Generation Ecstasy :: essays research papers

For my book report I read multiplication whirl. There was so much information in the book about the rave scene and "ecstasy", I didnt know where to begin. Its been ten years since the English seized on Detroit techno, shekels house, and New York garage as the seeds of whats generally agreed-over there, at least-to be the most significant symphony since punk, and theyre celebrating with a slew of historical studies. Simon Reynolds attempts to bridge the gap with "Generation Ecstasy," an exhaustive compendium of almost every rave-associated sound and idea, both half-baked and momentous, that traces the digital Diaspora back and forth across Europe and America. Using the multiple perspectives of music critic, enthusiastic participant, and sociological outsider to trace the development of dance musics "rhythmic phsycadelic," Reynolds, ensures two predominant, contrasting strains the search for gnosis, or spiritual revelation, and the desire to get alone 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 shunning of personality and narrative in favor of sensation-he comes up with a portrait of hi-tech millennium that resonates well beyond its subculture confines. There are those who might find a book to analyze music that often aims for the effect of a sledgehammer to the head a mite pretentious. Yet the radicalism of dance music lies hardly in its "meaninglessness," 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 beg off exactly why it really did mean something, man. His central tool for resolving this contradiction is the idea o f the "drug-tech interface" the reciprocal relationship between Ecstasy (and early(a) less central intoxicants) and machine music that resulted in a feedback loop between sounds geared to enhance 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.