House music dominating the American pop airwaves

As the American Top 40 shifts and fluctuates from week to week, an undeniable trend can be seen in recent years: house music, a style of electronic dance music developed in the early 1980s, is slowly but surely taking over American radio waves.

And you know what? That's fine by me.

Using elements of house music, such as a bass drum on every beat, samples and applying audio effects to vocals, pop artists such as Britney Spears and Jennifer Lopez have started blending this style with their own material. When listening to the soaring choruses of both Spears' "Till the World Ends" and Lopez's "On the Floor," the house music influence is undeniable.

Straight-up house artists, such as Edward Maya and Tiesto, are also becoming increasingly popular in America, building strong followings and spreading this unique genre to the masses.

I feel that house music moving in on the mainstream is something very positive. Just one style in the massive scheme of electronic music, house music is extremely diverse within itself. Some subgenres of house music include ambient house, which takes a more atmospheric approach; tribal house, offering ethnic percussion in the mix; and fidget house, which has a gritty, glitchy accent to it.

With such a diverse range of styles, I believe that house music has the potential to bring more variety and creativity to mainstream radio. Whether standing on its own or being blended with pop and hip-hop, house music offers young people a new fresh style of music to dance to that has been slowly moving out of obscurity.

Also, the intensity of the live shows won me over from the start. As a long-time heavy metal enthusiast, I have always believed that the best concerts are the ones that leave you partially deaf, barely standing and looking to your friend next to you, screaming, "That was sick!"

After being exposed to Tiesto's massage chair bass lines last year at the UCF Arena, I've realized that house music shows tend to deliver in this sense. Just swap the mosh pit for a dance floor.

Tiesto's performance at the arena also brings me to another important point about house music's growing popularity: the loyal fan base.

As Tiesto conducted an electronic assault on the senses from his high-tech turntable bunker, I turned my attention away from the stage and stared at the sea of glow-stick-wielding fans. I saw complete strangers coming together with no greater ambition than to dance until two in the morning. I saw a young fan jump on stage, hug Tiesto and then backflip his way off the stage to avoid a security guard. What I saw most of all though was just a glimpse of a following of people so loyal and swept up in the music that they seemed more than capable of fueling this house music movement for a very long time. To them, house music isn't a genre; it's a lifestyle.