clubbing/raving culture: How mainstream has it become?

[kitty19]

it was inevitable; you guys all knew that the rest of the world was going to catch on to the clubbing bug.

• i walked into claire's accessories (a cheesy nationwide accessory chain store for teen girls), and they are selling glowstix, mouth glowstix, pacifiers, you name it.
  
  
• ford motor company is featuring juan atkins' Detroit house music in their national tv commercial.
  
  
• every single store in Roosevelt Field Mall in Garden City, LI is playing Tranceport, PvD, Transworld, etc CDs.
  
  
• you walk into Tower Records and you can get house CDs on sale ("all of MOBY on sale!"), and then grab your glowstix/candy..
  

what have you guys seen and how are you guys feeling? i am definitely mixed; i am happy to see that house music DJs are getting the respect they have always deserved. but it's killing me when my little 8 year old cousin is bouncing around to "kernkraft 400"..

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*kitty19*

*turn it around baby*

[translucent]

A few months ago I heard S&D's "Northern Exposure" in an elevator. I wasn't quite sure what to think of it. Has society at large started to open up its eyes and minds to a different way of life...Or do all of us at Twilo just bounce up and down to elevator music at 140BPM?

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[JoelB]

Answer: The scene has become too mainstream, too gentrified in the past several years. The whole attraction of clubbing in NYC was that it was an underground, reletively secret thing. There was an edge to it, and now that edge has been taken away by pop radio stations playing shhh listen and zombie nation, and ecstacy all over the news every day. Twilo is one of the last beacons of that scene, and even it is getting too mainstream. Never fear though, it will spring up again, eventually.

jB

[Johnny Blaze]

Ummmm, yea. It's so commercial now. That's why there's been all these reports about X on the news over the past year. Because everyone's kids are exposed to it.

Whatev.

Blaze

[blueangel]

The company I work for has a TV in the lobby area that plays this video tape which explains what our company is all about. In the back ground with the pictures is the PVD track "Vega".

I have very mixed feelings about that. Although it goes very well with the visuals . . . you know it's gone way main stream when one of the biggest finanical industry is playing trance.

BlueAngel

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“We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.”

[nightcrawler]

i dont see why people are so against anything going mainstream. The reason something goes mainstream is because its good, there is something worthwhile to it, something that appeals to everyone. I love house music, and i'm glad to see that more and more people are starting to appreciate it.

it does make it somewhat less "cool" when u hear ur 12 year old cousin listening to the same music u do, but look at it this way, all these people that are into house now they're only doin it cus its the in thing to do, they dont feel house music in their soul the same way some of us do, so we could be listening to the same songs but it sounds totally different to us and them. So i say let them listen to house, let them popularize it, it will pass, and those of us that feel house will still be here. No matter who listens to it house will always be our music.

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[back2basics]

I think it's wrong to put a negative slant on the scene becoming mainstream. Remember in Europe it has been properly mainstream for 2-3 years now. Not just on adverts but Zombie Nation, music feels better, spiller going to number 1 and dance music dominating the summer charts.

You dont here dance music on mainstream radio over here yet.

So you have a long way to go before it is.

But when it does get to that stage, all these producers that have been stuggeling for money for the last 10 years, FINALLY get paid.

SO there is money coming in to the smaller labels. That's money not going to Sony, that money that will be used to bring through new tallent, which in turn pushes the music forward.

The money that popularity brings doesn't ruin the scene, it feeds the scene. Now ok your clubs will get mainstream, and people will hate that. But they will move on, there will always be an underground.

Without your Depeche Modes, mute records couldn't afford to keep the hundreds of artists that dont make any money on their books.

The underground soul, R&B, rap scenes co-exist with the mainstream ones. Look at emenem making Dr Dre $$$$ which in turn finances less chart orientated groups.

Bring on the mainstream, more money, more music, more experimentation, more fun.

[spoonyd]

I think there's another point to be made here.

Nowadays most of our cultural influence comes from the media, and percentage wise, the majority of the media we are exposed to on a day to day basis is advertising.

