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I think there's three or four different things here:
Electro in the historical sense, as Illmatic describes.
Electronica, which in the 90s became what dance music that wasn't mainstream house, trance or techno became known as in the USA (i.e. dance music that rock kids got into, to generalise, people like the Chemical Brothers and the Prodigy), and which has kind of stuck around as a catch-all name for 'dance music I like but don't want to call dance music' in certain circles. To complicate matters, a small but not insignificant proportion of this was basically electro in the above sense ('Block Rockin' Beats', that Prodigy song with Kool Keith).
Electroclash, which was always a name that described about two or three quite distinct sounds, but rapidly became associated more with a tiny part of London and a certain mode of dress than any of them - and which in turn became a radioactive term - i.e. nobody will call themselves electroclash now or for the next five years because of its associations. I don't think the people making the music in question ever liked it that much anyway. This is how we get:
Electro-, often used as a prefix, hence electropop. In many ways I think this is just a preferred way of describing some of the same things that were meant by electroclash in a less punchable way. But it's a pretty broad term, as the bands lekvar lists indicate, almost as broad as 'electronica'. To complicate matters, right now a lot of this stuff is heavily influenced by electro in the historical sense - the productions styles, and in some cases the MCs - there's this amazing remix of Spank Rock's 'Sweet Talk' which I have that illustrates this. |
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