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Rave culture is an umbrella term that encompasses the cultural components of raves and electronic dance music (EDM) festivals that contribute to identity creation on both an individual and collective level. These cultural components include:
- A collective ethos, or set of attitudes and beliefs
- A grassroots organization style
- Quantitively large crowds
- Specialized identity markers such as clothing, makeup, and props
- Deviant or alternative behavioral norms[1]
History
[edit]Rave culture first came to light in the 1980s during the Reagan and Thatcher eras in the U.S. and the United Kingdom respectively.[2] The conservative and repressive political and social climates were in stark contrast to the antiestablishment dance parties. Rebellious youth and young adults found a new home within the rave community.[3] The movement continued to gain popularity during the 1990s despite more intensive drug-related policies emerging in both the United States and the U.K.[4] As raving and electronic dance music entered the limelight socially, they also began to emerge as economic opportunities, and the commercialization of rave culture would lead to significant changes as raving entered the 21st century.[5][6]
Commercialization of Raving
[edit]The commercialization of rave and EDM culture was largely a result of their increase in popularity. Calls to bring an end to the counter-cultural all night parties (such as this one from a local Fox News television broadcast) elevated the position of raves within the public eye. Coupled with technological advancements that allowed for increased electronic music production and sharing of that music, this increased popularity made raves and EDM a goldmine for commercial success.[7] Raves went from illegal parties held in abandoned warehouses to being a prominent feature within the club scene.[1] Rave promoters began partnering with the owners of nightclubs, allowing for thousands of people to attend events. As electronic music continued to progress and more artists came onto the scene, entire festivals featuring EDM began to take place. What were once underground parties became massive festivals, marketed to a wide audience, spanning multiple days, featuring hundreds of artists, and hosting hundreds of thousands of attendees.[8][9]
Changes Within Rave Culture
[edit]The commercialization of rave and EDM culture has also produced significant changes within the rave community. The grassroots organizational style that was such a prominent part of early raves went largely by the wayside as the ties between promoters and club owners became stronger. Raves began to be promoted as commercial events rather than underground parties and entire promotion companies such as Insomniac Events were formed.[1] Furthermore, as raves moved from unregulated events to more professional ones held in established nightclubs, the youngest ravers were cut out due to the clubs' age requirement (generally set at 21 years of age).
Rave DJs also experienced transformations due to the commercialization of rave and EDM culture. In the earliest years of rave culture, DJs were generally small artists, almost unrecognizable to the public, but as electronic music grew and developed, DJing became more and more of an artform.[10][11] What could be called "superstar DJs" emerged with the rise in popularity of EDM and raving. DJs and music producers such as Daft Punk, David Guetta, Martin Garrix, and Skrillex would become household names as their songs began to sit atop Top 100 charts across the globe.[12] DJ Mag's annual list of the top 100 DJs provides an outline of the biggest superstar artists in current rave and EDM culture.
Rave Culture in Academia
[edit]Academic endeavors into rave culture have mainly featured a sociological perspective/foundation and have produced two predominant methods for analyzing the rave scene:
- Culture as a product of industry
- Industry as a product of culture[1]
Taking rave culture as a product of industrial and commercial interest falls in line with Adorno's sociological theories. Economic forces essentially define and shape the music scene as artists and the organizations that come to represent them conform to capitalistic principles- artists make music that will make them the most money.[13] From the other perspective, taking industry as a product of culture emphasizes how the growth of rave culture from its underground beginnings to a standout part of popular culture has opened up a world of economic possibilities centered around raving.[1]
Components of Rave Culture
[edit]Collective Ethos
[edit]The set of attitudes and beliefs that is central to rave culture is summed up in the acronym PLUR, standing for peace, love, unity, and respect. These four tenants guide the interactions of participants in rave culture with each other, as well as with those not involved in the rave scene.[4]
Grassroots Organization
[edit]
The grassroots organization style has become a less integral part of rave culture due to the gradual commercialization of EDM and raving. However, performances advertised solely through secret flyers, messages on websites or blogs, and text messaging do still take place.[1] Furthermore, rave promotion companies will at times put the power in the hands of the people as concert or festival attendees are sometimes allowed to vote on which artists they would like to see perform. #FEST (pronounced Number Fest) implemented this strategy in 2017 as the public was allowed to vote for artists they wanted to see at the festival through the use of social media platforms.
Large Crowds
[edit]In the earliest days of rave culture, large quantities of people were packed into abandoned warehouses for all-night dance parties. The move from secret warehouses to established clubs and venues has allowed for even bigger numbers of people to attend events.[1] In 2018 Tomorrowland, popularly considered to be the largest annual dance music festival in the world, pulled in over 400,000 attendees from over 200 countries during its two weekend run.[14]
Identity Markers
[edit]Identity markers within rave culture consist of but are not limited to:
- Language- slang such as the word "rolling" to refer to someone under the influence of ecstasy or MDMA
- Props- totems (large signs used to find groups within a crowd), pacifiers, stuffed animals, kandi (bracelets made from small plastic beads), etc.
