What Is EDM? Calvin Harris & Tiesto Reveals Their Thoughts
For quite some time now, we’ve heard the debate that EDM is only “big room house.” While EDM was meant to be an umbrella-term for all things electronic music, one troll on Instagram reiterated that he thought Tiesto was asking Calvin Harris “why did you stop producing EDM bro?”
Calvin Harris quickly responded by saying “If you’re gonna use the term ‘edm’ then house music is included under the EDM umbrella. If your EDM umbrella is strictly progressive house then u need to get a new umbrella fella.”
Tiësto also replied to the fan saying “Truth!”
Can we finally stop with this debate of what EDM is and that it should only be labeled as big room or progressive house?
The exchange happened right in the comments of a photo Calvin Harris posted of himself and Tiësto hanging out at Omnia in Las Vegas, and it’s a fitting spot for the debate to flare up. Both guys are two of the most influential names in the genre’s history, and both built their careers on house and progressive house long before “EDM” became shorthand for festival-mainstage anthems. Harris started out remixing and producing straight-up disco-house and funky house records in the mid-2000s, while Tiësto cut his teeth as a trance DJ before becoming one of the first artists to bring dance music to the American mainstream.
That history is exactly why the comment stung when Harris clapped back. To a lot of longtime fans and artists, reducing “EDM” to just big room or progressive house erases the genre-blending roots that guys like Harris and Tiësto actually came from. Harris’s “umbrella” line in particular got picked up and shared widely after the exchange, with outlets calling it one of the clearest definitions a mainstream artist has offered for what the term is actually supposed to mean.
It’s a conversation that’s followed dance music for years, especially as the genre has splintered into dozens of subgenres with their own dedicated fanbases. House, techno, dubstep, trap, future bass, trance — they’re all technically “electronic dance music,” even if casual fans tend to associate the term with a much narrower festival-ready sound. Harris and Tiësto shutting down the narrow definition, even in a random Instagram comment section, is a reminder from two of the artists who helped build the genre that EDM was always meant to be bigger than one sound.
