title: Electronic dance music

text: In the late 1980s and early 1990s, following the emergence of raving, pirate radio, PartyCrews, underground festivals and an upsurge of interest in club culture, EDM achieved mainstream popularity in Europe. However, rave culture was not as broadly popular in the United States; it was not typically seen outside of the regional scenes in New York City, Florida, the Midwest, and California. Although both electro and Chicago house music were influential both in Europe and the United States, mainstream media outlets and the record industry remained openly hostile to it. There was also a perceived association between EDM and drug culture, which led governments at state and city levels to enact laws and policies intended to halt the spread of rave culture.


title: Electronic dance music

text: Subsequently, in the new millennium, the popularity of EDM increased globally, particularly in the United States and Australia. By the early 2010s, the term "electronic dance music" and the initialism "EDM" was being pushed by the American music industry and music press in an effort to rebrand American rave culture. Despite the industry's attempt to create a specific EDM brand, the initialism remains in use as an umbrella term for multiple genres, including dance-pop, house, techno, electro and trance, as well as their respective subgenres.


title: Electronic dance music

text: Various EDM genres have evolved over the last 40 years, for example; house, techno, drum and bass, dance-pop etc. Stylistic variation within an established EDM genre can lead to the emergence of what is called a subgenre. Hybridization, where elements of two or more genres are combined, can lead to the emergence of an entirely new genre of EDM.


title: Electronic dance music

text: In the late 1960s bands such as Silver Apples created electronic music intended for dancing. Other early examples of music that influenced later electronic dance music include Jamaican dub music during the late 1960s to 1970s, the synthesizer-based disco music of Italian producer Giorgio Moroder in the late 1970s, and the electropop of Kraftwerk and Yellow Magic Orchestra in the mid-to-late 1970s.


title: Electronic dance music

text: Author Michael Veal considers dub music, a Jamaican music stemming from roots reggae and sound system culture that flourished between 1968 and 1985, to be one of the important precursors to contemporary electronic dance music. Dub productions were remixed reggae tracks that emphasized rhythm, fragmented lyrical and melodic elements, and reverberant textures. The music was pioneered by studio engineers, such as Sylvan Morris, King Tubby, Errol Thompson, Lee "Scratch" Perry, and Scientist. Their productions included forms of tape editing and sound processing that Veal considers comparable to techniques used in "musique concrète". Dub producers made improvised deconstructions of existing multi-track reggae mixes by using the studio mixing board as a performance instrument. They also foregrounded spatial effects such as reverb and delay by using auxiliary send routings creatively. The Roland Space Echo, manufactured by Roland Corporation, was widely used by dub producers in the 1970s to produce echo and delay effects.


title: Electronic dance music

text: Despite the limited electronic equipment available to dub pioneers such as King Tubby and Lee "Scratch" Perry, their experiments in remix culture were musically cutting-edge. Ambient dub was pioneered by King Tubby and other Jamaican sound artists, using DJ-inspired ambient electronics, complete with drop-outs, echo, equalization and psychedelic electronic effects. It featured layering techniques and incorporated elements of world music, deep bass lines and harmonic sounds. Techniques such as a long echo delay were also used.


title: Electronic dance music

text: Hip hop music has had some influence in the development of electronic dance music since the 1970s. Inspired by Jamaican sound system culture Jamaican-American DJ Kool Herc introduced large bass heavy speaker rigs to the Bronx. His parties are credited with having kick-started the New York City hip-hop movement in 1973. A technique developed by DJ Kool Herc that became popular in hip hop culture was playing two copies of the same record on two turntables, in alternation, and at the point where a track featured a break. This technique was further used to manually loop a purely percussive break, leading to what was later called a break beat.


title: Electronic dance music

text: Turntablism has origins in the invention of the direct-drive turntable, by Shuichi Obata, an engineer at Matsushita (now Panasonic). In 1969, Matsushita released it as the SP-10, the first direct-drive turntable on the market, and the first in their influential Technics series of turntables. The most influential turntable was the Technics SL-1200, which was developed in 1971 by a team led by Shuichi Obata at Matsushita, which then released it onto the market in 1972. In the 1980s and 1990s hip-hop DJs used turntables as musical instruments in their own right and virtuosic use developed into a creative practice called turntablism.


title: Electronic dance music

text: In 1974, George McCrae's early disco hit "Rock Your Baby" was one of the first records to use a drum machine, an early Roland rhythm machine. The use of drum machines in disco production was influenced by Sly and the Family Stone's "Family Affair" (1971), with its rhythm echoed in McCrae's "Rock Your Baby", and Timmy Thomas' "Why Can't We Live Together" (1972). Disco producer Biddu used synthesizers in several disco songs from 1976 to 1977, including "Bionic Boogie" from "Rain Forest" (1976), "Soul Coaxing" (1977), and "Eastern Man" and "Futuristic Journey" (recorded from 1976 to 1977).


title: Electronic dance music

text: Acts like Donna Summer, Chic, Earth, Wind, and Fire, Heatwave, and the Village People helped define the late 1970s disco sound. Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte produced "I Feel Love" for Donna Summer in 1977. It became the first well-known disco hit to have a completely synthesized backing track. Other disco producers, most famously American producer Tom Moulton, grabbed ideas and techniques from dub music (which came with the increased Jamaican migration to New York City in the 1970s) to provide alternatives to the four-on-the-floor style that dominated. During the early 1980s, the popularity of disco music sharply declined in the United States, abandoned by major US record labels and producers. Euro disco continued evolving within the broad mainstream pop music scene.


title: Electronic dance music

text: Synth-pop (short for 'synthesizer pop'; also called 'techno-pop') is a subgenre of new wave music that first became prominent in the late 1970s and features the synthesizer as the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s and early 1970s by the use of synthesizers in progressive rock, electronic, art rock, disco, and particularly the "Krautrock" of bands like Kraftwerk. It arose as a distinct genre in Japan and the United Kingdom in the post-punk era as part of the new wave movement of the late 1970s to the mid-1980s.


title: Electronic dance music

text: Early synth-pop pioneers included Japanese group Yellow Magic Orchestra, and British bands Ultravox, the Human League and Berlin Blondes. The Human League used monophonic synthesizers to produce music with a simple and austere sound. After the breakthrough of Gary Numan in the UK Singles Chart in 1979, large numbers of artists began to enjoy success with a synthesizer-based sound in the early 1980s, including late-1970s debutants like Japan and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, and newcomers such as Depeche Mode and Eurythmics. In Japan, Yellow Magic Orchestra's success opened the way for synth-pop bands such as P-Model, Plastics, and Hikashu. The development of inexpensive polyphonic synthesizers, the definition of MIDI and the use of dance beats, led to a more commercial and accessible sound for synth-pop. This, its adoption by the style-conscious acts from the New Romantic movement, together with the rise of MTV, led to success for large numbers of British synth-pop acts (including Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet) in the United States.


title: Electronic dance music

text: The use of digital sampling and looping in popular music was pioneered by Japanese electronic music band Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO). Their approach to sampling was a precursor to the contemporary approach of constructing music by cutting fragments of sounds and looping them using computer technology. "Computer Game/Firecracker" (1978) interpolated a Martin Denny melody, and sampled "Space Invaders" video game sounds. "Technodelic" (1981) introduced the use of digital sampling in popular music, as the first album consisting of mostly samples and loops. The album was produced using Toshiba-EMI's LMD-649 digital PCM sampler, which engineer Kenji Murata custom-built for YMO. The LMD-649 was also used for sampling by other Japanese synthpop artists in the early 1980s, including YMO-associated acts such as and Logic System.


title: Electronic dance music

text: The emergence of electronic dance music in the 1980s was shaped by the development of several new electronic musical instruments, particularly those from the Japanese Roland Corporation. The Roland TR-808 (often abbreviated as the "808") notably played an important role in the evolution of dance music, after Afrika Bambaataa's "Planet Rock" (1982), made it very popular on dancefloors. The track, which also featured the melody line from Kraftwerk's Trans-Europe Express, informed the development of electronic dance music, and subgenres including Miami bass and Detroit techno, and popularized the 808 as a "fundamental element of futuristic sound". According to "Slate", "Planet Rock" "didn't so much put the 808 on the map so much as reorient an entire world of post-disco dance music around it". The Roland TR-909, TB-303 and Juno-60 similarly influenced electronic dance music such as techno, house and acid.


title: Electronic dance music

text: During the post-disco era that followed the backlash against "disco" which began in the mid to late 1979, which in the United States lead to civil unrest and a riot in Chicago known as the Disco Demolition Night, an underground movement of "stripped-down" disco inspired music featuring "radically different sounds" started to emerge on the East Coast. This new scene was seen primarily in the New York metropolitan area and was initially led by the urban contemporary artists that were responding to the over-commercialization and subsequent demise of disco culture. The sound that emerged originated from P-Funk the electronic side of disco, dub music, and other genres. Much of the music produced during this time was, like disco, catering to a singles-driven market. At this time creative control started shifting to independent record companies, less established producers, and club DJs. Other dance styles that began to become popular during the post-disco era include dance-pop, boogie, electro, Hi-NRG, Italo disco, house, and techno.


title: Electronic dance music

text: In the early 1980s, electro (short for "electro-funk") emerged as a fusion of electro-pop, funk, and boogie. Also called electro-funk or electro-boogie, but later shortened to electro, cited pioneers include Ryuichi Sakamoto, Afrika Bambaataa, Zapp, D.Train, and Sinnamon. Early hip hop and rap combined with German and Japanese electropop influences such as Kraftwerk and Yellow Magic Orchestra inspired the birth of electro. As the electronic sound developed, instruments such as the bass guitar and drums were replaced by synthesizers and most notably by iconic drum machines, particularly the Roland TR-808 and the Yamaha DX7. Early uses of the TR-808 include several Yellow Magic Orchestra tracks in 1980–1981, the 1982 track "Planet Rock" by Afrika Bambaataa, and the 1982 song "Sexual Healing" by Marvin Gaye. In 1982, producer Arthur Baker, with Afrika Bambaataa, released the seminal "Planet Rock", which was influenced by Yellow Magic Orchestra, used Kraftwerk samples, and had drum beats supplied by the TR-808. Planet Rock was followed later that year by another breakthrough electro record, "Nunk" by Warp 9. In 1983, Hashim created an electro-funk sound with "Al-Naafyish (The Soul)" that influenced Herbie Hancock, resulting in his hit single "Rockit" the same year. The early 1980s were electro's mainstream peak. According to author Steve Taylor,


title: Electronic dance music

text: In the early 1980s, Chicago radio jocks The Hot Mix 5 and club DJs Ron Hardy and Frankie Knuckles played various styles of dance music, including older disco records (mostly Philly disco and Salsoul tracks), electro funk tracks by artists such as Afrika Bambaataa, newer Italo disco, B-Boy hip hop music by Man Parrish, Jellybean Benitez, Arthur Baker, and John Robie, and electronic pop music by Kraftwerk and Yellow Magic Orchestra. Some made and played their own edits of their favorite songs on reel-to-reel tape, and sometimes mixed in effects, drum machines, and other rhythmic electronic instrumentation. The hypnotic electronic dance song "On and On", produced in 1984 by Chicago DJ Jesse Saunders and co-written by Vince Lawrence, had elements that became staples of the early house sound, such as the Roland TB-303 bass synthesizer and minimal vocals as well as a Roland (specifically TR-808) drum machine and Korg (specifically Poly-61) synthesizer.


