Editorial
Why ADHD Listeners Connect So Deeply With EDM
How electronic music, rhythm and repetition support focus for people with ADHD through songs, DJs and festivals
Ever wondered why certain EDM songs, DJs and festivals are so hard to get out of your head? For some people with ADHD, that pull can come from the way a song gives the brain a steady rhythm to follow, a vocal hook to remember and enough small changes to keep attention on it without feeling scattered. It can also show up through artists like Avicii, Martin Garrix, Illenium, Armin van Buuren and Skrillex, or major festivals like Tomorrowland, EDC Las Vegas and Ultra Miami, where a song, set or festival moment becomes tied to memory, routine and personal meaning. A 2024 study in Communications Biology found that music with controlled rhythmic modulation supported sustained attention during cognitive tasks, with stronger effects among participants who reported greater attentional difficulties. Although the researchers did not test house, techno or trance as treatments for ADHD, their findings open a wider conversation about why rhythm, repetition and continued musical change can make electronic music especially engaging for some people with ADHD.
How Rhythm and Repetition in Electronic Music Support Focus for People With ADHD
For those with ADHD, listening to EDM might make it easier to focus, not because the music removes every distraction, but because it gives the brain a clear pattern to follow while continuing to introduce new information. A steady beat keeps the track familiar as percussion enters, vocals return, basslines change and synth details become more noticeable, creating enough variation to maintain interest without forcing the listener to process a completely different musical direction every few seconds. House music often develops through gradual additions across several phrases, techno can carry a consistent pulse through long transitions, and trance may return to the same melody with new harmonies, vocals or layers around it. Each genre approaches that progression differently, yet all three can combine predictability with enough stimulation to help some people with ADHD remain engaged while working, studying or completing repetitive tasks.
Researchers examined a related process across five experiments in a 2024 study published in Communications Biology. Participants completed sustained-attention tasks while listening to music with different rates and depths of amplitude modulation, which refers to rapid fluctuations in sound intensity and does not mean the same thing as a track’s BPM. The team also used the Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale to compare responses across different levels of reported symptoms, so the paper does not represent a study conducted solely with adults who had received an ADHD diagnosis. Participants with higher symptom scores maintained attention most effectively under a medium-depth 16 Hz modulation condition, while the version they rated as most stimulating did not produce the strongest result. EEG recordings showed closer tracking between the audio and brain activity, and fMRI results linked rapid modulation with greater activity across networks involved in attention and cognitive control, suggesting that organised changes within sound may matter more than intensity alone.
Why EDM Songs, DJs and Festivals Can Become So Personal
The science helps explain how music may first hold someone’s attention, but it does not fully account for what happens once a song becomes linked with a particular memory, emotion or period of life. Avicii’s Levels, for example, gives listeners a melodic phrase they can recognise almost immediately, while its vocal sample, percussion and synth sections keep changing the way that melody feels as the track progresses. Don’t You Worry Child by Swedish House Mafia reaches people through a different route, pairing a recurring piano sequence and chorus with lyrics that listeners often associate with growing up, loss and nostalgia. For someone with ADHD, returning to either song can offer the familiarity of knowing what comes next while leaving enough musical and emotional detail to notice something different during another listen.
Once that connection extends beyond one track, following a DJ can become part of the listener’s routine. Eric Prydz gives people long sets, unreleased IDs and several artist projects to explore, while Above & Beyond connect their music with direct lyrics, recurring visual messages and the long-running Group Therapy radio show. Trance listeners can find a similar sense of continuity through A State of Trance, where weekly episodes and milestone events provide a familiar format while introducing new artists and records. In each case, the interest grows through more than repetition: the listener has a catalogue to revisit, new music to anticipate and a clear history to follow over time.
Festivals add another layer by connecting that music with a specific stage, date and personal experience. A new ID heard during an Ultra Miami set may remain attached to the first performance where someone discovered it, while Tomorrowland gives listeners annual themes, livestreams and aftermovies that allow them to revisit particular weekends from several angles. At EDC Las Vegas, recurring stages, fireworks, art cars and festival traditions give songs a visual and social context that can make certain moments easier to remember. The study did not examine why people rewatch festival sets or follow one DJ for years, but its findings help explain a possible starting point: music that keeps attention through familiar patterns and continued change can later collect memories, routines and personal meaning around it.
