Tiesto and the Mainstream: Good or Bad?

On September 19, 2012 by Andrew

I came across this article from The Beat Mill and want to know what you guys think. While Tiesto has gone away from his trance sounds of the 90’s, he still has a style that appeals to thousands, if not millions, of fans all across the world. The thing that annoys me is when people stop liking an artist just because he’s “mainstream”.

Good for the guy if he has a lot of fans, plays at huge festivals world wide, and pushes the boundaries of music. Just because someone gets known for what they were producing when they first started, doesn’t mean that they can’t change or evolve that sound in to something comepletely different.

Does this mean that if your first job is being an employee at a mom and pop store, you can’t move on to become at CEO at a Fortune 500 company? This analogy is probably a stretch, but hopefully you see what I’m getting at. An artist should not be pigeonholed in to a certain genre and have to stay with that sound for his whole career.

Also, this article can apply to more than just Tiesto. Just plug in Swedish House Mafia, Avicii, Skrillex, etc. in to the equation. Yes, they have more fans from when they started. Yes, they play all over the world. Yes, their sound may have changed. But does that mean we should stop liking them, just to be that “old school raver”?

Another article I found on this subject was from inthemix. Two quotes caught my eye about how dance music has made its way in to the US. The first is from Paul van Dyk, where he said, “Let’s put it this way. What I define as electronic music, it’s not any more popular now than it was two years ago. The stuff that is extremely popular in America is that danceable stuff that Rihanna produces; but I don’t think anybody would really think that Rihanna is suddenly an electronic act. It’s just basically the sound of the pop world right now.” 

The other quote is from Josh Wink, where he states, “Fads and trends run their course,” he says. “But if someone gets interested in electronic music through hearing a Swedish House Mafia track, and next thing you know they dig deeper, go to Discogs and see that Steve Angello had a release on Subliminal Records; then they check out Erick Morillo, who had a remix on one of his albums from Josh Wink. Next thing you know, someone getting into music for its commercial dance appeal will find somebody else like me, Jeff Mills, Joey Beltram. You never know. So I look at it as a positive now.”

I’ll leave you with that and encourage you to come up with your own view. Agree or disagree with me? Leave a comment!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *