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Is EDM Getting More Popular?

9:03 am PHT

Is it just me or is Electronic dance music (EDM), and house music in particular, becoming much more popular in the local music scene? One very good evidence I have is the Power Lunch show of 99.5RT, which features DJ David Ardiente doing an hour-long DJ-mixing of house music from 12 noon to 1 pm from Mondays to Thursdays. This is in addition to his old regular show On the Decks which happens from 10 pm Saturday night till 2 am.

This is a bold move on RT’s part since by default, you can’t introduce canned advertisements on an hour-long DJ-mix show or you’ll ruin the music experience. And this is during lunch, when a lot of people are listening to FM music (as opposed to AM news in the morning) so this is one of the times when advertising revenue is pretty big. (Of course I’m not in the advertising business, so this is all just speculation.)

Even 95.5 Home Radio is into the act. Their playlist is usually a mixture of pop from the 70s to the present, but lately I’ve been hearing several sets of dance music from them. And in other stations, I’ve caught several house songs (like Bob Sinclair’s “Love Generation”) in their repertoire.

I’m pretty sure this surge in popularity started with Bonnie Bailey’s famous “Ever After”. Add to that Madonna’s Confessions on a Dance Floor album released late last year, I think that 2006 will be a banner year for EDM in the country.

The first half of the year saw a lot of high-profile DJs playing Manila. Number 1 and 2 DJs Paul van Dyk and Tiësto played to huge crowds back in January and March. Then Kaskade (my most favorite house music producer) and Chicane rocked in April and May. And last month, former Hed Kandi head honcho Mark Doyle and Ms. Bonnie Bailey herself performed at the World Trade Center. (Among all of those, I only got to see Tiësto.  =P)

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