Electropolis: Music as a Service, Not a Good

posted in: Features

What motivates the most talented musicians in or outside of EDM? You know, the relentless excitement to wake up every morning to create a work of art. On average, the motivations behind this creativity derives from the desire to share musical knowledge, as well as to produce an emotional impact on the audience. Economically speaking, these things cannot be sold on the shelf in the form of a retail item, but they are services. Fortunately, the EDM community is acting as the engine driving the music industry from the late retail business model to the service oriented market of today. And not only that, some of their practices are 100% non-profit and 100% successful. There are many clues forecasting the direction of this artform, and it’s both exciting and reassuring to know it’s being done with positive motivations. Therefore, this issue of Electropolis commends the EDM artists that have proven philanthropy, selflessness and appreciation for the music lover to be lucrative paths to success.

Mau5Hax

Teaching the next generation of EDM artists, Deadmau5‘s record label, Mau5Trap, presented a live stream in partnership with Beatport on March 23. Hosted at Honor Roll Music, the stream for Mau5Hax lasted for nearly twelve hours as five young competition winners put their skills to the test”producing two songs under the guidance of Mau5 himself, Feed Me, Moguai and Kill The Noise. Fans watching the event from home had the chance to collaborate as well with the featured English rap group, Foreign Beggars, by posting their ideas for lyrical content on Facebook. By the end of the stream, two tracks were created “Titty Sprinkles” and “Fractals” which can be downloaded for free on Beatport.

Pretty Lights Music

Derek Vincent Smith a.k.a Pretty Lights is a real practitioner of “art for art’s sake.” His record label, Pretty Lights Music, has offered their music for free since its founding. Its business strategy is revenue maximization instead of profit and its goal is to give you the most thrilling EDM performance ever. Due to the success of his music and label, PLM has been able to sign artists such as the legendary Gramatik”offering the finest sample-based EDM music for, you guessed it…free.

Rusko Offers Remix Collection For Free


In December, Rusko released a precursor to his new album that dropped last month”Songs. The gift consisted of fourteen free remixes of various artists Rusko had done between 2006 and 2010. The album is a combination of officially released remixes, as well as some original un-mastered raw mixes. If you haven’t gotten your hands on it yet, it’s available for on his official Web site.

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