Electronic Dance Music: From Spectacular Subculture to Culture Industry
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While the origins of the electronic dance music (EDM) subculture in the United States differ, most accounts situate it as emerging in the late 1980s as a political dissident subgroup whose subcultural values were articulated around the concept of peace, love, unity and respect (PLUR). Members of the subculture produced their events in secret venues, utilizing technological developments in computing technologies to create new forms of music. Participants in the EDM subculture, initially at least, focused on anti-consumerism, resistance to authority and change, making the early EDM culture of the 1990s a counterculture social. Today, however, the EDM subculture, as it exists in the United States, exists as a billion-dollar culture industry which is an integral part of urban economies such as Las Vegas.
Persuaded by the promise of alcohol sales through bar guarantees EDM promoters, of the late 1990s and early 2000s, convinced nightclubs to host their events as opposed to the warehouses of old. In the process, promoters would find financial success through ticket sales, the literal cost of shielding the subculture from police, and providing legitimacy. To meet the profit goals set by bar guarantees, water would be sold at higher rates than alcohol, something that was doubly exploitative as water was necessary to prevent dehydration from the common use of ecstasy. The move to legitimate spaces also expanded the importance of visual aesthetics. The agency of social actors ultimately resulted in the shaping of the subculture into a culture industry. Promoters’ decisions to compromise with law enforcement agencies resulted in changes drastically altering the music subculture.
The transition from a small underground subculture, prompted by legislative efforts from public officials, into a more legitimate business enterprise came with several costs. To avoid harassment and law enforcement licensed venues would require promoters to engage in protective practices counterintuitive to EDM culture. Policies enacted included disclosing locations in advance (early on locations were released often only hours before a gathering), ticketing events, collecting taxes and other fees, and banning common paraphernalia associated with the EDM subculture (pacifiers, stuffed animals, glow sticks, bright neon, and baggy clothing.. The by-product of these reformations was not only to strip EDM subculture of some of their aura (see Benjamin, 1936/1969) but the changes in legislation and planning also foreshadow later transformations into a full-blown culture industry in the sense developed by Horkheimer and Adorno (1944/1969). Thus, the politically dissident strategies of resistance, that characterized the early EDM subculture, became their undoing as the liberating aspects of these tools became reconfigured for use by agents of mass marketing.
This article investigates the resistance strategies employed by members of the EDM subculture and shows how members’ implementation of these strategies would later make it attractive to outside forces seeking to refine the EDM subculture into a culture industry. This article is part of a larger multi-sited qualitative research study utilizing a multiple methods framework.
Article details
Electronic Dance Music: From Spectacular Subculture to Culture Industry
Christopher T. Conner, Nathan Katz
First Published July 31, 2020 Research Article
DOI: 10.1177/1103308820926102
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