1900-1999Germany / France

Electronic music

Also known as electronic music, electronica

A broad, studio-born genre with deep roots in early electronic instruments and a major public breakthrough through European pioneers in the 1970s.

Origins and context

The genre is best understood as an international studio-based development, with important early strands in Europe rather than a single birthplace.

GermanyFrance

History

Electronic music grew in stages rather than arriving all at once. Early electronic instruments such as the theremin and other experimental devices appeared in the first half of the 20th century, and by the 1960s and early 1970s composers and artists were building new languages around synthesizers and tape-based studio techniques. The genre’s public profile widened in the 1970s with artists like Kraftwerk and Jean-Michel Jarre, whose work helped define a sleek, melodic, machine-lit sound that would feed later techno, house, synth-pop, and many other offshoots. (tile.loc.gov)