title: Electronic dance music

text: "On and On" is sometimes cited as the 'first house record', though other examples from around that time, such as J.M. Silk's "Music is the Key" (1985), have also been cited. House music quickly spread to American cities including New York City, and Newark, and Detroit—all of which developed their own regional scenes. In the mid-to-late 1980s, house music became popular in Europe as well as major cities in South America, and Australia. Chicago House experienced some commercial success in Europe with releases such as "House Nation" by House Master Boyz and the Rude Boy of House (1987). Following this, a number of house inspired releases such as "Pump Up The Volume" by MARRS (1987), "Theme from S'Express" by S'Express (1988), and "Doctorin' the House" by Coldcut (1988) entered the pop charts.


title: Electronic dance music

text: The electronic instrumentation and minimal arrangement of Charanjit Singh's "" (1982), an album of Indian ragas performed in a disco style, anticipated the sounds of acid house music, but it is not known to have had any influence on the genre prior to the album's rediscovery in the 21st century.


title: Electronic dance music

text: In the mid 1980s house music thrived on the small Balearic Island of Ibiza, Spain. The Balearic sound was the spirit of the music emerging from the island at that time; the combination of old vinyl rock, pop, reggae, and disco records paired with an "anything goes" attitude made Ibiza a hub of drug-induced musical experimentation. A club called Amnesia, whose resident DJ, Alfredo Fiorito, pioneered Balearic house, was the center of the scene. Amnesia became known across Europe and by the mid to late 1980s it was drawing people from all over the continent.


title: Electronic dance music

text: By 1988, house music had become the most popular form of club music in Europe, with acid house developing as a notable trend in the UK and Germany in the same year. In the UK an established warehouse party subculture, centered on the British African-Caribbean sound system scene fueled underground after-parties that featured dance music exclusively. Also in 1988, the Balearic party vibe associated with Ibiza's DJ Alfredo was transported to London, when Danny Rampling and Paul Oakenfold opened the clubs Shoom and Spectrum, respectively. Both places became synonymous with acid house, and it was during this period that MDMA gained prominence as a party drug. Other important UK clubs included Back to Basics in Leeds, Sheffield's Leadmill and Music Factory, and The Haçienda in Manchester, where Mike Pickering and Graeme Park's spot, Nude, was an important proving ground for American underground dance music. The success of house and acid house paved the way for Detroit Techno, a style that was initially supported by a handful of house music clubs in Chicago, New York, and Northern England, with Detroit clubs catching up later. The term Techno first came into use after a release of a 10 Records/Virgin Records compilation titled "Techno: The Dance Sound of Detroit" in 1988.


title: Electronic dance music

text: One of the first Detroit productions to receive wider attention was Derrick May's "Strings of Life" (1987), which, together with May's previous release, "Nude Photo" (1987), helped raise techno's profile in Europe, especially the UK and Germany, during the 1987–1988 house music boom (see Second Summer of Love). It became May's best-known track, which, according to Frankie Knuckles, "just exploded. It was like something you can't imagine, the kind of power and energy people got off that record when it was first heard. Mike Dunn says he has no idea how people can accept a record that doesn't have a bassline." According to British DJ Mark Moore, "Strings of Life" led London club-goers to accept house: "because most people hated house music and it was all rare groove and hip hop...I'd play 'Strings of Life' at the Mudd Club and clear the floor". By the late 1980s interest in house, acid house and techno escalated in the club scene and MDMA-fueled club-goers, who were faced with a 2 a.m. closing time in the UK, started to seek after-hours refuge at all-night warehouse parties. Within a year, in summer 1989, up to 25,000 people at a time were attending commercially organised underground parties called raves.


title: Electronic dance music

text: Trance emerged from the rave scene in the United Kingdom in the late 1980s and developed further during the early 1990s in Germany before spreading throughout the rest of Europe, as a more melodic offshoot from techno and house. At the same time trance music was developing in Europe, the genre was also gathering a following in the Indian state of Goa.


title: Electronic dance music

text: Trance is mostly instrumental, although vocals can be mixed in: typically they are performed by mezzo-soprano to soprano female soloists, often without a traditional verse/chorus structure. Structured vocal form in trance music forms the basis of the vocal trance subgenre, which has been described as "grand, soaring, and operatic" and "ethereal female leads floating amongst the synths". Trance music is broken into a number of subgenres including acid trance, classic trance, hard trance, progressive trance, and uplifting trance. Uplifting trance is also known as "anthem trance", "epic trance", "commercial trance", "stadium trance", or "euphoric trance", and has been strongly influenced by classical music in the 1990s and 2000s by leading artists such as Ferry Corsten, Armin Van Buuren, Tiësto, Push, Rank 1 and at present with the development of the subgenre "orchestral uplifting trance" or "uplifting trance with symphonic orchestra" by such artists as Andy Blueman, Ciro Visone, Soundlift, Arctic Moon, Sergey Nevone&Simon O'Shine etc. Closely related to Uplifting Trance is Euro-trance, which has become a general term for a wide variety of highly commercialized European dance music. Several subgenres are crossovers with other major genres of electronic music. For instance, Tech trance is a mixture of trance and techno, and Vocal trance "combines [trance's] progressive elements with pop music". The dream trance genre originated in the mid-1990s, with its popularity then led by Robert Miles.


title: Electronic dance music

text: AllMusic states on progressive trance: "the progressive wing of the trance crowd led directly to a more commercial, chart-oriented sound since trance had never enjoyed much chart action in the first place. Emphasizing the smoother sound of Eurodance or house (and occasionally more reminiscent of Jean-Michel Jarre than Basement Jaxx), Progressive Trance became the sound of the world's dance floors by the end of the millennium. Critics ridiculed its focus on predictable breakdowns and relative lack of skill to beat-mix, but progressive trance was caned by the hottest DJ."


title: Electronic dance music

text: By the early 1990s, a style of music developed within the rave scene that had an identity distinct from American house and techno. This music, much like hip-hop before it, combined sampled syncopated beats or breakbeats, other samples from a wide range of different musical genres, and, occasionally, samples of music, dialogue, and effects from films and television programmes. Relative to earlier styles of dance music such as house and techno, so-called 'rave music' tended to emphasise bass sounds and use faster tempos, or beats per minute (BPM). This subgenre was known as "hardcore" rave, but from as early as 1991, some musical tracks made up of these high-tempo breakbeats, with heavy basslines and samples of older Jamaican music, were referred to as "jungle techno", a genre influenced by Jack Smooth and Basement Records, and later just "jungle", which became recognized as a separate musical genre popular at raves and on pirate radio in Britain. It is important to note when discussing the history of drum & bass that prior to jungle, rave music was getting faster and more experimental.


title: Electronic dance music

text: By 1994, jungle had begun to gain mainstream popularity, and fans of the music (often referred to as junglists) became a more recognisable part of youth subculture. The genre further developed, incorporating and fusing elements from a wide range of existing musical genres, including the raggamuffin sound, dancehall, MC chants, dub basslines, and increasingly complex, heavily edited breakbeat percussion. Despite the affiliation with the ecstasy-fuelled rave scene, Jungle also inherited some associations with violence and criminal activity, both from the gang culture that had affected the UK's hip-hop scene and as a consequence of jungle's often aggressive or menacing sound and themes of violence (usually reflected in the choice of samples). However, this developed in tandem with the often positive reputation of the music as part of the wider rave scene and dance hall-based Jamaican music culture prevalent in London. By 1995, whether as a reaction to, or independently of this cultural schism, some jungle producers began to move away from the ragga-influenced style and create what would become collectively labelled, for convenience, as drum and bass.


title: Electronic dance music

text: Dubstep is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in South London in the late 1990s. It is generally characterized by sparse, syncopated rhythmic patterns with bass lines that contain prominent sub-bass frequencies. The style emerged as an offshoot of UK garage, drawing on a lineage of related styles such as 2-step, dub reggae, jungle, broken beat, and grime. In the United Kingdom, the origins of the genre can be traced back to the growth of the Jamaican sound system party scene in the early 1980s.


title: Electronic dance music

text: The earliest known dubstep releases date back to 1998, and were usually featured as B-sides of 2-step garage single releases. These tracks were darker, more experimental remixes with less emphasis on vocals, and attempted to incorporate elements of breakbeat and drum and bass into 2-step. In 2001, this and other strains of dark garage music began to be showcased and promoted at London's nightclub Plastic People, at the "Forward" night (sometimes stylised as FWD»), which went on to be considered influential to the development of dubstep. The term "dubstep" in reference to a genre of music began to be used around 2002 by labels such as Big Apple, Ammunition, and Tempa, by which time stylistic trends used in creating these remixes started to become more noticeable and distinct from 2-step and grime.


title: Electronic dance music

text: Electro house is a form of house music characterized by a prominent bassline or kick drum and a tempo between 125 and 135 beats per minute, usually 128. Its origins were influenced by electro. The term has been used to describe the music of many "DJ Mag" Top 100 DJs, including Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike, Hardwell, Skrillex, and Steve Aoki. Italian DJ Benny Benassi, with his track "Satisfaction" released in 2002, is seen as the forerunner of electro-house who brought it to the mainstream. By the mid-2000s, electro-house saw an increase in popularity, with hits such as the Tom Neville remix of Studio B's "I See Girls" in 2005 (UK #11). In November 2006, electro-house tracks "Put Your Hands Up for Detroit" by Fedde Le Grand and the D. Ramirez remix of "Yeah Yeah" by Bodyrox and Luciana held the number one and number two spots, respectively, on the UK top 40 singles chart. Since then, electro-house producers such as Feed Me, Knife Party, The M Machine, Porter Robinson, Yasutaka Nakata and Dada Life have emerged.


