Evaluation of the Research

This section evaluates the research and reviews its objectives whilst first highlighting what should be acknowledged as some of the limitations of the research. In the introductory chapter, a series of questions had been raised that centred on the employment of anonymity by EDM producers. To recap, the main question asked why such strategies have become so prevalent within this area of music and suggestions were put forward that it perhaps highlighted an iconoclasm that has been oppositional to the mainstream ‘star system’. This aspect has been addressed throughout the thesis’ chapters whilst corresponding such behaviours with a number of notable influences or drivers (namely based around technology, scene dynamics and flexibility). Such factors will be further scrutinized when interpreting the research findings. However, these initial ideas were already built on ideas regarding anonymity as being presented or performed that had emerged in the early stage of the research. It should then be observed that the case studies selected for more detailed analysis conformed to this rudimentary thinking: that they were seen as being both typical to the outlined themes whilst atypical to the dominant rock/pop approaches to authorial representation/image. Yet a further admission should be made that, quite perversely, these are also representative of some highly visible examples of EDM’s anonymity. As such, they indicate well known or high profile cases that exemplify what may be perceived as low-key

instincts and a desire for disappearance. The obvious paradox here, in turn, informed an early premise regarding such actions as being counterproductive. However this may lead to questions regarding whether such strategies manifest within the work of other producers that were not selected for case studies; and whether the thesis then relies on insufficiently diverse data.

It should then be acknowledged that the work of lesser-known producers has traditionally been based around an even more acute degree of anonymity. As highlighted via the discussion of Zomby’s interaction with the producer Reark (that had resulted in, the track, ‘Natalia’s Song’), anonymity functions on various levels within EDM. In the aforementioned scenario, Zomby maintained his anonymity in the face of increased media attention whilst Reark had been anonymous through a lack of media attention. As the consideration of the genre artist and the white label record also suggested, anonymity then represents a first position: a base level for embryonic producers and scenes that can either be sustained as a role through a lack of further exposure or – as demonstrated throughout the featured case studies – via the determinations and strategies of those whose work has the potential for ‘crossing over’. The latter, while given the most attention within the thesis, admittedly represents the minority. The majority of EDM producers (as with all musicians) are actually consigned to their positions of anonymity due to a lack of acclaim. The limitations of the chosen examples are then due to not being typical of EDM producers as a whole, yet their concerns for being represented as underground do, in fact, correspond with the anonymity that permeates whole EDM scenes due to both a championing of the margins and general mainstream indifference. So while acknowledging this particular limitation, it may also be seen as the research’s strength: that these high profile cases are just the tip of the iceberg – a visible clue to an unseen mass and where the demonstrated enactments hint at the even more covert activity that exists below. Examining the research’s limitations further, the introduction to this thesis included the observance that the various studies that preceded it were representative of a particular time. This thesis is no different: the research made apparent emergent practices that suggested alternatives to anonymizing strategies amongst younger EDM producers. There are suggestions that the quest for anonymity is then an “older thing” (an observation by Thomas, in interview, appendix #5) and recent developments by more youthful EDM producers are argued as having more interest in identity that is more closely connected to established practices that have typified the dominant rock and pop forms. The quest for fame by an emerging generation of producers may be connected to the growth of EDM in other territories that has created major international scene ‘stars’ and piqued the interest of mainstream media.

Yet it might also be worth noting a change that has come from the ubiquity of mass personal electronic communication. While the thesis’ discussion of producers such as Zomby and Dean Blunt already demonstrated the potential for the World Wide Web to work in conjunction with notions of anonymity, there is also the potential to look at internet platforms – in particular social media – with regards to a heightened self-promotion; particularly whilst addressing the impact of online identity and the sharing of personal information within and outside of supposedly niche scenes. While notable image-making and identity-building strategies for EDM have been examined in this thesis, like the music itself, such practices are subject to change due to the impact of new participants and the arrival of alternative approaches to the presentation of one’s image within the public sphere. (Further recommendations for future research will be outlined in section 5.5.)

5.2.1 Contribution to Knowledge

This research makes a contribution to knowledge in the following ways:

1. The thesis provides new insights into the fields of visual performance and design cultures. Its use of a multi-disciplinary focus - including the consideration of physical and visual ephemera as part of its textual analysis - provides original ideas related to how identity is performed within EDM. To date, there has been little engagement with such material within the field and, in addition to generating new knowledge regarding these processes, the work also highlights an underdeveloped research area.