For some people with ADHD, the relationship with EDM may begin with a rhythm that helps the mind stay with one clear pattern, then grow through the songs they replay, the DJs they follow and the festivals they associate with important moments in their lives. Electronic music does not treat ADHD, and no single genre will affect every listener in the same way, but the research gives credible support to the idea that certain kinds of rhythmic movement can assist sustained attention. From there, the lasting connection comes from what the music begins to represent each time the listener returns to it.
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The science behind why dancing to EDM can feel therapeutic and support emotional regulation, movement and social connection
Have you ever wondered why people say “EDM is therapy” or “raving is therapy” after spending hours dancing at a festival or club? For many people, it is not just about enjoying the music, but about the way repeated movement, familiar tracks and dancing alongside other people can leave them feeling calmer, more connected or mentally lighter afterwards. Those descriptions are usually casual, but they point to something researchers have increasingly been studying through the relationship between music, movement and emotional regulation. Recent work has examined how physical responses to music can affect psychological wellbeing, while studies involving dance music attendees have looked more closely at what happens when movement and shared emotion come together on the dancefloor. A 2025 study involving 612 dance music event attendees found that a stronger desire to dance was associated with greater embodied pleasure, which was closely linked with emotional synchrony and social connection. Alongside emerging research into conscious dance and trauma recovery, those findings offer a scientific basis for examining why dancing to EDM can feel therapeutic, and where the comparison between raving and therapy actually holds up.
Why Dancing to EDM Can Help the Body Process Stress
A 2026 study published in Psychological Trauma examined a conscious dance and expressive arts intervention called Rhythms of Resilience among adults with complex trauma histories. The program combined mindful movement to music with expressive arts across six weekly group sessions, with researchers looking at whether the intervention could support self-regulation and social connectedness. Half of the participants who completed the program reported clinically significant reductions in post-traumatic symptoms, while the group also showed increases in compassion and social engagement. The study did not find measurable changes in emotion regulation itself, which is important because it limits how far the findings can be taken. What it does suggest is that structured movement to music may support some of the psychological and social processes linked with recovery, particularly when movement is combined with reflection and group participation. That makes it relevant to the discussion around dancing to EDM, where repeated movement, music and shared participation are already central parts of the experience.
In a dance music setting, the significance may lie in how little conscious effort that movement requires once someone is fully engaged with the music. Instead of deliberately trying to regulate an emotion, attention can shift toward the beat, the physical repetition and what is happening in the present moment, which may temporarily reduce the amount of focus given to stress or intrusive thoughts. That could help explain why people often describe long periods of dancing to EDM as mentally clearing or releasing, even when they struggle to explain exactly why afterwards. The effect is also likely to vary from person to person, since music preference, comfort in the setting and personal associations with certain tracks can all influence how someone responds. In that sense, the therapeutic feeling may come less from EDM itself and more from what sustained movement to personally meaningful music allows the mind and body to do for a period of time
From Personal Recovery to Collective Release Through Dance
Dancing can take on a different role when the music connects with something an artist or audience is already trying to work through, which is why certain performances can mean far more than simply seeing a DJ play. Skrillex’s five-hour Red Rocks show in 2023 is one example, taking place after he had spoken openly about the death of his mother, depression and problems with alcohol during a difficult period in his life. With no special guests and five hours spanning different parts of his career, the night gave Skrillex and the crowd hours to dance, sing and react together, while he later described it as one of the best nights of his life.
A different kind of return came with Hardwell at Ultra Music Festival in 2022, four years after he stepped away from an intense touring schedule and later spoke about the importance of taking time away when an artist begins to feel burnt out. Reflecting on that period, Hardwell said it was crucial to step back when needed, while his return to Ultra placed him in front of a major festival crowd again with an entirely new body of music. He admitted that he had no idea how the audience would respond to a set consisting entirely of unreleased material, making their reaction particularly meaningful after several years away from touring.
