The Underground Is Massive: How Electronic Dance Music Conquered America

Joining the ranks of Please Kill Me and Can’t Stop Won’t Stop comes this definitive chronicle of one of the hottest trends in popular culture—electronic dance music—from the noted authority covering the scene.

It is the sound of the millennial generation, the music “defining youth culture of the 2010s” (Rolling Stone). Rooted in American techno/house and ’90s rave culture, electronic dance music has evolved into the biggest moneymaker on the concert circuit. Music journalist Michaelangelo Matos has been covering this beat since its genesis, and in The Underground Is Massive, charts for the first time the birth and rise of this last great outlaw musical subculture.

Drawing on a vast array of resources, including hundreds of interviews and a library of rare artifacts, from rave fanzines to online mailing-list archives, Matos reveals how EDM blossomed in tandem with the nascent Internet—message boards and chat lines connected partiers from town to town. In turn, these ravers, many early technology adopters, helped spearhead the information revolution. As tech was the tool, Ecstasy—(Molly, as it’s know today) an empathic drug that heightens sensory pleasure—was the narcotic fueling this alternative movement.

Full of unique insights, lively details, entertaining stories, dozens of photos, and unforgettable misfits and stars—from early break-in parties to Skrillex and Daft Punk—The Underground Is Massive captures this fascinating trend in American pop culture history, a grassroots movement that would help define the future of music and the modern tech world we live in.

What started as an underground party business—run and dominated by youths and hustlers—grew into the music business's greatest and biggest success. The Underground Is Massive is the first-ever big-picture history of the American electronic dance music underground, viewed through the lens of nineteen parties over thirty years—from the black, gay underground clubs of Chicago and Detroit's elite teen-party scene through nineties "electronica" to today's EDM-festival juggernaut, the book takes in the rise of the Internet and Burning Man, 9/11, and the collapse of the record business—and vividly charts why and how it took nearly three decades after electronic dance music became a global youth soundtrack for it to hit big in the land that birthed it.

Through unparalleled insider access to anecdotes, interviews, and history, Michaelangelo Matos demystifies how what once belonged to a devoted audience of casual partiers and diehard dancers has become America's soundtrack of choice and changed the music industry completely. Matos expertly tackles the vast diversity of EDM's musical landscape, its technologically prophetic yet illicit origins, and the path by which underground raves grew into fiercely successful music festivals. Taking in legendary artists from Frankie Knuckles to Moby as well as the biggest names in EDM—Diplo, Skrillex, Deadmau5, David Guetta, Tiësto, and Daft Punk—Matos's deep mix of sources and wide-lens overview of the culture make every chapter a page-turning revelation.

About EDM: Every so often, the tectonic plates of mainstream musical taste shift… now the tables are turning again. Electronic dance music, better known as EDM, has surged into mainstream consciousness. - Forbes

The electronic dance music business… has grown to an estimated worth of $4.5 billion, a number that is luring both Wall Street investors and mainstream corporate sponsors. - New York Times

“There’s plenty of edifying insight here for EDM specialists—but for a novice like me, The Underground Is Massive provided a necessary, nuanced explanation of a global subculture going mainstream in America. An expert in the field, Michaelangelo Matos is a graceful, nimble writer, and he did a spectacular job untangling this complex universe of sounds and personalities.” - Amanda Petrusich, author of Do Not Sell at Any Price: The Wild, Obsessive Hunt for the World?s Rarest 78rpm Records

“The Underground Is Massive is the richly researched, vividly detailed chronicle that America’s electronic dance culture has long deserved. Essential reading for scene believers and curious onlookers alike.” - Simon Reynolds, author of Energy Flash and Generation Ecstasy

“Hip-hop and dance music have ever been kin, like musical first cousins, sometimes estranged but often in sync. Michelangelo Matos?s massive history of electronic dance music, told in an unprecedented epic sweep, is like seeing a familiar face in your family as if for the first time—to finally appreciate the depth of their genius and the scope of their struggle, and to revel in their triumph. His key milestones are parties?the great gatherings that pushed this once marginalized genre into the forefront of American pop music.” - Dan Charnas, author of The Big Payback: The History of the Business of Hip-Hop