Electronic Music

Electronica is the term for various genres of electronic music built with samplers, synthesizers, and drum machines. Many of these electronic genres are part of dance music festivals worldwide. Other genres of electronica are non-dance music for close listening. In the United Kingdom, electronica typically describes music that listeners consume via headphones and a home stereo system, or as soundtracks to movies and video games.

In the UK, also, electronica is also a catch-all term to describe club music, genres such as EDM, system pop, electro, electronic pop drum and bass, and trip hop. Consequently electronic music, broadly known as electronica, has evolved in conjunction with advances in synthesizer, sampler, and drum machine technology.

The earliest forms of popular electronica were developed in the 1960s-1970s. Jamaican DJs spun records of reggae, backing tracks without the vocals, creating music and dance known as din. Around this time in Europe, artists Mike Kraftwerk, Mike Oldfield, and Alan Persons Project began.