VICE writes a declaration of enlightenment on Rave culture

[Lemanic]

http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/rave-cul ... le-america

This declaration of enlightenment hits down on most of what's coming out today. The reactions didn't for long. Everything from "Aha!" to "I'm gonna kick your ass off the Earth!".

[itroitnyah]

I have to agree with a lot of everything that this article says. American "raves" consist of people getting together and doing drugs and having sex while somebody hits the play button on a laptop. Or, that's my understanding of what happens at them.

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

Yeah, I'm the type who'd avoid raves like the plague. Even without the drugs and whatnot, I'd be ok with DJ'ing, but in the rave proper, nope.

[ghelded_kultz]

Pretty good article but not all dance music is electronic (most popular dance music, including in rave culture but the author must be forgetting that America has a long history of acoustic dance music that has continued to a much more recent time than in Britain).

And the author doesn't understand linguistic change where molly has turned into a noun meaning an amount of MDMA. But my experience with British writing is that they are in general even worse about linguistic change than Americans.

And you can be anti-drug and make house music.

In short the author has some good points but his condescending tone and inaccuracies make him sound like an idiot.

And while I have never been to a rave, I am sure that they don't play nearly enough acid house. Which is the real reason they suck.


EDIT: Not to mention, as some of the commenters pointed out, Europe is what brought in the cheesiest rave genres of them all: Eurotrance, Eurodance and Happy Hardcore. It's fine to like them (I like quite a bit of it) but to act like their any less commercialized than American trash EDM is a mistake.

[Lemanic]

Pretty good article but not all dance music is electronic (most popular dance music, including in rave culture but the author must be forgetting that America has a long history of acoustic dance music that has continued to a much more recent time than in Britain).

I think he meant that calling it EDM is just the rock elitist term for it. If just calling it Dance Music, it gives it a more equal value to it.

And you can be anti-drug and make house music.

But it's not ok for DJ's to go after their fans with torches just because they happen to take drugs. That's just friggin' paranoid.

In short the author has some good points but his condescending tone and inaccuracies make him sound like an idiot.

Sounds more like you have to step down from your ego and listen to what people have to say. Pride can be dangerous sometimes.

EDIT: Not to mention, as some of the commenters pointed out, Europe is what brought in the cheesiest rave genres of them all: Eurotrance, Eurodance and Happy Hardcore. It's fine to like them (I like quite a bit of it) but to act like their any less commercialized than American trash EDM is a mistake.

Well, it makes sense in an European context because of our long tradition of Classical music. It doesn't in an American context, and that's why it baffles a lot of people. I can't help feeling the badly hidden racism behind American cheese. It ignores its history while feeling forced and contrived, like what Hollywood always do. That Eurocentrism is bad for America.

[ghelded_kultz]

As a preface to my rebuttal, I would like you to know that I do not live in America, have not lived in America for years, rarely visit America and hang out with lots of non-Americans, so this isn't just me going against the article because it isn't pro-America.

I think he meant that calling it EDM is just the rock elitist term for it. If just calling it Dance Music, it gives it a more equal value to it.

Maybe, but it doesn't appear in the article. He seems to think that the term EDM didn't come into being to differentiate it from acoustic disco and funk (neither of which are rock genres). I can agree that EDM is a stupid term, but assuming all dance music is electronic is stupid too.

Now there is the issue where in Britain, dance music=Electronic dance music. So now the author is trying to assert his culture as being right and American culture as being wrong when culture is neither right nor wrong. There is also a case of linguistic change here, but I already discussed that. To give examples of what this whole thing is like are these crisps or chips? Different cultures use different words to mean the same thing in the same language. That's how the world works. In Brazilian Portuguese a pineapple is an abacaxi. In Continental Portuguese a pineapple is an ananas. Same thing here.

But it's not ok for DJ's to go after their fans with torches just because they happen to take drugs. That's just friggin' paranoid.

Why not? If an artist doesn't want something associated with them than they have every right to go against that. If their fans value whatever is being spoken against more than the music, then they should leave. It's as simple as that.

Let me tell you a story. In punk there is a man named Ian Mackaye. He is infamous for many things including accidentally starting the straight edge movement and having no sense of humor. However his bands are extremely good and very popular (within the context of hardcore/post-hardcore) so when he tells his fans to stop moshing they listen to him (usually) because they value the music more than the moshing. Going back to the idea of straight edge, when he decided that he wasn't going to wreck his life with drugs and alcohol, people were like, "He has a point" and created this whole movement around it. Why can't famous DJs do the same sort of thing?

Sounds more like you have to step down from your ego and listen to what people have to say. Pride can be dangerous sometimes.

Maybe I have to step down from my ego but I'd advise the same to you.

As far as not listening to what people say, I did just the opposite. I read through the article and agreed with many of the things stated. However I was pointing out some things that were wrong or easily misinterpreted. Not only that, but I went through comment section too, which allowed me to see more opinions than just my own and the one presented by the author. And I am not the only person with a problem the author's tone. Maybe it's acceptable because this is supposed to be a comedy article or something, but if one is trying to make a point than one should not write in a way that makes people hate you (I have experience with this).

Also the whole pride can be dangerous. Don't get self-righteous with your thinly disguised ad-hominen attack.

Well, it makes sense in an European context because of our long tradition of Classical music. It doesn't in an American context, and that's why it baffles a lot of people. I can't help feeling the badly hidden racism behind American cheese. It ignores its history while feeling forced and contrived, like what Hollywood always do. That Eurocentrism is bad for America.

Classical music has nothing to do with this. Are you saying that because Europe has been making cheesy, commercialized music for a long time its okay for them to make cheesy commercialized music? Because I wouldn't call classical cheesy and commercialized.

Are you saying that American's can't make cheesy, commercialized, music?

Are you saying that EDM is a European phenomena? Because it came out of disco in the United States. House (including Acid House) came from Chicago, Techno from Detroit, Garage from New York, etc, etc, etc with lots of incest between the various scenes. Yes EBM, Trance, Synthpop and many other genres developed in Europe, but to discount America's importance in developing EDM is silly. (One should not forget Jamaica's influence either).

Are you saying that EDM comes from classical music, or is highly related to classical music? I have never heard of any ties between classical and disco, classical and reggae/dub, classical and punk (for new wave --->synthpop), classical and industrial, so on and so forth.

Could you please explain this hidden racism better? There is plenty of hidden (and obvious) racism in America, especially Hollywood. Why does the black guy always die first? Why are white actors billed above black actors that aren't Will Smith? Why are there so many more blacks and latinos in prisons and especially on the death row compared to whites? Why does the media go crazy when a white person (especially a young white woman) goes missing/is killed but not when the same happens to a non-white person? But at least we don't throw bananas on our "football" (in the European sense of the word) pitch when black players pass and we don't throw Roman salutes when white players score.

In short, could you please tell me what your response to my statement is supposed to mean?

Edit 1: Typos and grammar.