Rave Culture

[Deleted User] · 21/04/15 - 16:46

I'm creating a podcast for my university course on 'rave culture' and rave music today.

I need opinions on a few questions and was wondering what you think!

Do you think 'rave' and EDM music has gone mainstream and if so why? Do you like all of this electronic and house music? What do you think about the drug taking situation at clubs and raves etc?

What are the positives of all of this? And lastly, what do you think the future holds for rave culture?

If you love it or even hate 'rave'/EDM let me know! It'd be great to hear from you,

Thanks a bunch!

mushymanrob · 21/04/15 - 17:22

is there a rave culture atm?...

to me rave culture referes to the underground do-it-yourself raves that were put on in the late 80's/early 90's.

there is a dance culture, but thats not the same as rave...

thewaywardbus · 21/04/15 - 17:27

Not really sure chart friendly EDM can even be classed as rave.

Especially as everyone from Lady Gaga to Rhianna seems to be said to be making these tracks.

TBH I was in my late teens in the 90's so probably at the correct age.

However I couldn't stand the music and didn't do drugs so it completely passed me by!

Paul_P · 21/04/15 - 17:32

mushymanrob wrote: »

is there a rave culture atm?...

to me rave culture referes to the underground do-it-yourself raves that were put on in the late 80's/early 90's.

there is a dance culture, but thats not the same as rave...

Exactly.

I was a very young raver and I'm 40 now, the stuff the kids dance to now is just chart fodder. it's like Boyzone with bleeps.

thewaywardbus · 21/04/15 - 17:53

Paul_P wrote: »

Exactly.

I was a very young raver and I'm 40 now, the stuff the kids dance to now is just chart fodder. it's like Boyzone with bleeps.

If you ask me Boyzone were always a bunch of bleeps.....

Billy Hicks · 21/04/15 - 18:08

The words 'rave' and 'EDM' together sit really uncomfortably with me for reasons already mentioned above.

Rave is a genre I associate almost exclusively with the dominant sound of dance music in 1991-1992, but even then you've got varying degrees of commercial appeal in that - you've got Acen's 'Trip II The Moon' on one end and Rozalla's 'Everybody's Free' on another, two completely different-sounding songs often labelled as the same genre. And then somewhere in the middle you've got acts like Altern-8 and The Prodigy, who made some fairly heavy and leftfield sounding songs for the time but accessible enough to cross over into high mainstream chart positions and sales. This era of music definitely crossed over to mainstream appeal in the second-half of 1991, and was a major chart force until the end of 1992 when Eurodance and other genres began to take over. It eventually split into happy hardcore and jungle/drum & bass as the decade continued.

EDM is a bit of a silly term, thought up in the late noughties to convince the American recording industry to adopt a new sound, as simply calling it "dance music" (which it is, Electronic Dance Music) conjures up negative stereotypes in that country of either cheesy disco or 90s Europop. It's what's brought a lot of urban/R&B US stars to collaborate with European DJs and producers, therefore ensuring dominance around the world in a way that seemed impossible to imagine even a decade ago when the continents were somewhat more split in musical tastes. What it's had the negative effect of doing is merging three genres together (pop, urban/R&B and dance) that were previously much easier to define, leading to the common complaint that absolutely everything sounds the same as everything's all been fused together in one, big, world-conquering sound.

What makes it all complicated is that you can classify both 'Out of Space' by The Prodigy and 'We Found Love' by Rihanna as exactly the same genre when they couldn't be any more different, and personally there's a huge difference in quality between the two!

mushymanrob · 21/04/15 - 21:48

Billy Hicks wrote: »

The words 'rave' and 'EDM' together sit really uncomfortably with me for reasons already mentioned above.

Rave is a genre I associate almost exclusively with the dominant sound of dance music in 1991-1992, but even then you've got varying degrees of commercial appeal in that - you've got Acen's 'Trip II The Moon' on one end and Rozalla's 'Everybody's Free' on another, two completely different-sounding songs often labelled as the same genre. And then somewhere in the middle you've got acts like Altern-8 and The Prodigy, who made some fairly heavy and leftfield sounding songs for the time but accessible enough to cross over into high mainstream chart positions and sales. This era of music definitely crossed over to mainstream appeal in the second-half of 1991, and was a major chart force until the end of 1992 when Eurodance and other genres began to take over. It eventually split into happy hardcore and jungle/drum & bass as the decade continued.

EDM is a bit of a silly term, thought up in the late noughties to convince the American recording industry to adopt a new sound, as simply calling it "dance music" (which it is, Electronic Dance Music) conjures up negative stereotypes in that country of either cheesy disco or 90s Europop. It's what's brought a lot of urban/R&B US stars to collaborate with European DJs and producers, therefore ensuring dominance around the world in a way that seemed impossible to imagine even a decade ago when the continents were somewhat more split in musical tastes. What it's had the negative effect of doing is merging three genres together (pop, urban/R&B and dance) that were previously much easier to define, leading to the common complaint that absolutely everything sounds the same as everything's all been fused together in one, big, world-conquering sound.

What makes it all complicated is that you can classify both 'Out of Space' by The Prodigy and 'We Found Love' by Rihanna as exactly the same genre when they couldn't be any more different, and personally there's a huge difference in quality between the two!

Well said sir, agreed 100%

[Deleted User] · 21/04/15 - 21:57

Thanks a bunch guys, really appreciate it!

Tal'shiar · 23/04/15 - 19:52

Rave was more Acid House than EDM, which as the other poster nicely pointed out, was just a catch all gimmick name that actually means nothing.

Acid is still alive today, but its very niche and mostly a throwback "to the good old days". Plus it diverted into new genres and styles. So acid rave is sort of dead, but it lives on in the sounds it helped influence.

hotguy25 · 23/04/15 - 21:50

what is rave?
Acid? Hardcore? Jungle /d&b? Techno? Chill out? Happy hardcore? Jungle techno?
These are genres I associate with raves.

hotguy25 · 23/04/15 - 21:53

Rave was more a youth culture. EDM is just a type of music (marketed at americans).

There are some cracking documentaries on youtube about rave.

SpaceToilets · 25/04/15 - 11:37

Rave culture is reference to the parties during the late 80s/early 90s surely. EDM is just the garish dance stuff that got big in America, got rebranded by the US media and vomited back out in the charts. Underground dance music is still alive and always will be, you only have to visit the likes of Resident Advisor or Boiler Room to see evidence of that.

Hey there!

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