Van Buuren - Music is cool fun. Swag. I love music. I go to ASU yewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww PDF

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Music is cool fun. Swag. I love music. I go to ASU yewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww...

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Morgan Kalemkiarian MUSC 210 Professor Sean Nye 10/20/21 Armin Van Buuren, live at Tomorrowland Tomorrowland, the most over the top, breath-taking EDM festival to ever exist. The fantasy-like experience that is Tomorrowland has become a beacon for people all over the world. It’s an annual festival based out of Belgium that draws in hundreds of thousands of people alongside some big names in the DJ world, including Armin Van Buuren. Armin Van Buuren’s performance at Tomorrowland 2019 was something to be analyzed in its vast eminence. He’s made a name for himself with his trance style of music alongside the enormous number of distinct details in his performances. Lyrics, beats, samples, and sound were all pertinent factors of his 2019 Tomorrowland performance alongside the connections to rave culture, digital maximalism, and soft-shell theory. “Softshell Theory,” a term defined by author Fabian Holt, is an enormous factor for the success and admiration of performances like Van Buuren’s. Through this theory, Holt deduced that by straying from the hardcore roots of any music genre, the following will increase because it attracts a larger and more diverse audience. Specifically, “EDM pop can be added to a long list of examples of how the corporate music industry popularizes genres for a mainstream market” (Holt, 14). Part of reaching this mass market is through the extravagance of the show itself. The intricacies, lights, effects, electronic jumbo screens, and state of the art speakers, all contribute to what makes the festival experience so inciting. This softshell effect of Van Buuren’s work extends much further than people who simply attend the festival. Social media has become an important factor in the most recent decade. The outreach artists can access is beyond anything

that’s ever seen before. Artists like Van Buuren the opportunity to reach millions and millions of people. By building up his own personal outreach, he’s also expanding the outreach of Tomorrowland. This results in a massive influx of profits going straight into the EDM industry. It’s not only Van Buren who is contributing to this vast expansion of EDM music. It’s something that’s exponentially growing through the outreach of tons of different artists. Van Buuren allowing himself to reach a vaster realm of fans has only contributed to his own success as well as the reputation of EDM festivals being somewhat of a life-changing experience. It’s the exact same for other artists who have also become popularized. Thanks to soft shell expansion, digital maximalism has become something of its own. This particular experience is a tool used to engage audiences for extended periods of time. Van Buuren’s performance uses digital maximalism in a way to create an environment that the audience can truly enjoy. Digital maximalism can be seen as “flashing back simultaneously to all the moments when a bunch of new machines changed the sound of music and could somehow redeliver that original shock of the now” (Reynolds). That statement being partially difficult to follow is simply saying that digital maximalism pumps the audience with an undeniable amount of rush and energy which emulates the feeling of listening to music for the very first time. This is all something that occurs for people during Buuren’s set. Van Buuren’s Tomorrowland performance literally alters with people’s brain, surging in adrenaline and serotonin through nothing but the experience itself (not mentioning the other drugs everyone is on). His over-thetop visual style along with the technological aspects are all part of the digital maximalism experience that gives people the euphoric of feeling of being on Cloud Nine. Personally, when I sat down to watch Van Buuren’s performance, I was taken back by all the visual aspects that were occurring during the set. The music was one thing, but everything

else going on was an awe as well. What drew me in were the lights. There were flashing strobes and lasers that did not fail to stop for the entirety of the performance. You would think that something like that would probably take away from the experience because of how distracting they seem. However, they emulated a very different purpose. They were never my main source of focus and only seemed to enhance the show itself. It drew me into the music even greater. They were completely in synch to every beat and managed to amplify the vibe of the sound. These tools, along with many others, obviously played a huge part in maximizing peoples experience, hence digital maximalism. The entire set could be seen as overwhelming if you analyze each individual technological aspect that is occurring. However, when all put together, it somehow works and creates an undeniably transformative experience. Switching into a more analytic perspective, I chose for songs to specifically break down from Buuren’s performance. The four that intrigued me the most were “Lifting You Higher”, “Jump”, “Turn It Up”, and “Blah Blah Blah”. These songs were all remixed or produced by Van Buuren himself and I was particularly interested in them because of their placement throughout his set. All the songs vary in the amount of beats they contain per minute which seems to have determined their placement throughout. Very first song he played was “Jump”, originally by Van Halen. This song was the slowest of the four reaching a BPM of 130. Van Buren’s remix of this classic rock song falls into the category of “big room”, a sub-genre of electro house. The popularity of this remix has soared and has been sampled and covered on tons of new songs. After this song came “Lifting You Higher”. This is a Van Buren original that was remixed by Blasterjaxx. When you listen to this song you can clearly recognize that it falls into the trance category of EDM. The BPM of this song is a little faster standing at 136. The third song I chose, “Turn It Up”, is a mash up between Buuren and Sound Rush. This song had a BPM of 150

putting it in the hard dance genre. This song hands-down received the most energy from the audience. Lastly, the last song I chose, and the last song of the performance, is “Blah Blah Blah”. This song is mashup between Buren and three separate artists. This song is in the trance category of EDM and was sampled on the hit single “Taki Taki” by DJ Snake. This takes us full circle back to the softshell theory. This song by DJ Snake was a huge hit in Latin America and reached top charts across the globe. Even if people don’t know who Van Buuren is, they have probably heard his work sampled throughout singles just like this one and don’t even know it. Reflecting on the placement of the songs throughout the set, there’s a very strategic way that this is gone about. The mix of the genres- trance, deep house, and hard dance- took the audience on somewhat of a roller coaster ride. By doing so it keeps the audience from getting bored throughout the set and keeps them constantly on their toes. The variation in the song speed also deeply contributes to the unpredictability of the set. “Good timing is the magic that keeps people dancing” (Vorobyev). The first song, “Jump”, has the slowest BPM which is no coincidence. It’s a way to ease people into the performance rather than jumping into it. Buuren that starts transitioning the audience into faster paced songs with “Lifting You Higher”. The height of the performance is “Turn It Up” which has a peak BPM of 150. The last song of the set is “Blah Blah Blah” which has a BPM of 138. This track helps to re-ground the audience after a long, high-energy performance. As an artist you don’t want to tire out your audience too quickly, so by varying the types of songs you play you are ensuring that your audience maintains a great experience the entire time. Van Buuren does this perfectly throughout his performance, another reason why he is deemed a master of his craft. People love the experience that is him. There are a lot of factors that go into making a performance great. It’s not only the music, but the visuals and everything else in between. By analyzing Van Buuren’s performance, you

start to understand what draws people to festivals like Tomorrowland. Yes, people love the fantasy like experience that comes with going to Tomorrowland, but there would be no Tomorrowland without the performers who do what they do. Sets like Van Buuren’s are truly an art form. They are a symbol of people from all walks of life coming together to experience the same adventure that is EDM music. That says a lot for the genre of music as a whole. No two people alike, however when you’re at a festival like Tomorrowland you are the exact same- a person there to live what is the experience of EDM music. And that’s what EDM is. It’s an experience.

Works Cited Holt, F., & John, G. S. (2017). EDM Pop: A Soft Shell Formation in a New Festival Economy In Weekend societies: Electronic dance music festivals and event-cultures (pp. 1–21). essay, Bloomsbury Academic. Reynolds, Simon. (2013). Intro. Energy Flash: A Journey Through Rave Music and Dance Culture. (pp. xxi-xxvi).

Vorobyev, Yakov. “Control the Energy Level.” Mixed In Key, 22 Apr. 2020, https://mixedinkey.com/book/control-the-energy-level-of-your-dj-sets/....