Let the Bass Kick

When one tries to define electronic music, it is easy to go with generalities (it's music composed with artificial instruments), landscape descriptions (unce unce unce), or artist associations (you know, like that Tiesto guy).

The Deconstructionist in me wants to analyze the elements of electronic music. Hi-hat. Hand clap. Snare drum. Bassline. Synth pad? Filters? Build-ups and Break-downs? What is required of electronic music so that someone listening to it says, "Yea. This is Electronic Music?"

The styles span many different moods and, consequently, different aural landscapes composed of various instruments. You have jungle: the fetishization of the Amen Break; or filtered house: a rehash of 70s and 80s disco and hi-nrg; or downtempo: music that if you were high enough you'd actually stay awake to it. In the grand Venn-Diagram of music, what common elements are even present? What can we even say is ubiquitous in all of electronic music?

I thought it'd be the kick drum. Like civilization is the fence to structure society, the kick drum is the skeleton of rhythm; it is the silhouette that allows you to differentiate whether you're looking at the shadow of a cat or a rapist. Even the two genres of breakbeat and electro-house are differentiated merely by the structure of the kicks.

The kick drum is the soul of electronic music.

However, through my mental self-diarrhea, I stumbled upon this little bugger:

No kick. No bass. Nothing. No rhythm? Hardly. No soul? I still like it. My whole world has been turned inside-out.

Thoughts?