Has rave culture sold out, or
was it corrupt from the start? (Salon)
The American and British governments were incredibly helpful in maintaining
the delusion that rave was radical. With its idiotic drug war, the
United States gives chemical consumption endless transgressive power,
allowing generations of young people to feel like they are defying the man
every time they swallow a tab of E.
As it turns out, though, in rave culture, the singular artist hasn't been
replaced by the crowd. He's been replaced by the consumer. Really, what
else is the DJ, that icon of contemporary cool? He's part ultimate shopper --
the guy who always has the coolest, newest, most obscure records...
a new collection called "Back to Mine" is "by" Danny Tenaglia, even though,
aside from one song, he neither made nor remixed any of the songs on it --
he simply chose them.
Even more ironic is Lanza's observation that the industrial symphonies of
the decadent Italian Futurists -- often cited as rave's forefathers --
"were matched by those of the enemy Soviet camp. Artists from the pre-Stalin
halcyon days of 1920 staged a Concert for Factory Sirens that consisted of
an orchestrated crescendo of sirens calling comrades to their workstations."
Similarly, electronic music may have been born in hedonism, but it makes
the perfect soundtrack to work.