Electronica is a non-existant genre invented by mainstream US media to describe what the world had already been calling 'dance music'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.232.224.10 ( talk) 22:32, 6 August 2008

THIS USER IS CORRECT, IT IS NOT A REAL GENRE. STOP BEING IDIOTS AND GET A LIFE.

'

Could also just call it Electronic. The A mad discredits it —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.203.220.65 ( talk) 10:59, 21 June 2010 (UTC) reply

Sorry, but "dance music" can encompass many styles that go way beyond electronic music. Twist and Shout is dance music. Genres aren't invented. They are merely defined. Whether a type of music is considered Rock or Trance or R&B is a matter of definition, not invention. -- JHP ( talk) 22:24, 10 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Why not redirect this to Electronic_Music since this is what most people are thinking of anyway? Move this existing content into a subsection of Electronic_Music dedicated to the debate over the differences between the two. Zerod000 02:25, 13 July 2006 (UTC) reply

Electronica is all types of Electronic music that are not Electronic dance music.

I second that. Electronica is just a media buzzword for electronic music, and is not a unique style of music. Perhaps there could be a subsection in the electronic music article about the use of the term 'electronica'. Anybody object? Benjaminlobato 02:55, 29 April 2007 (UTC) reply

I triple that. The term Electronic Music already is and has always been what Electronica is trying to be. -- Thykka 00:10, 8 May 2007 (UTC) reply

Number 4!! I agree.

Number five here. If you absolutely want to keep the Electronica-term, at least keep bands like Chemical Brothers, Underworld and Daft Punk out of it. -- Turbotape ( talk) 15:29, 26 August 2008 (UTC) reply

I don't disagree with the idea of merging the articles - however - the main article at Electronic music is already quite long. How would this article be mergbed into it without either causing confusion or excessive length? it seems to me that merging them would need to be done along with an overall reorganization of the article, dividing it into sections that could be forked off into separate articles - for example, electronic music in academia and electronic music in popular culture (that's just one suggestion).

Does anyone have ideas about how this could be done? -- Parzival418 _Hello 02:12, 8 May 2007 (UTC) reply

IMHO everything concerning Electronic Music in Electronica should be moved to Electronic Music and Electronica should be re-written/modified to emphasize the term's commercial-buzzword'ish nature, and that it (contrary to popular belief) isn't really a genre in the same way as House, Tecnho or Trance at all. -- Thykka 04:13, 8 May 2007 (UTC) reply

I agree with the above statement. We need to acknowledge that "electronica" is a commonly used term, even though it is a marketed buzz word. For this reason its needs to have its own page so people who are not informed about the topic can learn about and what it refers to. I believe edits should be made to the page to reduce the amount of confusion associated with the it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by N765 ( talk • contribs) 23:13, 6 November 2011 (UTC) reply

KEEP SEPARATE. google 20 million results. whatever, ELECTRONICA is used in this country of my habitation by the industry as a specific genre and I run a music web site where i will use the concept. I will deliver suitable images here to illustrate the point but I beg you guys to leave the two articles existing, they are quite different facets of a similiar thing, but why be so surgically minded? why not spend the time and energy fixing them up and adding to them, like I intend to? there surely must be plenty of material out there. I attended many music shows, festivals, raves, international peace festivals, dance parties, block parties etc and there is more than enough real material out there to overflow these two and a lot more pages besides. We have a band called Pitch Black, Pitch_Black_(band) that is recognised as our #1 'electronica' group. Wiki's opening statement says 'Pitch Black is a New Zealand electronica band that was formed in 1997.' so yeah, get real, there are 4 million people in this country, and thats good enough. see Rakiura Music for the most awesome pictures. Look me up on myspace if you really want to support the cause, we can do this together. Myspace Mozaherd. chur.. moza 05:08, 13 May 2007 (UTC) moza// reply

MySpace popularity and media ignorance are not indications of factuality. Alexnye 07:22, 30 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Thanks, I never said or implied that it did, lets not dwell on such irelevant responses. Paul Moss ( talk) 03:09, 14 April 2009 (UTC) reply

