will make its first Coachella appearance since 2010 over the next two weekends (April 12-14 and 19-21), with the shows rounding out a U.S. tour that included stops in New York, Chicago and Ultra Music Festival in Miami.
All of these shows feature “The Green Album” and its 1993 followup Orbital 2, or “The Brown Album,” played in their entirety. The run culminates in the re-release of a remastered “Green Album” on April 19, with the brothers then returning across the Atlantic for a tour in the U.K. and Ireland.
Talking to Billboard over Zoom, here the Hartnolls reflect on their origins, their influences and the time they raved with Stephen Hawking.
Where are you in the world right now, and what is the setting like?
Paul Hartnoll: I am in Brighton. I’m in the middle of cooking Pad Thai. Well, I’ve taken a hiatus from cooking Pad Thai to chat to you, but I did as much prep as I could. I’m about to sit down and have dinner with the family. It’s lovely.
Phil Hartnoll: I am here with one of my cats, but next door, I’ve got a spare room that I’m preparing [before I go away.] My wife is from Pittsburgh, so we’re going to go see the family. Then I found out there was a solar eclipse on the eighth of April, which was the date of my firstborn child was born. The eclipse is happening over Mexico where my brother and sister in law live, so I’ve worked out this plan based around the solar eclipse. We’ve got New York, Chicago, Miami, then Pittsburgh to see the family, then Mexico to get the solar eclipse going, and then go to Coachella. So I’m preparing my spare room for the cat sitters, a lovely couple from Germany.
Have you seen a solar eclipse before?
Phil: Actually yes, we did actually do one. Where was it Paul?
Paul: We witnessed the U.K. one in the late ’90s in Cornwall. We played the night before I believe, and then everybody stayed up or got a couple of hours sleep, and we all walked to the top of a hill — and there was so much thick cloud cover, nobody saw a damn thing.
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What is the first album or piece of music you bought for yourself? And what was the medium?
Paul: Seven-inch single — “Tears of a Clown” by The Beat, on 2 Tone Records.
Phil: I was really into The Jackson Five, so my mother’s cousin bought me Michael Jackson’s “Ben” for my eighth birthday. It was a bit disappointing, because I didn’t understand what “Ben” was. I’d never even heard of it. It was the first stage of learning how to be happy, when actually, it was a bit confusing in my head. But actually, [when I understood] the sentiment behind it, it was the first track that made me cry.
What did your parents do for living when you were kids?
Paul: Our mom used to run a temp agency company — pretty sharp actually, she was good. She was in partnership with another woman, and what she did was, she used to drop us all off at school, come back to the house with two other school-run moms and set up an office in the living room. They worked there, then just before school run, they’d all pack it all away, fold up the tables and pick us up from school. And our dad was a builder, ran his own building company. A plasterer.
And what do or did they think of your careers?
Paul: They always encouraged it, didn’t they? They always encouraged us to do creative things. But my dad always used to say, “Come on, you’ve got to have something to fall back on.” I am absolutely a firm advocate of not having something to fall back on. If you’re trying to be a musician or an artist, and you’ve got something to fall back on, guess what you’re gonna do? Because it’s a tough road. Anyone I’ve ever known who’s had something to fall back on has fallen back.
Phil: There’s four years difference between me and Paul. I didn’t get on very well with school. And they said, “do a brick laying apprenticeship.” So I did. Really easy for me. It wasn’t intellectually challenging at all.
If someone said to you, “I’m looking to get into electronic music” and you had give them one album. What album would you give them?
Paul: Since the Accident by Severed Heads. Because it’s not what you’d expect. That’s like, how to make electronic music that’s dirty, haunting, beautiful, scary, comedy. All of those emotions and feelings on such a low budget, but it sounds like it’s on a kind of high budget.
