Digital Disconnect: Exploring the Influence of Social Media on Electronic Music in the Past Decade

Social Media is an inextricable part of life in the 21st century | Electronic Beats Feature

07 Jan 2021

From DJs rising to fame on Instagram, new genres being introduced through viral hits on Soundcloud and YouTube, bedroom productions turn into chart-topping, Grammy-winning hits on TikTok, the music industry, as we know it today, is unimaginable without Social Media.

In this first excerpt from one of the essays featured in the Electronic Beats book, Caroline Whiteley traces how a decade of declining reliance on traditional media for musical discoveries and an increase of social media usage has shaped the electronic music landscape we know today.

For Berlin-based producer Sky Deep, that time doesn’t seem too long ago. She remembers vividly a time where the industry relied completely on human contact, flyers, posters, and local community magazines.

“To find out about events you had to go hang out and have a coffee, lunch, or rehearsal in whichever part of the city your scene was known to thrive in,” she says, reflecting on the beginning of her career.

When Myspace came onto the scene, she quickly fell in love with the medium. “It was so new and unique and a lot of fun—a convenient, easy and consistent way to stay in touch with others and present your project without having to spend a lot of money and travel all over town.”