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The History of Electronic Music in 476 Tracks (1937–2001)

Photo of Karlheinz Stockhausen by Kathinka Pasveer via Wikimedia Commons You may hear the phrase “electronic music” and think of superstar dubstep DJs in funny helmets at beachside celebrity parties.

If you’re in that lat­ter camp of music nerd, then this post may bring you very glad tid­ings indeed. In fact, the orig­i­nal uploader of this archive of exper­i­men­tal sound, Caio Bar­ros, put these tracks online in 2009 while a stu­dent of com­po­si­tion at Brazil’s State Uni­ver­si­ty of São Paulo. Many hun­dreds of pop­u­lar elec­tron­ic com­posers and musicians—like Bri­an Eno, Kraftwerk, Bruce Haack, or Clara Rock­more —fall some­where in-between the worlds of pop/dance/performance and seri­ous com­po­si­tion, and their con­tri­bu­tions deserve rep­re­sen­ta­tion along­side more exper­i­men­tal or clas­si­cal artists.

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