Phil: I would probably tell them to listen to Kraftwerk‘s Autobahn. That’s what blew my mind. The fact that it was a concept album about a motorway, and electronic. It doesn’t have to be a pop song, and it doesn’t have to follow any set rules. They were doing that in the ’70s, a whole concept album about a motorway.
You guys are playing Coachella this year. As I’m sure you know, Chemical Brothers and Underworld, contemporaries of yours, played last year. Do you feel like you’re part of a revival of the scene from which you came?
Paul: No, not to me — in the sense that I didn’t notice any of us going away. Because we’re all just working. We know these guys; you see them around. It’s just a continuation of highs and lows and peaks and troughs. A 33-year career goes through lots of different moments, but you’re always present in your own now, so you don’t feel like it’s a thing that comes and goes.
So you don’t feel that things have come back around?
Paul: Actually having said that, I will say I did notice — probably with Calvin Harris first — that revival of people really enjoying that early ’90s dance music sound and picking on a lot of European sounds. I hear that in contemporary music quite a lot and find that quite interesting, because I have noticed things like tracks of ours — like “Halcyon,” from 20 years ago — for awhile sounded not very on the money, and now it just sounds completely of the time.
Tell me about your take on U.S. market. Have you experienced crowds here to be in any way unique or particularly receptive to what you do?
Paul: I always find American crowds far less cynical than European ones. There’s just this kind of open, puppy dog joy that seems to come with an American crowd. It’s like, “We’re here to enjoy ourselves! We’re gonna do it then! let’s do it! Let’s do it together! We’re all in it together!” It’s quite endearing.
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Your Glastonbury 1994 set is considered legendary. What are your strongest memories of that day?
Paul: Just the sheer terror and excitement, in equal measure, and thinking “I’m never going to be able to do this.” I remember tuning my synths… backstage behind Björk’s set up, and they were just about to come on and everybody cleared the back. There was nobody there apart from me tuning my synths.
And then I saw Björk just standing there looking pale and and just like, “Oh my god.” This little woman behind the curtain. Then they started playing “Human Behavior” out front, and she just stole herself and became eight feet tall and walked around the curtain. The roar from the crowd literally brought me to needing to throw up. I had to run off stage to try and find somewhere to throw up, because I’d never heard anything like it. I was behind the curtain, but you could hear the full roar of like 40,000 people. It was incredible.
Do you hear your influence in any groups that have come after you?
Paul: Who’s going to say it? Are you?
Phil: Who?
Paul: Who do you think has an element of Orbital in their sound that’s quite big at the minute?
Phil: Oh, Bicep! I think Bicep to be honest. I’m not saying they’re copying us or anything like that.
Paul: I think they’re the best of contemporary dance music in the live arena and the festival arena. Because one, they jam, and you can hear it. You can hear that they’re messing about and trying things and it’s kind of rough and ready in a good way. They don’t do club music, but they kind of do, which is kind of where we came from as well. That’s where I hear them being like us. You feel like you’ve passed the baton in a relay race and it’s like, “Go, next generation! We’re worn out! Go! Just leave us! We’ll be fine!” I think they’re filling a similar space to what we did in the ’90s.
Are you worn out?
Paul: We’re not worn out, and we are ready to keep going. Don’t worry.
Phil: I think Bicep do Orbital really well by the way. I love them, don’t get me wrong. I think you can put a Bicep album on a low level, and it’s nice in the background. Or you turn them up a bit and you can have a little jig.
Are there other new generation electronic artists you’re particularly into?
Paul: Not for not me, no. I go through different phases of things. I’m currently doing the prog rock band renaissance, the Cardiacs and Kate Bush. Oh, I really like Anna Meredith, that Scottish composer who does quite wild electronic music. She did an album called Fibs, which is really good. At times it’s kind of very Philip Glass-ey, Michael Nyman-ey, then all of a sudden it just falls into stuff that sounds that’s full on dance music with huge, great orchestral samples, and then it’ll boil down to a really sweet, almost folky vocal, which I think is her singing.
What’s been the proudest moment of your career thus far?
