Since around the mid-1980s, electronic dance music has enjoyed popularity in many nightclubs, and, as of 2006, is the predominant type of music played in discothèques as well as the rave scene.

As such, the related term club music, while broadly referring to whatever music genres are currently in vogue and associated with nightclubs, has, for some, become synonymous with all electronic dance music, or just those genres — or some subset thereof — that are typically played at mainstream discothèques.

It is sometimes used more broadly to encompass non-electronic music played at such venues, or electronic music that is not normally played at clubs but that shares attributes with music that is.