First Floor

Home
Essays
Interviews
Weekly Digests
Year-End Lists
Archive
About

Essays

30 Tracks Celebrating 40 Years of Dance Mania, Part 2
Looking back at one of the most storied labels in house music history.
 • 
Shawn Reynaldo
30 Tracks Celebrating 40 Years of Dance Mania, Part 1
A curated tour through some of the best bits of the vaunted Chicago label's extensive catalog.
 • 
Shawn Reynaldo
Big Beat Was Worse Than You Remember
A partial accounting of how a genre that conquered the globe in the '90s has aged so badly.
 • 
Shawn Reynaldo
XLR8R Closed Up Shop, and Nobody Really Noticed
a.k.a. Once one of electronic music's most vital media outlets, the publication quietly paused its editorial operations last month.
 • 
Shawn Reynaldo
Shift Happens: The Year That Dance Music Decided to Be Sincere Again
a.k.a. The genre spent much of 2024 steadily backing away from its post-pandemic excesses.
 • 
Shawn Reynaldo
One Y2K-Era Sound That Hasn't Had a Revival
a.k.a. With nostalgia running rampant through dance music, seemingly every genre from the late '90s and early 2000s has experienced some sort of…
 • 
Shawn Reynaldo
So Many Releases, So Few Reviews
a.k.a. With more new music being released than ever before, publications have cut back on not just reviews, but entry-level coverage of all kinds. How…
 • 
Shawn Reynaldo
Why Aren't Electronic Music Podcasts More of a Thing?
a.k.a. In the wake of the US election, podcasts seem more powerful than ever, but when it comes to electronic music, they barely move the conversational…
 • 
Shawn Reynaldo
A Day Off from Music Discourse
a.k.a. No matter how much you love electronic music, there are days—like today—when the conversations about it don't feel terribly important.
 • 
Shawn Reynaldo
Festival Creep Is Real
a.k.a. The rollout of next summer's festival season is happening earlier than ever before. What does that mean for the health of the sector, and the…
 • 
Shawn Reynaldo
The Music Press Has Decided to Pivot
a.k.a. After years of pushing star worship and post-pandemic silliness, Pitchfork and Resident Advisor have spun up a new narrative.
 • 
Shawn Reynaldo
Aslice Offered Carrots. Fixing Dance Music Requires Sticks.
a.k.a. Thoughts on the closure of the ambitious revenue-sharing platform, and what it says about the current state of DJ culture and dance music.
 • 
Shawn Reynaldo
© 2025 Shawn Reynaldo
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start WritingGet the app
Substack is the home for great culture