title: Electronic dance music

text: Trap music (EDM) originated from techno, dub, and Dutch House, but also from Southern hip hop in the late 2000s and early 2010s. This form of trap music can be simplified by these three features: "1/3 hip hop (tempo and song structure are similar, most tracks are usually between 70–110 bpm) – with vocals sometimes being pitched down, 1/3 dance music – high-pitched Dutch synth work, Hardstyle sampling, as well as a plethora of trap remixes of popular EDM songs, and 1/3 dub (low-frequency focus and strong emphasis on repetitiveness throughout a song)". Some of the artist that popularized this genre, along with several others, would-be producers such as RL Grime with the tracks ""Core"" and ""Scylla"" released in 2014, Flosstradamus with their ""Hdynation Radio"" album released in 2015 and Carnage (DJ) with his track ""Turn Up"" released in 2012. Trap music in this connotation was characterized by "soulful synths, 808s, the pan flute, sharp snares and long, syrup-slurred vowels" which created dirty and aggressive beats resulting in "dark melodies". Trap is now mainly used to create remixes of already existing songs.


title: Electronic dance music

text: In 1980 English producer Richard James Burgess, and his band Landscape, used the term on the sleeve of the single "European Man": "Electronic Dance Music... EDM; computer programmed to perfection for your listening pleasure." In response to a question about being credited with coining the term "New Romantic" Burgess has stated that: "Initially I was using three terms – Futurist, Electronic Dance Music (the Landscape singles have EDM printed on them) and New Romantic."


title: Electronic dance music

text: Writing in "The Guardian", journalist Simon Reynolds noted that the American music industry's adoption of the term EDM in the late 2000s was an attempt to re-brand US "rave culture" and differentiate it from the 1990s rave scene. It has been described as an era of electronic music, being described in a "MixMag" article as being "the drop-heavy, stadium-filling, fist-pumping, chart-topping, massively commercial main stage sound that conquered America...possibly somewhere between electro and progressive house, directed by Michael Bay, and like many music genres, trying to pin it down exactly is like trying to grab a fistful of water". In the UK, "dance music" or "dance" are more common terms for EDM. What is widely perceived to be "club music" has changed over time; it now includes different genres and may not always encompass EDM. Similarly, "electronic dance music" can mean different things to different people. Both "club music" and "EDM" seem vague, but the terms are sometimes used to refer to distinct and unrelated genres (club music is defined by what is popular, whereas EDM is distinguished by musical attributes). Though "Billboard" debuted a "dance" chart in 1974, the larger US music industry did not create music charts until the late 1990s. In July 1995, Nervous Records and "Project X Magazine" hosted the first awards ceremony, calling it the "Electronic Dance Music Awards".


title: Electronic dance music

text: Electronic dance music is generally composed and produced in a recording studio with specialized equipment such as samplers, synthesizers, effects units and MIDI controllers all set up to interact with one another using the MIDI protocol. In the genre's early days, hardware electronic musical instruments were used and the focus in production was mainly on manipulating MIDI data as opposed to manipulating audio signals. Since the late 1990s, the use of software has increased. A modern electronic music production studio generally consists of a computer running a digital audio workstation (DAW), with various plug-ins installed such as software synthesizers and effects units, which are controlled with a MIDI controller such as a MIDI keyboard. This setup is generally sufficient to complete entire productions, which are then ready for mastering.


title: Electronic dance music

text: A ghost producer is a hired music producer in a business arrangement who produces a song for another DJ/artist that releases it as their own, typically under a contract which prevents them from identifying themselves as a personnel of the song. Ghost producers receive a simple fee or royalty payments for their work and are often able to work in their preference of not having the intense pressure of fame and the lifestyle of an internationally recognized DJ. A ghost producer may increase their notability in the music industry by acquainting with established "big name" DJs and producers. Producers like Martin Garrix and Porter Robinson are often noted for their ghost production work for other producers while David Guetta and Steve Aoki are noted for their usage of ghost producers in their songs whereas DJs like Tiësto have been openly crediting their producers in an attempt to avoid censure and for transparency.


title: Electronic dance music

text: Many ghost producers sign agreements that prevent them from working for anyone else or establishing themselves as a solo artist. Such non-disclosure agreements are often noted as predatory because ghost producers, especially teenage producers, do not have an understanding of the music industry. London producer Mat Zo has alleged that DJs who hire ghost producers "have pretended to make their own music and [left] us actual producers to struggle".


title: Electronic dance music

text: A bedroom producer is an independent musician who creates electronic music on their laptop or in a home studio. Unlike in traditional recording studios, bedroom producers typically use low-cost, accessible software and equipment which can lead to music being created completely "in the box," with no external hardware.


title: Electronic dance music

text: Initially, the popularization of electronic dance music was associated with European rave and club culture and it achieved limited popular exposure in America. By the mid-to-late 1990s this began to change as the American music industry made efforts to market a range of dance genres as "electronica". At the time, a wave of electronic music bands from the UK, including The Prodigy, The Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim and Underworld, had been prematurely associated with an "American electronica revolution". But rather than finding mainstream success, many established EDM acts were relegated to the margins of the US industry. In 1998 Madonna's "Ray of Light," an album heavily influenced by club music trends and produced with British producer William Orbit, brought dance music to the attention of popular music listeners. In the late 1990s, despite US media interest in dance music re-branded as "electronica," American house and techno producers continued to travel abroad to establish their careers as DJs and producers. According to New York Times journalist Kelefa Sanneh, Aaliyah's 2000 single "Try Again" "helped smuggle the innovative techniques of electronic dance music onto the American pop charts"


title: Electronic dance music

text: By the mid-2000s, Dutch producer Tiësto was bringing worldwide popular attention to EDM after providing a soundtrack to the entry of athletes during the opening ceremony of the 2004 Summer Olympics — an event which "The Guardian" deemed as one of the 50 most important events in dance music. In 2003, the influence of dance music on American radio resulted in "Billboard" creating the first-ever Dance/Mix Show Airplay chart. By 2005, the prominence of dance music in North American popular culture had markedly increased. According to "Spin", Daft Punk's performance at Coachella in 2006 was the "tipping point" for EDM—it introduced the duo to a new generation of "rock kids". As noted by "Entertainment Weekly", Justin Timberlake's "SexyBack" helped introduce EDM sounds to top 40 radio, as it brought together variations of electronic dance music with the singer's R&B sounds. In 2009, French house musician David Guetta began to gain prominence in mainstream pop music thanks to several crossover hits on Top 40 charts such as "When Love Takes Over" with Kelly Rowland, as well as his collaborations with US pop and hip hop acts such as Akon ("Sexy Bitch") and The Black Eyed Peas ("I Gotta Feeling"). The music sharing website SoundCloud, as well as the video sharing website YouTube, also helped fuel interest in electronic music. Dubstep producer Skrillex popularized a harsher sound dubbed "Brostep", which had drawn comparisons to the aggression and tone of heavy metal.


title: Electronic dance music

text: With the increasing popularity of electronic dance music, promoters and venues realized that DJs could generate larger profits than traditional musicians; Diplo explained that "a band plays [for] 45 minutes; DJs can play for four hours. Rock bands—there's a few headliner dudes that can play 3,000–4,000-capacity venues, but DJs play the same venues, they turn the crowd over two times, people buy drinks all night long at higher prices—it's a win-win." Electronic music festivals, such as Electric Daisy Carnival (EDC) in Las Vegas and Ultra Music Festival in Miami also grew in size, placing an increased emphasis on visual experiences, and DJs who had begun to attain a celebrity status. Other major acts that gained prominence, including Avicii and Swedish House Mafia, toured major venues such as arenas and stadiums rather than playing clubs; in December 2011, Swedish House Mafia became the first electronic music act to sell out New York City's Madison Square Garden.


title: Electronic dance music

text: In 2011, "Spin" declared a "new rave generation" led by acts like David Guetta, Deadmau5, and Skrillex. In January 2013, "Billboard" introduced a new EDM-focused Dance/Electronic Songs chart, tracking the top 50 electronic songs based on sales, radio airplay, club play, and online streaming. According to Eventbrite, EDM fans are more likely to use social media to discover and share events or gigs. They also discovered that 78% of fans say they are more likely to attend an event if their peers do, compared to 43% of fans in general. EDM has many young and social fans. By late 2011, "Music Trades" was describing electronic dance music as the fastest-growing genre in the world. Elements of electronic music also became increasingly prominent in pop music. Radio and television also contributed to dance music's mainstream acceptance.


title: Electronic dance music

text: Corporate consolidation in the EDM industry began in 2012—especially in terms of live events. In June 2012, media executive Robert F. X. Sillerman—founder of what is now Live Nation—re-launched SFX Entertainment as an EDM conglomerate, and announced his plan to invest $1 billion to acquire EDM businesses. His acquisitions included regional promoters and festivals (including ID&T, which organises Tomorrowland), two nightclub operators in Miami, and Beatport, an online music store which focuses on electronic music. Live Nation also acquired Cream Holdings and Hard Events, and announced a "creative partnership" with EDC organizers Insomniac Events in 2013 that would allow it to access its resources whilst remaining an independent company; Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino described EDM as the "[new] rock 'n' roll".


title: Electronic dance music

text: US radio conglomerate iHeartMedia, Inc. (formerly Clear Channel Media and Entertainment) also made efforts to align itself with EDM. In January 2014 It hired noted British DJ and BBC Radio 1 personality Pete Tong to produce programming for its "Evolution" dance radio brand, and announced a partnership with SFX to co-produce live concerts and EDM-oriented original programming for its top 40 radio stations. iHeartMedia president John Sykes explained that he wanted his company's properties to be the "best destination [for EDM]".


title: Electronic dance music

text: Major brands have also used the EDM phenomena as a means of targeting millennials and EDM songs and artists have increasingly been featured in television commercials and programs. Avicii's manager Ash Pournouri compared these practices to the commercialization of hip-hop in the early 2000s. Heineken has a marketing relationship with the Ultra Music Festival, and has incorporated Dutch producers Armin van Buuren and Tiësto into its ad campaigns. Anheuser-Busch has a similar relationship as beer sponsor of SFX Entertainment events. In 2014, 7 Up launched "7x7Up"—a multi-platform EDM-based campaign that included digital content, advertising featuring producers, and branded stages at both Ultra and Electric Daisy Carnival. Wireless carrier T-Mobile US entered into an agreement with SFX to become the official wireless sponsor of its events, and partnered with Above & Beyond to sponsor its 2015 tour.


