Europe vs America. Pt 1
Today I want to venture out to discuss something I myself have never even came across thinking of. I want to talk about the meanings of “raving” and “rave culture” from the standpoint of Europeans compared to Americans. Because apparently there’s a huge difference so let’s explore shall we. Now to gain context of this topic I’m obviously going to need to do a bit of reading on post rave experiences and expectations of “raving” from both sides.
*Sort of Reads*
Alright I’m back. And what I have been able to gather and conceive is that YES. There is a huge difference. And both sides have completely different ideas on what “raves” are and even the “rave culture”. Now I ask you this. Would you expect this to be the issue at hand simply due to geographic or the pace of evolution of culture? Or even perhaps any other reason? I happen to consider it more of a disproportion of cultural evolution, and development speed. I feel as if by America being…well… “America” there was an almost involuntary shift of “rave culture” to develop for… You guessed it. PRIVATE GAINS. I will get back to this but first I want to share with you guys what I’ve just learned in the past 20 minutes or so.
There is a completely different understanding of what EDM (Electric Dance Music) is at its core. The style of music and even the engineering behind the making of the music substantially differentiates between both parties. I have learned that even from a producer standpoint, the making of music is totally different. The use of organic beats has played a more important role in American EDM than oversees. To me that just sounds like more creativity. Now last week I happened to touch briefly on the surface of the popular use of the “Huge drop” structure of EDM songs. Essentially this is a build up from the beginning of the song to just about the middle where there is either a switch of rhythm or a heavy bass line or a mixture of both. This “drop” almost characterizes the song because that’s the part you will remember most of the song. Now at festivals and concerts and shows, this is the part where people go crazy!
Jumping, shuffling, and head banging to the change of rhythm. Another way of thinking of it is comparing it to the climax of a story. Now apparently this does not exist apart of the European norm of electro music. They distinguish themselves from American EDM by referring to their electro music by their subgenre names such as techno, deep house, disco and etc. A European was able to describe it as “more of a subtle and bone shaking deep vibe which really gets under your skin.” This same person acknowledges in his post that Europeans bad mouth our EDM and its mainstream acts such as grandiose festivals. American EDM has music just like this that falls under its grand umbrella of subgenres as well though so it seems to me that Europe just wants to have their own thing.
Marshmello and Skrillex drop and lots of headbanging.
Now I’m not going to go in too deep on the differences of the next upcoming topics, but I will touch just the surface briefly to give you a heads up for what’s to come next week. Next week I’m going to dive in and talk about the difference of culture between the two and what are the reactions from both side of its counterpart. What are the expectations of the counterparts rave scene and does the actuality of these scenes precede their perception? Things to look out for next time would be the discussion of the difference between the environment of raves, the attire, the dancing culture, gloving and kandi, and yes…even… Drugs. Your favorite. :)
