A letter on the unexistance of New Rave
I try not to dish out too much hate. In fact negative reviews are not what I try to do here. But I feel this instance warrants it.
Why “New Rave” is unneccessary, and fiction on a scale never seen before in the popular music press (or: NME needs more readers. Manufacturing a scene will solve that problem for a while (Or if we say it enough and throw enough money at it, it must be true))
If on the main page click below to read the post in it’s entirety …. it’s that long…
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It’s time to put this puppy down before people start thinking they should be talking this bizarre phenomena seriously. New Rave is a horrible genre definition that seems to only exist on the pages of NME, and is thus implanted into the brain of their many unknowing readers - who are quite possibly, unsuprisingly, sick of being called an indie-kid. And it’s beyond a joke.
Klaxons are fine, (and they seem set for success after the prestigious BBC sound of 2007 poll placed them 3rd) but this horrible generic definition is one thing I do not want to see prospering in 2007. So this will hopefully be the last you hear of it. Here at least. When Klaxons release their album no doubt New Neu - Wave Rave get more attention…
What I’ve said
“Anyone who even thinks of calling this lo-fi New Rave or Folk New Rave gets a poke in the eye. I’m looking at you NME. You can fuck right off calling the Knife the dark side of New Rave. Electro is enough. Fuck off.”
“…the vain hope of sparking off the Libertines new rock revolution MARK II”
“…they [The U.S get hipsters, we get fucking new rave and shite like The View”
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What other sceptics have said on the subject:
“There were lots of guitar bands making what was being bandied about at the time as the new wave of new wave. I decided to replace the ‘w’ with an ‘r’,” he says.” [Jamie - Klaxons]
“…it’s 2006’s version of Electro-Rock. Someone decided around early 2005 that Electro-Rock was played out. Not cool anymore. Much in the same way that in late 2001 someone decided Electroclash was played out. The problem was that bands didn’t listen. They kept making music. Not just music, but damn good music. Good music, but last year’s music. What to do?! NME stepped up to the plate and said, “Hey guys, even though it sounds just like Electro-Rock it is not Electro-Rock. It’s New Rave or Nu Rave or Neu Rave. Duh!†[Big Stereo and here]
“Reading the NME daily is a hazard of our job, but at least it’s helped teach us a lot about the value of using superlatives sparingly… [Klaxons’] sound actually harks back to the New York sound of circa 1978-82, the revival of which was, until last year, dubbed punk-funk.”[Gawker Media’s Idolator]
“the main difference I found between a nu rave gig and a normal gig is that as well as the bands I got to hear the Justice remix of Franz Ferdinand played 6 (six) times” [Headphonesex]
“So, New Rave is really no different from “New†Labour – it’s just the same old, same old. I’m sure NME are happy about the explosion of “their†scene, but in reality it’s just the same alternative/indie that’s been around for ages, with a different recycled look.” [David Emery Online]
“As usual, the description in no way acts as an appropriate moniker for the eclectic musical styles of groups who have been unfortunate enough to have been grouped under it.” [Serendipity Book]
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Proposed re-defintions?
Take away the out of place glow sticks and covers of rave classics and what do you have? Punk-Funk? Synth-Punk? Electro-Brit? Kids dressed in bright coloured garments? The point is - nothing seems to really unites the artists NME throw into the new rave catagory. Except.. er… NME. “Right now, when you ask people, “So what’s new rave?” they answer “Oh, you know, Klaxons… before their voices trail off and their faces redden, because they actually had a sort-of answer to your question.”. Idolator.
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Lessons:
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The process of identifying and hyping trends is difficult and always open to scepticism. I would like to say it’s all based on something… only I can’t, for the life of me, get what “it” is. This doesn’t even occur to me to be bandwagon jumping. It seems in the eyes of this unimportant writer to be an attempt by certain musical publications to capturing the imagination of their readers by creating something that hasn’t happened and is ingeniously imaginative. Sound like an exceptional defintion of fiction to me. But hey - if it makes the kids happy and keep them off the streets - who’s to worry?
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I guess I can kiss that job at NME that I wanted so badly good-bye…
P.S
Klaxons are damn good, and I’m honestly glad to see them profiting from this… go and download Atlantis to Interzone from this site. Their album will hit the interweb shelves and tubes early this year.
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Who likes new rave?
