Daft Punk's Random Access Memories: Dance Music Is Dead How Daft Punk rediscovered dance's roots, and reimagined the genre's future, in Bigger Than The Sound.

Dance music has always been about liberation, from juke-joint boogie woogies to discotheque dramas, the rec-room breaks that begat hip-hop and the heady house music that brought together poseurs and punters alike.

That may seem like an oversimplification (which is sort of necessary when considering a genre as fractious as dance), but it doesn't have to be: Sure, sharecroppers found release in ragtime and black and Latino youth — both gay and straight — drew empowerment from disco, but there's a reason Primal Scream tacked Peter Fonda's "We wanna be free to do what we wanna do!" speech to the beginning of "Loaded" ... liberation, it seems, comes in many forms.

To further that analogy, consider today's EDM, which seems to exist largely for kids to liberate themselves from their clothing. And because of that, the genre finds itself at a bit of a crossroads: Sure, it's never been bigger, but it's hard to argue that it's ever been more lunkheaded ... say what you will about the Chemical Brothers' run in the late '90s, but at least they were smart enough to make a song like "The Private Psychedelic Reel."

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NV6Rdv1a3I