By Anne Renee Suarez
“Eat-sleep-rave-repeat” is now a phrase that you would normally hear from the youth’s mouth, with music festivals, clubs, and parties that are swarming around Manila.
What makes these festivals and clubs a go-to place for ravers and party animals, a night filled with the new mainstream that is EDM (Electronic Dance Music)?
“With EDM, it’s like a genre where you get to dance and jump a lot,” said Bp Valenzuela, a Manila-based music producer.
The age of hip-hop, rap, and punk rock are long gone and overdue with the cultural shift of popular music to EDM.
On the international scene, Coachella, the annual three-day music extravaganza in California, is one of the biggest festivals where EDM dominates the diverse music performed.
From international artists such as Zedd, Ingrosso, Steve Aoki, among others, EDM is now making its way to the local scene with the rise of Filipino DJs like Deuce Manila, Migs Santillan, Kat DJ, and Franco Zarate, to name a few.
With a little creativity, variety, some talent, and a laptop, any aspiring DJ’s budding career is far from impossible, given the amount of appreciation it has been receiving lately.
But what does EDM really mean?
Marga Bermudez, a former DJ and now an emcee and who’s been in the industry working alongside DJs, said people have a common misconception of what EDM actually is. “Most people who don’t know the difference between genres often mistake EDM as just ‘loud party music with strobe lights to boot.’” She added that it consists of many other different electronic genres, like dubstep, house, trance, etc.
EDM has made its way quickly to the music scene, with the presence of local bands and artists here in the Philippines. It has been the new craze in the country.
Bermudez said that lifestyle was the key in the rise of EDM to fame, both here and abroad.
“Music is universal, so anything that catches the ear and eye is what makes anything boom in any country.” She said a change of scene and lifestyle is also a factor that led Filipinos to appreciate EDM.
“Local bands were the key in music and entertainment in the Philippines but I guess we’re always looking for something new.”
In an interview with Franco Zarate, a Redbull Thre3Style 2015 PH National Finalist and one of the leading DJs in the country today, he said feeling the vibe and what track to play in every festival are always the hardest.
“How the crowd will react to the music or mainly the life of the event solely depends on how much the DJ is able to connect to the audience through music, that’s what makes each [DJ] different from the others ” said Zarate.
As for the future of EDM in the country, so much is yet to happen and discover but EDM is definitely “in the know” and according to Bermudez, “to appreciate music is to have an open mind and ear.”
(Anne Renee Suarez is a Journalism student at University of Sto. Tomas.)