The advertising field is by necessity a young one filled with people who are generally hipper than you average banker. I think what we are seeing is an advertising industry that is spending their weekend knee-deep in e-puddles bugging out to their favorite dj's. This is bound to come out in their work.

As the club generation ages and moves into controlling positions in industry we are going to see more and more of this.

I think it's more a changing of the landscape rather than the mainstreaming of dance culture.

And fear not - there's still hope. When rock and roll ruled, the underground still lived on and spawned punk, and new wave, and as all these grew into pop culture there was always an underground remaining - ready to spit out the next sound that the masses weren't ready for...

or perhaps I'm just pontificating.

whatever... fuck the mainstream - zombie nation was never 'underground' to begin with.

[y2chez]

Here's when I realized that the club/rave culture really became mainstream...

I was at HMV and on the front of the store they had this sign with someone's tongue sticking out with a little pink pill on the tongue that simply said "sale"!!! Now that's in your face..

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AIM: slimchezdy

I'm outta place

I'm in outer space

I've just vanished without a trace

I'm going to a pretty place now where the flowers grow

I'll be back in an hour or so -- Eminem

[g-money]

I flipped to HBO the other night and the N'Sync Live Concert was on and all the teeny bopper girls had their glowstix there. Also, in between one of the sets they played house music. (No I DID NOT watch the entire thing). Anyways, I think that certain aspects of the scene are becomine mainstream, e.g., the glowstix, the clothing and the music.

IMO, the entire scene is not really mainstream, cause I think only the true clubbers/ravers are gonna wait in line for an hour in the cold and stay up till the early morning to listen to our favorite DJ's. Plus only the true clubbers can sort out the cheesy mainstream shit from the real music.

The drug culture is becoming more mainstream because of those Dateline/60 Minutes/Time segments which only enhance curiousity in others. Again, those people who drop outside of the club scene will never truly appreciate all the aspects of clubbing, namely, the vibe and of course the MUSIC!

Lets just hope that only small parts of the scene creep into the mainstream. And for those of you at work, how many co-workers are actually into the clubbing scence? Of about 300 (under age 35) employees here, I'd say that only 3 or 4 others (at most) are.

<<<PEACE>>>

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"I'll take my problems to the dancefloor!"

[joeydollaz]

yeah .. i've been talin about this for a while ..its kinda discusting ... i read an article about ford's new ad compaign and how they are using " detroit techno " in their ads for the focus ... but besides that ... listen to every single car comercial out there ... every one uses drum and bass tracks ... as a matter of fact there are subliminal drum and bass track everywhere .. just pay attention ... everybody and their mnother is buying up trance cd's lie it their job ... grade school kids listening to alice dj and shit ... its crazy .. i remember being joked on for listening to " techno: back in the day , people that were liek what the hell are u listening too are now dressing up and going to factory ... these are the same people in high school that werte liek eww u smoke pot , now they are like got any k ... get the fuck away form me , fucking losers ... i thought it was funny when 90210 went to a rave but now even the dawsons creek crew have caught the bug and are partying ( even thougth their rave play tracks from chem bro and crystal method ....) sickening ... at teh same time maybe its just people evolving .. .. it could last forever that we knew something they didnt ,... all i can say is try and keep it real ... and if u have to ... retreat to teh smaller clubs to escape the cheese of mega-club popularity . anythign genuinely good , will eventually become exposed to masses that will ruin it ... this has been proven through history time and time again ...

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[deenyc22]

Originally posted by spoonyd:

I think there's another point to be made here.

Nowadays most of our cultural influence comes from the media, and percentage wise, the majority of the media we are exposed to on a day to day basis is advertising.

The advertising field is by necessity a young one filled with people who are generally hipper than you average banker. I think what we are seeing is an advertising industry that is spending their weekend knee-deep in e-puddles bugging out to their favorite dj's. This is bound to come out in their work.

As the club generation ages and moves into controlling positions in industry we are going to see more and more of this.

I think it's more a changing of the landscape rather than the mainstreaming of dance culture.

