Rock was on the way out in the early 80s, when millennials were barely being born...because disco won.

The 80s were the rise of synthpop, House music (which started from DJs sampling disco a cappellas and mixing them with TR-909 drums and Korg M1 keyboards), Techno and Italo Disco. From there, we got the next evolution, in the form of Eurodance/Eurobeat/Hi-NRG, and Electronic Dance Music as a genre was born. Notably, they all still largely lean in on the foundational traits of Disco: four on the floor drum beats, off-beat bass, heavy focus on syncopation to create groove, chord stabs, etc..

The 80s were also the rise of hip hop and rap, which also grew out of the same DJ culture. If a song doesn't have a four on the floor beat, it's more likely to have a hip hop beat than a rock "backbeat." (e.g. boom bam boom boom bam, like "Rump Shaker" by Wreckx-N-Effect)

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AfterHIA 6 hours ago | parent [-]

I really don't think so. Punk had exploded after the Summer of Hate and in its wake we got Talking Heads, The B-52's, and Blondie at CBGB's. In parallel we have early Joy Division in Manchester which is going to inspire U2 to eventually become the biggest band in the world for the next 20 or something years. Martin Hannett is going to be a key figure in the development of EDM with his use of samplers and, "using the studio as an instrument." Check out the beginning of, "Transmission." He'll later go on to produce The Happy Mondays who are, "the" seminal Manchester dance group in the early 90's in lieu of an army of Stone Roses fans throwing lemons at me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7D5heNRUy0

If you look at how Johnny Rotten was listening to Neu! and X-Ray Spex (as well as The Monkees and Herman Hermits) and what Bowie was doing after he moved to Berlin with Iggy Pop it's not outlandish to say that Electronic Music wouldn't have existed without being preempted by Punk, Glam, and the emergent, "not progressive" guitar music of the 1970's especially in how it paralleled the development of Krautrock. Disco didn't evolve into EDM; Disco gave DJ Kool Herc a set of turntables to invent Hip Hop with. Techno literally came out of, "a certain guy who might be called Gerald" listening to Kraftwerk; Afrika Bammbatta's, "Planet Rock" samples Kraftwerk directly.

"I'm the operator with mine pocket calculator."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSBybJGZoCU

	▲	redwall_hp 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Kraftwerk was definitely important, but you're missing Frankie Knuckles and Black Box... House (from The Warehouse) is as core to EDM as techno (more Kraftwerk), and they were literally remixing disco as well as using disco musical facets. And House and Techno's lines blurred a lot in Europe.