are you the little girl who immortalised the above phrase into rave culture over altern8 beats and sonic whooshes? I hope to god you don’t now listen to the klaxons and think it’s the same thing.
i was actually quite afraid of the techno rave of the early 90s with its belgian hoover noises and scary choir samples. it wasn’t really for girls – even gas masks, vicks and curtain style hair aside, the music itself was a bit evil sounding. but the bf loves it, hence this mix. i do have a soft spot for old skool in general, and did frequent sterns as a jailbait 15 year old with her wannabe dj boyfriend.
imagine my curiosity when i heard about nu-rave. imagine my disgust when i actually heard it.
yes, partly i hate it because it makes me feel old in the same way that leggings do. but mostly i hate it because if there’s one thing i hate, its indie music. nu-rave might as well be called ‘how to kill dance music in one easy step’. put a fucking band in there. that is so not the point. if you don’t like dance music, you’re not a raver, end of. oh, and the nme dd not, have not and never will have anything to do with dance music.
yes, the happy mondays and the whole madchester scene mixed genres. because they couldn’t remember their own names least of all what type of band they were. and bez needed something to dance to. there is none of the originality, danger or excitement of the old rave scene. where’s the new hacienda? this is a sanitised, mtv-approved movement for kids who got picked up from school every day.
the crowd are the principal reason this will not work. whether the latest movement is original, meshed or outright plagiarism, its the mass market that drive a scene. the only people who like indie music are public schoolboys and girls. old skool ravers were real people. big brother provides a nice illustration of this point – apparent inventor of indie music emily, who clearly hates herself for being white, and pink haired old comedy cheesy quaver tracey.
students, of course, are equally responsible for this travesty as the nme. deprived of proper rave because they’re born too late, trying to appropriate something that belonged to a previous generation. is it me, or have students regressed back into the desperately seeking irony twats they were in the 80s?
in the mid 90s, one of my lecturers accused us of being ‘benettonized’. the explicit meaning being that we had mobiles we couldn’t pay for, nice clothes we’d worked all summer for and spent our grants on nights out at the ministry of sound. the implicit meaning being that students were supposed to be rich but act poor and listen to music that made you depressed and therefore a more authentic pauper. but the line had been blurred thanks to over generous government funding for education. now only those who are prepared to take on £30k debt or have rich parents go to university and we’re back where we started. well let me tell you, irony has no place in dance music.
true ravers will seek out the old skool, so this mix is for them.
Proper rave for grown ups and Tracey from BB8 – download here
acen – close your eyes – xxx mix
zero b – lock up
cubic 22 – night in motion
isotonik – different strokes
prodigy – charly – joey beltram mix
quadrophonia – quadrophonia
ace of the space – 9 is a classic
messiah – temple of dreams
kevin saunderson – tronik house
channel x – rave the rhythm
cls – can you feel it
human resource – dominator
prodigy – android
lfo – lfo
toxic two – rave generator
altern8 – infiltrate 202 – joey beltram mix
bizarre inc – plutonic
digital orgasm – running out of time
praga khan – injected with a poison
westbam – mayday anthem
orbital – chime – joey beltram mix
dirty martini 