I'm sorry if you and your band don't benefit from the elimination of the Electronica-term. -- Turbotape ( talk) 15:33, 26 August 2008 (UTC) reply

I don't benefit or suffer from anything in wikipedia, and I dont purport to, so another red herring.I would think that the aim of wikipedia is to accurately reflect the verifiable truth out here in reality. Paul Moss ( talk) 03:09, 14 April 2009 (UTC) reply

The articles should not be merged!Electronic music is, by its purest definition, music which relies solely upon electronic sound sources to produce music - this is why it should not be merged with electronica, as a large proportion of music which is classified as "electronica" does not comply with this definition. By all means have a link that says "see also: electronica" but it should not be included in the same article. A.F. London.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Friendant72 ( talk • contribs) 03:54, 18 May 2007

That's an interesting way to differentiate the two, but I wonder if that might be original research or synthesis ( WP:OR). Also, there is some question that Electronic Music must be made by only electronic instruments. What about music made be recording acoustic sounds and then applying extreme forms of electronic processing to the sound so that the original acoustic sound is not recognizable any more. Would that quliafy as Electronic music? To support your suggested view, we would need some pulished references ( WP:RS). There might be some, but unless those sources are found, I don't see how we can make the jump to define Electronica in that way. -- Parzival418 _Hello 20:11, 18 May 2007 (UTC) reply

I always thought the term for what you're describing is electroacoustic music. Having said that though, that article's in a bit of a state, so it's not clear whether Wikipedia agrees with me. Also, I disagree with "music which relies solely upon electronic sound sources", I think it's more music which is focused around them. By that first definition, any track with a vocal in it can't be electronic music, which is a ludicrous claim.

Regarding this merge discussion, I've found several websites of interest which aren't Ishkur's guide. have a read through this and this, which use electronica and electronic music as synonyms, this which still uses electronica as an general term, but with a slightly different definition. On the other hand, beatport uses it as the name of a genre, and soundclick uses it as both a genre and an group of genres (?) so I really don't know. I think the conclusion here is that this issue needs hard sources, i.e. not on the internet, as there's too much contradiction out there.

On a side note, the comment below was removed as it was borderline copyvio, and we already have it quoted up there a bit. Also there's no such organisation as "the Official Electronic Music Genre Standards and Classifications Consortium" in case anyone reading this talk page actually needs telling... Ishkur's guide is not a reliable source here due to its inherent bias. - Zeibura S. Kathau ^{( Info | Talk)} 19:43, 4 June 2007 (UTC) reply

You've added some more interesting content to the discussion here, including the links you mentioned. It's a difficult choice because there are so many semantic dimensions to consider. Regarding other sources - Billboard & iTunes both refer to the genre as "Electronic" not "Electronica". -- Parzival418 _Hello 22:33, 4 June 2007 (UTC) reply

Re: eletro-acoustic music: Interesting -- I'd tend to describe stuff that makes use of sampling as electronic, and stuff that's going through effects pedals as "electric" (by which I mean eletro-acoustic). As someone who thinks of himself as liking eg. some music with electric guitars, etc, but not liking electronic music (although there is one Utah Saints album I had... :) ), I tend to lean towards the philosophy that it's electro-acoustic if the effect can be achieved in an analogue fashion (even if it's done digitally, it can be done in an analogue fashion), and it's electronic if it's notdoable in an analogue fashion (although with scissors and a variable-speed tape recorder, it'd be possible to do sampling in an analogue fashion :) ). Hmm. I think I'll have to think some more -- I'm certainly no expert in electronic*. -- TimNelson 11:31, 5 June 2007 (UTC) reply

What U.S. Americans describe as Electronica is common electronic music here in Europe. If you have a look at the French or German article, you will see that for us Europeans, Electronica describes a special style of music, it is mostly a definition for all experimental electronic music similar to IDM. Chemical Brothers, Prodigy, Moby, Royksopp are not Electronica. All the rock bands (might as well mention industrial bands like NIN or Manson here) are definitely not Electronica. This English article is actually completely wrong from a European point of view by describing electronic music in general or the use of synthesizers/computers and should be merged into "electronic music". 213.189.139.251 07:04, 7 September 2007 (UTC) reply

