Explaining Rave Culture to the Americans

Love for sure. It's funny that I used to be really into eurotrance and house, then moved away from everything. All the sudden a few years later the america

"rave" scene blew up.

A bunch of kids with 12 pounds of beads on each arm eating bathsalts and listening to tracks that sometimes sound like bad abortions.
 
Mind you I'm not into the electronic scene, that dude sounded like a petty little bitch. OOO we had it before you we did it better you guys suck everything you do is lame everything we do is right. Shut up. Music is music. Dialect is regional. People will have fun doing whatever the fuck they want.
 
This is why you don't understand what he's getting at, these criticisms make complete sense if you've compared the european scene to the north american scene.

North American electronic music and the culture surrounding it is a complete perversion of the amazing music scene that has been created so painstakingly over such a long time in Europe. There is such a wealth of beautiful electronic music coming out of Europe, but over here the scene consists of shitty, formulaic electro-house and dubstep DJs on labels like OWSLA and Mad Decent and Dim Mak and such. And then everyone in North America writes electronic music off as shitty rave music and thinks its just about the drop and having the most bass possible.
 
Yeah america does it so well. Weak versions of the electronic genre, way too much effort into putting on pounds of bracelets and your sweet pink moonboots, and enough bathsalts to rage all night.

One a great way to party. America actually had a rave scene at one point but it was never that big like it blew up in Europe. At least that was before it it was all about bathsalts and seeing how much weight in beads you could strap on and how much neon you could find.

The new "rave" culture in America is like the extension of dave mathews lot.

 
Actually pleasantly surprised with the response on this thread, I was expecting a flaming ball of "fuck you British faggot" comments coming my way.
 
I thought the american "rave" scene has been a joke for a while. It keeps getting bigger though. Also did the last two camp bisco's. Place was a shit show. At least I had some good friends and I got to jam with barber the last night.
 
wasn't really a fan of that 'article'... more like 'opinions column'. Besides Deadmau5 being Canadian, I don't feel like the article was written very well at all.

Besides that, my knowledge of electronic music festivals at the global scale is pretty much non-existent. At a regional level though, the scene is awesome! Southern British Columbia is absolutely killing it in the electronic music festival relm between the months of July and September. From small, free, underground events like Carrington to internationally renown events like Shambala... I don't know where I'm going with this, so I guess I'm just going to stop typing now.
 
did_not_read_lol.jpg


but threads for when i have time.
 
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trying to say your whole scene is so much fun but being arrogant is a terrible way to get anyone into something
 
Sorry, should have put a disclaimer at the top, but Canada has some seriously healthy music scenes, Toronto and Montreal areas seeing a massive growth of quality artists.
 
I don't think you understand, the point of the article wasn't to encourage people to go to raves...and it was written as satire, much like the rest of his articles.
 
Dubstep originated from south-east london, so it's been around a lot longer for us, dubstep was being produced by garage artists before a name was given to it. It is pretty mainstream nowadays, most people my age (15/16) listen to dubstep, more than anything else I'd say.
 
All of this. ^

Also, I thought it was a pretty funny/good read. I've never been a huge fan of "house" but I do enjoy some other genres in the electronic music category. My only complaint is his diss on live instruments. I've seen several electronic acts that utilize live instruments like Gramatik (guitar), Break Science (drums and synths), Griz (sax), and RJD2 (playing with an entire band, drums, bass, guitar, keyboard). IMO these are some of the best live electronic shows I've ever seen.

And maybe this is where I'm wrong, if the author is referencing purely and only house music then I have litte to no knowledge of the genre. A rave in my opinion is any kind "dance music" show though, so, to each their own.

Just to reiterate Arab1an's point, kids who are in the know understand that a lot of this EDM shit in the US is ridden with fratastic whorehouse bedazzled jizz kids.
 
I don't know if it's because i couldn't help but read the article in a condescending British accent in my head but it made me want to punch the author in the face. I agreed with most of it though. funny stuff.
 
