25 Electronic Artists for the American Electronic Revolution
Electronic music has been the most creative force in American music since the 1960s. Selecting one artist for each of the 25 decades of American independence, we plug into American pioneers of electronic sound—from Morton Subotnick and Wendy Carlos through Steve Roach and Patrick O’Hearn, and into the 21st century with Derrick May, Moby and Bluetech.
When the history of American music is written, electronic music will stand as one of the defining movements of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Many of its essential instruments were created here: Moog, Buchla, ARP and Oberheim. And some of its most transformative sounds emerged in America.
Bebe and Louis Barron’s score for Forbidden Planet, Wendy Carlos’s Switched-On Bach, Terry Riley’s looping-keyboard opus A Rainbow in Curved Air, Moby’s Play, Laurie Anderson’s “O Superman,” and BT’s This Binary Universe were landmark works that influenced the course of American music.
It isn’t country, pop, rap or disco. It is something new—still evolving. We cycle through 25 works from 25 artists in The American Electronic Revolution.
This list isn’t definitive. It’s Echoes-centric leaving out most pop and avant-garde music and all funk, rap, fusion and progressive rock. All of those would be in a comprehensive list, but not a list for Echoes. They can have their own lists.
Here is the list of 25 Artists for the 250th Semiquincentennial. The links will take you to Podcast interviews, performances or reviews of many of these artists.