Electronica is primarly a term created by rock music journalists to describe a wide range of electronic and electronic influenced music. The origins of the term are murky, although it appears to have been coined by British music paper Melody Maker in the mid-1990s, originally to describe the electronic rock band Republica. The term subsequently gained a life of its own, and became popular in the United States as a means of referring to the then-novel mainstream success of post-rave global electronic dance music. Prior to the adoption of "electronica" as a blanket term for more experimental dance music, terms such as electronic listening music, braindance and intelligent dance music (IDM) were common.
The term is generally disliked by producers and fans of the music alike, it is seen as originating outside the culture that created the music and as being an overly broad term lacking focus and differentiation.
