Electronic Dance Music: From Deviant Subculture to Culture Industry explores the subculture’s emergence as a deviant subculture. This text analyzes how industry professionals, fans, and public officials helped usher in a new age of EDM, arguing that while the defining features of the subculture made it attractive, they also laid the foundations for outsiders to commodify the movement as a culture industry. Conner and Dickens explore the concept of “commodified resistance” as the mechanism by which the movement's politically dissident features were removed and its place as a multi-billion-dollar industry made possible. Ultimately, this text advocates the continued utility of the culture industry thesis through an empirical analysis of the EDM subculture.Check out an interview with the author on the New Books Network podcast here: https://newbooksnetwork.com/electronic-dance-music
Christopher T. Conner is non-tenure track teaching assistant professor of sociology at the University of Missouri, Columbia.David R. Dickens was professor of sociology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas for thirty-eight years.
ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroductionChapter 1. Phase I: Beginnings (1980s–1995)Chapter 2. Phase II: The Rise of the Rave Outlaw (1995–2009)Chapter 3. Phase III: EDM as Culture Industry (2010–2022)ConclusionAppendix: The Rave ActReferencesAbout the Authors
This is a careful review of the rave scene and EDM culture as it has evolved over time. The authors should be commended for their astute sociological analysis, which should be helpful in college classrooms across the US.