And fear not - there's still hope. When rock and roll ruled, the underground still lived on and spawned punk, and new wave, and as all these grew into pop culture there was always an underground remaining - ready to spit out the next sound that the masses weren't ready for...

or perhaps I'm just pontificating.

whatever... fuck the mainstream - zombie nation was never 'underground' to begin with.

interesting point, i'm a media planner, i see your point and agree.

T.V. specials from Dateline and MTV (nothing is more mainstream than MTV) bring forth this club phenomenon. Everything becomes mainstream at sometime, look at the Grateful Dead and Phish (on the cover of Ent. Weekly a few months back), Dave Mathews Band, these bands started small, and are huge now in the mainstream. I think becoming mainstream is eventual. after the 'honeymoon' was over with these bands, the true fans remained, while the others moved onto the next fad, which today is the club world. watch in a few years, something else will be popular and the club scene will go back to being what it was. during this new relationship b/w the mainstream and clubbing, the true fan remains loyal. why does twilo become empty at 9AM on an S+D night, i've always wondered that, its just getting going then...cuz the mainstream has gone home, the true fan has remained. The true fan has a deeper understanding, on another level than what just sounds good.

The die-hard/true fan is what keeps this 'underground'. let the masses enjoy the dance, the fad.....to the true fan, sit back, enjoy it, and when they leave, take over the dance floor!

let this fad pass, it will eventually

[trance604]

Apparently its the new cool thing to do...to go to a 'rave' or a club...even when you dont know who the DJ is and you dont dance and you bounce up and down to the music...sure we all have to start somewhere...but i know in atlanta...radio stations play BT and PVD..the dininng hall here at tech plays videos from PVD...oh well...

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AIM:Turbo SC300

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-Bom.

[eggmok]

young . . .

haven't heard from you for the longest time . . .

totally agree especially now most of the teenagers like going to clubs and not bars . . .

go figure . . .

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Life is too short to be small.

[deenyc22]

Another point I agree with that drugs are becoming more mainstream than the actual clubbing scene. its that the 'club drugs' are what has become mainstream, so the clubbing associated with it has as well.

again, it will pass...fads always pass

[happykittn]

Hehehe... great article.

I agree, the culture is becoming much more mainstream... but everyone gets something different out of it. If the teenie boppers want to bop around waving their glowsticks in the air to BT, PVD, S&D, etc... they should be able to. If hardcore ravers or clubbers want to go out and feel the music and dance and their hearts out... we should be able to. Everyone interprets the music and scene in their own way, and it means much more to some than others... but that's the way it's always been, and that's the way it's always going to be. I guess you can't keep a good thing a secret forever... and you shouldn't... share the wealth.

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The purpose of life? To die young as late as possible.

[deenyc22]

Yeah, Alice DJ gets played on the radio, MTV is doing a "rave" special with kids who wave glowsticks in some unknown town 5 minutes past the middle of nowhere, does that mean its really mainstream. I really dont think we'll be hearing Jeff Mills or Frankie Bones in an elevator or see Danny Tenaglia spinning on MTV.

This is a great point. Bottom line: E and clubs are a hot topic right now, so media giants like MTV and NBC will capitalize on that, make $$, and feel they have brought something new to the table, when we have know about this shit for so long. I'm curious about these reports and who they interviewed. Get ready to laugh

[msoprano]

i think that people are actually starting to realize the power of house music. it is spirtually uplifitng and can put you in a good mood when upset, anytime im upset or pissed i blast one of robs cds and it puts me in a good mood. if other pepole wanna be involved welll let them, but it is annoying to hear the same songs on the radio every hour, so do what i do and don listen to the radio

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TWILO'S WACK !!!! Sorry guys it is

"TO EACH HIS OWN" not sure by who but i like it

"dont be affraid to walk out on anything in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat coming from around the corner" Robert Deniro

AIM:msoprano13

Email:msoprano13@yahoo.com

[g-money]

Everyone interprets the music and scene in their own way, and it

means much more to some than others... but that's the way it's always been, and that's the way it's

always going to be. I guess you can't keep a good thing a secret forever... and you shouldn't... share the

wealth.

