7 Best Electronic Music Documentaries

If you’ve already binged through your favorite movies and shows, now’s the time to drop the beat on a few of the music industry’s greatest electronic music documentaries!

Guest post by Randi Zimmerman of the Symphonic Blog

Tired of watching the same movies over and over again? Give your brain a treat and check out these iconic Electronic music documentaries. Sit back, tune in, and get ready to vibe to the greatest muses in electronic music of our time and beyond.

Best Electronic Music Documentaries

High Tech Soul Detroit: The Creation of TECHNO Music

High Tech Soul is the first documentary to tackle the deep roots of techno music alongside the cultural history of its birthplace, Detroit. If you’re into Techno, you definitely don’t want to miss this one.

Paris is Burning

Paris is Burning, the Birth of Dance Music” is a historic documentary on how NYC was iconic on the growth of dance music, how gay culture popularised electronic music and how the city added a brand new trend to the scene: Voguing. Experience the little known architects of dance music and their amazing story.

Don’t Forget to Go Home (Feiern)

“Feiern” is a 2006 documentary film about the electronic dance music scene. The film features people from Berlin’s electronic dance music scenes (primarily house music and techno, but especially their “minimal” sub-scenes). The majority of the film consists of footage of individual interviews, cut and interpolated together to create narratives around certain themes, such as music, drugs, love, addiction, friendship, and sexuality.

WE CALL IT TECHNO!

The basic principle of Techno stands for experimenting, crossing borders and DIY. Fans become DJs or party promoters. Labels are founded and record stores open up. The scene grows. An independent microcosm is created. Networks are formed away from established structures. For a moment everything seems possible…

WE CALL IT TECHNO! tells the story of a tempestuous phase in music history, the first time that pop culture was created significantly in Germany.

What We Started

This documentary chronicles three decades of electronic dance music by focusing on the careers of Carl Cox and Martin Garrix. It also included other individuals such as Erick Morillo, Moby, David Guetta, Steve Angello, Afrojack, Tiesto, Usher and Ed Sheeran. The film consists of interviews with artists involved with EDM’s pervasiveness in pop culture.

Click here to stream it on Netflix

Scratch

A feature-length documentary film about hip-hop DJing, otherwise known as turntablism. From the South Bronx in the 1970s to San Francisco now, the world’s best scratchers, beat-diggers, party-rockers, and producers wax poetic on beats, breaks, battles, and the infinite possibilities of vinyl.

Pump Up The Volume: A History of House Music

This documentary is about the history of house music, from its early days as NY disco to the massive European and International scene it has become, via the major people and clubs who pushed it forward.

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