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Music

The 10 Greatest Quotes About Dance Music Ever

Fantastic quips from the likes of Lou Reed, Jeff Mills, Bjork, and Deadmau5.

Talking about electronic dance music is hard. How does one describe a genre that is almost completely instrumental? Without lyrics to act as your life buoys, it's easy to get lost in a sea of meaningless adjectives or boring technical breakdowns. You could just let the music do the talking. Or you can ask some of the sound's most famous creators what they think.

Here are ten of our all-time favorite quotes:

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A GUY CALLED GERALD

"Never trust a DJ who can't dance." [Electronic Beats, 2006]

MARC SCHNEIDER

"Half the clubs in Berlin are made of concrete and steel. The other half is built out of driftwood and glitter." [DJBroadcast.net, 2014]

LOU REED

"I like mindless disco… they say the lyrics are stupid and repetitious. So what's wrong with that? So is lying in the sun. Not everything has to be serious." [WPIX, 1979]

BJORK

"I find it so amazing when people tell me that that electronic music has not got soul and they blame the computers. They got their finger and point at the computers like, 'There's no soul here!' It's like, you can't blame the computer. If there's not soul in the music, it's because nobody put it there. And it's not the tool's fault." [The South Bank Show, 1997]

DEADMAU5

"There's still button-pushers getting paid half a million. And not to say I'm not a button-pusher. I'm just pushing a lot more buttons." [Rolling Stone, 2012]

GRANDMASTER FLASH

"This record by Kraftwerk is great. I can even go to the bathroom while I play it…It mixes itself!" [Unknown source]

DJ HARVEY

"You can't understand the blues until you've had your heart broken by a woman, and you can't understand my music until you've had group sex on Ecstasy." [CMJ.com, 2011]

RICARDO VILLALOBOS

"You hear the music, and you start to think about your childhood, you start to think about your problems. You feel something, incredible things. This happens sometimes, for sure, with classic music, or when you are sober, when you are in a normal state of mind. But at this intensity, it can happen only with drugs." [Feiern – Don't Forget To Go Home, 2006]

DERRICK MAY

"The music is just like Detroit, a complete mistake. It's like George Clinton and Kraftwerk are stuck in an elevator with only a sequencer to keep them company." [Techno! The New Dance Sound of Detroit compilation, 1998]

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JEFF MILLS

"[Techno] wasn't designed to be dance music, it was designed to be a futurist statement." [The Skinny, 2013]

Joshua Glazer has been chasing the rave since 1995 - @JoshuaGlazer