title: Electronic dance music

text: In August 2015, SFX began to experience declines in its value, and a failed bid by CEO Sillerman to take the company private. The company began looking into strategic alternatives that could have resulted in the sale of the company. In October 2015, "Forbes" declared the possibility of an EDM "bubble", in the wake of the declines at SFX Entertainment, slowing growth in revenue, the increasing costs of organizing festivals and booking talent, as well as an oversaturation of festivals in the eastern and western United States. Insomniac CEO Pasquale Rotella felt that the industry would weather the financial uncertainty of the overall market by focusing on "innovation" and entering into new markets. Despite forecasts that interest in popular EDM would wane, in 2015 it was estimated to be a £5.5bn industry in the US, up by 60% compared to 2012 estimates.


title: Electronic dance music

text: SFX emerged from bankruptcy in December 2016 as LiveStyle, under the leadership of Randy Phillips, a former executive of AEG Live. The company began to slowly divest its live music assets in 2018, including selling its stakes in Rock in Rio (which it had bought as part of an attempted Las Vegas edition of the festival), and later other SFX-owned promoters such as ID&T and React Presents. Phillips stepped down as CEO in 2019 to pursue other projects.


title: Electronic dance music

text: Following the popularization of EDM in America a number of producers and DJs, including Carl Cox, Steve Lawler, and Markus Schulz, raised concerns that the perceived over-commercialisation of dance music had impacted the "art" of DJing. Cox saw the "press-play" approach taken by newer EDM DJs as unrepresentative of what he called a "DJ ethos". Writing in "Mixmag", DJ Tim Sheridan argued that "push-button DJs" who use auto-sync and play pre-recorded sets of "obvious hits" resulted in a situation overtaken by "the spectacle, money and the showbiz".


title: Electronic dance music

text: Some house producers openly admitted that "commercial" EDM needed further differentiation and creativity. Avicii, whose 2013 album "True" featured songs incorporating elements of bluegrass, such as lead single "Wake Me Up", stated that most EDM lacked "longevity". Deadmau5 criticized the homogenization of popular EDM, and suggested that it "all sounds the same". During the 2014 Ultra Music Festival, Deadmau5 made critical comments about up-and-coming EDM artist Martin Garrix and later played an edited version of Garrix's "Animals" remixed to the melody of "Old McDonald Had a Farm". Afterwards, Tiësto criticized Deadmau5 on Twitter for "sarcastically" mixing Avicii's "Levels" with his own "Ghosts 'n' Stuff" (in reference to being a last-minute substitution for Avicii on the festival schedule due to a medical issue), to which Deadmau5 asked whether playing a song "sarcastically" involved "sneer[ing] while hitting the sync button".


title: Electronic dance music

text: In May 2014, the NBC comedy series "Saturday Night Live" parodied the stereotypes of EDM culture and push-button DJs in a Digital Short titled "When Will the Bass Drop?". It featured a DJ who goes about performing everyday activities—playing a computer game, frying eggs, collecting money—who then presses a giant "BASS" button, which explodes the heads of concertgoers.


title: Electronic dance music

text: After years of rapid growth, the American popular EDM market started to wane in 2016 when a number of artists famous for producing so-called 'big room' electro-house started to diversify stylistically. This development was directly referenced by two such DJs – David Guetta and Showtek – in a techno-influenced single released in April 2016 titled 'The Death of EDM'. By the end of the 2010s, EDM's position as the dominant force in mainstream popular music began to plateau as it became displaced by other styles.


title: Electronic dance music

text: In May 2015, the International Music Summit's Business Report estimated that the global electronic music industry had reached nearly $6.9 billion in value; the count included music sales, events revenue (including nightclubs and festivals), the sale of DJ equipment and software, and other sources of revenue. The report also identified several emerging markets for electronic dance music, including East Asia, India, and South Africa, credited primarily to investment by domestic, as well as American and European interests. A number of major festivals also began expanding into Latin America.


title: Electronic dance music

text: In Ghana, West Africa, an artist named Djsky introduced EDM in 2015–present and organised successful festivals and events such as Hey Ibiza, Sunset music Festival, Sky show and more. In an interview with WatsUp TV, Djsky revealed he was the first to introduce Electronic Music Dance into Ghana music.


title: Electronic dance music

text: In Ethiopia EDM has become part of mainstream music after the 2018 breakthrough of a young artist named Rophnan which incorporated EDM sound with traditional rhythms and melodies. In his shows, tens of thousands of youth were packing stadiums across the country and radios started to play the emerging genre.


title: Electronic dance music

text: China is a market where EDM had initially made relatively few inroads; although promoters believed that the mostly instrumental music would remove a metaphorical language barrier, the growth of EDM in China was hampered by the lack of a prominent rave culture in the country as in other regions, as well as the popularity of domestic Chinese pop over foreign artists. Former Universal Music executive Eric Zho, inspired by the US growth, made the first significant investments in electronic music in China, including the organisation of Shanghai's inaugural Storm festival in 2013, the reaching of a title sponsorship deal for the festival with Anheuser-Busch's Budweiser brand, a local talent search, and organising collaborations between EDM producers and Chinese singers, such as Avicii and Wang Leehom's "Lose Myself". In the years following, a larger number of EDM events began to appear in China, and Storm itself was also preceded by a larger number of pre-parties in 2014 than its inaugural year. A new report released during the inaugural International Music Summit China in October 2015 revealed that the Chinese EDM industry was experiencing modest gains, citing the larger number of events (including new major festival brands such as Modern Sky and YinYang), a 6% increase in the sales of electronic music in the country, and the significant size of the overall market. Zho also believed that the country's "hands-on" political climate, as well as investments by China into cultural events, helped in "encouraging" the growth of EDM in the country.


title: Electronic dance music

text: In the 1980s, electronic dance music was often played at illegal underground rave parties held in secret locations, for example, warehouses, abandoned aircraft hangars, fields and any other large, open areas. In the 1990s and 2000s, aspects of the underground rave culture of the 1980s and early 1990s began to evolve into legitimate, organized EDM concerts and festivals. Major festivals often feature a large number of acts representing various EDM genres spread across multiple stages. Festivals have placed a larger emphasis on visual spectacles as part of their overall experiences, including elaborate stage designs with underlying thematics, complex lighting systems, laser shows, and pyrotechnics. Rave fashion also evolved among attendees, which "The Guardian" described as having progressed from the 1990s "kandi raver" to "[a] slick and sexified yet also kitschy-surreal image midway between Venice Beach and Cirque du Soleil, Willy Wonka and a gay pride parade". These events differed from underground raves by their organized nature, often taking place at major venues, and with measures to ensure the health and safety of attendees. MTV's Rawley Bornstein described electronic music as "the new rock and roll", as has Lollapalooza organizer Perry Ferrell.


title: Electronic dance music

text: Ray Waddell of "Billboard" noted that festival promoters have done an excellent job at branding. Larger festivals have been shown to have positive economic impacts on their host cities the 2014 Ultra Music Festival brought 165,000 attendees—and over $223 million—to the Miami/South Florida region's economy. The inaugural edition of TomorrowWorld—a U.S.-based version of Belgium's Tomorrowland festival, brought $85.1 million to the Atlanta area—as much revenue as its hosting of the NCAA Final Four (the semi-final and national championship games of the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament) earlier in the year. EDC Las Vegas boosted the Clark County economy by $350.3 million in 2015 alone, with over 405,000 attendees across three days (June 19–21).


title: Electronic dance music

text: The popularity of EDM and festivals also led some multi-genre festivals not strongly associated with electronic music, such as Coachella and Lollapalooza, to add more electronic acts to their lineup. They often play EDM-specific stages, but major acts such as Deadmau5 and Calvin Harris have made overall headlining appearances on the main stages of Lollapalooza and Coachella respectively—placements that are typically associated with rock and alternative acts.


title: Electronic dance music

text: Russell Smith of "The Globe and Mail" felt that the commercial festival industry was an antithesis to the original principles of the rave subculture, citing "the expensive tickets, the giant corporate sponsors, the crass bro culture—shirtless muscle boys who cruise the stadiums, tiny popular girls in bikinis who ride on their shoulders – not to mention the sappy music itself." Drug-related incidents, as well as other complaints surrounding the behaviour of their attendees, have contributed to negative perceptions and opposition to electronic music events by local authorities.


title: Electronic dance music

text: After Ultra Music Festival 2014, where a crowd of gatecrashers trampled a security guard on its first day, Miami's city commissioners considered banning the festival from being held in the city, citing the trampling incident, lewd behavior, and complaints by downtown residents of being harassed by attendees. The commissioners voted to allow Ultra to continue being held in Miami due to its positive economic effects, under the condition that its organizers address security, drug usage and lewd behavior by attendees. In 2018, after continued concerns, the commissioners voted to bar the festival from being held in Bayfront Park and downtown Miami, but subsequently approved a proposal to move the event to one of Miami's barrier islands, Virginia Key. Following the festival, which was impacted by transportation issues (as there is only one vehicular link between Virginia Key and mainland Miami) and other problems, Ultra pulled out of the agreement, and negotiated an agreement to return to Bayfront Park.


title: Electronic dance music

text: Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, cancellation of festivals, accompanied by the restrictions on social distancing has negatively impacted economic activity of festivals and the music industry. Festivals are required to have regulations on health and safety, as well as deal with crisis and risk management, since they are at high risk due to the mass of people that attend. As a result, it has become normal for festivals or performances to be streamed online.


title: Electronic dance music

text: During 2020, all large EDM music festivals were postponed or canceled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. On March 4, 2020, Ultra Miami was the first electronic dance music festival to cancel an event since the event could not conform to the state’s capacity rules and county’s safety protocols and regulations. On April 21, 2020, Electric Forest music festival in Rothbury, Michigan rescheduled their event on June 25–27, 2020 to June 2021 due to health concerns. On July 9, 2020, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio decided that all sizeable events will be suspended through September 30. As a result, Electric Zoo 2020, which takes place on Randall’s Island in New York City during Labor Day Weekend, fully canceled their 2020 event.


