Streaming, pop culture and lock out laws are changing how people now discover new dance music
DJ Anna Lunoe says the club is no longer the place where people are finding new dance music, with streaming stepping up as a major discovery point.
Confidential
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“The club isn’t always the place where you find new dance music now.”
So says DJ Anna Lunoe who has first-hand experience about the way streaming is impacting club culture.
Now based in LA, the Sydney DJ has just launched the program danceXL on Apple Music’s Beats 1, indeed designed to showcase new dance music as well as the most popular tunes – all streamed from your phone if you wish.
Lunoe says her role as curator has become important in a changing world of entertainment – including her hometown where lockout laws have restricted access to clubs and dance culture in general.
“Streaming is really crucial,” Lunoe says. “It’s the accessibility. We’re seeing this global shift, it’s a cultural movement. Kids wearing a Sub Pop T-shirt probably aren’t wearing it because they’ve been to Seattle or are big Nirvana fans, it’s because they saw it on Pinterest and thought it looked cool.
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“It’s the way culture is being digested. People are finding songs on TikTok or online videos or through artists they follow on Instagram who post a song they love. It’s a digital exploration we’re seeing. It’s not always so placed in club culture.”
Lunoe says that’s having an interesting impact on modern dance music.
“You’re seeing artists come up who maybe have never DJ’d in a club. Maybe they learned to make dance music because they were fans of Skrillex and they downloaded some software and watched a whole lot of stuff on You Tube. They’re not so connected to club culture as they are to an artist or an inspiration point. We’re seeing that come into the industry. For the last three or four years a lot of the big artists don’t really come from club culture, they come from streaming culture.”
In the wide, wide, wide world of streaming, her role as curator role weighs heavily on Lunoe.
“It’s a huge responsibility. There’s a lot out there. There’s a lot that needs to be filtered through. I take it very seriously. I’m not comfortable if I don’t listen to at least 400 songs a week, I don’t feel like I’m doing my job. It’s so necessary. I try to touch on sub genres, I have lines out to different parts of the world. I try to represent as much as I possibly can to keep growing the story. This show is a great jump off point to keep developing into new avenues.”
As some who got their start on Sydney’s FBI radio, Lunoe continues to champion artists from the underground.
“I look everywhere. High and low. You name it. I’m very aware channelling that is very important. Music is a machine as well, but there are songs that are just as deserving outside that machine so you have to dig deep to find and represent fully an industry that doesn’t live and die by the machine.”
Streaming has helped disarm the machine and provide an entry level to independent acts. For Sydney dance duo Flight Facilities, they’ve been able to successfully transfer their early fanbase over from MySpace and Facebook to streaming platforms.
“We’re lucky we’ve got to the position we have and grown with new platforms like streaming,” Hugo Gruzman says. “A lot of successful acts from the days of MySpace got left behind when streaming took over. There are songs that were huge in the My Space era that have no hits on You Tube. We’ve been lucky to transition.”
“With streaming now, if you do break out you’ve got more eyes on you, but the probability (of success) is less because there’s more content than ever,” bandmate Jimmy Lyell says. “It’s a weird dance. If one song breaks out it’s big, but if it doesn’t there’s more chance of being lost in the sea of everyone. We’ve lived our entire careers in microclimates. We broke through with Facebook, we’ve continued to have a microclimate of fans, which a lot of bands and brands have now and can survive quite successfully on.”
The duo, whose hits include Crave You, 2 Bodies, Clair De Lune and Better Than Ever, agree with Lunoe that lock out laws and streaming have impacted on how people find new dance music now.
“The culture has changed,” Lyell says. “I don’t know if you’re discovering songs on the dance floor anymore. I guess you might get Shazam out if you’re inclined to do that. Discovery is about playlisting now. Playlists are very important.”
Hugo Gruzman: “I suppose the barometer used to be when people would come up and ask what a song was when you were DJing. If three people asked you know it was going to be big. Now people get their phones out and Shazam. But the vast majority of discovering new music now is people playlisting songs they like and relying on algorithms to play them stuff in the same vein.”
Algorithms on streaming platforms are digitally based, but come from human input. Those playlists are curated with care, by music lovers, both behind and in front of the scenes. Lunoe is one of many dance acts who creates their own playlists on Apple Music – her Hyperhouse playlist is regularly updated to reflect what she plays on her radio show and also in DJ sets, her Essentials playlist is her own tracks and remixes she’s down for others including Flume – ‘Essentials’ is Apple Music’s version of the ‘Greatest Hits’ album for the streaming audience.
Not only does danceXL have its own playlist, updated weekly, Apple Music offers everything from ‘Dance Throwback’ to ‘All Day Dance Party’ with everything from trop house to trap. These days your favourite artist can showcase their favourite songs with personalised playlists on their preferred streaming platform, which fans can subscribe to, sending them down a rabbit hole of discovering new music.