Paul: I don’t really do pride. I do satisfaction. [Laughs.] I have to say, I know it’s a bit boring, but coming off stage at Glastonbury ’94 feeling like I’d done a good job. I had a very kind of Zen-like glow.
Phil: I’ve got quite a few moments. One of the best moments was the [London 2012 Paralympic Games] with Stephen Hawking, where we got a speech he had made into a tune that essentially made Stephen Hawking sing. And he performed it with us. He wore the torch glasses, and he had to take off his glasses to wear the torch glasses and couldn’t see a bloody thing, but he was so up for it and such a laugh and such game. He was there in his wheelchair, me and Paul behind, all in our torch glasses, performing the opening ceremony for the Paralympics. That was a moment.
Paul: Ian McKellen stood there watching it as well. He was lovely.
Phil: Actually the day before, I gave Steven Hawking a copy of our album Wonky, he’d gone home and listened to it, and I got an email from him saying how wonderful it was. You can’t make that s— up.
When is the best business decision you’ve ever made?
Phil: [Laughs.] Never! Never! I would say never have we made the best sort of business decision. We are creatives. We don’t know what the f–k we’re doing.
Paul: Speak for yourself! Mine was investing in my first four track tape machine. With that I realized, “Oh, this is what I want to play, not keyboards, guitars, drums. They’re something I want to command, but what I want to do is get them all on this tape and build the layers and make the whole thing in one, in a bedroom.” Relatively speaking, that was much more of my GDP at the time than anything I’ve ever bought since. That was a big spend. That was my entire arms budget in one go.
Who’s been your greatest mentor, and what’s the best piece of advice that they gave you?
Paul: There’s a few different ones along the way. There’s no one Obi Wan Kenobi, or Yoda. That’s the thing see, there’s multiple ones. Early on [British DJ/producer] Jazzy M encouraged me to keep making house music and gave me free 12-inches every week and said, “Do something like that!”
For production, Jack Dangers from Meat Beat Manifesto taught me so much about how to go one more in the studio, and also how to do it with a big grin on your face and have a laugh about it.
Michael Kamen for film and music — when we worked with him on [the 1997 film] Event Horizon, he was brilliant. He taught you to not take it too seriously, but pretend to be serious when the director comes in the room — then carry on having a laugh after, because you’re going to get more done that way. And working with the producer Flood. He was like the next-level Jack Dangers.
It sounds like they were all very encouraging, yes?
Paul: All of them have very similar attitudes to production. It’s like, “Go with the best take, not the best equipment. All that matters is if it sounds good.”
Phil: Also Angelo Badalamenti. We worked with him on [the soundtrack for the 2000 film] The Beach. Like Michel Kamen, they all made us feel so welcome and free. These big players, you think, “My God.” And all they do is go, “Yeah! Just be free!” They were really open. You’ve got the fear of God when you go to meet these people, and they’re just like, “Do this! Do that!” And they’re the top players. They were brilliant. Brilliant.
What’s one piece of advice do you give to your younger self?
Phil: Don’t marry that girl that you did. [Laughs.] No no, workwise, I presume you mean?
Paul: Take a holiday between the fourth, fifth and sixth albums. You’re doing all right. It’s okay. Take a minute. Take some time. Smell the roses.
Did you not smell the roses back then?
Phil: When a road has opened up to you, you think, “OK, let’s go down this road and try it.” And that road is so important that you lose yourself in the here and now. It’s always about the next thing. Even like Glastonbury ’94, you don’t really get to enjoy that, because it’s like, “What’s next?” Trying to keep the kettle boiling. You don’t get time to reflect on the brilliant times and the fantastic positions that we found ourselves in. That’s the advice I would give myself, to reflect on what you have got.
Is there anything else you’d like to say?
Paul: I think I’ve said too much already.
Phil: I’m gonna say that I’m really excited to be playing in America again. I’m really excited to come back over there.