title: Electronic dance music

text: Electric Daisy Carnival Las Vegas (EDC), the biggest dance music festival in North America, was scheduled to happen on May 15–17, 2020. In April, EDC postponed their May event to October 2–4, 2020, and later declared on August 2 that EDC Las Vegas 2020 would be officially canceled. Instead, EDC CEO Pasquale Rotella announced the celebration of EDC’s 25th anniversary on May 21–23, 2021. On April 9th 2021, EDC had not yet released their lineup and Covid-19 safety protocols for the event happening in May 2021. On April 20th, 2021, Rotella postponed the festival to October 22–24, 2021.


title: Electronic dance music

text: The cancellations of these events economically hurt the music industry and the companies that run these events. EDC 2020 originally sold out of the 200,000 tickets for their first event, but offered full returns for those who couldn’t make it to new dates. Electric Zoo included an incentive for customers to keep their ticket by providing an extra $50 for General Admission tickets and $100 for VIP tickets to spend on merchandise and food on festival grounds.  Most music festival companies offered to rollover the ticket to their next event or give full refunds to those who could not attend, but ultimately lost a lot of customers due to the uncertainty of Covid-19.


title: Electronic dance music

text: Dance music has a long association with recreational drug use, particularly with a wide range of drugs that have been categorized under the name "club drugs". Russell Smith noted that the association of drugs and music subcultures was by no means exclusive to electronic music, citing previous examples of music genres that were associated with certain drugs, such as psychedelic rock and LSD, disco music and cocaine, and punk music and heroin.


title: Electronic dance music

text: Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), also known as ecstasy, "E", or "Molly", is often considered the drug of choice within the rave culture and is also used at clubs, festivals and house parties. In the rave environment, the sensory effects from the music and lighting are often highly synergistic with the drug. The psychedelic amphetamine quality of MDMA offers multiple reasons for its appeals to users in the "rave" setting. Some users enjoy the feeling of mass communion from the inhibition-reducing effects of the drug, while others use it as party fuel because of the drug's stimulatory effects. Another drug para-Methoxyamphetamine (4-MA) also known as pink ecstasy, PMA, "Death" or "Dr. Death", it is similar to MDMA but they can take up to an hour to produce effects, which can result in hyperthermia and subsequently, organ failure. People who take PMA are often mistaken for it being identified as MDMA.


title: Electronic dance music

text: MDMA is occasionally known for being taken in conjunction with psychedelic drugs. The more common combinations include MDMA combined with LSD, MDMA combined with DMT, MDMA with psilocybin mushrooms, and MDMA with the dissociative drug ketamine. Many users use mentholated products while taking MDMA for its cooling sensation while experiencing the drug's effects. Examples include menthol cigarettes, Vicks VapoRub, NyQuil, and lozenges.


title: Electronic dance music

text: The incidence of nonmedical ketamine has increased in the context of raves and other parties. However, its emergence as a club drug differs from other club drugs (e.g. MDMA) due to its anesthetic properties ("e.g.", slurred speech, immobilization) at higher doses; in addition, there are reports of ketamine being sold as "ecstasy". The use of ketamine as part of a "postclubbing experience" has also been documented. Ketamine's rise in the dance culture was rapid in Hong Kong by the end of the 1990s. Before becoming a federally controlled substance in the United States in 1999, ketamine was available as diverted pharmaceutical preparations and as a pure powder sold in bulk quantities from domestic chemical supply companies. Much of the current ketamine diverted for nonmedical use originates in China and India.


title: Electronic dance music

text: A number of deaths attributed to apparent drug use have occurred at major electronic music concerts and festivals. The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum blacklisted Insomniac Events after an underaged attendee died from "complications of ischemic encephalopathy due to methylenedioxymethamphetamine intoxication" during Electric Daisy Carnival 2010; as a result, the event was re-located to Las Vegas the following year. Drug-related deaths during Electric Zoo 2013 in New York City, United States, and Future Music Festival Asia 2014 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, prompted the final day of both events to be cancelled, while Life in Color cancelled a planned event in Malaysia out of concern for the incident, and other drug-related deaths that occurred at the A State of Trance 650 concerts in Jakarta, Indonesia.


title: Electronic dance music

text: In September 2016, the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina banned all electronic music events, pending future legislation, after five drug-related deaths and four injuries at a Time Warp Festival event in the city in April 2016. The ban forced electronic band Kraftwerk to cancel a planned concert in the city, despite arguing that there were dissimilarities between a festival and their concerts.


title: Joanna Lumley

text: Dame Joanna Lamond Lumley (born 1 May 1946) is an English actress, presenter, former model, author, television producer, and activist. She has won two BAFTA TV Awards for her role as Patsy Stone in the BBC sitcom "Absolutely Fabulous" (1992–2012), and was nominated for the 2011 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for the Broadway revival of "La Bête". In 2013, she received the Special Recognition Award at the National Television Awards, and in 2017 she was honoured with the BAFTA Fellowship award.


title: Joanna Lumley

text: Lumley's other television credits include "The New Avengers" (1976–1977), "Sapphire & Steel" (1979–1982), "Sensitive Skin" (2005–2007), "Jam & Jerusalem" (2006–2008) and "Finding Alice" (2021–present) as well as playing Elaine Perkins in "Coronation Street" in 1973. Her film appearances include "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" (1969), "Trail of the Pink Panther" (1982), "Shirley Valentine" (1989), "James and the Giant Peach" (1996), "Ella Enchanted" (2004), "Corpse Bride" (2005), "The Wolf of Wall Street" (2013), and "" (2016).


title: Joanna Lumley

text: She had roles in two episodes of "Are You Being Served?" written by Jeremy Lloyd, whom she had married and divorced three years previously.


title: Joanna Lumley

text: Lumley is an advocate and human rights activist for Survival International and the Gurkha Justice Campaign. She supports charities and animal welfare groups, such as Compassion in World Farming and Vegetarians' International Voice for Animals. Lumley was made a Dame (DBE) in the 2022 New Year Honours for services to drama, entertainment and charity.


title: Joanna Lumley

text: Joanna Lamond Lumley was born on 1 May 1946 in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, in the last days of British India. Both sides of her family had generations of service to the Raj, with many relatives born there. She has an older sister, Aelene.


title: Joanna Lumley

text: Her mother, Thyra Beatrice Rose (née Weir; 1920–2005), was English. Her grandfather Lieutenant Colonel Leslie Weir (1883–1950) had been born in Ghazipur and served as an army officer in Kashmir; he was a close friend of the 13th Dalai Lama.


title: Joanna Lumley

text: Her father, Major James Rutherford Lumley (1917–1999), was born in Lahore (now part of Pakistan) with Scottish and English roots. He served as an officer in the British Indian Army's 6th Queen Elizabeth's Own Gurkha Rifles in Burma during World War II, most notably at the Battle of Mogaung. His life was saved by Tul Bahadur Pun.


title: Joanna Lumley

text: The family went "home" on leave to England, travelling on the HMT Empire Windrush. When her parents returned to Asia, she stayed, boarding at Mickledene School in Rolvenden, Kent. She was eight years old, which she later described as “paralysingly young". From 11 to 17 she attended St Mary's Convent School on the Ridge, run by Community of the Holy Family:


title: Joanna Lumley

text: She attended the Lucie Clayton Finishing School in London, after being turned down by the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at the age of 16.


title: Joanna Lumley

text: Lumley spent three years as a photographic model, notably for Brian Duffy, who photographed her with her son, born in 1967. That year she also appeared on the BBC2 programme "The Impresarios: For Appearance's Sake". She also worked as a house model for Jean Muir. Over forty years later, she participated in another photoshoot – again with her son – for Duffy as part of a retrospective of the photographer's work.


title: Joanna Lumley

text: Lumley appeared in an early episode of the "Bruce Forsyth Show" in 1966. She appeared in a British television advertisement for Nimble Bread first screened in 1969.


title: Joanna Lumley

text: Lumley did not receive any formal training at drama school. Her acting career began in 1969 with a small, uncredited role in the film "Some Girls Do", and as a Bond girl in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service", in which she had two lines as the English girl among the villainous Ernst Stavro Blofeld's "Angels of Death". Lumley went on to have a brief but memorable role as Elaine Perkins in "Coronation Street", in which her character turned down Ken Barlow's offer of marriage, as well as roles in other popular television series such as "Are You Being Served?", "Steptoe and Son" and "The Protectors". In 1973, she made another big screen appearance as Jessica Van Helsing in "The Satanic Rites of Dracula", the last Hammer Dracula film to star Christopher Lee. She also had a role in the comedy film "Don't Just Lie There, Say Something!" (1974) alongside Leslie Phillips and Joan Sims.


title: Joanna Lumley

text: She has worked with Tim Burton on two film projects, in "James and the Giant Peach" (1996) and "Corpse Bride" (2005). She has also appeared alongside Hugh Laurie in the British romantic comedy "Maybe Baby" (2000) and alongside Anne Hathaway in "Ella Enchanted" (2004). She has appeared twice as Mrs. Dolly Bantry in "Agatha Christie's Marple", in the episodes; 'The Body in the Library' (2004) & 'The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side' (2009). In 2010, she appeared in a 4-episode guest arc on the BBC drama, "Mistresses" as Vivienne Roden. In 2013, she appeared in the Martin Scorsese crime drama, "The Wolf of Wall Street".


title: Joanna Lumley

text: Lumley has specialised in upper-class parts throughout her career, thanks to her voice and accent. Lumley's first major role was as Purdey in "The New Avengers", successor to the secret agent series "The Avengers", a role she played in all twenty-six episodes from 1976 to 1977.


title: Joanna Lumley

text: In 1979, she appeared in another series which acquired a cult following: "Sapphire & Steel", with David McCallum. Conceived as ITV's answer to "Doctor Who", Lumley played a mysterious elemental being ("Sapphire") who, with her collaborator, "Steel", dealt with breaches in the fabric of time. In 1986, television producer Sydney Newman suggested Lumley for the role of the Doctor but his idea was dismissed. Over a decade later Lumley's career was boosted by her portrayal of the louche, selfish and frequently drunk fashion director Patsy Stone, companion to Jennifer Saunders' Edina Monsoon in the BBC comedy television series "Absolutely Fabulous" (1992–1996, 2001–2004, 2011–2012). "" was released in 2016. From 1994 to 1995, Lumley starred alongside Nadine Garner and John Bowe in the British television show "Class Act", playing the part of Kate Swift, an upper-class lady who had fallen on hard times.