I read an interview with Klaxons in Drowned in Sound, in which they deny any connection to ‘Neu-Rave’, which was the first I’d heard of it, back in June last year. But yeah, genres are really pretentious. Klaxons are awesome, and I don’t really care what they’re called. Actually, I’d prefer if the whole ’scene’ thing disappeared, so everyone, don’t talk about genres, just listen to the music…
The whole ‘well I like this band which is supposedly this genre so I’ll try this band from the same genre’ never really worked anyway. use last.fm, not that that’s much better. Anyway, i’ve run out of things to say. tara
People tend to fracture genres in order to put themselves in a nice, cosy niche where they feel they can belong - it’s just standard tribalism in a slightly sadder form.
I must admit, I will lump so much under Indie it becomes a barely meaningful term. Pop is Girls Aloud, Madge and Kylie and the like and, for me, I tend to use Indie to cover virtually all guitar music this side of metal, including the Klaxons and their ilk. I think comparing individual groups to one another helps you get a good idea of what to expect when you hear something new, but these increasingly tiny and territorial mini-genres are pointless.
Incidentally - excellent post, by the way.
Hey guys, cheers for the comments!
Michael: Genres are damn pretentious, but usually pretty useful when trying to convey a bands sound. But words like new and rave and water down their utility. Electro-x is usually good for me and most people. Except that doesn’t sell magazines!
Matthew: I felt like that about Indie/Pop for a while too - but I’d use indie much more sparingly - through a pop genre at any bands I percieve to have a change of success due to rerunning of a tried and tested formula - usually people not that honest and heart-felt about their music.
What I try to do is express what I think the bands are getting at, what they make me think of, and through contrived descriptive posts with some genres spread thinly I try to convince everyone to listen…
And if they won’t - I can force them to by playing similar songs on the TYM podcast (link in the sidebar!)
If it really was new RAVE, that would scare the hell out of the indie kids. All these loud repetitive beats, Vicks and high quality E. And not a guitar in sight. I remember LFO on the cover of NME smashing up a guitar, to signify their death. Bet you wouldn’t get that on the NME now to advertise new rave!
Personally I’d like to see NEU! rave
Your analysis of the new rave scene is so on the mark. I hated anything with a guitar being tagged rave the first time around. Made my blood boil.
I’m confused. Where exactly does the “rave” part of New Rave come into this? It sounds nothing like rave what-so-ever. Rave is Old Skool and Hardcore. “New Rave” (well, the Klaxons anyway) just sounds like a mash up of indie, electro and a wee bit of techno. Just because they might use some old Hardcore samples in their songs doesn’t mean they make “rave” music. Just people being drawn into the NME pretentious drivvle that constantly gets churned out every week. “New Rave”? It’s just an evolution of Electro imo.
Writing about a scene is usually caused by bad music journos going out too many times in a fortnight, meaning they saw the same bands a shedload of times, creating in their alcohol and coke-addled minds the notion of a cohesive entity. As they have spent two weeks on the piss they wake up, hungover, on deadline day, needing 2000 words of copy. Thus they hammer out any crap that happens to be floating around in their brains from last night, and lo, a scene is born.
Additionally, bang-on scientific definitions for punk, indie, grunge, emo, metal and so forth, are, like that of new rave: farcical. So such words should always be prefixed with ‘erh it’s like kind of…’ which provides the perfect get-out clause for the speaker.
But the main problem is that stupid people like using these words, and what the stupid people like generally goes.
Personally I dont really care if it’s a real scene or not, because the NME hype has brought to my attention (and to that of a lot of people) a great amount of really exciting music.
And the term ‘new rave’ obviously wasnt meant to be a completely accurate description of the movement, more than just another oh-so-clever pun on the phrase ‘new wave’. Rave implies dancing implies electronics, that’s all. Only a real pedant would expect an exact replica of Shamen or Prodigy tracks, because obviously that would be ridiculous.
You make a good point, but i think it’s quite a sad one too, because I’d be happy for it to be a proper scene, and I think an influential, well-respected music magazine has as much right to spark a movement as a record label, club or website.
Hey Thom - I’m not trying to dismiss the creation of a scene, or lament on artificial creation of scenes, as much as I’m trying to highlight that the reason this scene was promoted doesn’t seem to be to be a positive one, regardless of positive impact. And “new-X” scenes clearly aren’t going to be exact replica - but I’d obvious similarities
I’d be happy for it to be a scene because kids clearly want to listen to electro and dance. But electro and dance shouldn’t all suddenly become NEW-RAVE / GLOWSTICKS simply because of the sloppy and loose link between rave, dancing and electro. As a music writer, I don’t find these sort of association useful, and I think it’s more likely to confuse an audience.
