The Business of Dance Music Is Booming. The Culture? That's Another Story.
In a genre where seemingly every facet of the ecosystem has been invaded by capital concerns, definitions of success are shifting.
“Dance Music Is Back.” So said the headline of an article that ran in The New York Times last weekend, and while the online version bears a somewhat more nuanced title, the piece itself touts the genre’s “extraordinary reach” and economic might, citing everything from TikTok hashtags to Ibiza tourist spending as evidence. And in fairness, some of those figures are legitimately impressive—did you know that last year’s Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas attracted more than twice as many people as both weekends of Coachella combined?
That said, the financial success of dance music isn’t actually a new phenomenon. The phrase “global, multibillion-dollar industry” has been written here at First Floor more times than I can count, and even before the pandemic, the 2019 IMS Business Report estimated the industry’s total value at $7.2 billion. COVID did throw a major wrench into the works, but once things began to open up again, the upward trajectory quickly resumed. Just last month, the 2025 edition of that same IMS report offered a valuation of $12.9 billion, an all-time high.
So when The New York Times says that dance music is “back,” my first thought is, “Back from what, exactly?” The pandemic? I suppose that’s true, but in that context, it’s not a particularly illuminating assertion. If COVID is the measuring stick, then restaurants are also “back,” as is tourism, live music, in-person shopping and simply leaving the house. Even if the focus is narrowed to music alone, one could argue that pretty much every single genre is “back” from the doldrums of lockdown, especially when a recent report placed the value of the global live music industry at more than $38 billion, while IFPI’s Global Music Report 2025 claims that the world’s recorded music industry is worth nearly $30 billion on its own.
Those are big numbers, and the fact that dance music is now responsible for a significant chunk of them should radically alter the way in which the genre and its attendant culture are not just perceived, but discussed. For decades now, dance music has actively painted itself as a kind of scrappy underdog, one founded in minority communities, rooted in DIY culture and shaped by constant tussles with the government and law enforcement. Even now, the word “underground” is routinely used to describe certain sectors of the culture, despite the fact that the biggest stars in those sectors regularly pull down five- and even six-figure fees and spend significant chunks of their time performing at festivals with tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people in attendance.
As much as dance music aficionados love stories of renegade raves and marginalized people finding their voice behind the decks, that version of the culture is not the one that’s proliferating around the globe. The dance music being described—some might say championed—by The New York Times is dominated by capital, and driven by notions of growth, scale and maximizing engagement. It’s a business, first and foremost, and what’s most concerning is the degree to which the language and mindset of business has now become pervasive throughout the culture, altering definitions of what “success” in dance music is supposed to look like.