What is a rave? Raving is a highly subjective experience. One person's best rave is another person's worst. Any attempt to analyze rave culture must recognize the highly personal factor of the experience. Author Daniel Martin defines a rave as "a long period of constant energetic and stylistic dancing exhibited by a large group of people in a hot, crowded facility providing continuous loud House music and an accompanying strobe lit psychedelic light show" (78). But what effect does the rave scene really have on popular culture? Since the beginning of this culture there has been much controversy on the legality of what goes on in the scene. Through the history, music, people, spirituality we are introduced to one of the newest things affecting pop culture today.
Rave culture can be traced back to Native American religious ceremonies. It can be traced back to the sixties Be-Ins and Love Ins and Acid Tests. It can be traced back to anarchist revolutions in Italy and France. It pulls energy from many different directions. It had its origins in Chicago and Detroit disco clubs and gay dance clubs, and also in progressive music from England such as Kraftwerk and Depeche Mode. England and America traded musical influences back and forth during the late seventies-early eighties until techno finally started to be formed. The actual rave movement, however, combining this new music with dancing, occurred in England. At almost the exact same time, raves started popping up in Manchester and Ibiza, a noted English vacation spot, in late 1987 and early 1988. At this same time, the rave phenomenon was taking hold in Germany, most notably in Berlin (Jordan 30). The popularity of raves grew in both countries, and soon the intimate all-night dance parties were drawing thousands of kids. They were also drawing DJs from the United States. Author Joel Jordan talks about the beginning of this movement when he states, "In the early