It is almost impossible to fabricate a single definition for the activity of ‘clubbing’ due to the huge variety of scenes and experiences which people undergo and regard as such. The listings sections of club cultures ‘niche media’s’ such as “Mixmag” or “Ministry”, portray the wide range of musical preferences such as House, Trance, Techno and Garage to name but a few This demonstrates that clubbing is a highly subjective experience. One person’s best night out is another person’s worst. The idea of going clubbing can be applied to lots of different people, is defined by the individual and like religion, is interpreted personally.
Before beginning to examine the origins of club culture it is important to understand the context of its emergence. Club culture did not develop in a bubble; in fact its appearance was shaped by time, place and very specific social and economic conditions (Collin and Godfrey 1997:6). The 1980’s were a time of great social instability and transformation. A time of great upheaval in Britain. Thatcher was striving to promote free enterprise in Britain and had a vision of a capitalist society, which would enable the individual to thrive without aid from the state. However, her efforts actively encouraged a mess sense on insecurity through a major increase in unemployment, low pay, a spread of self-employment and a tendency to witness the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. Britain became harder, increasingly disjointed and more unequal as Thatcher fostered the idea of entrepreneurialism and encouraged people to survive almost single handedly;
“The Whole raison d’etre of Thatcherism and the political and economic culture was do it yourself, get off your arse, make some money, get rich quick”.
(Nathan McGough – Manager of the Stone Roses – Quoted in Russell in Redhead et al1993:130).
Such a political ideal led young people not only to want to escape the system, but also provided an outlet for entrepreneurial impulses. They wanted to “get rich quick”, and by whatever means they could, from organising raves and making records to selling drugs. A fundamental aspect of club culture is that it was not simply a youth culture reacting against the social and political background of the time; it was also a product of it. Collin and Godfrey (1997) also argue that it proved to be a critique of the foundations of consumerism. Whereas previous youth culture movements such as the punks or the hippies posed a threat to social order, club culture provided another way of dealing with an oppressive society – an option of temporary escapism. Rietveld has suggested that Acid House music was perfect to enable such escapism;
“When one is in opposition, the thing that is opposed is acknowledged. When one escapes instead of opposes, no alternative moral values are proposed at all”
(Hillegonda Rietveld quoted in Redhead et al 1993:66)
The details of the emergence of club culture are complex, however the broad outline is clear. Acid House was the first genre of music to played in British nightclubs, its name holding heavy connections with the drug LSD. The roots of acid house lie with American black and gay club culture, and the music was imported from that being played in New York, Detroit and Chicago;
“Out of New York, Chicago and Detroit had come sounds that would change the world of popular music: garage, house and techno, three interlinked strands with similar premises – the use of technology to heighten perception and pleasure, and the release from mundane, workaday existence into fanatic visions of drama, vitality and joy”
(Collin 1997:24)
Before the “acid house explosion” (Collin 1997:28) the music played in nightclubs was produced by bands. The Hacienda in Manchester was arguably one of the most influential spaces in which the ‘explosion’ took place. The club opened in 1982, largely funded by the band New Order. Around that time the club was attracting bands such as The Happy Mondays to play the venue, yet by 1984 the progression from live bands to Dj mixes had occurred. Acid House music was the first genre of dance music to be played in British nightclubs; it was “bass driven, repetitive, hypnotic and psychedelic” (Merchant and McDonald 1994:17). Thornton (1995) charts its emergence as January 1988, when London Records produced ‘House Sounds of Chicago – Volume 3’. The sleeve notes made direct reference to associations with drugs and general abandon.
Drugs were an integral part of the culture, more specifically ecstasy. Ecstasy is the more popular name for 3, 4 methylenedioxyamphetamine (MDMA). The drug was developed in 1960’s America by chemist Alexander Shulgin and was used by psychiatrists for the treatment of psychological disorders. It began to be consumed in the black gay clubs of America and by students in Texas. After various reports in the media however, in 1985 the US Drug Enforcement Agency classified it as a dangerous drug. The effects of ecstasy are notable. The drug affects the brain, inducing feelings of pleasure and energy. It is neither a stimulant nor a hallucinogenic, its effect is on changing mood and for about six hours after consumption will generate “empathy, openness, peace and caring” (Saunders 1995:36). It soon became recognised that “Ecstasy plus house music equals mass euphoria” (Collin 1997:68) in the holiday resort of Ibiza in the early 1980’s. The combination was enjoyed by hippies and working class youths alike. British Dj’s attempted to recapture the essence of Ibiza at British dance nights, but “In early 1988, acid house was little more than an imported type of music with drug associations” (Thornton 1995:158). The movement seemed to lack any distinction in terms of styles of dance or fashion at that time. It really began to take off when it found a home in some of London’s nightclubs, namely ‘Shoom’ and ‘Future’ and later ‘Spectrum’ and ‘The Trip’. Collin (1997) sees the key period of the emergence of Acid House as being between December 1987 and April 1988 which saw the materialization of the infamous yellow smiley face logo, the introduction of drug jargon and also witnessed many wearing sporty clothes to visit Acid House nightclubs. It was then that this new movement seemed to have formulated its own signature style.
Early club culture was in fact not ‘club’ culture at all. The period that saw the emergence of dance music and predominantly Acid House, was more regularly referred to as rave culture. Early venues for raves tended to be in disused urban warehouses, attracting much unwanted police attention. Rural venues such as barns or aircraft hangers seemed to offer better cover. Raves began to be organised entrepreneurially by the summer of 1988. It was Tony Colston-Hayter who developed the infamous Telephone Venue Address Releasing System, to ensure raves were completely secret. Tickets were issued with a phone number for a computer message which recounted the meeting point details. Both ravers and the police would turn up at a point on the M25 where a new message would be delivered saying where the party would be held. More often than not police were outnumbered and rendered powerless. At the time the scene was excessively ‘underground’ and despite having watchwords like unity and freedom, attendance at a rave was only available to those ‘in the know’. This ensured that everyone who was there wanted to be there and all for the same reasons. Profits were massive, estimated at around £50, 000 a time. 1993 industry estimates that the general UK club market was worth around £2 billion and raves a further £1.8 billion (cited in Thornton 1995:15). By this time “the rave scene……..was possibly the biggest youth subculture Britain had ever seen” (McDermot et al 1993:250).
Clubbing has now definitely become an industry. Statistics show that by 1996 its revenue was averaged at around £2 billion (Mintel 1996). It is no longer a separate underground leisure activity, it now has specialised (or niche) radio, television and written media, has created an abundance of jobs both directly and indirectly involved with the scene, and Dj’s are no longer seen as faceless disc spinners, but are now household names to many and can arguably be described as ‘celebrities’. Clubs such as ‘Ministry of Sound’ in London, ‘Gatecrasher’ in Sheffield and ‘Cream’ in Liverpool are all now globally recognised, producing a variety of albums each year which many young people buy without even being old enough to attend the club. Magazines such as ‘Mixmag’, ‘Musik’ and ‘Ministry’ have all referred to these clubs as ‘brand names’. In addition to this the Island of Ibiza has been described as “the clubbing Mecca” (Mixmag June 2002), attracting thousands of young British clubbers each year with one aim – to club! Despite the massive possibilities this pastime holds for study “the latest and by a long way probably the largest and most influential of recent young people’s cultures or styles in Britain can be found in club cultures” (Malbon 1999:16), the sociological literature on the topic is in fact quite sparse, and what is available tends to be quite diverse and with distinct preoccupations.
See Appendix for definitions