Intelligent dance music (commonly IDM) is an electronic music genre that emerged in the early 1990s. The genre was originally influenced by developments in electronic dance music (EDM) such as Detroit Techno and various breakbeat styles that were emerging in the UK at that time. Stylistically, IDM tended to rely upon individualistic experimentation rather than adhering to musical characteristics associated with specific styles of EDM. The range of post-techno styles to emerge in the early 1990s were described variously as art techno, ambient techno, intelligent techno, and electronica. In the United States, the latter term is now used by the music industry as a catchall to describe EDM and its many derivatives.
The term IDM is said to have originated in the United States in 1993 with the formation of the IDM list, an electronic mailing list originally chartered for the discussion of music by (but not limited to) a number of prominent English artists, especially those appearing on a 1992 Warp Records compilation called Artificial Intelligence.
Usage of the term "Intelligent Dance Music" has been criticised by electronic musicians such as Aphex Twin and is seen by artists such as Mike Paradinas as being peculiar to the U.S.
Famous quotes containing the words dance music, intelligent, dance and/or music:
“The author’s conviction on this day of New Year is that music begins to atrophy when it departs too far from the dance; that poetry begins to atrophy when it gets too far from music; but this must not be taken as implying that all good music is dance music or all poetry lyric. Bach and Mozart are never too far from physical movement.”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)
“It is not the intelligent woman v. the ignorant woman; nor the white woman v. the black, the brown, and the red,—it is not even the cause of woman v. man. Nay, ‘tis woman’s strongest vindication for speaking that the world needs to hear her voice.”
—Anna Julia Cooper (1859–1964)
“Ask a wise man to dinner and he’ll upset everyone by his gloomy silence or tiresome questions. Invite him to a dance and you’ll have a camel prancing about. Haul him off to a public entertainment and his face will be enough to spoil the people’s entertainment.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)
“Words move, music moves
Only in time; but that which is only living
Can only die. Words, after speech, reach
Into the silence.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)