Good point! Although its nice to have a good crowd around you, if you feel the music then it doesn't matter who is around you, you should be able to have a good time no matter what. Its just alot more fun to have a crowd with a good vibe than stuffy bougie[sp?] people around you.

<<<PEACE>>>

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"I'll take my problems to the dancefloor!"

[kitty19]

thank you all for great replies! i am glad to see that we are all able to talk about clubbing culture beyond just "which club is better?". i knew we were all smart cookies here.

i also feel that there are certain aspects of clubbing/raving that may become mainstream (glowstix, E), but no one can replicate our love and loyalty to the scene and importantly, the music..

i consider clubbing/raving to be a (sub)culture that i identify with. just as, i view my nationality, korean, to have it's own culture (obviously). so, it offends me when i see people integrate parts of my asian/korean culture into their life without really knowing what they are doing.

for example, when i see any girl (asian or not) wearing a red "chinese" printed dress, does she know what that dress means? does she realize she is wearing a wedding dress? or if the dress was white, does she know that she is wearing a funeral dress? probably not. it's a fashion statement. but it takes away from the true purpose of the dress, therefore, it is demeaning in my eyes, and would offend me.

but at the same time, if she knew what she was doing, more power to her, i would want everyone to celebrate the different cultures and diversity.

so you see the analogy? it's strange in my eyes when i see "mainstream" rip off of the clubbing culture without knowing what it means to people like us. but if more of the population is enjoying clubbing culture for the same reasons you and i enjoy it, then why wouldn't we want to spread PLURR?

i hope this makes sense.

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*kitty19*

*turn it around baby*

[robbiecastanos]

I agree with nycedee.

Also when people say the scene has become more maintream, it depends on what you mean.

Are more people aware of electronic music and "rave" parties, yeah, but only in the way the media has depicted to them. Most of these poeple and the media consider the Alice DJ, and Kernkraft to be "underground". We all know it really isnt. As for "rave" going mainstream, then yes, it is mainstream, if by "rave" you mean any party that plays an electronic track. I personally believe real raves dont exist anymore, the real underground ones that took place in the late eighties and early nineties that began in europe. People say rave has become mainstream, it HASNT become mainstream cause real rave doesnt exist anymore and has moved on to other styles, what HAS happened is cheesy commercial teeny bopper parties have falsely been LABELED as "rave" because they have electronic music and people waving glowsticks, just because a party has an electronic beat, glowsticks, and kids in baggy pants doesnt make it a rave.

Underground electronic music has moved on from the warehouses and illegal parties to hedonistic clubs like Twilo, Vinyl, centrofly, etc.

Yeah, Alice DJ gets played on the radio, MTV is doing a "rave" special with kids who wave glowsticks in some unknown town 5 minutes past the middle of nowhere, does that mean its really mainstream. I really dont think we'll be hearing Jeff Mills or Frankie Bones in an elevator or see Danny Tenaglia spinning on MTV.

Electronic music has always had a nitch in the mainstream (the 80's is the perfect example for a decade), and thats what Alice DJ and Kernkraft is - pop/electronic music, they just have copied past elements of trance or house to label it as their own. Trance and house has moved on with new elements that the mainstream still hasnt caught onto.

[back2basics]

This is an interesting article on the advertising issue.

TOO MUCH SAUCE FOR MOBY

Moby Live

Moby, the dance world's favourite Vegan, has allowed all the tracks from his Play album to be used for adverts and film scores, but has finally had to turn an offer down for political reasons.

Moby says he had to draw the line at his music being used to advertise bearnaise sauce because he knew it would be hypocritical to endorse a product commonly used for garnishing steak.

"It was the most bizarre thing I've ever been asked to do which would involve my music," says Moby. "A company wanted to use my record Find My Baby while this naked guy poured bearnaise sauce onto some meat surrounded by naked women.

"I couldn't let them use my music because it would have compromised my veganism, but it was a real shame because I thought it was such a cool idea for an advert.

"I wish it had been vegan bearnaise sauce poured onto Satan instead!"