Subculture: Electro House Raver
The hallway is dark and all you hear are melodic beats getting steadily louder growing with your anticipation as you walk closer to the entrance. The hallway opens up to a huge warehouse stuffed with ravers. Strobe lights blind you at first but their inviting energy gets you in the mood. Up front is a DJ mixing continuous beats making the floor pulsate. All of your senses are heightened giving everything movement and energy. Electro House is more than just a genre of music. This genre has formed into a subculture because of its enormous following, lifestyle, and roots.
The electro house music lifestyle grabs hold of mostly youth. However race, gender, and socioeconomic status is all ranges. A younger crowd is drawn to this genre because of the fun party scene involved and the care free attitude the genre evokes. The electro house genre became more than just music in the 2000’s. Popular DJ’s became the main draw for clubs. Typically this kind of party is called a rave. A rave describes the atmosphere which is dark, has strobe lights and sometimes accompanied by a projection of images to go along with the music.
Ravers are the people who go to raves. This is the person who evokes the house music lifestyle. Typically a raver is young, dresses fashionably, and sometimes likes the drugs ecstasy, cocaine, and or MDMA. Raves can be known for their drug consumption but not all ravers are like this. An experienced raver usually brings or wears something that glows. If a raver brings glow sticks this allows an opportunity to dance with one in each hand, this is very popular while listening to electro house music.
The fast paced music allows the ravers to dance rhythmically and can be compared to tribal like movements. In every day slang electro house is called electro. Jargon is also used to describe different kinds of electro house music. A bootleg is a remix made by a DJ who doesn’t have the official legal rights or permission to make the remix. These kinds of remixes are common and are done by every DJ. Mashups are similar and involve a producer taking elements from different tracks and putting them together to make a new one.
White labels are twelve inch vinyls released for test pressing containing the bootleg tracks or remixes. Ravers also have a slew of jargon when talking about ecstasy. Mostly the terms E, X, or rolls are used and when on the drug most refer to it as “rollin”. To understand the subculture of electro house the history of house music needs to be established. House music in its first form was disco. The history of house music starts back in 1977 when “Saturday Night Fever” came out. “Saturday Night Fever” was an instant hit and a surge of young americans went to disco clubs.
Disco at this time was a blend of 70’s funk, soul music, and rock. Most of the disco scene was in New York until 1979 when it spread to underground warehouses in Chicago and Detroit. The creation of house music was an attempt to get listeners hooked. So Chicago and Detroit DJs decided to introduce new techniques in the way disco was being presented. This combined with its separation from New York disco helped it evolve into its own genre. House music became known as more edgier, raw, and incorporated more diverse sounds.
Electric keyboards, beat boxers, as well as beat machines helped to refine it into what it is today. Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Iowa still have one of the largest house scenes to this day. Plenty of sub-genres of house music has formed since the 1970’s. There is acid house music, latin house, disco house, hard house, funky house, chicago house, NRG house, tech house, New York house, and the largest electro house. Electro house grew from house music and has shown its superiority since 2000.
Electro house music differentiates from house music with its four to the floor beats, analogue basslines, high pitched leads, usually accompanied by a piano or string riff. The electro house tempo ranges from 120-130 bpm. The word electro comes from the 1980’s electro movement by which it was influenced. After the 1980’s synth pop sound came the electroclash movement of the early 2000’s. This is where electro house was born, particularly from the Detroit techno scene. The electro house genre has become steadily more popular on the Billboard Top 100.
The mainstream electro house songs usually feature a remix of a slower original song like Kid Cudi, “Pursuit of Happiness” later remixed by Steve Aoki to become an electro house anthem. Other notable electro house DJ’s are Benny Benassi, Daft Punk, Crookers, David Guetta, Deadmau5, Justice, Klaas, MSTRKRFT, Spencer & Hill, and The Bloody Beatroots. Electro house music’s popularity has been on the rise since 2000. You tube has allowed this genre to spread because unknown DJ’s know have an effective platform to showcase their talents.
Electro house ravers have a belief system similar to the disco era. Both groups of young adults want to escape their problems and live in the present. Their intertwining beliefs stem from house evolving from disco. Electro house makes it their own by taking it to a level of embracing who you are. An electro house raver isn’t easy to define because they embrace who they want to be. When you walk into a rave you will see some people dressed in halloween type costumes such as angel wings and bright neons or others in regular street clothing.
You don’t have to wear a particular type of outfit to fit in. Electro house lovers value this because it’s about the music. The drug ecstasy is widely embraced for this reason. It always the raver to unwind and leave behind their troubles. Disco in the 70’s and electro house of today both allow an escape for their generation. This is also why electro house has such a wide range of youth followers. There’s no pressure to be rich or be a certain race. Where ever you are from and what ever you do electro house will embrace you.
