Electronic music
Electronic music started long before the invention of the synthesizer, with the use of tape loops and analogue electronics in the 1950s and 1960s. All electronic music owes its historical existence to early pioneers of tape experiments known as musique concrète, such as John Cage, Pierre Schaeffer and Karlheinz Stockhausen, as well as early synthesists like Wendy Carlos, Jean-Michel Jarre, and Morton Subotnick. (See electronic art music).
Well known examples include the theme music to the TV series Doctor Who, recorded in 1963 by Delia Derbyshire, and the catch-all "electronica," which can sometimes include all of the above electronic sub-genres, but usually refers to electronic music without lyrics.
One of the first people to popularize the synthesizer was Wendy Carlos who performed classical music on the synthesizer on the recording Switched-On Bach. Space music was popularized by the group Tangerine Dream, among others, as a precursor to new age music. New age music served to support and perpetuate the values of the new age movement.
Though there is some overlap between the various sub-genres of electronic music, Brian Eno, the creator of ambient music, claimed that ambient had a bit of "evil" in it, whereas new age music did not. Eno's creation was less values-driven than new age; his goal was to create music like wallpaper, insofar as the listener could listen to or easily ignore the music.
» Recommended electronic artists