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Futurepop is an electronic dance music genre that has been characterized as a blend of electropop, EBM and dance beats, based on trance and techno. It began to emerge in the late 1990s with artists like VNV Nation, Covenant, and Apoptygma Berzerk. Other leading figureheads include Assemblage 23, Icon of Coil, and Neuroticfish, and Rotersand.

Futurepop is mostly associated with the cybergoth subculture. It has become popular in alternative dance clubs, particularly in Germany. Music festivals that feature Futurepop bands include Infest, Amphi festival, Wave Gotik Treffen and M'era Luna.

Characteristics

Futurepop is mainly characterized by its "technoid" and "dance-oriented" pop music structures, catchy melodies, the "pervasive use of trance beats" (mostly at 140 bpm), and an absence of vocal modification. The genre is distinguished from regular trance music by "retaining the lyrical and vocal structure of synthpop". Its "transparent sounds" and "smooth production" style has been considered as "designed for music clubs".

Tom Shear of Assemblage 23 described the style ironically as "mostly people who can't sing over '90s era trance patches".

Etymology

Ronan Harris of VNV Nation credited himself with the term "futurepop" during a discussion with Apoptygma Berzerk vocalist Stephan Groth to describe the sounds of their music and similar groups at the time. According to Sorted Magazine writer "Girl the Bourgeois Individualist":

He says he came up with it during a conversation with Apop's Stefan Groth when they were discussing the arrogant attitude the press had towards the scene, dismissing it as simply an '80s revival. There was also the problem with the terms that were around, they regarded electro as encompassing too many things, while EBM is not what it used to be and the idea of the whole dark scene gives the impression that everyone is hanging out in crypts and listening to Sopor Aeternus.

References

1. ^ Peter Matzke, Tobias Seeliger: Das Gothic- und Dark-Wave-Lexikon. Schwarzkopf und Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-89602-522-8, page 230.
2. ^ Axel Schmidt, Klaus Neumann-Braun: Die Welt der Gothics. Spielräume düster konnotierter Transzendenz. 2004, ISBN 3-531-14353-0. page 273.
3. ^ Isabella van Elferen: Gothic Music: The Sounds of the Uncanny, University of Wales Press, 2012, ISBN 0708325130, page 165.
4. ^ Girl the Bourgeois Individualist (2002). "Being a little bit productive". Sorted magAZine.
5. "Assemblage 23 - I've never been fond of the 'future pop' moniker". Side-Line Magazine. 2009. Archived from the original on 2013-09-06.
6. S. Alexander Reed: Assimilate. A Critical History of Industrial Music. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2013, ISBN 978-0-19-983260-6, page 297.

• Futurepop
• Electropop
• Electronic body music
• Trance music
• Electronic dance music genres