Scene’s are fun, and they have their place. Regardless of the merits of the dirty electro that is damn popular at the moment - I’m objecting against the over-extension of dance and electro to a scene label ‘Rave# that has many connotations, few of which I see in contemporary bands.
I agree with this post fully. The NME (and indie sheep) need to get a grip. In my book, the NME should be reporting and promoting new music. They shouldn’t be grouping together disparate bands, arbitrarily, for the sake of easier front covers.
On a side note, I do find the ‘rave’ association slightly annoying. It’s so demeaning to that terms first incarnation. I do find Klaxons a bit annoying, mainly because of their CONSTANT self-conscious posturing, glowsticks and facepaint. Not to mention the wacky 80s throwback jumpers. The music isn’t all that bad, I must admit.
Well i think Nieuw Wrayve is absolutely hilarious, and i assume that was the whole point. You know. FUN. Quite why it seems to annoy so many people so very much is beyond me, but a very good sign. Genre definitions/creations are what pop music has always been about, watching them either grow to produce new and startlingly original music, or flop after a matter of a few months. I’m sure like virtually all drug-induced genre definitions from “psychedelic” to “Acid House”, it will be quickly discarded and disowned by the people most associated with it almost before it’s begun, but I also think it will continue to have repercussions as a musical movement. After all, aren’t people sick and tired of the over-earnest/ real life dreariness/ self-pitying bedwetterness of most “indie” music these days? None of it has any ambition, imagination or style at all. So call it what you want, i just hope that a new hallucenogenically fueled song-based electronic dance music starts to dominate and we can stride forward to a bright new surreal, multi-coloured, dayglow future.
I dont really see your point on this one. Is it the term ‘new rave’ that youre against? Or is it the fact that NME are saying theres a scene when there isnt one?
My personal opinion is that new rave isnt an apt title but it is nevertheless a scene. Angular indie got stale a long time ago with bands like maximo park and since then bands have been trying to inject something new and original into their music. Hoards of emerging bands are trying to create something new and exciting and original and so they turn to external influences such as dance, hiphop, electro etc.
NME saw this coming and slammed a name on the electro, dance side of the movement as quickly as possible expecting a flurry of decent bands displaying these attributes. They didnt/havent found many. Who knew? it was a good guess. but the music exploded too diversely for them to cover a single genre.
Back to the point. The music scene seems to me, to be in a transitory period, waiting for the next scene. Maybe it isnt going to be new rave and NME will kill off the expression. But there IS a scene at the moment, its the indiekids rebelling against their own scene by heading towards others. To me this forms in two strands - hiphop and dance electro. Not much has been seen with indie hiphop - hadouken possibly, jamie t? But the other, the movement of indie kids towards dance electro kind of stuff, is a scene, whether you want to call it new rave or whatever.
As a genre, I dont think it has anything. The indie kids may be moving into dance territory but theyre going about it in totally different ways - for example hot chip and enter shikari. So that is why new rave isnt a viable genre but it IS a scene, a movement, something.
x
Sam - there is undoubtedly an electro scene - and this clearly has legs. But it the terminology, and the lack of scope the term New Rave connotes. Electro is the scene - new rave is NME’s stamp - and a word that sounds so different it makes people realise that guitar pop music isn’t all there is to British music.
I’m a huge sceptic, I think NME is constantly searching for new avenues from which to make profit. Championing a scene clearly works. I’m just not convinced Simian Mobile Disco, Klaxons, or The Knife have anything distinctly new or rave about them.
Isn’t the NME fairly obviously devoid of musical or cultural merit? I thought the whole point of the damn thing was that it was shrill and hyperbolic, because most people think that criticism should be shrill and hyperbolic.
Anyway, New Rave is much more about fashion than it is about music… Carri Mundane at Cassette Playa is openly and genuinely rave-influenced. Christopher Kane’s been pushing the neons, Ksubi’s going mental for that fucking happy face. One look at the bands should tell you it’s more about who they’re wearing than what they play.
It doesn’t really upset me that New Rave doesn’t exist as a musical movement, because I doubt I would like it if it did. I don’t really like Klaxons, whatever they call themselves. Actually the solemn invocation of Britpop’s heyday irritates me more, because I (infant that I was at the time) frigging hated Britpop. When Kate Jackson says a Suede album changed her life, why doesn’t anyone laugh at her? Fucking SUEDE, for God’s sake.
Can you listen new rave? http://www.ctxmusic.com.ar
ok my reply is this
classic 90s rave tv
http://www.panjea.com/channel/6272
pure agree to this - just another stupid term coined by NME -
ps please listen to my band via the weblink for some real music