Music

Anthony Bourdain joins Arcade Fire's anti-EDM conspiracy

by Tyler Munro

Anthony Bourdain lives his life like the ultimate cool dad, which unfortunately means that as much as he loves frolicking around with Josh Homme and Queens of the Stone Age, he’s also in on the EDM conspiracy; namely, that it’s taking over.

“These days, for better or worse, live acts, live performers, are being squeezed out in favor of EDM,” said Bourdain to Penn Jillette on the latest episode of Parts Unknown. “Electronic dance music. It’s a DJ’s world, and where once they used to say cocaine was god’s way of saying you had too much money, now maybe EDM is.”

“I simply don’t understand it, and I’m embarrassed I don’t understand it,” responded Jilette. Bourdain, asking if he and the infamous magician were “just old,” then decided to compare the current “lords and princelings of douchedom” to the likes of Wayne Newton and Danny Gans, effectively answering his own question.

While current EDM seems like an entirely modern construct, this isn’t the first time dance music’s taken over, and it’s hardly sweeping would-be “legitimate” instrumentalists under the table. Sure, artists like Arcade Fire are complaining about the lack of “actual instruments” in live music, but they’re also a band with more drummers than Slipknot and one that takes superfluous excess to new heights.

Contrary to that, for every pantomiming Tiesto clone there’s someone like Armin van Buuren, whose live setup is exponentially more complicated than anything a papier-maché mask-wearing back-up singer has ever fiddled with on stage.

Like Deadmau5 tweeted yesterday, “some dudes devote their lives to instruments, others to electronic composition by cpu.” That there’s a difference does not a discrepancy make. [H/T Uproxx]