The role of movement becomes more obvious when thousands of people physically participate in the same moment. During Defqon.1’s Power Hour in 2023, around 65,000 attendees jumped from side to side together during its well-known Left-Right crowd movement, turning thousands of separate reactions to the music into one coordinated action across the festival. The moment works differently from an artist returning after a difficult period, but it shows another side of why dancing can become significant, particularly when the physical response is shared by almost everyone around you.
At ODESZA’s final The Last Goodbye tour shows at The Gorge in 2024, dancing was accompanied by years of memories connected to the music, with the ECHOES installation featuring emotional voice messages from attendees about what ODESZA had meant to them. Thousands of people encountered those messages while attending the three closing shows, bringing personal memories into an event that was already marking the end of a long-running tour. Moments like these help explain why dancing can feel therapeutic under very different circumstances, whether movement becomes part of getting through a difficult period, returning to something after needing time away or experiencing an emotional response alongside thousands of other people.
For many people, the therapeutic feeling associated with dancing to EDM may come from more than simply enjoying the music or taking a break from everyday stress. The response can develop through repeated movement, the physical focus of dancing, the meaning attached to certain tracks and the experience of moving alongside other people for long periods of time. Research into conscious dance and dance music events supports the idea that movement, social connection and shared emotional responses can all contribute to how someone feels during and after the experience, while real festival and performance moments show how differently that can play out depending on the person and the context. By the time someone leaves a club or festival after hours of dancing, the change they notice may not come from one single part of the night, but from the way music, movement, memory and connection have worked together across the whole experience.
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How streaming platforms, charts and music companies are responding to AI-generated music and introducing new protections for human artists
Artificial Intelligence has become an increasingly difficult subject for the music industry to ignore. AI-generated music, cloned voices and synthetic artist identities are becoming more common across streaming services and digital platforms. The industry once discussed AI mostly in terms of creative possibilities, but it now raises much bigger questions around ownership, transparency, royalties and the protection of human artists. No single industry-wide standard currently decides how platforms should treat AI-generated music.
That gap has left individual platforms and organisations to introduce their own responses. Apple Music, Spotify, Deezer, YouTube, ARIA, Billboard and Bandcamp have each taken different approaches to AI disclosure, recommendation systems, chart eligibility, artist impersonation and fraudulent streaming. These measures show how the music industry is beginning to establish clearer rules around AI, while also addressing what its rapid use could mean for the artists whose music, voices and identities sit at the centre of it.
Why AI-Generated Music Has Become an Industry-Wide Issue
AI-generated music has raised serious concerns across the electronic music industry, with producers increasingly questioning how tracks get created, credited and presented to listeners. Much of the criticism centers on platforms like Suno and Udio, particularly when tracks are released without clear disclosure or created using material connected to existing artists.
For producers who have spent years writing, producing and developing their own sound, this raises a bigger question: what happens when AI-generated releases compete for the same listeners, streams and opportunities while requiring far less human involvement in the creative process?
That question has become harder to ignore as more electronic music producers speak openly about what they are seeing. H4RRIS and Nihil Young have both called out tracks they believe were generated through Suno and presented as human-made releases, with Young also discussing how generative AI is affecting his work as a producer and engineer.
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Gareth Emery has raised a related concern, criticizing the use of existing music as training data and questioning whether artists have enough control over how their work is used to generate new tracks, vocals or artist identities. His decision to launch a label focused specifically on human-created music reflects how some producers are beginning to respond directly to that issue.
The Debate Extends Beyond the Music Itself
What makes the conversation more complicated is that the same technology is also being used in ways that go beyond the music itself. deadmau5 criticized a DJ earlier this year for using an AI-generated version of his likeness to promote music without permission, bringing artist identity and consent into the same discussion around AI-generated releases.
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Diplo, meanwhile, has taken a different approach altogether, speaking openly about using AI-generated vocals in his own productions. That contrast, between artists pushing back on unauthorized use and artists actively embracing the tools, shows that electronic music does not share one position on how AI should be used, and it sets up a broader question about where the industry goes from here.
How Different Platforms Are Responding to AI-Generated Music
As AI-generated music becomes more common across streaming and digital platforms, companies are starting to make clearer decisions around transparency, discovery, artist identity and fraudulent activity. These responses are not identical, but they show how platforms are beginning to set their own rules around what listeners should be told, how artists should be protected and how AI-generated releases should be treated once they enter the wider music ecosystem.
