Glitter showered the crowd at August's all-night Sonicmania event as electronic artist Zedd cued up his hit song, "Stay the Night." The crowd bobbed along at first, but as the track built and let loose in a whirlwind of bass and synthesizer the audience followed suit with fists pumping in the air and frantic jumping. Young, neon-clad and a bit boozy, this is Japan's EDM generation.
Thousands crammed together to see Zedd, one of the most well-known names representing a genre that has been buzzed about globally for the past several years. EDM stands for "electronic dance music," an umbrella term covering recent styles of dance music that lean toward the aggressive.
And it's profitable — prominent DJs such as Canada's Deadmau5 and Sweden's Avicii earn more than $20 million a year according to Forbes magazine, while a report compiled by the Association for Electronic Music this May claimed the EDM industry is worth $6.2 billion.