By DJ @mosphere(www.djforums.com)
The different genres of electronic music featured at Raves today originated from different parts of the world. The music has transformed from its original form to create dozens of more recent variations of electronic music.
European bands such as Kraftwerk from Germany and New Order form Britain introduced electronic and industrial sounds during the late 70's and early 80's. The electronically produced music inspired three black-americans from Detroit to invent a danceable version on the electronic music known as techno. The thumping bass line, fast-tempo, and repetitious beats appealed to a local audience in the states, but stayed underground. Techno music was featured at local Detroit clubs and colleges, but soon moved to warehouse parties and after-party locations. The music was advertised through word of mouth; therefore it continued to stay underground. In the early 80's, house music was another form of dance music that originated in Chicago. It was a variant of disco, without every element of it's except the drum and bass and added electronic sounds.
In Britain, the techno and house music was more poplar than in the states. Derrick May, one of the Detroit inventors said, "In Europe, people are more open-minded and more accepting of new ideas. It's enough that you are doing something innovative. But, over here, it all revolves around the word 'star'." The rave dance culture was being experienced on a new level with the consumption of a designer drug known as Ecstasy, which heightened stimulation and compliments the music's sound and beats. This drug stimulates the dancer to move their body. The drugs effects would last for about 6 to 8 hours, keeping ravers dancing till dawn. The drug added to the fantasy-like atmosphere of raves and gave a feeling of euphoria.
Britain is the birthplace of acid house music, which stemmed from the hardcore underground music and rug scene. The underground dance scene was then known as raves. Acid house branched into garage, techno, and hardcore, which transformed into speed garage, big beat, and jungle music.
British DJ's developed jungle music from reggae traditions derived from Jamaica and urban hip hop styles of America with a mixture of many different kinds of other music like techno, house, breakbeats, etc. Drum n Bass is also closely related, yet it has a faster tempo equivalent to techno and house beats with a booming bass line and drum set.
The composition of
electronic music produced by European DJ's was influenced by urban hip-hop street
culture of the United States and its Caribbean background. The flow of ideas and
influences from across the globe has given birth to an electronic music genre
of local origins into a globally identifiable form of music. The creolization
of rave music has created confusing definitions and constant additions to the
electronic music industry. Ulf Hannerz uses the cultural diffusion of Nigeria
to describe a creolized society. He says, "...the flow of meaning and the
construction of perspectives within it organize themselves in such a way as to
create much cross-cutting and overlap between clusters of meaning of varied derivation
and salience." The same holes true for the Global Rave Culture. It is a world
that has embraced influences from all over the world and has established itself
as a culture of its own style. Yet, the commodity structure of raves today have
just created a standardized form of yet another mainstream culture controlled
by global capitalism and marketing. According to Arjun Appadurai's theory behind
the Globalizations of Cultures, the rave culture is yet another product of global
capitalization on a culture.
