Electronica

A word used by the media to describe the revival of electronic music in popularity in the mid to late 1990's. Specifically, it referred to electronic music with a sound influenced by rock (with live drums instead of electronically produced percussion) and a little bit of hip-hop (mainly breaks/samples). This style, while called electronica by the mass media, became known as Big Beat (which I will use to describe "electronica" from now on in the definition) by many others, and it included subgenres such as Chemical Breaks and Funky Breaks, too. Big Beat eventually fell out of fashion, mainly its focus on breaks made it unoriginal; there were only a few dozen breaks that producers used, so it became repetitive. However, some of the people making big beat back during it's heyday are still producing this type of music, most notably The Chemical Brothers, who won the Grammy award for best electronic/dance album in 2006 (for the album "Push The Button").