Research into the Electropop genre

Electropop is a form of electronic music which is made with synthesizers. It first came in to mainstream popularity in 1978. Electropop created the basis for many chart oriented pop and dance music songs. Electropop is characterized by an electronic sound normally described as robotic and consists of minimal arrangements. Electropop songs are pop songs at heart. They contain simple, catchy hooks and dance music. Most electropop songs have a futuristic sci-fi edge in terms of both lyrics and beats.

We found out that Owl City was an electropop artist by firstly researching on the internet to see what people said about the genre, we then looked at Owl City’s official website which also made reference to the electropop genre and for final information we went onto iTunes to see what they had categorized Owl City’s genre as. All of this plus listening to the track and what type of genre we felt the music was helped us come to the conclusion that Owl City was as electropop as you could get.

Electropop timeline:

1978 – First flourished. Early electropop artists inspired by David Bowie’s albums’ heroes’ and ‘low’
1980-83 – The first bands named as the Electropop genre ‘The Human league’ and ‘Soft cell’
1989 – Electropop seen as unpopular in majority of North America and Europe, still popular in Asia
1999 – Electropop beginning to creep back into the music scene with female singers such as Kylie
2008 – Becomes mainstream and is evident in Christina Aguilera’s song ‘Keeps getting better’
2009-Present – Has become a major genre in the current music industry with Owl City, La Roux and 3oh3 as just some of the many Electropop artists to be in the charts at the moment

Music styles

The typical musical instruments used when creating an electropop song are mainly:
•Synthesizer
•Drum machine
•Tape loops (create musical patterns in the rhythm)
•Drums
•Guitar
•Sequencer (edits the music; speeds it up etc.)
•Keyboard
•Vocoder (generates synthesized speech)

Fashion

The style in clothing for the majority of Electropop artists is normally quite futuristic and unique (La roux, Lady GaGa for example) can also be regarded as an indie style of dressing, combing smart with casual and giving a quirky, individual style. Their style also appears very young; there isn’t much sense of adulthood in the way they dress.

Music target audience

The main target audience is 15 – late 20’s.
A few artists that epitomise this genre
Owl city, la roux, lights, Jupiter rising, swimming with dolphins, rocket to the moon, hello goodbye, ellie goulding
It has also influenced other artists such as Lady gaga, black eyed peas, Kylie minogue and kesha