Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound producing devices include the telharmonium, Hammond organ, and the electric guitar. Purely electronic sound production can be achieved using devices such as the Theremin, sound synthesizer, and computer.
Electronic music was once associated almost exclusively with Western art music but from the late 1960s on the availability of affordable music technology meant that music produced using electronic means became increasingly common in the popular domain. Today electronic music includes many varieties and ranges from experimental art music to popular forms such as electronic dance music.
The ability to record sounds is often connected to the production of electronic music, but not absolutely necessary for it. The earliest known sound recording device was the phonautograph, patented in 1857 by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville. It could record sounds visually, but was not meant to play them back.
Jean Michel André Jarre (born 24 August 1948 in Lyon) is a French composer, performer and music producer. He is a pioneer in the electronic, ambient and New Age genres, and known as an organiser of outdoor spectacles of his music featuring lights, laser displays, and fireworks.
Jarre was raised in Lyon by his mother and grandparents, and trained on the piano. From an early age he was introduced to a variety of art forms, including those of street performers, jazz musicians, and the artist Pierre Soulages. He played guitar in a band, but his musical style was perhaps most heavily influenced by Pierre Schaeffer, a pioneer of musique concrète at the Groupe de Recherches Musicales.
His first mainstream success was the 1976 album Oxygène. Recorded in a makeshift studio at his home, the album sold an estimated 12 million copies. Oxygène was followed in 1978 by Équinoxe, and in 1979 Jarre performed to a record-breaking audience of more than a million people at the Place de la Concorde, a record he has since broken three times. More albums were to follow, but his 1979 concert served as a blueprint for his future performances around the world. Several of his albums have been released to coincide with large-scale outdoor events, and he is now perhaps as well known as a performer as a musician.
DJ Micro (born Michael Marsicano) is an American trance DJ and producer.
DJ Micro began on the East Coast, where in 1991 he helped form the Caffeine Records collective in Deer Park, NY. Caffeine began as a weekly club night, and started building a brand. Micro spun at many of Caffeine's parties, specializing in acid breaks. In 1994 he joined with Vicious Vic under the moniker Progression. They obtained massive popularity in the international dance scene after the release of their debut single Reach Further. They were soon commissioned to remix artists such as Paradise 3001, Joe T. Vanelli, Masters at Work, and even the X Files theme.
He recorded two mix albums for Roadrunner in the late '90s, Coast to Coast (1997) and Caffeine: The Natural Stimulant (1998). He later hooked up with Moonshine in 1998. Micro's first release for Moonshine, Micro-Tech Mix (1998), would be followed by a large succession of mix albums, usually one released annually.
DJ Micro aggressively toured the country recording mix albums for Moonshine Music to boost his popularity. Micro slightly changed his style with each album and moved toward trance while maintaining his breakbeat roots. By the end of the '90s, he had become one of the most popular DJs on the East Coast, considered in the same class of superstar DJs as Frankie Bones and Scott Henry[citation needed]. Like them, Micro toured often, particularly on the East Coast.
[Chorus]
We need electronic music
So we can dancin’
We need electronic music
So we can dancin’
We gettin’ crazy
Forget about your (?)
We came here to party