title: Joanna Lumley

text: Other work has included: "Lovejoy" as widow Victoria Cavero, "In the Kingdom of the Thunder Dragon" (1996), a film about a journey made by her grandparents in Bhutan, and "A Rather English Marriage" (nominated for a BAFTA for Best Actress 1999) and "Dr Willoughby" (1999). In 1995, she provided the voice of Annie the rag doll in the animated series "The Forgotten Toys". In 1999, she also provided the voice for Sims the chicken in the BAFTA award-winning animated series "The Foxbusters". In 2000, she co-produced a new drama series "The Cazalets". She appeared in a TV series on Sarawak, where she spent time in her childhood.


title: Joanna Lumley

text: Lumley starred as the elderly Delilah Stagg in the 2006 sitcom "Jam & Jerusalem" with Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders, and Sue Johnston. In July 2007, she starred in the second series of the drama "Sensitive Skin" where she played the main character Davina Jackson. The BBC said this will be the final series of the dark comedy.


title: Joanna Lumley

text: She starred in David Hirson's "La Bête" – Comedy Theatre, London, 26 June – 28 August 2010 with David Hyde Pierce and Mark Rylance, directed by Matthew Warchus. She also starred in "La Bête" at the Music Box Theatre, Broadway, New York which opened on 14 October 2010. She was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play, for her performance.


title: Joanna Lumley

text: Lumley, who has one of the most recognised voices in the UK, has gained prominence as a voice-over artist. Users of AOL in the United Kingdom are familiar with Joanna Lumley's voice. She recorded the greetings "Welcome", "You have email" and "Goodbye" for that company.


title: Joanna Lumley

text: Lumley appeared on the last run of ITV's "Parkinson" as a guest, on 27 October 2007, discussing the subject of young girls in the UK. She was asked to write the introduction to a revised edition in November 2007 of the book called "The Magic Key to Charm" written by the pioneering female journalist Eileen Ascroft. This is a book of tips to women, first written by Ascroft in 1938 about how to be glamorous. "I thought it was absolutely enchanting, it's how young women were told how to behave in the old days and I think it might be just coming back for a bit of a revival", she explained in the interview."Because, I have to say I adore our young ones and I think we have got some of the prettiest and loveliest girls in the world but I think sometimes the behaviour gets a bit bad and I think the girls let themselves down. They are so pretty and so lovely but they should behave better, I think, then they will be more successful."


title: Joanna Lumley

text: In 1999 she appeared in the Comic Relief "Doctor Who" parody "The Curse of Fatal Death" as the final incarnation of the Doctor. She also appeared with Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French and Sienna Miller in the French and Saunders pastiche of "Mamma Mia" for "Comic Relief" 2009 in which she played the role of Tanya (named Patsy in the spoof).


title: Joanna Lumley

text: In 2004 Lumley appeared as the "Woman with the Sydney Opera House Head" in Dirk Maggs's long-awaited radio adaptation of the third book of the Douglas Adams series "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy".


title: Joanna Lumley

text: In 2005 she published her autobiography, "No Room for Secrets", which was serialised by "The Times", for which she was once a regular contributor.


title: Joanna Lumley

text: In September 2008, the BBC aired "Joanna Lumley in the Land of the Northern Lights", a documentary about her search to see the Northern Lights in northern Norway.


title: Joanna Lumley

text: In 2009 she portrayed a rock star, believed to have been dead for 35 years, and her twin, in the "Counter Culture Blues" episode of the British television mystery series "Lewis" (known in the U.S. as "Inspector Lewis").


title: Joanna Lumley

text: In 2011, Lumley appeared in "Uptown Downstairs Abbey", the Comic Relief parody of the critically acclaimed historical television dramas "Downton Abbey" and "Upstairs Downstairs". Playing herself and the character of Mrs. Danvers, she starred alongside others including Jennifer Saunders, Kim Cattrall, Victoria Wood, Harry Enfield, Patrick Barlow, Dale Winton, Olivia Colman and Tim Vine.


title: Joanna Lumley

text: In recent years, Lumley has worked extensively on ITV, and in 2010 Lumley was executive producer and presenter of "Joanna Lumley's Nile", where she journeyed up the River Nile from sea to source in Rwanda, for ITV. This was broadcast in four parts on ITV beginning on 12 April 2010, and repeated in June 2013.


title: Joanna Lumley

text: Lumley travelled again for ITV in 2011, this time visiting Greece for a four-part series titled "Joanna Lumley’s Greek Odyssey". The series aired on ITV beginning on 13 October. Once again, in 2012, Lumley travelled for ITV, now in search of Noah's Ark. The trip, which encompassed 3 continents and also involved an adventurous jaunt into Iran, aired in late 2012 as a single 90-minute documentary titled "Joanna Lumley’s Ark".


title: Joanna Lumley

text: In March 2014 she appeared in a BBC One hour-long documentary featuring American musician Will.i.am. The programme was called "Joanna Lumley Meets will.i.am". In December 2014, she presented "Bette Midler: One Night Only", a one-off ITV special.


title: Joanna Lumley

text: In 2015 she presented a three-part factual series for ITV called "Joanna Lumley's Trans-Siberian Adventure". The series saw Lumley travel 6400 miles from Hong Kong to Moscow, along the Trans-Siberian Railway.


title: Joanna Lumley

text: In September 2016, she presented "Joanna Lumley's Japan", a three-part documentary series for ITV and in July 2017, she presented "Joanna Lumley's India" for ITV.


title: Joanna Lumley

text: In 2018 she presented "Joanna Lumley's Silk Road Adventure", a four-part travelogue covering eight countries which were part of the ancient trade route.


title: Joanna Lumley

text: Lumley is also known for her support for Gurkhas, the exiled Tibetan people and government, the Khonds indigenous people of India and the Prospect Burma charity, which offers grants to Burmese students, for whom she broadcast a BBC Radio 4 charity appeal in 2001. Her father was a commanding officer of a troop of Gurkhas who fought in World War II.


title: Joanna Lumley

text: In 2008, Lumley became the public face of the Gurkha Justice Campaign, a campaign to provide all Nepalese origin Gurkha veterans who served in the British Army before 1997 the right to settle in Britain. Those serving following 1997 had already been granted permission, but the British Government had not extended the offer to all of the Gurkhas. On 20 November 2008, Lumley led a large all-party group including Gurkhas starting from Parliament Square to 10 Downing Street with a petition signed by 250,000 people.


title: Joanna Lumley

text: On 24 April 2009, she stated that she was "ashamed" of the UK administration's decision to affix five criteria to the Gurkhas' right to settle in the UK. With the support of both Opposition parties and Labour rebel MPs on 29 April 2009, a Liberal Democrat motion that all Gurkhas be offered an equal right of residence was passed, allowing Gurkhas who served before 1997 residence in the UK and access to housing, social security and healthcare. Following the Government defeat, the Minister for Immigration Phil Woolas stated that a further review would be completed by the middle of July.


title: Joanna Lumley

text: On 5 May 2009, Lumley said that she had received private assurances of support from "a senior member of the Royal Family", and attended a meeting with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown at 10 Downing Street the following day. Afterwards, she described the meeting as "extremely positive", and praised Mr Brown, saying, "I trust him. I rely on him. And I know that he has now taken this matter into his own hands and so today is a very good day."


title: Joanna Lumley

text: However, on the day following the meeting with Brown, five Gurkha veterans who had applied for residency in the United Kingdom received letters telling them that their appeals had been rejected – many saw this as a betrayal, despite the fact that for the letters to have been received the day after the meeting they might have been sent before it (and certainly following the 29 April Commons vote). Lumley confronted Phil Woolas at the BBC Westminster studios about the issue and, after her pursuing him around the studio, the pair held an impromptu press conference in which Woolas agreed to accept Gurkha Justice Campaign input in developing new guidelines by July while giving sympathetic treatment to Gurkhas not meeting the then current immigration guidelines before the development of new guidelines.


title: Joanna Lumley

text: Following a Commons Home Affairs Committee meeting in which talks were held between campaigners, the Ministry of Defence and the Home Office on 19 May, all Gurkha veterans who had served four years or more in the British Army before 1997 were given the right to settle in Britain.


title: Joanna Lumley

text: Lumley's success in campaigning prompted calls for her to stand as a Member of Parliament at the forthcoming general election. However, she has dismissed the suggestion. During an appearance on "Friday Night with Jonathan Ross" on 29 May, she reiterated that she had no desire to run for election to the House of Commons.


title: Joanna Lumley

text: In July 2009, Lumley went on a visit to Nepal. Upon her arrival at Tribhuvan International Airport, she was greeted by crowds of Gurkha supporters. Lumley said in a statement, "I feel so humbled by the fact I'm going to meet so many ex-Gurkhas and their families, and see where they are and how they live." While there, Lumley was hailed 'Daughter of Nepal' by the crowds of fans at the airport.


title: Joanna Lumley

text: Lumley has long been a supporter of Survival International and the cause of indigenous rights, and narrated Survival's documentary, "Mine: Story of a Sacred Mountain". The film tells the story of the remote Dongria Kondha tribe in India and their battle to stop a vast bauxite mine from destroying their land and way of life. In defence of the Dongria, she has said, "It greatly disturbs me that a British company will be responsible for the destruction of these wonderful people. I urge the public to support the Dongria, who simply want to be allowed to live in peace. Unlike so many of India's rural poor, the Dongria actually live very well in the Niyamgiri hills, and it's a terrible irony that what Vedanta is proposing to do in the name of 'development' will actually destroy this completely self-sufficient people." Lumley also contributed her writing for the book "We Are One: A Celebration of Tribal Peoples", released in October 2009 with profits going in support of Survival. A collection of photographs, statements from tribal people and essays from international authors, the book explores the richness of the cultures of indigenous peoples around the world and the risks to their existence. In her essay for the book, Lumley speaks of the Dongria way of life and the threats they face in the name of corporate interests, and calls for action to stop such decisions.


title: Joanna Lumley

text: Since 1984 Lumley has been a Patron of Born Free Foundation founded in the same year by the stars of the popular wildlife film Born Free, Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna. The Foundation (originally called Zoo Check), campaigns to 'keep wildlife in the wild'. She has fronted a number of the charity's campaigns, including the relocation of endangered giraffe in Kenya and, in 2020, narrating a short film entitled 'Protect Them, Protect Us', concerning the relentless exploitation and consumption of wildlife and the natural world, and its link with the COVID-19 pandemic. Following the death of Bill Travers in 1994, Lumley remains a close friend of McKenna and her eldest son, Will Travers, who is the charity's Executive President.


