Bassnectar Questions Electronic Dance Music; Claims Dubstep is Dead

Lorin Ashton aka Bassnectar recently spoke with the Star Tribune, dishing his feelings about the categorization of music, EDM, and the death of dubstep. He had very positive things to say about Summer Set Festival, which he headlined. He praised the festival’s eclectic lineup, and communicated a rather negative attitude towards the labels that confine and suffocate the integrity and purity of the music he makes. Expressing an obvious disdain for the compartmentalization of music in today’s electronic world, he is particularly sick of his music being called electronic:

“I don’t even view ‘electronic music’ as a thing anymore,” he said. “That’s like saying, ‘An electronic day.’ The world is electronic. All music is electronic these days, unless it’s someone playing an acoustic guitar on a porch. Kenny Chesney’s music is electronic, and Jay Z’s, Justin Bieber’s. It’s all made using electronic equipment. It’s consumed using electronic machines.”

Bassnectar has always set himself apart from the EDM world, but it is within that world that he thrives. What he is saying is wholly correct, and the EDM bubble has quite obviously burst. As Lorin sees it, EDM will continue to flourish, with its many subgenres experiencing and moving through their own ebb and flow. He had some very interesting commentary on dubstep, and the future of electronic dance music:

“Dubstep obviously is already a thing of the past. This new wave of shoegazer, hipster brand of dance music that’s popular this year — which I think is boring as hell — will soon be a thing of the past. New terms and styles will emerge. But the broader brand of electronically enhanced dance music — which I just think of in my heart as just music — will always have an audience.”

Dubstep producers are not happy hearing that, especially considering Bassnectar’s presence in the bass music community, and the fact that he has produced his fair share of wubs. But people preemptively pronounce the death of many genres that many people would consider alive and well. Trap and moombahton have been zombies in this industry forever. Bassnectar maybe misspoke about dubstep, but what he says in this interview about music is quite accurate.

He also talks about his roots as a metalhead, and being drawn to dance music because of its underground status. It was a place for the freaks of the world to be themselves. Dance music was “was very much an underground thing, which is what attracted me to it. I saw it as a music for the rejects and the freaks. The music then was like a flag you could wave.”

Now, the first year in 13 that Bassnectar is not embarking on a national tour, he stays plenty busy being booked at festivals often as a headliner. He enjoys seeing his fans travel from all over to catch multiple of his legendary live sets. What he does on stage goes deeper than what we know as EDM. He is his own genre, encompassing so much more than that fickle terminology.

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Bassnectar Questions Electronic Dance Music; Claims Dubstep is Dead