ABSTRACT
Ben Carrington and Brian Wilson (2002) observe that like all youth cultures, and especially those formed through associations with music cultures, the evolution of ‘club cultures’ around the world can be attributed, in part, to the ongoing global processes of cultural borrowing. The term ‘club cultures’ refers to the youth cultural phenomenon that is associated with all-night dance parties at nightclubs or other venues, the production and consumption of various dance music genres – music ‘mixed’ or electronically created by DJs – and with the use of amphetamine drugs – particularly MDMA or ‘Ecstasy’ – to enhance the dance/music experience. The roots of this culture can be found in the 1970s and early 1980s American dance music scenes of New York, Chicago and Detroit, and more recently in Britain where ‘rave culture’ emerged in 1988 during what came to be known as the ‘second summer of love’. In Britain in particular, the subsequent criminalisation of the rave scene – a partial outcome of moral panics about rave-related drug use – and the incorporation of the rave scene by the mainstream music industry led the culture to become grounded in ‘nightclub venues and that is how ravers, in effect, became clubbers’ (Carrington and Wilson, 2002). Chambers (1994: 80) argues that:
The international medium of musical reproduction underlines a new epoch of global culture contact. Modern movement and mobility, whether through migration, the media or tourism, have dramatically transformed both musical production and publics and intensified cultural contact.