- Clothing- generally expressive, bright, neon or tie-dyed
Alternative Behavioral Norms
[edit]For most, dancing from dusk till dawn, surrounded by flashing lights and loud music is not normal behavior. However, rave culture is almost centered around these activities, embracing its almost counter-cultural ways. Experimentation with party drugs such as MDMA and ecstasy, while not necessarily encouraged by rave culture, is generally accepted by participants. All night dance parties, drug use, and expressive identity markers such as bright neon clothing all work to separate the norms of rave culture from the norms of pop-culture or the general public.[1]
Rave Culture & Identity
[edit]The combination of rave culture's components ultimately generate a group and self identity that places participants in rave culture as societal "others." Anti-establishment tendencies combine with deviant norms and behaviors such as drug use to place rave culture on the outskirts of society, alienated from competing cultures.[1]
Intertextuality & Rave Culture
[edit]Intertextuality works primarily on two levels in rave culture: rave culture referencing elements of pop culture, and rave culture referencing elements of rave culture. The totems pictured below illustrate both of these uses of intertextuality. The totem of the far left references Ugandan Knuckles, a popular meme, and the totem in the middle depicts Michael Scott from The Office. In both of these examples, an element of rave culture (totems as identity markers) draws meaning from an element of pop culture (a popular internet joke and a television show character, respectively). The totem on the far right exemplifies a combination of both rave culture alluding to pop culture and rave culture referencing itself. The sign features Jake the Dog from the animated television series Adventure Time and is captioned with the phrase "Imma die a boss n' boy you better believe that ... pew! pew! pew! pew!," a reference to lyrics and sound of "Boss," an EDM track by producers AFK and Carbin.
Sampling and Remixing
[edit]Identity markers such as totems are not the only way through which intertextuality is utilized in rave culture. The practices of sampling and remixing both constitute ways through which DJs and electronic music producers can generate meaning by alluding to or referencing other texts. Sampling, or the use of pre-existing sound recordings in a new recording, enables EDM artists to pull from pop-culture as well as other musical pieces. "Planet Purge" and its sequel, "Planet Purge Pt. 2" are songs by dubstep producer Midnight Tyrannosaurus that both heavily incorporate samples from Rick & Morty, a popular animated series on Cartoon Network. Remixing, which involves altering some form of media (most commonly a song) by changing, adding to, or removing its original parts, is another common practice within rave culture. DJs and music producers draw on the meanings associated with the original song and create new meanings through their remixed versions. For example, much like with radio edits, Top 40 songs may be remixed into "club edits" in order to make the song more suitable for play in dance nightclubs, while retaining the original songs' recognizability.
Books/Texts
[edit]Playgrounds: A Portrait of Rave Culture[15]
Technomad: Global Raving Countercultures[16]
Generation Ecstasy: Into the World of Techno and Rave Culture[4]
Energy Flash: A Journey Through Rave Music and Dance Culture
References
[edit]- ^ a b c d e f g h i Anderson, Tammy (June 2009). "Understanding the Alteration and Decline of a Music Scene: Observations from Rave Culture". Sociological Forum. 24 (2): 307–336. doi:10.1111/j.1573-7861.2009.01101.x.
- ^ Hill, Andrew (2002). "Acid House and Thatcherism: Noise, the Mob, and the English Countryside". British Journal of Sociology. 53 (1): 89–105. doi:10.1080/00071310120109348. PMID 11958680.
- ^ Redhead, Steve, ed. (1993). Rave Off: Politics and Deviance in Contemporary Youth Culture. Avebury.
- ^ a b c Simon, Reynolds (1999). Generation Ecstasy: Into the World of Techno and Rave Culture. New York: Routledge Press.
- ^ Siokou, Christine (2008). "This is not a rave!". Youth Studies Australia. 27: 50–57.
- ^ Siokou, Christine (2002). "Seeking the VIBE". Youth Studies Australia. 21: 11–18.
- ^ Holmes, Thom (2015). Electronic and Experimental Music: Technology, Music, and Culture. Routledge.
- ^ "Electric Daisy Carnival | Insomniac". Retrieved 2018-12-09.
- ^ Alvardo, Abel (October 2015). "It's a $6.2 billion industry. But how did Electronic Dance Music get so popular?". CNN.
- ^ Melechi, Antonio (1993). "The ecstasy of dissapearance". Popular Cultural Studies. 1: 29–40.
- ^ Herman, Bill (2006). "Scratching Out Authorship: Representations of the Electronic Dance Music DJ at the Turn of the 21st Century". Popular Communication: 21–38. doi:10.1207/s15405710pc0401_3. S2CID 55870227.
- ^ "TOP 10: Biggest DJs in the World in 2018 - Festicket Magazine". Festicket. Retrieved 2018-12-09.
- ^ Adorno, Theodor (1991). "The Culture Industry Reconsidered". The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture. Routledge.
- ^ "These Tomorrowland 2018 Numbers Will Blow You Away". EDM Maniac. 2018-07-16. Retrieved 2018-12-11.
- ^ Griffin, Thomas (2005). Playgrounds: A Portrait of Rave Culture. Miami: Mango Press.
- ^ Peter St. John, Graham (2009). Technomad: Global Raving Countercultures. United Kingdom: Equinox.