I would vote Electronic Music merge with Electronica. I have always thought of Electronica as the overarching genre the holds all Electronic Music and sub-genres (Ambient, House, IDM...) as Rock might be the "over genre" thats hold everthing from Elvis Presley ( Rock and roll) to Through the Eyes of the Dead ( Deathcore). SelfStudyBuddy 05:19, 17 June 2007 (UTC) reply

I agree with the last poster in that Electronica is the modern umbrella term for all forms of Electronic music, in the same way as Rock. I would prefer the two articles be changed, but remain separate...

• The Electronic music page should be changed to History of electronic music. This is because it focuses on the history of such music, long before the term Electronica was in use. It could not accurately be called History of electronica, because that is only a recent term.
• History of electronic music would concern the history and progression of this kind of music, while Electronica would be the genre page.
• Both pages should discuss the two terms.

-- Superfopp 14:31, 20 July 2007 (UTC) reply

ELECTRONICA IS ALL ELECTRONIC MUSIC THAT'S NOT ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC! Salamibears58 ( talk) 00:56, 17 September 2011 (UTC)Salamibears58 reply

NO CHANCE, ELETRONICA IS AN INDEPENDENT GENRE. YOU DONT GET ROCK, PUNK, EMO, HEAVY METAL ETC ETC ALL MERGED SO NO! THEY ARE ALL INDEPENDENT GENRE'S, ASWELL AS ELECTRONICA!!!

| TK | 88.109.117.135 20:18, 9 August 2007 (UTC) reply

Please learn to post less garrishly and more contributively. Alexnye 07:22, 30 September 2007 (UTC) reply

I vote strongly for a merge. Alexnye 07:22, 30 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Electronica is not a genre; it is a misnomer. The term appears to have arisen in the nineties as a means of calling something techno without using the word techno, likely in an attempt to distance the newer electronic music from the geekier and more obscure techno scene. I believe that Ishkur put it best when he described the "genre":

Electronica does not exist. Not as a genre or a description. It was coined by the North American music press to refer to the second wave of electronic music's explosion in the late 90s, and exists purely as a marketing buzzword, not any actual quantifiable branch of music (the first wave of electronic music, incidentally, they called 'techno', and, having driven the word into the ground beyond all sense of meaning, they couldn't keep using it if they wished to re-market the music). Daft Punk, Fatboy Slim, Prodigy's 'Fat of the Land', Chemical Brothers and other big-time stars of that period were all called "electronica" at one point or another, but the person who really popularized it in the public consciousness was Madonna and her shallow, William Orbit-produced piss-poor attempt at appropriating trance music as something she invented (Ray of Light). She used that word all the damn time in interviews. God I hate her. So yeah: There is no such thing as electronica. I want each and every one of you to stop calling it that, because it makes you sound like a god damn retard. If you want to talk about the music as a whole, simply call it what it is: "electronic music" (or EDM--Electronic Dance Music--for the club/rave stuff). This is a PSA from the Official Electronic Music Genre Standards and Classifications Consortium. [1]

In summation, electronica is not a genre and wikipedia shouldn't be helping to perpetuate the misconception that it is. -- gwax UN ( say hi) 17:46, 9 November 2007 (UTC) reply

I vote for a merge. Please merge, really. "Electronica" has become the rock-press' default label for anything even remotely electronic sounding, so far, I have heard everything from Autechre to the Prodigy refered to as "electronica", basically, if it's visible on the rock radar, it's called electronica and it's absolutely ridiculous. It's electronic music and it has its subgenres, but "electronica" is not one of them. Seeofseaof ( talk) 14:39, 28 December 2007 (UTC) reply

I vote for merge. Electronica should be redirected to Electronic Music. There are sources out there that say Electronica is a seperate genre but they fail because they were badly written and have been wiped out over history. Whacky morons trying to change history use a few bad sources to wrongly negate the truth in this article. Electronicer ( talk) 15:37, 1 February 2008 (UTC) reply

