ABSTRACT
On their 1997 album Homework, Daft Punk included a track called “Revolution 909” which began with a low bass beat, crowd noises and the sound of wailing police sirens. Over a loud hailer, official instructions came telling imagined dance fans to stop the music and go home. Hearing Daft Punk’s sonic skit on the outlawing of rave offers a nostalgic reminder about the way that electronic dance music (EDM) became politicized. It raises questions: Is the practice of EDM about social inclusivity or escaping control mechanisms? Should clubbing be seen as an intrinsically meaningful activity—perhaps one geared to resist domination—or does it simply signify a particular practice? How does that practice happen? Focusing largely on EDM fans as dance enthusiasts, in this chapter I aim to fill this gap in a number of ways by reconsidering EDM theory. 1 First, I will show that the internal logic and structure of fan communities can elude formulations based on capital and class. Second, drawing on the work of Papadopoulos, Stephenson and Tsianos (2008), I suggest that EDM fan cultures can be seen as “postliberal aggregates” with their own internal hierarchies. While these social formations are not intrinsically resistant, sometimes they have operated beyond State control. Third, I suggest that Joseph Campbell’s (1976) work on myth may help us understand how dance itself becomes internalized as a shared subjective experience. I conclude by contextualizing this idea in relation to existing research on club cultures.
