I recently grabbed last months GQ to catch up on my reading after traveling for a couple months and I was stunned. In their little music section the faces of Tiga, Diplo & Switch, and MSTRKRFT stared back at me like lost boys in an unfamiliar world.

“Was I reading the right magazine? Is this really GQ?”, I thought to myself.

I was.

Some may understand my astonishment and some might not, but what is for sure is that after seeing the writing on the wall for years, electronic dance music has finally gone completely mainstream. Years ago we had a pure (not sure if that’s the right word) scene of people in it just for the music and over the course of my university career I was able to watch the transformation of people curling their nose up when hearing me play Justice at a club to watching those same people suddenly switch gears and take trains, plains, and automobiles to catch their concerts (and all way before Kanye first heard of Daft Punk from his touring DJ, a little guy named A-Trak… the former DMC DJ Champion and hip hop DJ who now plays and remixes electro acts such as Kavinsky, Sinden, and Digitalism).

Now we have stock electro style overrunning campuses all over North America (brightly colored American Apparel gear matched with skinny jeans), Pitbull stealing famous house beats, and Flor Rida releasing dance songs disguised as rap music. It’s all very confusing and disconcerting. With it’s rise to the collective consciousness of the masses it becomes inevitable that electronic music’s decline is eminent. Everyone knows once you’ve made it to the top the only way to go is down.

I see the music climate changing rapidly already but I remain optimistic. Although electro as we know it now is most likely on the decline, it will change (along with all of us) and come back as something wholly new with only nods to the past (as music is wont to do). Therefore, whatever your opinion on the state of music today is, be happy that artists that have been putting out amazing music for years are now getting the recognition they deserve.

Below are a few songs by people mentioned in this post that were here before Kanye put on his first pair of shutter glasses. So here is to you Major Lazer, Tiga, MSTRKRFT, and all the other groups that made electronic music what it is today. For better or worse, we will always remember the good times.

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DOWNLOAD: ZZT – Lower State Of Consciousness (Justice Remix)

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DOWNLOAD: A-Trak – Roder (Kavinsky vs MIA)

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DOWNLOAD: The Black Ghosts – Face (Switch Remix)

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DOWNLOAD: MSTRKRFT – Community Revolution In Progress (Original Mix)