Definitely merge. There is no such genre as electronica. The only places I recall that label is from mainstream media anyway. It's total nonsense and wikipedia should not help encourage it. In a way, it's kind of like of euphemism for people who realize it's ignorant too call it 'Techno' like the mainstream usually calls all electronic music.
Bootini ( talk) 10:29, 28 May 2008 (UTC) reply

Merge. I agree with Ishkur in that there is no such thing as electronica. In my own experience, the term is used so erratically its impossible to determine the meaning (it's either used synonymously with electronic music, or to mean some elusive genre of electrorock, chiptune, house, trip hop, vibe, or trance that I've never actually pinned down). michaelb ^{Talk to this user} 18:01, 27 June 2008 (UTC) reply

Electronica is a seperate defined genre, it is well cited in the article, it is a type of electronic music but it is not synonymous. Wikipedia is based on reliable sources not based on individuals personal opinions, prejudices and misconceptions. --neon white talk 20:11, 28 June 2008 (UTC) reply

All the sources prove is the fact that people use the term Electronica. Look carefully and you`ll notice how it is used synonymously with Electronic Dance Music. I suggest a merge with Electronic dance music. The "personal opinions, prejudices and misconceptions" that you mentioned would be better described as a consensus that differs to your opinion... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.215.53.124 ( talk) 04:45, 11 July 2008 (UTC) reply

Wikipedia is based on reliable sources. Honestly, Ishkur is among the few "reliable" sources on electronic music I've run into online, and he's pretty strongly opinionated of electronica being an invention of the media (esp. the rock music media to describe electronic music). I'm pretty surprised that this page has lasted this long. Although some music stores and such have a "electronica" section, I don't think I've ever seen both a "Electronic music" section and an "Electronica" music side-by-side. So sure, people may use the term electronica, but when they do, they are using it almost without synonymously with electronic music. I think a good example of the rock media doing this would be Pitchfork making statements like: "gabber is typically acclaimed as the 'metal' of electronica". Possible inaccuracies of the statement aside, he's clearly using electronica to describe electronic music from an observer's perspective. My 2c. michaelb ^{Talk to this user} 15:33, 22 February 2010 (UTC) reply

A quick additionally comment: this discussion seems to be going on for a bit (and my post seems to be nearly a couple years later than the bulk of it). I'm not too clear on what constitutes a consensus, but is it just my own bias or does there seem to be consensus toward merge? ie, can we decide on something? michaelb ^{Talk to this user} 15:36, 22 February 2010 (UTC) reply

I'm worried that you people think Ishkur is a reliable source. Should we also move Speed Garage to The Worst Music In The World? - filelake shoe 21:59, 22 June 2010 (UTC) reply

To be frank Electronica and Electronic dance music are pretty much teh exact same thing. The confusion is because different journalists and groups have taken different meanings for them both. Pretty much EDM article and electronica need a lot of work, they should be merged to one article. The main point is Electronica and EDM refer to the same artists and if people actually bothered to work on these articles then they would look pretty much like competing versions of the same thing. That's why they should definitely be one article together.

Electronic: Reference electrones energy and it use mod. Music and more... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.227.28.47 ( talk) 16:37, 9 October 2008 (UTC) reply

THEY SHOULDN'T ANYONE WITH THE LEAST BIT OF EDUCATION WOULD KNOW THE DIFFERENCE. go to www.beatport.com AND SEE SUBGENRES. you will find electronica. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.49.140.159 ( talk) 21:49, 23 April 2010 (UTC) reply

Electronica had been developped with major songs, like "I Feel Love" by Donna Summer. I think some of these songs should be mentioned.

electronica vs. EDM is an ambiguous case, as has been mentioned earlier on the talk page. being an ambiguous topic, this means that the article on electronica will always have problems, but most importantly, merging this article will not remove these problems, and leaving it as is will also not. So the debate should not at all be centered around it's classification, and the "correct" definition of electronica, Instead, I beleive that the articles should not be merged, as it would create a large, cluttered article that still contains many errors, that will not be of relevance to wikipedians