2. The research discusses anonymity within EDM in a way that hasn’t been approached before. Focused on sites of production, it (further) develops the discussion of how authorship is perceived within EDM: examining how identities are produced and performed. It is therefore representative of a study that engages with EDM and identity beyond a more typical setting of the dancefloor to see its role less from the perspective of the participant clubber and, instead, is engaged with the construction of image within an area of cultural and commercial production.

3. The thesis contributes to existing literature on EDM by not challenging those texts but building on them with further detail regarding the use of visual communication within the field. As such, the research offers new understandings of existing work within the area that is related to human, social and organisational aspects of image management: in particular, the rejection of dominant codes and conventions.

4. The experiences documented within case studies and those drawn from interviews assist with new understandings of the distinctions within the EDM market especially through its involvement of participants that are self-aligned with concepts of ‘underground’. While these understandings further dissolve some of the preceding distinctions that have been defined as ‘subcultural’, it also offers further consideration of the implications for consumer behaviours within niche scenes: particularly from the standpoint of how ideas of underground are emphasised within press interviews, photography, video and record sleeves.

5. The research additionally addresses the role of dominant areas that have been oppositional to EDM: then furthering a series of ideas regarding an inherent inferiority that, in turn, has been reclaimed and subverted by EDM participants to assist with that preferred image of underground. The development of this thinking has also allowed for a new theory regarding the prevalence of EDM’s performed anonymity as being driven by its wider denigration. Further to this, the research unveils flexible performative practices that are, in turn, linked to this subversion alongside other drivers: namely the influence of a hidden history and a propensity towards collective identity within EDM.

5.2.2 Appropriate Methodological Choice

The use of interviews that were initially considered to be wholly indicative of where the required information would be found proved to be valuable, yet a substantial literature review actually revealed a lot of detail that was often offered as a mere aside or digression. The reading across other disciplines, for example, yielded results that were highly pertinent to the research. The subsequent collating of this archived discussion of anonymity proved crucial while a substantial amount of interview content, by contrast, only really refined the research focus. A number of interviews with individuals such as Alex Jenkins, who had worked as in- house designer at XL Recordings, and Glen Gibbons, who has occupied an important role within EDM as a co-founder of Soma Recordings, was essential in this way: both parties influenced the direction of the work in its rudimentary stages. Still, the responses were not of the type that later fitted with the discussion of ‘performed anonymity’ once that focus had become increasingly clear. The same can be said for the many off-record conversations that occurred in the early shaping of this thesis. However, that embryonic stage where the focus was narrowed proved to be completely necessary. Extensive early discussions were also

required just to clarify the parameters of EDM for the purpose of this research. It is observed that the quantifying of EDM and its affects had proved to be problematic due to the criteria on which it had been judged. The employment of terminology to describe its scenes is also viewed as having framed subsequent discourses in specific ways and early consultations were also used to determine that the use of ‘EDM’ as a descriptor would prove to be the least problematic.

It is noted that there has been ‘on scene’ criticism regarding the employment of scholarly approaches within the discussion of EDM while individual methodologies have also been critiqued according to the level of participation by the respective researchers and the data that had subsequently materialised. One issue that had to be overcome within the research was the idea of closeness as negating analytical distance whilst, on the other hand, distance had been blamed for the precluding of true understanding. While both arguments have been noted in relationship to specific texts, this again raised an issue of multiple realities and the use of disparate accounts to assemble complete pictures. Rather than viewing any discrepancies as problematic, it was perceived as preferable to navigate the various texts quoted within the thesis whilst aware of their individual contexts but while also confident of the benefits that come from unique standpoints and interpretive readings. Reynolds talks about his own methodology somewhat reluctantly due to it requiring him to operate from two positions: researcher and fan. My research started from a similar position yet also was influenced by experiences working as a music journalist and graphic designer within the area. Perhaps due to the passing of years (and the life changes that this can bring) or maybe due to the increased focus on work commitments (including the actual completion of this thesis), my approach to the research changed whereas I became more the outsider looking in. However, this adjustment was not problematic: it hasn’t meant being any less involved. In fact, I believe that it has occasionally assisted in the shifting my critical approach to a more impartial position in order to test some of my earliest ideas on this topic: particularly with regards to my own experiences as a fan. While gaining distance from scenes, it has also allowed space to gather my thoughts and consider the connections between the varied interpretations of image and identity as diffused across a range of media, platforms and channels. Additionally, benefitting that critical distance, the use of interviews and case studies are subsequently argued as being more thorough yet still representative of an empathic methodology Used in conjunction with the interpretive textual analysis that gave consideration EDM’s physical and visual artefacts, the data may not be considered as empirically triangulated, but the mixed methods strategy is understood to have offered substantial depth.