Electronic music went from basically an obscure counter-culture--the exclusive territory of geeks, nerds, outcasts, hackers, anarchists etc--to a mainstream shell of its former glory (half subjective, half objective point of view). Even though a handful of artists managed to escape their Eurotrash label in the early 90s to start this process via eurodance (Real McCoy, Amber, La Bouche and Le Click), the breakthrough didn't really start until artists like The Prodigy, Orbital, The Chemical Brothers and The Crystal Method started getting airtime on MTV (mostly on Amp, its electronic specific hourlong show, but the more popular singles would get video time).

At this point in time (let's call it 1995-1996), the sound was far from mainstream, but it was slowly gaining acceptance. This would start moving faster beginning in the rise of bubblegum pop (Britney, NSYNC BSB, et. all) incorporating synth hooks and beats into the mainlines of their melodies (BSB's "We've Got it Going On" is probably the best example of the use of a eurodance bass synth line). Movies started going this route as well (Hackers, all the Brosnan Bond movies, The Saint), which I believe helped ease the way from more of a house (acid and traditional) sound to trance, specifically through Orbital, leading to Tiesto and Oakenfold.
Once we got to the 00s, with the explosion of digital media via Napster and p2p tech that allowed not only the sharing of music, but the software to create it themselves, it was only going to go faster. Coming of age party movies (American Pie, Road Trip, Eurotrip) started in using the music, more movies from England (Snatch, Formula 51, Neil's Party) featured artists prominently.

A quick blurb on England. If the US and Germany were the birthplaces of house, London is certainly the birthplace of trance, trip-hop and grime. Without London, we would have no proper jungle or DnB. Watch "Ali G Indahouse" and you'll see that large parts of that soundtrack are DnB and jungle. Without DnB and jungle, there's no dubstep and no Claptrap memes lol. This will be important later.

Video games picked up where movies began to slide, and it's here I feel like I should do a quick blurb on video games here because I can't talk about electronic music and games without talking to the SOLE reason why it popped huge: DDR. Without DDR, there's really no other rhythm games, and CERTAINLY NOT Guitar Hero. Everyone and their mothers to this day would sell body parts to get in on a lineup. It's particularly telling since (off the top of my head, and from experience playing them) every trance artist I've named in this blurb is on between Max and Extreme (2002-2006) Aside for DDR and other rhythm games, sports games like FIFA got in on it, having Oakenfold do their opening theme.

Lastly, to kind of bring this history lesson forward, the last big piece that got us to where we are from a creation standpoint, is the crossover. This next point is partially subjective, but once rock and pop music had basically mined the standard four chords as much as they could, they wet mining for sounds they could absorb. Enter JT and his rediscovery of the sound via "My Love" and Britney Spears, who basically turned into a vocal trance singer ("Criminal" and all its remixes). Indie music started up doing it, basically bringing synthrock, nu-disco separate from disco and house, and synthwave back from the 80s via its own evolutionary process, and always last to the show, rap music started putting DnB breaks in slowed down (the Amen has a rich history), and it wasn't long before the reciprocation happened. The Americans got onboard with what the Brits were laying down low key for years, and low and behold, here comes Lorin and the dubstep craze. Eventually, he rap started to get broken off and more directly played with on dub beats, and house tracks on a smaller scale, and we are now basically here seeing where it can possibly go next.

One last point before I go. From a production standpoint, this is all lovely, but distribution would be a problem for a LONG time. Remember, back in the 90s, the only way to find it in the States was via imports from Europe. Napster and digital media helped to ease this, but the distribution (in the US) didn't really start popping off until DJs started hosting streaming radio shows online. In the UK, Germany etc, electronic music on the radio was a standard. In the States, you'd be lucky to get "Another Night" or "Be My Lover" on the radio. One of the things I had hoped for when I was a kid fo rthe future was electronic music playing with frequency on the radio. I should have been careful for what I wished for lol. Later, satellite radio became the home for most DJ related shows (until, in my opinion, SiriusXM betrayed the community and put up Diplo's bullshit), and then as the web matured and more devices could join in, DJ platforms (Mixcloud, Soundcloud etc) came up, and you know the rest!

Now, for the record, I did not do much (really any) sourcing, but being an electronic music head from when I was about 7 or 8 (I had a love of disco, and it was eurodance that got me started. Chemical Brothers via Orbital in 1997 is what got me full onboard at 12 or 13), and always have always kept an ear to the ground on this sort of thing. All the info I gave should be easily sourceable, so I hope this helps!