La deux ex machina?

Does electronic music have soul? Are there the tears of a thousand broken hearts and a thousand great loves in every note? Is it possible for the musician equivalent of the kid in science class that everybody cheated off and made fun of at the same time - becoming the star quarterback.... To be able to evoke empathetically emotion?

A few modern poet's thoughts:
"All this machinery making modern music can still be open hearted..... Its really just a question of your honesty. Yeah! Your honesty"
-Geddy Lee, lead singer of seminal 1970s (that's right way back then even) rock group Rush.

"Do we listen to pop music because we are said? Or are we sad because we listen to pop music?"
-Rob Gordon (from the Nick Hornby book: High Fidelity)

I am sure there are more but with all my (no) research I am at a loss right now.

Let us look at electronica musically then. To draw a parallel between two styles of music is the clearest way to begin understanding it. So as an example we will start with country. This is a style of music with roots in blue grass and traditional negro spirituals. However when Woody Guthrie began singing about social change he made a permanent turn in country music. Now I wouldn't go so far as to say country music as a whole is the most socially conscious music out there but he definitely started a movement which carried over into less mainstream formats that still list him as a direct influence ( I would suggest Rage Against the Machine and System of a Down as two primary examples)
So what is the almighty doppelganger for a musical format which lists disco among its closest lineage? The answer might surprise you.

Classical Music.

In fact electronica has far more in common musically with classical than any Jazz or A Night at the Boston Pops. For example:
Electronica is clearly delineated into movements.
In no other current form is a variation on a single theme more pleasing or acceptable then in elecrtronica (except pop music as a whole, but that's for another day)
The musical styles of diatonic scales, appregiation, thematic crescendos and deicrescendos, percussion as a tonal element (and not just a ryhthmic one), strings and brass/woodwinds instrumentation carrying melodic and harmonic elements all point to a close relationship.
In fact, the delivery of electronica in its preferred (high-end) delivery formats, and its presentation in clubs on a regular basis are both indicative of its roots. Classical music in its earlier days was delivered to the masses by the closest musical group available. In other words, how many people have heard of mozart and beethoven or heard a piece of their music? Yet how many people have heard them live???? The same goes for electronica. You may never "hear" a really good electronic artist live because his performance is rooted in the studio. He arranges, composes and assembles (a la the great composers) but his is not a job for the live audience. That is best left the DJs (orchestras/conductors).

I bring this up because in my industry it is trendy to ask who likes what type of music and even more trendy to be as off beat or different or intellectual as possible. Ironically however, by the very act of listening to and identifying with a particular musical genre you are already (not my point to prove, this is well documented) far more "intelligent" then the guy next to you watching infomercials on the plane. Even if you prefer ghetto gangsta rap or ultra hill billy country, if you can and have identified the roots and influences of your favorites and can defend why you think they are viable music, then you have won a free ride to the next level consciousness. Congrats, and come find me when get here. The first round's on me (on the jukebox, of course).

(From 26000 feet, with a few bumps)
-c