ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I explore the assignment of particular gender stereotypes to sound and performance in contemporary electronically produced dance music, focusing on the sonic quality of ‘fluffiness’ (cf. Gavanas and Reitsamer 2013, 68). I underscore this exploration with a critique of idealistic theorisations of electronic music, in which machines have the potential to liberate us from the limits of traditional gender frameworks. 1 In order to illustrate the iteration and perpetuation of these stereotypes, 2 I draw upon interview material with DJs, extracts from sources of online journalism, and online (YouTube) dance music fans’ commentaries. These stereotypes, which participants learn and circulate, are complicated by the specificity of links between gender fluidity and queerness and the development of the types of DJ-based dance music practices that are recognisable as dance music culture today. I argue that the flexibility of gender is overlooked or denied by participants through their conflations of terms such as ‘fluffy’ with what they believe to be ‘feminine’ musical sounds. One of my approaches to examining the idea of fluffiness is through a discussion of tracks from three different dance music genres: ‘Friend of the Night’ by Prosper (psytrance), ‘For An Angel’ by Paul van Dyk (trance), and ‘Eivissa’ by Robert M (progressive house). 3
