Electronic Dance Music: From Spectacular Subculture to Culture Industry

Abstract

This article is an attempt to show the dialectical nature of Guy Debord’s (1967/1994, The Society of the Spectacle, Aldgate Press) concept of the spectacle, showing how its employment as a resistance technique by electronic dance music (EDM) subculturalists would also help shape it into a corporately organized culture industry (Horkheimer & Adorno, 1944/1969). In doing so, we show the overlap between the French Internationalist approach and that of the Frankfurt School, and how the combination of these two concepts provides for a more nuanced conceptualization in which the agency of social actors ultimately resulted in the shaping of the subculture into a culture industry. In other words, we attempt to address the critique that the approaches endorsed by both schools are overly deterministic in their approach. We attempt to overcome this limitation by showing how promoters’ decisions to compromise with law enforcement agencies resulted in changes drastically altering the music subculture.

Moments of Connection As Means of Survival: A Study of Queer Identity, Freedom and Community in UK Raves During the Covid-19 Pandemic

“…Using multi-site qualitative methods and a historical approach, Conner and Katz (2020) find the concept of spectacle is a resistance technique in legal American EDM. This is not, however, comparable to structured forms of resistance in social movements, as the momentary and fleeting nature of EDM events means any resistance is inconsistent (Conner and Katz 2020). Overall, raves seem to exhibit several forms of subversive politics; however, from the current literature it is hard to determine the degree of consistency to which these political possibilities manifest.…”

“…After they were outlawed, academic interest in raves reduced significantly, as accessing them became increasingly difficult for researchers. Nonetheless, Griffin et al (2016) and have conducted qualitative research on the rural free party scene, whilst the rest of recent research has explored legal EDM events (Anderson 2009;Conner and Katz 2020). There is good reason to give greater analytic attention to illegal raves, particularly because their illegality often affects the organisation and atmosphere, as well as the behaviours people exhibit.…”

“…This is especially true in the context of Thatcherite moral regulation (Rietveld 1998). This public display of playfulness and irony can be understood as a spectacle of resistance which attracts attention and parodies mass culture (Conner and Katz 2020). Using multi-site qualitative methods and a historical approach, Conner and Katz (2020) find the concept of spectacle is a resistance technique in legal American EDM.…”

“…This literature review has highlighted a significant gap in research on illegal raves held outside of the 1988-1994 period, aside from a small body of empirical research into the free party and illegal rave scene (Wilson 2006;Griffin et al 2016). The outlawing of raves and their subsequent inaccessibility means many researchers have explored legal EDM events instead which though useful, are not entirely transferable to this research (Fraser 2012;Conner and Katz 2020). This work nonetheless demonstrates the efficacy of qualitative methods in investigating ravers' worldviews and lived experiences.…”

Evaluation Method of Industrial Efficiency of Green Manufacturing Enterprises Based on Machine Learning

“…On the one hand, the development of cultural industry contributes to the improvement of the regional economy, and on the other hand, it enriches the spiritual needs of the people. e cultural industry not only satis es people in the spiritual realm, but also realizes its value on the economic stage [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]. With the continuous deepening of reform and development and opening to the world, the cultural enterprise industry has entered a period of fast development, and the development speed is significantly higher than that of other industries.…”