Generation Ecstasy: Into the World of Techno and Rave Culture

Generation Ecstasy: Into the World of Techno and Rave Culture, Simon Reynolds, Routledge, 1998

This book looks  at a category of electronic music charcterized by a very fast beat, which started in the mid-1980s, collectively called techno. It also looks at rave culture, where groups of young people would gather, anywhere from basements to abandoned warehouses to open fields. listen to techno, and dance all night.

Techno started in Detroit at the end of the disco era, when disco and hip-hop tracks would be mixed with tracks from the 70s German band Kraftwerk and music from Roland 303 bass machines. From there, it traveled to Chicago, to London (where rave culture really took off), to Manchester, England, all over Europe, to Los Angeles, and back again. Along the way, a seemingly infinite number of variants were born, with names like progressive house, speed garage, acid house, ambient techno, Chicago house, and a northern European working-class variant called gabba.

Reynolds also explores the drug called Ecstasy, seemingly as important a part of the rave experience as the music. It seemed to enhance the effects of the music, but like any drug, take it long enough and the effects are less and less each time, forcing the user into harder drugs to regain that original feeling. A couple of well-publicized deaths, plus the public backlash against stoned teenagers, combined to severely damage, if not destroy, rave culture.

For anyone who has ever been to a rave, or bought a techno CD, this book is an excellent complement. Reynolds does a great job throughout, even making this book very readable for those who know little or nothing about techno and rave culture.