1. Apple Music
Before a release even reaches listeners, Apple Music is already changing how that music gets documented. Labels and distributors can now disclose when AI has generated a material portion of a recording, composition, artwork or music video, adding that information directly to the metadata supplied with the release. This gives rights holders a clearer way to document significant AI involvement from the start.
2. Spotify
For Spotify, the questions extend well beyond disclosure once music reaches the platform. AI Persona badges are being rolled out to identify profiles representing AI-generated identities, and those profiles are generally kept out of editorial and algorithmic recommendations. The platform has also strengthened protections around unauthorized voice cloning and music being falsely uploaded to existing artist profiles.
3. Deezer
As the issue shifts from transparency to how fully AI-generated music is distributed and monetized, Deezer has taken a stricter stance. The platform labels those tracks and removes them from editorial playlists and recommendation systems, while excluding fraudulent streams linked to AI-generated music from royalty calculations. The scale of the issue is significant too: Deezer reported that fully AI-generated tracks accounted for more than half of daily uploads at their June 2026 peak.
4. Bandcamp
Rather than working within a disclosure framework, Bandcamp has drawn a much firmer line than most platforms. It does not allow music generated wholly or substantially by AI and also prohibits AI being used to impersonate another artist or imitate their style. Its policy stands apart from the disclosure-focused approaches used elsewhere, since certain forms of AI-generated music are not permitted on the platform at all.
5. YouTube
When an artist’s image or identity gets reproduced without permission, the debate moves beyond the music itself entirely. YouTube has expanded likeness detection tools that allow eligible artists and entertainers to identify AI-generated videos using their face and request removal. This gives creators another layer of protection as generative AI becomes increasingly capable of copying the people behind the music as well as the music itself.
6. ARIA
With fully AI-generated music now entering the wider market, ARIA, the Australian Recording Industry Association, has introduced a clearer standard for what can qualify for official recognition. Recordings must be substantially human-made to enter the ARIA Charts or qualify for the ARIA Awards, excluding fully AI-generated releases from those categories.
7. Billboard
As AI-generated music begins appearing more frequently across the industry, Billboard has focused on making that use clearer to readers and chart audiences. The publication has committed to identifying AI-generated music when it appears in its charts and editorial coverage, keeping the emphasis on transparency instead of excluding those releases outright.
What Comes Next for AI and the Music Industry
The differences between Apple Music, Spotify, Deezer, Bandcamp and YouTube suggest the industry is still some way from a shared standard, with each platform setting its own rules around disclosure, discovery and artist protection in the meantime. That patchwork is likely to keep shifting as AI tools grow more capable and more artists, labels and listeners push for clearer answers.
Disclosure, consent, royalties and identity remain the core pressure points, and none of them are likely to be resolved by any single platform acting alone. As more of the industry weighs in, the direction these policies take could determine how much control artists retain over their music, their voices and their likenesses in an increasingly AI-driven landscape.
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UNTOLD ONE 2026 welcomed more than 500,000 festivalgoers to Cluj-Napoca, and narrowing the lineup down to five sets was no easy task.
There are festivals that put together a great lineup, festivals that build impressive stages, and festivals that become destinations in themselves. UNTOLD ONE 2026 managed to be all three. Earlier this August, our team went to Cluj-Napoca from August 6–9 for UNTOLD festival. More than 200 artists performed across the festival, with the event ultimately welcoming more than 500,000 festivalgoers over four days and four nights. But attendance figures only tell part of the story.
What made UNTOLD ONE particularly interesting was the way it continued to push beyond the conventional definition of an EDM festival. The Mainstage delivered the global superstars and enormous singalong moments expected from a festival of this scale, while Galaxy and the other stages offered everything from underground techno to melodic house, urban music and drum & bass. The tram stage provided up and coming artists to showcase their talent while the alchemy stage had some of the biggest hip hop acts of Romania and the world performing there. The result was a festival that could feel completely different depending on where you stood.