title: Joanna Lumley

text: In May 2016, Lumley became a patron of Population Matters, an organisation campaigning for the achievement of a sustainable global population size.


title: Joanna Lumley

text: Lumley has been a patron of the UK charity Tree Aid, since 1993. The organisation aims to enable communities in Africa's drylands to fight poverty and become self-reliant, while improving the environment.


title: Joanna Lumley

text: Lumley is also a patron of the Pastoral and Environmental Network in the Horn of Africa (PENHA). PENHA is an African inspired and led international nongovernmental organization (INGO) and research institute, founded in 1989 by a group of development practitioners concerned about the future of pastoralism in the Horn of Africa.


title: Joanna Lumley

text: Lumley is also a patron of the Peter Pan Moat Brae Trust. Moat Brae was the favourite place for author J.M. Barrie to play as a child and the house and gardens are said to have inspired Barrie to create Peter Pan. The trust is undertaking a £4 million fundraising project to renovate the Georgian house and gardens to operate as an educational and cultural centre for local schools and JM Barrie enthusiasts and scholars.


title: Joanna Lumley

text: Lumley is a patron of the UK environmental charity Earth Restoration Service. which supports environmental restoration programmes in UK schools, particularly by planting trees and wildflower meadows. In 2008, she spoke on behalf of the charity in the House of Lords to argue for a strong and more widespread environmental movement across the world, and in 2009 she provided the voice over for a short animated film produced by the charity.


title: Joanna Lumley

text: Lumley is patron of the UK charity Trust in Children which aims to help children from poor backgrounds to access education and opportunities for non-academic development.


title: Joanna Lumley

text: Lumley has a long association and interest in Nepal and its people that grew out of her father's service as an officer in 6th Gurkha Rifles. She agreed to become a Vice Patron of The Gurkha Welfare Trust in 2009.


title: Joanna Lumley

text: In 1996, the Lumley Research Fellowship was established at Green College, University of Oxford. Sponsored by Friends Provident financial group, it was for a young researcher on "major environmental or wildlife issues, with particular reference to Africa". The candidates were interviewed by Lumley.


title: Joanna Lumley

text: In February 2013, she was assessed as one of the 100 most powerful women in the United Kingdom by BBC Radio 4's "Woman's Hour".


title: Joanna Lumley

text: Lumley's son, James (known as Jamie), was born in 1967. His father is photographer Michael Claydon. She was briefly married to actor Jeremy Lloyd during 1970. She married the conductor Stephen Barlow in 1986; they live in London. They also own a house near the village of Penpont, Dumfriesshire, in Scotland.


title: Joanna Lumley

text: Lumley supports over 60 charities, and has been a vegetarian for 40 years. She has donated books to Book Aid International. She is patron of the Born Free Foundation and passionate about the Free Tibet campaign.


title: Joanna Lumley

text: From 2012 to 2016, Lumley supported the proposals for a pedestrian "Garden Bridge" across the Thames in London, in collaboration with the designer Thomas Heatherwick and former Mayor of London Boris Johnson. The proposals floundered after more than £40 million of public money had been spent.


title: Joanna Lumley

text: In May 2009 Lumley supported the Green Party during the 2009 European Elections campaign. For Lumley, the work of Green MEPs in the European Parliament in pursuing human rights and animal rights made the Green Party "the obvious choice" and urged UK voters "to cast a positive vote for a better future by voting Green in the European Elections." Lumley also appeared in literature to support changing the British electoral system from first-past-the-post to alternative vote for electing Members of Parliament to the House of Commons in the Alternative Vote referendum in 2011.


title: Joanna Lumley

text: In 2010, Lumley donated £1,000 to Caroline Lucas's campaign to become the first Green Party MP during the 2010 General Election campaign. She endorsed the parliamentary candidacy of Lucas at the 2015 general election.


title: Joanna Lumley

text: In August 2015, Lumley backed children's fairytales app "GivingTales" in aid of UNICEF together with other British celebrities including Roger Moore, Stephen Fry, Ewan McGregor, Joan Collins, Michael Caine, David Walliams, Charlotte Rampling, Paul McKenna and Michael Ball.


title: Joanna Lumley

text: In July 2021, Lumley joined an international line-up of actors in backing calls for the Great Barrier Reef to be placed on a list of world heritage sites currently in danger.


title: Joanna Lumley

text: Lumley was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1995 New Year Honours and Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2022 New Year Honours for services to drama, entertainment and charitable causes.


title: Joanna Lumley

text: Lumley is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (FRGS). She was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters (Hon. D.Litt.) by the University of Kent in July 1994. In 2002, she was awarded an honorary degree from Oxford Brookes University. In 2006, she was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters (Hon. D.Litt.) from the University of St. Andrews.


title: Joanna Lumley

text: In July 2008, she was awarded an honorary Doctor of the University (Hon DUniv) from Queen's University Belfast, and in March 2019, she and her husband were both awarded honorary doctorates from the University of Chester.


title: Amanita muscaria

text: Amanita muscaria, commonly known as the fly agaric or fly amanita, is a basidiomycete of the genus "Amanita". It is also a muscimol mushroom. Native throughout the temperate and boreal regions of the Northern Hemisphere, "Amanita muscaria" has been unintentionally introduced to many countries in the Southern Hemisphere, generally as a symbiont with pine and birch plantations, and is now a true cosmopolitan species. It associates with various deciduous and coniferous trees.


title: Amanita muscaria

text: Arguably the most iconic toadstool species, the fly agaric is a large white-gilled, white-spotted, usually red mushroom, and is one of the most recognizable and widely encountered in popular culture, including in video games—e.g., the extensive use of a recognizable "Amanita muscaria" in the Mario franchise and its Super Mushroom power-up—and television—e.g., the houses in The Smurfs franchise.


title: Amanita muscaria

text: Despite its easily distinguishable features, "Amanita muscaria" is a fungus with several known variations, or subspecies. These subspecies are slightly different, some having yellow or white caps, but they are all usually called fly agarics, and they are most of the time recognizable by their notable white spots. Recent DNA fungi research, however, has shown that some of these variations are not the same species at all, such as the peach-colored fly agaric ("Amanita persicina") for example, but the common name 'fly agaric' clings on.


title: Amanita muscaria

text: Although poisonous, death due to poisoning from "A. muscaria" ingestion is quite rare. Parboiling twice with water draining weakens its toxicity and breaks down the mushroom's psychoactive substances; it is eaten in parts of Europe, Asia, and North America. All "Amanita muscaria" varieties, but in particular "A. muscaria" var. "muscaria", are noted for their hallucinogenic properties, with the main psychoactive constituents being muscimol and its neurotoxic precursor ibotenic acid. A local variety of the mushroom was used as an intoxicant and entheogen by the indigenous peoples of Siberia and by the Sámi, and has a religious significance in these cultures. There has been much speculation on possible traditional use of this mushroom as an intoxicant in other places such as the Middle East, Eurasia, North America, and Scandinavia.


title: Amanita muscaria

text: The name of the mushroom in many European languages is thought to derive from its use as an insecticide when sprinkled in milk. This practice has been recorded from Germanic- and Slavic-speaking parts of Europe, as well as the Vosges region and pockets elsewhere in France, and Romania. Albertus Magnus was the first to record it in his work "De vegetabilibus" some time before 1256, commenting "vocatur fungus muscarum, eo quod in lacte pulverizatus interficit muscas", "it is called the fly mushroom because it is powdered in milk to kill flies."


title: Amanita muscaria

text: The 16th-century Flemish botanist Carolus Clusius traced the practice of sprinkling it into milk to Frankfurt in Germany, while Carl Linnaeus, the "father of taxonomy", reported it from Småland in southern Sweden, where he had lived as a child. He described it in volume two of his "Species Plantarum" in 1753, giving it the name "Agaricus muscarius", the specific epithet deriving from Latin "musca" meaning "fly". It gained its current name in 1783, when placed in the genus "Amanita" by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, a name sanctioned in 1821 by the "father of mycology", Swedish naturalist Elias Magnus Fries. The starting date for all the mycota had been set by general agreement as January 1, 1821, the date of Fries's work, and so the full name was then "Amanita muscaria" (L.:Fr.) Hook. The 1987 edition of the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature changed the rules on the starting date and primary work for names of fungi, and names can now be considered valid as far back as May 1, 1753, the date of publication of Linnaeus's work. Hence, Linnaeus and Lamarck are now taken as the namers of "Amanita muscaria" (L.) Lam..


title: Amanita muscaria

text: The English mycologist John Ramsbottom reported that "Amanita muscaria" was used for getting rid of bugs in England and Sweden, and "bug agaric" was an old alternative name for the species. French mycologist Pierre Bulliard reported having tried without success to replicate its fly-killing properties in his work "" (1784), and proposed a new binomial name "Agaricus pseudo-aurantiacus" because of this. One compound isolated from the fungus is 1,3-diolein (1,3-di(cis-9-octadecenoyl)glycerol), which attracts insects.


title: Amanita muscaria

text: It has been hypothesised that the flies intentionally seek out the fly agaric for its intoxicating properties.


title: Amanita muscaria

text: An alternative derivation proposes that the term "fly-" refers not to insects as such but rather the delirium resulting from consumption of the fungus. This is based on the medieval belief that flies could enter a person's head and cause mental illness. Several regional names appear to be linked with this connotation, meaning the "mad" or "fool's" version of the highly regarded edible mushroom "Amanita caesarea". Hence there is ' "mad oriol" in Catalan, "mujolo folo" from Toulouse, ' from the Aveyron department in Southern France, "" from Trentino in Italy. A local dialect name in Fribourg in Switzerland is "tsapi de diablhou", which translates as "Devil's hat".


title: Amanita muscaria

text: "Amanita muscaria" is the type species of the genus. By extension, it is also the type species of "Amanita" subgenus "Amanita", as well as section "Amanita" within this subgenus. "Amanita" subgenus "Amanita" includes all "Amanita" with inamyloid spores. "Amanita" section "Amanita" includes the species with patchy universal veil remnants, including a volva that is reduced to a series of concentric rings, and the veil remnants on the cap to a series of patches or warts. Most species in this group also have a bulbous base. "Amanita" section "Amanita" consists of "A. muscaria" and its close relatives, including "A. pantherina" (the panther cap), "A. gemmata", "A. farinosa", and "A. xanthocephala". Modern fungal taxonomists have classified "Amanita muscaria" and its allies this way based on gross morphology and spore inamyloidy. Two recent molecular phylogenetic studies have confirmed this classification as natural.


