Top 5 EDM Genres to Ease You Into Electronic Dance

Makayla Kirkland, Staff Writer

EDM, or electronic dance music, isn’t a music genre but it is a type of music. This type of music is like one family with other music genres as the family members.  If you are looking to get into EDM, you need to first understand just some of its variety so you can enter through the right door. These are the Top 5 EDM genres to bring new fans into the style. 

 House      

 f you don’t want to get out of your comfort zone, house would be a good choice.  Not the house that we live in or need, of course. House music is a peaceful genre, with peaceful sounds and a melody.  Its bpm or beats per minute starts from 115 bpm to 130. Beats per minute is the measure of how fast or slow a song is. House isn’t really slow, but its not fast either.  It has a peaceful vibe to it, making it good if you have a sad or bad day.  There are many forms of house music.  One of them is bass house, which is house music bass added to it, giving it a funky vibe.  Future house is a weird one, yet catchy. This genre has a metallic sound with a modulated bassline. Another house genre that is even weirder than future house is big room house or big room, an interesting subgenre of house. Big room house combines progressive house, and trance together with house elements.  

Drum and Bass       

Drum and bass is the second top genre. Drum and bass is as it sounds: drum sounds with bass. This genre is fast, starting at 160 bpm- 180 bpm and can reach up to 190 bpm. But some forms of this genre are slow, like dancefloor dnb. It’s also heavier than other genres, thanks to the bass that comes with it. But drum and bass doesn’t have to be heavy all the time.  There are lighter forms, like dancefloor, melodic drum and bass, liquid drum and bass, and those apply to drumstep too. Drumstep is similar to drum and bass, without all the bass and heaviness added to it, and can have other genres mixed in. Drumstep has a bpm of 160-170 bpm. 

Hardstyle.    

Bong, bong, bong. What’s that? The genre that has a bunch of bong sounds is hardstyle. In third place, hardstyle has a bpm of 150- 160 and used to go from 135- 150. Hardstyle is energetic and fast and can get annoying at some times, depending on the artist. But it is still good.  

Glitch Hop

The fourth genre that sounds weird yet good is glitch hop. It has a bpm of 105-115.  Glitch hop is hop with glitchy sounds and effects. Neruohop is glitch hop and neurofunk combined with darker sounds. Neurofunk is a subgenre of drum and bass with lighter bass and darker sounds. Neruohop has a bpm of 80-120.  Moombahton is a new version of reggeaton with house combined.  Reggaeton is  hip hop with reggae rhythms and spanish rapping and singing. Moombahton doesn’t have lyrics in it all the time and can be solo. Moombahcore is like moombahton, but it is mixed with dubstep instead and has the same bpm as glitch hop.  

Speedcore

This genre is last not because it’s bad but because it’s one that will take a lot of listening to get used to.  Speedcore sounds odd already. Imagine a machine gun. Now with that but it sounds like the gun won’t stop firing and it’s super fast. That’s speedcore. It has a bpm of 300, making it the fastest genre. But there are subgenres that are even faster than speedcore. Hypertone is the fastest subgenre and can reach 1 million bpm.  It goes so fast it can be hard to figure out the sounds. Extratone is the second-fastest subgenre and starts at 1,000 bpm. Extratone sounds like someone took a gun bullet and put it on super fast repeat. 

Not every genre of EDM is for everyone, but everyone should be able to find a genre that can at least get them into this style. Once you find that genre you love, you can then branch out to get into the other genres as well.