Is Techno Music Dead and Dying?

Though being the most successful subgenre of EDM, techno music has been debated, “Is techno music dying?“, for losing its popularity over the last decades.

Being a subgenre of Electronic Dance Music (EDM) born in central Europe after the ’70, techno music is generally produced by DJs and featured by being repetitive, using electronic musical techniques such as drum machines, sequencers, and synthesizers for the counts of beats per minute (BPM). Numerous types of techno subgenres are counted as minimal techno, hardcore techno, acid techno, and dub techno. Today some of the most popular artists of the genre are Boris Brejcha, Charlotte de Witte, and Carl Cox.

Aside from its popularity and rising star of the last decades, there is a fair question on the table; is techno music dead and dying?

In order to get this, one should explore whether a musical genre is dead or not. It must be thought that an essential part of how alive or dead a musical genre is, is how many people are actually looking this kind of music up on the internet today. As a consequence, today, it is going to be examined through trends of most used web browsers.

Let’s start with Google Trends, which is a search machine that provides and shows the specific number that is looked around specific regions through a certain period of time. The data that shows techno music’s search and popularity on the net for the last 20 years.

The chart shows us that techno music reached its climax in 2004. Since then, its popularity has decreased gradually up until 2013. From then on, it has a stable interaction. It gets hyped whenever there is a big festival that voices over the seas for all continents with great names and shows, like Tomorrowland or Ultra.

So with all these, is techno music really dying day by day? The answer is absolutely no.

Although it seems like there is a decrease, the rate of the genre with other searches shows that techno holds its position while the other types of popular ideas have been demolished through the years. Because the tendency over the internet and habits today have been extremely diverse. Today’s mainstream will completely be changed by tomorrow. But techno remains stable. Being stable means great things today. There is no such a thing that has not lost its rate through the last decades.

If we examine the techno music’s effect on the other genres, it is obvious that people are looking for beating up, blasting, and arse-kicking DJs that are coming on the stage and blowing people’s minds. In every single EDM festival, event, or organization, the main stages are left for those superstars. For instance, Charlotte de Witte got the main stage for Tomorrowland, right?

The graphic below shows the difference between the two major subgenres of EDM, on one hand, techno, and on the other, dubstep. You can clearly see that dubstep has its peak only around 2012 and 2014. Except for those, people almost never looked at it. So there is a strong relationship between techno music’s stability and interaction.

In conclusion, through the charts and graphics of Google, the debate and question over techno music’s popularity, “is techno music dead?” or “is techno music dying?“, has been clarified. It is seen that the decrease in numbers does not mean that techno music loses its popularity, growth, or interaction. It is certain that techno music never die as of today.

One can look at stages and shows, thus clearly seeing that the wanted persona will be one of the techno stars today. Look at Tomorrowland, Ultra, EDC, Creamfields, or Untold; the main stage is set for a techno superstar.

Techno music is alive, popular, and successful today.