Big news! There's an album called 50 Shades of Dubstep. It's got, you guessed it, 50 songs of goddamn dubstep. Amazon says it came out in August, but it just arrived in our mailbox this month. And so, we did what any logical person would do: We listened to all four hours of it.

Except, that wasn't X-treme enough for us. We got to thinking about the erotic novel that "inspired" the album, Fifty Shades of Grey, and wondered if the two might be related somehow. You know, like what happens when you listen to Dark Side of the Moon and watch The Wizard of Oz at the same time. Surely the bass and somebody's panties will drop simultaneously, right?

So, we did it. We read the book while listening to the album's three discs. Fuck our life!

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DJ Muggs at 44 still rocks his skull cap and looks not unlike the 20-something hip-hop head who first appeared in Cypress Hill's video for "How I Could Just Kill a Man." He sits at a laptop in his Burbank studio, playing a track he recently produced featuring a pair of hit Queens rappers, Action Bronson and Meyhem Lauren. It features one of the famed producer's trademark dark, gritty, neck-snapping beats. "I made that in, like, 10 minutes," he says, adding that his critically acclaimed 2010 album with Ill Bill, Kill Devil Hills, was entirely crafted in three weeks.

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Star Foreman

Wax and wane

Every EDM DJ worth his wobbles is throwing a massive party on Friday, aka the winter solstice, aka the end of the world. The ambitious ones are doing it near Mayan ruins on Mexico's Yucatan peninsula. The even more ambitious ones are venturing to the Great Pyramid of Giza, which is where the Do Lab is setting up shop on 12/21.

See also: *Things to do in Mexico when the world's ending
*The Do Lab Built a Massive SoCal EDM Community. Next Stop: Egypt

But for the really, really ambitious ones that's all a bunch of bullshit. Skrillex, for example, contemplated having his on the moon.

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Jena Ardell

Pick your poison

Dance music is all the rage these days. That time you thought giant robots were battling at your recent family reunion? Nope, that was just your 12-year-old niece listening to dubstep.

See also: *Moon Rocks: The Best High on Earth
*What the Hell Is Trap Music (and Why Is Dubstep Involved)?

But not all electronic dance music was created equal. There's EDM, which, you aging out-of-touch rockist, stands for electronic dance music. Nowadays often associated with giant clubs and festivals full of pacifier-toting ravers who wear electrical tape on their boobs, it's not always the most contemplative or adventurous music. That's more the domain of L.A.'s beat scene, which happens in smaller clubs before folks who wouldn't want you to call them hipsters.

Confused? Peep our illustrated guide, below.

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Baauer

You may have heard the term "trap music." You may even realize that what people are calling "trap music" today (which sounds a whole lot like dubstep) is not necessarily what people were calling "trap music" a few years ago.

See also: Flying Lotus' Nocturnal Visions: Once believing himself destined to fail, the DJ-producer returns triumphant on his new album

So, what the hell is trap music?

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Photo by Roselle Chen

Ciara Mimms, left

See also:
Top 20 Worst Bands of All Time
Ask a Teen Raver
Top Ten Awkward EDC Dance Move GIFs
World's Douchiest DJs: The Top Five

Ciara Mimms is perhaps the L.A. area's most devoted raver, in an area crammed with them.

The 18-year-old high school senior lives in San Bernardino County, but spends her free time in the city at clubs like The Avalon and The Music Box. She takes her EDM seriously, and making costumes for the parties she attends is like a part-time job.

After we featured a picture of her styling at Hard Summer (right) in our post about how snow was possible for Beyond Wonderland last weekend, Mimms herself responded in the comments section.

"wowww :) I look good in that picture <3 so does my besfriend!" she wrote, referring to her longtime homie on the right, Kerah Rose, who is 19.

Seeing as she reads West Coast Sound, we couldn't resist asking Mimms what her parents think of her outfits, how she stays warm wearing only electrical tape, and other pressing questions.

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See also:
*Our Beyond Wonderland slideshow
*Beyond Wonderland Rave Could Get Snow This Weekend. No, Really.
*Dave Grohl: His Grammys Speech About Electronic Music Was Bullshit

This weekend, L.A.-based DJ Fei-Fei Wang performed at Armin Van Buuren's trance party at the Beyond Wonderland rave. Within hours of her set, her Facebook wall was plastered with personal attacks. People were calling her a "dirty whore" and saying things like "Someone take a shotgun to Fei-Fei." Why? The DJ, dubbed the "bad girl of EDM," had played dubstep and other music that wasn't trance during her set.

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