"Time spent arguing about music is less time spent enjoying music."

listen to what you want, do what you want, wear what u want, take whatever drugs you want... i'll be in the clubs and warehouses with everyone else who doesn't give a shit what other people do
 
Have you ever been to Toronto? Fuck that city. It is the most culturally boring repressive that I have been to. Montreal is a completely different story.
 
yeah i dont care if you personally created electronic music, let alone understand the scene. That guy wrote that article like a douche
 
Not sure about the live drums thing. What's the point of trying to limit the creative possibilities of a genre?

The guy who wrote it, although correct on some of his points, sounds like a pretentious bitch.
 
This.

Americans havent tried to copy the scene overseas, we adopted our own version. And like everything American, its bound to upset alot of people, but this is just how it goes. Seems like the writer cares a bit too much about a scene that doesnt concern him.

However, I agree with the "not every track needs a drop" bit, along with some other points the writer made.
 
I think you and I are some of the few kids on here who have had the amazing experience of european electronic music festivals :)

I think live drums in drum and bass tracks are siiiiiiiick

On another note, its crazy to see how rapidly america is warming up to electronic music. I've been in love with all different styles for the past 5 years, mainly trance and hardstyle, and its cool to see friends are finally getting an appreciation of it. Although I'm fucking sick of every party and radio station having a playlist of all skrillex and swedish house mafia
 
Yeah both scenes are sick in their own ways. I really couldn't care less if people say "a molly."

Also, that article makes me think back to Soulwax's set at Hard Haunted Mansion '11. They killed it, and the majority of their set was played on drums and guitar, which proves the guy wrong on his "live drums are unacceptable" and "all dance music is electronic" points.
 
I think he was meaning in terms of the rave/party scene rather the festival scene, which there is much less emphasis on in the UK. I think it was aimed more at the stupid gimmicks that clubs put on where you have shit like a DJ and a bongo player, or a DJ and a live saxophonist.

The article is written in a really British, satirical way, and if you read his other articles you might start to understand how to approach it better. It's a completely cliched thing to say, but I can understand why some Americans think it comes across as arrogant and snobby, because I've yet to read an American writer pull something off in the style that Clive Martin writes his articles, that type of humour doesn't seem to exist.
 
Ah I see. That seems weird though, considering it was aimed at Americans (and so many people here DO hate on certain producers for just pushing play). Maybe I'm just missing the point
 
I might be wrong, and I don't necessarily disagree with you - before the great DnB demise, I saw the full London Elektricity band and they were amazing, but it wasn't the same as a club environment.

Personally, I think there is just a different attitude over here about DJs, and you would be booed out of any decent club in Glasgow if people saw you were just hitting the "sync" button on Traktor, but while there may be a lot of people who hate on it in the US, it does seem to be the done thing over there with big DJs.

I think the whole DJ Shadow vs Mansion fiasco recent probably sums up the disparity between quality producers and apparently reputable clubs in the US. It's a shame because the chicago and detroit scenes (arguable less so, New York) were founded on integrity and quality, and that seems to have completely disintegrated.
 
That shit was a fucking disgrace. Did you happen to listen to the set from that night that he put on soundcloud?

And to Arab1an's point, I totally agree and understand and that's why I clarified that I was veering off from the typical rave scene. Again, I really don't know much about house/whatever other genres are played at raves so I can't really add much to that part of the conversation.
 
was a great article but not ALL dance music is solely electronic, i layer in real guitar, bass, sometimes live drums for certain parts, and plenty of other live instruments.
 
This... I saw Big Gigantic (live sax and drums) and GriZ (live sax) together and they killed it. Sax solos during the breakdowns really impressed me.

The only way his comment could have made sense was maybe house, trance? But it seems pretty fucking obvious that live drums aren't needed in those sub genres anyways lol
 
Yeah, I've listened to it all the way through. It's a bit of an obvious tracklisting for my liking, but it's technically brilliant and it was cool to see him throw some juke and footwork in there.
 
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