Generation Ecstasy :: essays research papers

For my book report I read coevals rapture. There was so much information in the book or so the rave scene and "ecstasy", I didnt know where to begin. Its been ten old age since the English seized on Detroit techno, Chicago house, and New York garage as the seeds of whats mostly agreed-over there, at least-to be the most significant music since punk, and theyre celebrating with a thin reveal of historical studies. Simon Reynolds attempts to bridge the gap with "Generation Ecstasy," an exhaustive compendium of nigh every rave-associated sound and idea, both half-baked and momentous, that traces the digital Diaspora back and frontward across Europe and America. Using the multiple perspectives of music critic, enthusiastic participant, and sociological outsider to trace the development of bounce musics "rhythmic phsycadelic," Reynolds, finds two predominant, tell apart strains the search for gnosis, or spiritual revelation, and the desire to suffer co mpletely out of it at the weekend. Setting these timeless traits in the context of the up-to-the-minute technology that made rave emblematic of its era-the fragmentary, fast-forward aesthetic, the flexible production and distribution network, the dodge of personality and narrative in favor of sensation-he comes up with a portraying of hi-tech millennium that resonates well beyond its sub goal confines. There are those who strength find a book to analyze music that often aims for the execution of a sledgehammer to the head a mite pretentious. Yet the radicalism of dance music lies precisely in its " baseinglessness," which, paradoxically, requires intellectualization in order to get at its significance. This problem is particularly acute for Reynolds, who wants to both valorize everything about techno that makes it resistant to rock-crit "literary" analysis, and also explain exactly why it really did mean something, man. His central tool for resolving this contr adiction is the idea of the "drug-tech interface" the reciprocative relationship between Ecstasy (and other less central intoxicants) and cable car music that resulted in a feedback loop between sounds geared to conjure the rush, and rushes that inspired producers to take sound into new spaces. The drug-tech interface gives "Generation Ecstasy" a narrative backbone that applies again and again, across continents and cultures from Texas, where Ecstasy culture first reared its head in the mid-80s, to Scotland, Holland, and Germany. The story starts with the initial, utopic discovery of Ecstasy and its boundary-lowering qualities, and ends, with varying degrees of speed, with the descent into polydrug abuse and depression.