6. Pendulum
Pendulum have to be on this list, simply because they perfected the awful watering-down of dance music with rock sounds that The Prodigy started. The moment that The Prodigy moved away from their exceptional early 90s hardcore and jungle tracks (Charly still absolutely bangs) and began to turn themselves into marketable rock stars was the same moment that EDM became a mainstream commodity. Pendulum are the epitome of that shift. Referring to themselves as a "drum and bass" band (thus unbelievably comparing themselves to geniuses like Roni Size, Rufige Kru, Remarc et al), Pendulum effectively create dance music for rock fans that don't want to admit to liking dance music. By throwing in live guitars and bass, suddenly this music requires "talent". Effectively, these are club sounds for those that regard DJs as talentless. That would be all well and good if Pendulum were creating weird electronic dance rock along the lines of, say, Liars or Battles. But they aren't. What they generate is a watered-down version of "drum and bass" (whatever you want to call it, it certainly isn't drum and bass...) with a bit of guitar distortion thrown in. It was thought that they were done when they "disbanded" in 2012, but sadly that was a temporary arrangement.