ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the relationship between ageing, lifestyle and popular music as this manifests itself in the contemporary dance party scene. Sensationalized media representations of selected events and images associated with the Free Party scene completed the work of alienating the electronic dance music scene through reducing it to a stereotype of trespassing, vandalism and drug orgies. When discussing the relationship between work and leisure, and the importance of music within this, a number of my interviewees located the significance of dance parties in a context of what they referred to as ‘sustainable fun’. The importance of sustainable fun was also pointedly emphasized by older dance party scene participants involved in the organization of free parties. A recurring theme in interviews with ageing dance party participants was the way in which they felt an interest in dance music had shaped their relationships with their children.