With so many incredible performances across the weekend, narrowing the lineup down to just five was an extremely difficult task. When names like Carl Cox, Solomun, Sara Landry and Swae Lee don’t even make the final cut, you know UNTOLD ONE delivered a weekend packed with exceptional music and unforgettable memories.
After four days of music, these are our top five acts from UNTOLD ONE 2026.
5.Flo Rida
Sometimes a festival set doesn’t need to be complicated, It just needs to be fun and Flo Rida delivered exactly that. Performing at the Mainstage with a catalogue packed with instantly recognizable and nostalgic hits, Flo Rida turned UNTOLD into one enormous party. Tracks like “Low,” “Whistle” and “GDFR” provided the kind of universal crowd reaction that few artists can replicate. In my personal opinion, the crowd was the loudest during his set
His performance also brought a completely different energy to the closing night. After four days of EDM, techno, house and live performances, Flo Rida’s combination of hip-hop, pop and dancefloor anthems felt like the perfect way to celebrate the end of the festival.
It was nostalgic, energetic and incredibly entertaining.
4.Lost Frequencies
Lost Frequencies delivered one of the weekend’s most versatile sets, combining his melodic house sound with the kind of accessible festival energy that has made him a global name.
His performance was filled with familiar records, emotional melodies and moments designed perfectly for a crowd of tens of thousands.
One of the highlights came when Loredana Groza joined him on stage for their collaboration, bringing an unmistakably Romanian element to an otherwise international festival programme.
That moment summed up what UNTOLD does particularly well: bringing global electronic music together with the local culture and identity of Romania.
Lost Frequencies also demonstrated that you don’t necessarily need the hardest drops or most aggressive production to command a festival crowd.
Melodic, emotional and perfectly suited to the UNTOLD atmosphere.
3.Sebastian Ingrosso
Few artists understand the DNA of a festival quite like Sebastian Ingrosso.
With decades of experience performing on some of the world’s biggest stages, Ingrosso knows exactly how to build anticipation, when to release the energy and, most importantly, which records can turn a massive crowd into one voice.
His UNTOLD set delivered that familiar combination of progressive melodies, huge festival moments and Swedish House Mafia nostalgia, while still feeling relevant to a modern festival audience.
There is something particularly satisfying about listening to whole crowd singing along to “Dont you worry child”, It is one of those festival moments that words cannot really describe. You simply have to be there.
2.The Chainsmokers
It feels unfair to pick top five when there were so many artists pouring their heart out in their performances, one of them was the returning duo of the Chainsmokers, who played their ever green hits such as Dont let me down, Closer and Something just like this but also sharing a tribute to their late friend Juice wrld with “Sugarfish” and their emotional performance of the unreleased ID “Used to call”.
The Chainsmokers have always had a special relationship with festival crowds, and their UNTOLD return showed exactly why. Their set managed to balance nostalgia with the energy of a modern festival performance, taking the audience through some of the biggest records of their career while still keeping the show feeling fresh.
- MEDUZA³ LIVE
MEDUZA have become synonymous with some of the biggest house records of the past several years, but MEDUZA³ LIVE took the Italian trio’s sound into a different dimension.
Rather than simply delivering another DJ set, the live concept gave their music a larger, more immersive presentation. Their biggest records such as “Bad memories”, “Piece of your heart” and “Paradise” sounded particularly powerful in the UNTOLD environment, with the combination of live elements, vocals and festival-scale production creating a show that felt closer to a concert than a conventional club set.
It was also one of the weekend’s strongest examples of how electronic music continues to evolve, A polished, energetic and genuinely impressive live electronic performance.
UNTOLD ONE 2026 was a reminder of why the festival has become one of Europe’s most important electronic-music destinations.
It wasn’t simply about having the biggest names on the poster. It was about creating a festival where Lewis Capaldi could deliver an emotional singalong, MEDUZA³ could transform a DJ show into a hybrid live spectacle, Kygo could bring his tropical house vibes to a stadium crowd and R3JACK (Afrojack & R3HAB) could turn the mainstage in a dance floor.
And somewhere else on the festival grounds, Carl Cox, Solomun, Sara Landry, Denzel Curry and hundreds of other artists were creating their own unforgettable moments.
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