title: Amanita muscaria

text: "Amanita muscaria" varies considerably in its morphology, and many authorities recognize several subspecies or varieties within the species. In "The Agaricales in Modern Taxonomy", German mycologist Rolf Singer listed three subspecies, though without description: "A. muscaria" ssp. "muscaria", "A. muscaria" ssp. "americana", and "A. muscaria" ssp. "flavivolvata".


title: Amanita muscaria

text: However, a 2006 molecular phylogenetic study of different regional populations of "A. muscaria" by mycologist József Geml and colleagues found three distinct clades within this species representing, roughly, Eurasian, Eurasian "subalpine", and North American populations. Specimens belonging to all three clades have been found in Alaska; this has led to the hypothesis that this was the centre of diversification for this species. The study also looked at four named varieties of the species: var. "alba", var. "flavivolvata", var. "formosa" (including var. "guessowii"), and var. "regalis" from both areas. All four varieties were found within both the Eurasian and North American clades, evidence that these morphological forms are polymorphisms rather than distinct subspecies or varieties. Further molecular study by Geml and colleagues published in 2008 show that these three genetic groups, plus a fourth associated with oak–hickory–pine forest in the southeastern United States and two more on Santa Cruz Island in California, are delineated from each other enough genetically to be considered separate species. Thus "A. muscaria" as it stands currently is, evidently, a species complex. The complex also includes at least three other closely related taxa that are currently regarded as species: "A. breckonii" is a buff-capped mushroom associated with conifers from the Pacific Northwest, and the brown-capped "A. gioiosa" and "A. heterochroma" from the Mediterranean Basin and from Sardinia respectively. Both of these last two are found with "Eucalyptus" and "Cistus" trees, and it is unclear whether they are native or introduced from Australia.


title: Amanita muscaria

text: "Amanitaceae.org" lists four varieties , but says that they will be segregated into their own taxa "in the near future". They are:


title: Amanita muscaria

text: A large, conspicuous mushroom, "Amanita muscaria" is generally common and numerous where it grows, and is often found in groups with basidiocarps in all stages of development.


title: Amanita muscaria

text: Fly agaric fruiting bodies emerge from the soil looking like white eggs. After emerging from the ground, the cap is covered with numerous small white to yellow pyramid-shaped warts. These are remnants of the universal veil, a membrane that encloses the entire mushroom when it is still very young. Dissecting the mushroom at this stage reveals a characteristic yellowish layer of skin under the veil, which helps identification. As the fungus grows, the red colour appears through the broken veil and the warts become less prominent; they do not change in size, but are reduced relative to the expanding skin area. The cap changes from globose to hemispherical, and finally to plate-like and flat in mature specimens. Fully grown, the bright red cap is usually around in diameter, although larger specimens have been found. The red colour may fade after rain and in older mushrooms.


title: Amanita muscaria

text: The free gills are white, as is the spore print. The oval spores measure 9–13 by 6.5–9 μm; they do not turn blue with the application of iodine. The stipe is white, high by wide, and has the slightly brittle, fibrous texture typical of many large mushrooms. At the base is a bulb that bears universal veil remnants in the form of two to four distinct rings or ruffs. Between the basal universal veil remnants and gills are remnants of the partial veil (which covers the gills during development) in the form of a white ring. It can be quite wide and flaccid with age. There is generally no associated smell other than a mild earthiness.


title: Amanita muscaria

text: Although very distinctive in appearance, the fly agaric has been mistaken for other yellow to red mushroom species in the Americas, such as "Armillaria" cf. "mellea" and the edible "Amanita basii"—a Mexican species similar to "A. caesarea" of Europe. Poison control centres in the U.S. and Canada have become aware that (Spanish for 'yellow') is a common name for the "A. caesarea"-like species in Mexico. "Amanita caesarea" is distinguished by its entirely orange to red cap, which lacks the numerous white warty spots of the fly agaric. Furthermore, the stem, gills and ring of "A. caesarea" are bright yellow, not white. The volva is a distinct white bag, not broken into scales. In Australia, the introduced fly agaric may be confused with the native vermilion grisette ("Amanita xanthocephala"), which grows in association with eucalypts. The latter species generally lacks the white warts of "A. muscaria" and bears no ring.


title: Amanita muscaria

text: "Amanita muscaria" is a cosmopolitan mushroom, native to conifer and deciduous woodlands throughout the temperate and boreal regions of the Northern Hemisphere, including higher elevations of warmer latitudes in regions such as Hindu Kush, the Mediterranean and also Central America. A recent molecular study proposes that it had an ancestral origin in the Siberian–Beringian region in the Tertiary period, before radiating outwards across Asia, Europe and North America. The season for fruiting varies in different climates: fruiting occurs in summer and autumn across most of North America, but later in autumn and early winter on the Pacific coast. This species is often found in similar locations to "Boletus edulis", and may appear in fairy rings. Conveyed with pine seedlings, it has been widely transported into the southern hemisphere, including Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and South America, where it can be found in the southern Brazilian states of Paraná and Rio Grande do Sul.


title: Amanita muscaria

text: Ectomycorrhizal, "Amanita muscaria" forms symbiotic relationships with many trees, including pine, oak, spruce, fir, birch, and cedar. Commonly seen under introduced trees, "A. muscaria" is the fungal equivalent of a weed in New Zealand, Tasmania and Victoria, forming new associations with southern beech ("Nothofagus"). The species is also invading a rainforest in Australia, where it may be displacing the native species. It appears to be spreading northwards, with recent reports placing it near Port Macquarie on the New South Wales north coast. It was recorded under silver birch ("Betula pendula") in Manjimup, Western Australia in 2010. Although it has apparently not spread to eucalypts in Australia, it has been recorded associating with them in Portugal. Commonly found throughout the great Southern region of western Australia, it is regularly found growing on Pinus radiata.


title: Amanita muscaria

text: "Amanita muscaria" poisoning has occurred in young children and in people who ingested the mushrooms for a hallucinogenic experience. Occasionally it has been ingested in error, because immature button forms resemble puffballs. The white spots sometimes wash away during heavy rain and the mushrooms then may appear to be the edible "A. caesarea".


title: Amanita muscaria

text: "Amanita muscaria" contains several biologically active agents, at least one of which, muscimol, is known to be psychoactive. Ibotenic acid, a neurotoxin, serves as a prodrug to muscimol, with a small amount likely converting to muscimol after ingestion. An active dose in adults is approximately 6 mg muscimol or 30 to 60 mg ibotenic acid; this is typically about the amount found in one cap of "Amanita muscaria". The amount and ratio of chemical compounds per mushroom varies widely from region to region and season to season, which can further confuse the issue. Spring and summer mushrooms have been reported to contain up to 10 times more ibotenic acid and muscimol than autumn fruitings.


title: Amanita muscaria

text: Deaths from this fungus "A. muscaria" have been reported in historical journal articles and newspaper reports, but with modern medical treatment, fatal poisoning from ingesting this mushroom is extremely rare. Many books list "Amanita muscaria" as deadly, but according to David Arora, this is an error that implies the mushroom is far more toxic than it is. Furthermore, The North American Mycological Association has stated that there were "no reliably documented cases of death from toxins in these mushrooms in the past 100 years".


title: Amanita muscaria

text: The active constituents of this species are water-soluble, and boiling and then discarding the cooking water at least partly detoxifies "A. muscaria". Drying may increase potency, as the process facilitates the conversion of ibotenic acid to the more potent muscimol. According to some sources, once detoxified, the mushroom becomes edible. Dr Patrick Harding describes the Sami custom of processing the fly agaric through reindeer.


title: Amanita muscaria

text: Muscarine, discovered in 1869, was long thought to be the active hallucinogenic agent in "A. muscaria". Muscarine binds with muscarinic acetylcholine receptors leading to the excitation of neurons bearing these receptors. The levels of muscarine in "Amanita muscaria" are minute when compared with other poisonous fungi such as "Inosperma erubescens", the small white "Clitocybe" species "C. dealbata" and "C. rivulosa". The level of muscarine in "A. muscaria" is too low to play a role in the symptoms of poisoning.


title: Amanita muscaria

text: The major toxins involved in "A. muscaria" poisoning are muscimol (3-hydroxy-5-aminomethyl-1-isoxazole, an unsaturated cyclic hydroxamic acid) and the related amino acid ibotenic acid. Muscimol is the product of the decarboxylation (usually by drying) of ibotenic acid. Muscimol and ibotenic acid were discovered in the mid-20th century. Researchers in England, Japan, and Switzerland showed that the effects produced were due mainly to ibotenic acid and muscimol, not muscarine. These toxins are not distributed uniformly in the mushroom. Most are detected in the cap of the fruit, a moderate amount in the base, with the smallest amount in the stalk. Quite rapidly, between 20 and 90 minutes after ingestion, a substantial fraction of ibotenic acid is excreted unmetabolised in the urine of the consumer. Almost no muscimol is excreted when pure ibotenic acid is eaten, but muscimol is detectable in the urine after eating "A. muscaria", which contains both ibotenic acid and muscimol.


title: Amanita muscaria

text: Ibotenic acid and muscimol are structurally related to each other and to two major neurotransmitters of the central nervous system: glutamic acid and GABA respectively. Ibotenic acid and muscimol act like these neurotransmitters, muscimol being a potent GABA agonist, while ibotenic acid is an agonist of NMDA glutamate receptors and certain metabotropic glutamate receptors which are involved in the control of neuronal activity. It is these interactions which are thought to cause the psychoactive effects found in intoxication.


title: Amanita muscaria

text: Muscazone is another compound that has more recently been isolated from European specimens of the fly agaric. It is a product of the breakdown of ibotenic acid by ultra-violet radiation. Muscazone is of minor pharmacological activity compared with the other agents. "Amanita muscaria" and related species are known as effective bioaccumulators of vanadium; some species concentrate vanadium to levels of up to 400 times those typically found in plants. Vanadium is present in fruit-bodies as an organometallic compound called amavadine. The biological importance of the accumulation process is unknown.


title: Amanita muscaria

text: Fly agarics are best known for the unpredictability of their effects. Depending on habitat and the amount ingested per body weight, effects can range from mild nausea and twitching to drowsiness, cholinergic crisis-like effects (low blood pressure, sweating and salivation), auditory and visual distortions, mood changes, euphoria, relaxation, ataxia, and loss of equilibrium (like with tetanus.)