Pinch: "Dance music must guard against turning into a homogenous mush"

Ask any old-skool raver who was ‘there’ for the Summer Of Love, or the earlier years in general, and there’s a good chance you’ll hear that ‘things just aren’t as good as they used to be’. The music, the quality of the drugs, attitudes, the sense of solidarity – apparently it was all better back in the day. Every generation does tend to think it did a better job of having fun than the next, and I’m guilty of having moaned at times that my entry-point scene, UK dubstep, had its heyday many moons ago and is now lacking in lustre. It’s partly a classic case of old-fart syndrome – but there’s some truth lurking in there too.

Raving used to bring people together from all walks of life: sharing space and time, dancing together, boldly stepping into the unknown – both musically and psychologically.DJs played cutting-edge, unfamiliar music while new drugs fuelled ecstatic experiences: raves and dancefloors created a sense of unity and collective consciousness. Fast-forward to 2017 and electronic sub-genres are either fragmenting into smaller and smaller splinter groups or being absorbed into a homogenised generic EDM mush. Well established ideas in dance music are consistently being presented back to us as new ones. Although new and interesting dance music is still being made and played out there, it feels as though these days most clubbers tend to prefer hearing stuff they already know rather than be guided into unchartered territory together.

The UK scene was initially born out of illegal raves, with only a handful of clubs catering to the new sounds of the late 80s. That flipped around completely as the Criminal Justice Act took force in 1994 and dance music soon established itself as a major player in the music industry. It became less DIY and more sanitised – just like many other scenes and sub-cultures before it. Innovation is often followed by commodification and wider consumption – and that tends to dissolve integrity in art.

Money feeds egos, not hearts and minds after all. The hungry hearts followed a journey that took them along the ‘hardcore continuum’, chasing ever-evolving new genres from the ashes of the last. It’s a simple formula: as a new scene comes through the underground it initially offers affiliates a counter-position to mainstream culture, and membership to a secret tribe. The more successful that scene becomes and the more popular it becomes, the more people it must eventually appease in order to sustain its popularity.

Inevitably it becomes diluted in substance or diverted along a disconnected tangent. This alienates many of those initially attracted to it, who, more often than not, move on to find something else (I’ve been there myself a few times). What’s left of that sub-genre is mostly a self-plagarising echo of its former glory. There might be some room left for refinement here and there, or occasionally hybridisation with other sub-genres, but otherwise, it goes on to recycle its own ideas, switching parts interchangeably in a seemingly arbitrary and often self-congratulatory way. Those new to a scene, who haven’t been around that merry-go-round a few times already, might hear the music with fresh ears – but it can’t offer the opportunity for a wider group to experience something truly new and exciting.

Sadly, dance music is full of lazy egos. Just look at how the dregs of celebrity flock to pose in the DJ booths of high-end clubs all over the world. DJs press play on CDJs, effortlessly beat-match with software while waving champagne flutes at a gawping crowd. It’s bollocks. That’s not what raving was ever about. It was the counter-culture, the very opposition to that kind of pretentious bullshit. Don’t support that nonsense. Support DIY culture, free parties, non-commercial events, alternative festivals – anything that’s driven by enthusiastic people making a real effort to pursue unity over fragmentation. DJs and producers: we need more focus on creating new chapters in the hardcore continuum and less on raising social media stats. With Brexit on our doorstep and a certified psychopath leading the ‘free world’ further into fragmented isolationism, never before have we been in greater need of a sense of integrated community. It’s time for dance culture to step up as a uniting force once again.