Energy Flash, A Journey through Rave Music and Dance Culture

I’ve just reread Energy Flash by Simon Reynolds and would wholeheartedly recommend it for anybody interested in the dance music revolution of the last 20 years. It’s also a hell of a lot more interesting read that Reynolds’ more recent book on Post-Punk, Rip It Up and Start It Again. Although it could do with some editing (the chapter on American rave culture is pretty superfluous), its breadth of ambition – literally to cover the period from the birth of techno in the mid-80s up to the date of the book’s publication in 1998 – proves much more admirable than foolhardy. Reynolds is a committed, articulate and often highly engaging writer who clearly loves his subject. One of the book’s standout chapters, ‘The Sound is For the Underground’, brilliantly evokes pirate radio’s amazing otherness:

My passion, though, is for the pirate stations that seem the most piratical (…) and that means the jungle pirates (…) the unruly ‘ardkore pirates of 1991-3: Touchdown, Defection, Rush, Format, Pulse, Eruption (…) I’m not taking the piss when I say that I rate (the) phonetic poetry plucked from London’s pirate airwaves.

What in part makes Energy Flash distinctive is the author’s passion for populist rave at its peak, rather than the artier end of things admired by so many critics. Also fascinating is the sociological analysis and the tracing of the impact of drug use upon both the music and the social scene. Although I very much enjoyed this approach, it does result in reduced attention on the music itself. Likewise, however attractive Reynold’s populism, it’s not an enthusiasm I share. He only devotes one page to the minimal techno output of one of my own favourite labels, Berlin’s Chain Reaction. Frustratingly, it’s a very fine piece of writing!

Energy Flash is unsurprisingly at its weakest in its concluding chapter when Reynolds surveys the music closest to the book’s publication. Big Beat exponents like Chemical Brothers and FatBoy Slim align to the author’s love of thrill, but haven’t really led onto anything new, though to be fair it’s a factor he does acknowledge. Given the preponderance of Nu-Indie in the media, Energy Flash serves as a reminder of both the continuity and innovation that the 15+ years of dance culture represented.

10 used and new copies available from Amazon marketplace vendors from £12.99

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Published:: 18.05.07 / 11am

Category:: literature, music

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I’ve been writing this blog for quite a lot longer than three years and now I’m finally getting round to writing something in the About page. But what to write? Oh well, if you check the category listings you’ll see what I cover. It’s a ragtag assortment of bits and bobs, anything that catches my fancy really. Unsurprisingly, much of that is music. I much appreciate comments, but whether you feel like making them or not, I hope you find something of interest.

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Gutta 20.05.07 / 6pm

i generally refer to it as ‘the bible’.

11V 22.05.07 / 7pm

I’d be hard pushed to choose between Energy Flash and Kodwo Eshun’s Brighter Than The Sun, though in the end I’d probably go for the latter. No reflection on the former though as it’s indispensable and a country mile better than any other dance music related tomes I’ve read.

C Lowe 23.05.07 / 8pm

Brighter Than The Sun would be on my list as well, and I think they kind of work well reading together (Brighter Than the Sun for the theory, Energy Flash for the social history).

Good tracks on the free CD I got with my copy too!

Toby 24.05.07 / 12pm

It is a great book, but as you say, is tainted by the fact that it seems outdated already. I think that’s going to be the issue with any book on this subject.

I preferred “Rip it Up” to be honest – he dissected all the bands in that scene with a cool academic analysis, and whilst you could tell he was obviously a fan, time has cemented what was going on at that time. The fact that he starts straight away with PiL is great – it’s like the whole aspect of punk along with all the tedious drivel associated with it is discarded immediately.

11V 24.05.07 / 8pm

I hope one day to re-encounter that free CD – it got separated from the book and is now adrift in the chaos of my home…

I’m not sure that it’s not up to date matters too much, I do think as I said that it falls down at trying to assess the most recent development at the times of its writing, but as an overview of the first 15 or so years of dance music’s reign, it’s brilliant. That observation though chimes with my thinking about that whole sense of progress in music – perhaps most obviously referenced in LTJ Bukem’s Logical Progression series, but also in a myriad other titles and associated attitudes in popular music. I was struck by this the other day when reading K-Punk’s assessment of the new Rufige-Kru album as a brilliant piece of music that fit right into 1996 (I’m probably badly mis-quoting there). Some artists strive for timelessness, but I wonder whether any succeed. Perhaps only in a personal sense in that each of us knows that our favourite artists will endure. Any evidence to the contrary is so gradual in its accumulation that we feel little pain, but perhaps only a certain wistfulness at the recognition of lost loves.

Couldn’t agree less about Rip It Up, which I didn’t enjoy very much at all – I found it annoyingly formulaic and uninspired! Perhaps I’ll attempt to reread that as well one day and see if I’m mistaken. Here’s my post about the book, written when I’d just finished it.

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Energy Flash, A Journey through Rave Music and Dance Culture

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