Ten minutes before I began writing this, I was in the shower and had a really interesting chain of thoughts pop into my head (shower thoughts are the best). Ever since I can remember, I have always loved listening to music. I love all kinds of music, but there are a several genres that have always captivated, motivated and influenced me. I find myself continually thinking about what these genres will evolve to. Today I realized how much these genres have grown from their original unique standalone elements into what will eventually (or can almost already be considered to be) one genre.

Regardless of whether or not you like the music I’m about to discuss, it is the underlying concept here that is important. 

Metal
Metal was always one of my favorites. I lot of people can’t wrap their head around metal, and I can see why. But the things I like about the metal I listen to is the speed, aggression and technicality. Everything about metal is themed with darkness. No other music is themed like that.

Hip hop
What initially drew me to hip hop was its realness, rawness and consistent simplicity. It’s changed since then for both better and worse and now has a lot of stigma attached, but quality beat production and strong lyricism is still something beautiful.

EDM/IDM (Electronic/Intelligent Dance Music)
IDM emerged in the early 90′s as a post EDM (“techno”) movement. It shares a lot of the same sound qualities of techno, but is more intelligent. I’ll let you piece that one together for yourself.

Now think back for a second because you’ve heard all these genres mixed with one another by artists like Limp Bizkit, Kid Rock, Nine Inch Nails, Filter, Fear Factory, Linkin Park, etc. That list is never-ending, right? So much fusion has gone on in the past two decades with these three genres that a lot of interesting subgenres have emerged. Several worth mentioning are dubstep (of course), brostep, breakcore and aquacrunk. All of these brand new sub-genres are drastically different and equally interesting mixes of metal, hip hop and electronic. Whether or not any of those are your things, you might find it interesting to Google them and take a quick listen just so you know what’s really out there these days.

What I’m getting at here is that music is actively evolving off of what already exists in a really neat way. It has been for years and it’s only getting more extreme. Anything can be combined to make something completely new. It’s musical alchemy! 

I’ll conclude this with a song called “Scatta” by Skrillex featuring UK’s rap outfit Foreign Beggars. Skrillex is an LA based producer and ex-frontman of an indie hardcore/metal band called From First to Last. I love this song for a lot of reasons and I also think it’s a great example of what I’m writing about. The sound is electronic, yet extremely heavy and complex with elements of metal and Foreign Beggars compliment the track with some great technical lyricism. I would lump this song in with “dubstep”