Welcome to the 90s Party Scene. This blog is dedicated to 90s electronic dance music and where it’s at now.
In the early 1990s, a new generation of kids grew up with the internet and technology, and were able to create the next stage in the evolution of dance music. These children of the 90s were obsessed with computers, and were constantly experimenting with technology to try and make their own electronic dance music. The result was a completely new sound that would forever change the face of dance music.
In this blog we will be taking you back in time through the 90s and into today’s modern era. We’ll be looking at how these children of the 90s created some of the biggest hits in dance music history, as well as what they are doing now with this new found knowledge.
The 90s were a time of dance music and ecstasy, much like today. But there was always one question that people had: where is Neo?
The thing about ecstasy is it makes you want to dance and hug. And on the other end of things, if you are a musician whose music makes people want to dance and hug (and sometimes cry, depending on what you’re DJing), then you probably have a soft spot in your heart for MDMA.
The truth is, there is no single answer as to where Neo is. When I was at college in the 90s and everyone was talking about the rave scene, it was easy to believe that there was only one scene. As an outsider in high school, I just imagined all the kids from my school who were a little cooler than me going off to these huge parties with DJs and crazy lights. This wasn’t entirely wrong; there were definitely some big parties with DJs and crazy lights happening in the mid-90s. But as anyone who lived through it knows, the 90s party scene was much bigger than just raves.
The 90s were a great time for dance music. The rave scene was at its peak, the radio was full of great dance tracks, and we had the best club nights to go out to. Dance music has changed a lot since then, and I’m not sure that most of the changes are for the better. The music is less interesting, it’s harder to find out about new artists, and clubbing isn’t as much fun as it used to be. This blog is about what happened to dance music in the 90s, and where we are now.
The 90s were the heyday of a particular kind of 90s electronic music: happy hardcore, or rave. Rave was an exciting time for people who were into it. It was also a very strange time.
For the people who weren’t there, it probably seems like any other party scene, with its own music, fashions and drugs. But there are important differences between the 90s rave scene and most other eras of drug-fueled partying. One is that electronic dance music (EDM) itself is a relatively new genre: it came out of 70s disco and 80s house. Another is that raves became mainstream in a way that other underground subcultures never have: you can still find acid house records in Tesco, but you won’t find punk records there.
Rave culture is also different from most other party scenes because it’s not just about partying. For many ravers, it’s about spirituality too. Rave culture has always been about more than just getting high; it’s about having a higher purpose in life.
If you were a kid in the 90s, you’ve got your own unique memories of that time.
That’s what this blog is all about. There’s so much history surrounding the era that I feel like everyone should know more about it, especially if they were there to witness it all unfold. I’m JP and I’m 23 years old and a graduate student at UBC in Vancouver, Canada. I’ve always been into music since an early age but when I first heard Eurodance music as a kid in the 90s, I was hooked for life. It’s like nothing else on earth!
The 90s were a great time for electronic music. Music was being produced and played on a wide variety of formats: vinyl, CD, tape, minidisc, DAT, and even weird experimental formats like the 3″ CD-single.
Electronic dance music was a staple of radio stations in the 90s, especially dance stations like Pulse 87 (WNYZ-FM), Power 106 (WPOW-FM), and WKTU. The Top 40 charts were filled with dance tracks from artists like C+C Music Factory, Snap!, Crystal Waters, Stakka Bo, Duran Duran, Culture Beat and dozens of others. The remixes from this era are just as epic as the original versions.
Many producers from the 90s continue to make music today. This site is a database of those artists and their latest productions.
In the early 90s the party scene was concentrated in London, Glasgow, Manchester and Sheffield with a few raves in the north of England. These were mostly illegal raves or parties held in warehouses, lofts, disused factories and other similar spaces that had been abandoned by their owners. The music played at these parties was acid house, techno and hardcore.
In 1993 the Criminal Justice Act came into effect which made it harder for these illegal raves to take place. The Act gave the police more powers to stop raves from taking place and also gave them powers to shut down events before they even started if they had reason to believe that a rave would take place there. This led to a lot of legal raves taking place – parties that were held on licensed premises at licensed times. The promoters of these raves would pay for security and employ doormen who would search people as they entered the venue as well as check their ID to make sure they were not under age.