Who added the links to their friends metalcore bands? Yes, "electronica" is influential...but these suburban bands are influences by crunk. Delete this crap for irrelevance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.32.52.45 ( talk) 02:59, 27 November 2009 (UTC) reply

A boisterous user with many sockpuppet accounts is adamant about getting rid of the Intelligent dance music (IDM) article and merging it into the electronica article, or just deleting it entirely because he doesn't like it (the genre name IDM). He has been banned from Wikipedia indefinitely for this and other disruptive edits. I'm sure it's OK to mention IDM and point to the main article from the electronica article, but there's zero consensus for merging or removing the IDM article itself. If he comes back and attempts to merge the articles again, please help out by immediately reverting the edit, and if it doesn't look like anyone noticed yet, use WP:AN/I to notify an administrator that he's back. Thanks. — mjb ( talk) 20:04, 1 November 2010 (UTC) reply

This entire article, (and many in the dance categories), is American-centric, and this needs to be said somewhere. InHaze ( talk) 09:57, 21 December 2010 (UTC) reply

If you believe that reliable sources can be found to back up other regional points of view, and if you can explain on the talk pages what content you feel is U.S.-centric and what other regional points of view are missing, then feel free to tag such articles with Template:Globalize/USA. However, if you use the tag without justifying it on the discussion pages, it won't last long. — mjb ( talk) 20:01, 21 December 2010 (UTC) reply

From Ishkur's Guide

"Electronica does not exist. Not as a genre or a description. It was coined by the North American music press to refer to the second wave of electronic music's explosion in the late 90s, and exists purely as a marketing buzzword, not any actual quantifiable branch of music (the first wave of electronic music, incidentally, they called 'techno', and, having driven the word into the ground beyond all sense of meaning, they couldn't keep using it if they wished to re-market the music). Daft Punk, Fatboy Slim, Prodigy's 'Fat of the Land', Chemical Brothers and other big-time stars of that period were all called "electronica" at one point or another, but the person who really popularized it in the public consciousness was Madonna and her shallow, William Orbit-produced piss-poor attempt at appropriating trance music as something she invented (Ray of Light). She used that word all the damn time in interviews. God I hate her. So yeah: There is no such thing as electronica. I want each and every one of you to stop calling it that, because it makes you sound like a god damn retard. If you want to talk about the music as a whole, simply call it what it is: "electronic music" (or EDM--Electronic Dance Music--for the club/rave stuff). This is a PSA from the Official Electronic Music Genre Standards and Classifications Consortium."

-- — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.218.85.222 ( talk) 14:48, 1 November 2011 (UTC) reply

The opening of the article, and even the Allmusic quote used to support the opposite case seem to suggest that you are right. Unless there are serious objections we should remove the genre infobox.-- SabreBD ( talk) 11:48, 9 June 2012 (UTC) reply

I object to anyone who thinks Ishkur's guide is a reliable source. It isn't. It's just his opinion. If we can find some better sources to support the fact that some professionals dislike the term, we can include that, but since you find things listed as "electronica" everywhere from allmusic to beatport to the iTunes store, it's ridiculous for us to take the position that it "doesn't exist". - filelake shoe 12:23, 9 June 2012 (UTC) reply

I don't consider Ishkur to be a reliable source. I am not arguing that the term does not exist, just that it doesn't constitute a genre. On the basis of the current article it looks like a collective term.-- SabreBD ( talk) 12:28, 9 June 2012 (UTC) reply

Concur with Filelakeshoe, Ishkur's guide is not RS. The question of genre is not so simple, prior to the American music industry's efforts, term usage, in the UK, was once synonymous with what many in America started calling IDM. Whether or not the early 90s usage of the term, by the British music press, was in reference to a specific genre, or if it was a more general catch-all term in line with current American usage, needs to be teased out using appropriate sources. There are examples also of usage from the 80s which need to be looked into. BTW . Semitransgenic _talk. 12:29, 9 June 2012 (UTC) reply

"Electronica is a music genre composed within a wide range of contemporary electronic music designed for a wide range of uses..."

a bit ambiguous? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 8.225.200.133 ( talk) 19:07, 6 August 2013 (UTC) reply