For Connie Mitchell, singer and songwriter with Sydney’s Sneaky Sound System, streaming algorithms have also created the opportunity to make anyone a DJ and the master of their own playlists.
“People have short attention spans,” she says. “You have to get in and out quickly. As a DJ that was how you always operated, you have to grab people fast. And now people listen to music like they’re a DJ. They give a song 30 seconds, then skip to the next one. You have to make music that reflects that or you get lost. And these days genres don’t matter. I like it. Our eldest Archie, is 14. Recently he said ‘Do you mind if I DJ?’ He made a playlist and every track was amazing. The streaming services automatically build a playlist around the tracks he likes, it’s those algorithms, they’re so smart. You can be the best DJ in the world if you pick the right four tracks and the algorithms help you out after that.”
Streaming has also opened up the music world to musicians who can bypass major labels if they wish. Not only does Lunoe run her own label HYPERHOUSE, Melbourne DJ Generik – who works with Calvin Harris in Vegas for most of the year – started his own imprint, You Do You.
As well as releasing his own music on the label, he’s constantly scouring for new artists he can showcase, and streaming means the old school overheads are gone.
“You can run a record label from your iPhone these days,” Generik says. “Get a good pair of headphones, listen to the demo you like it, send it off to digital, get a cover made up which you can do on the computer, and away you go. ”
“Australian acts are being discovered through the internet, we were instrumental in that, it was the best way to be discovered. You had acts like Flume and What So Not coming off remix competitions, they blow up and become some of the biggest acts Australia has produced. Gone are the days where you used to be a band signed to a record label and tour. Nowadays you make a record, put it out on the internet and if people like it, away you go and you can really build a career for yourself.”
For dance music veteran Fatboy Slim, he’s still trying to navigate his way through the new world of streaming – even if classic bangers like Right Here Right Now and Eat Sleep Rave Repeat have had millions of streams and continue to be discovered by new generations who never bought the original versions on vinyl or CD.
He’s sticking to DJ work and hasn’t released any new music in years, figuring people want tracks not albums anymore.
“I think the album is pretty redundant as an art form,” he says. “The way people consume music with streaming has made the album format redundant. There’s that video of the grandchildren sitting on their grandad’s knee saying ‘Grandpa tells us about the time you had to buy a whole album when you only wanted one track’. Streaming has changed everything.”
DANCE MUSIC ON APPLE MUSIC: THE STATS
Australians have spent 140 million hours listening to dance music on Apple Music so far, equating to 2.4 billion streams. Here’s how that breaks down by artist and playlists
Most popular dance artists in Australia:
1. Chainsmokers
2. Calvin Harris
3. Flume
4. Avicii
5. Major Lazer
Most popular dance/electronic tracks in Australia:
1. Closer (feat. Halsey) – Chainsmokers
2. Body (feat. Brando) – Loud Luxury
3. Something Just Like This – Chainsmokers & Coldplay
4. Happier – Marshmello & Bastille
5. Silence (feat. Khalid) – Marshmello
Most popular albums in the dance/electronic genre in Australia:
1. Memories … Do Not Open – The Chainsmokers
2. Skin – Flume
3. Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 1 – Calvin Harris
4. Flume – Flume
5. Encore – DJ Snake
Most popular dance/electronic songs in Australia by Australian acts:
1. Never Be Like You (feat. Kai) – Flume
2. Stranger (feat. Elliphant) – Peking Duk
3. Fire – Peking Duck
4. Say It (feat. Tove Lo) – Flume
5. Chameleon – PNAU
Most popular Australian dance artists:
1. Flume
2. Rüfüs du Sol
3. Peking Duk
4. PNAU
5. Hayden James
Most popular dance artist Essentials playlists in Australia:
1. Calvin Harris Essentials
2. Avicii Essentials
3. Rüfüs du Sol Essentials
4. Flume Essentials
5. David Guetta Essentials
Most popular dance workout playlists in Australia:
1. Pop Workout
2. Dance Workout
3. Pure Workout
4. Pure Cardio
5. Groove
Most popular Ministry of Sound albums in Australia:
1. Ministry of Sound Electro House Sessions 3
2. Ministry of Sound: Clubbers Guide To 2015
3. Ministry of Sound Running Trax Summer 2011 – Run
4. Ministry of Sound Presents the 2009 Annual
5. Ministry of Sound: The Annual 2016
Most popular exclusive DJ Mix sets in Australia:
1. Marshmello Fortnite Extended Set (DJ Mix)
2. Anjunadeep 10 (DJ Mix)
3. Anjunabeats Volume 14 (DJ Mix)
4. Martin Garrix Presents STMPD RCRDS (DJ Mix)
5. Nomad Mix (DJ Mix)
Top 10 most popular Australian dance/electronic artists in the US:
1. Flume
2. Rüfüs du Sol
3. Alison Wonderland
4. Chet Faker (Nick Murphy)
5. Starley
6. Hermitude
7. Flight Facilities
8. What So Not
9. Knife Party
10. Hayden James
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