Rave as Commodity: From Underground to Festival

Legend

Raves 1980-2010
EDM 1970-1990
Festival Era 1995-
Today 2024

Introduction, United States ‐ May 1, 2024

Pounding bass, infectious melodies, and chilling vocals. Skirting the line between community and commodity. No one does it quite like Electronic Dance Music (EDM). Today, EDM is most visible in the context of festival sets by celebrity DJs with hundreds of thousands of attendees. However, it stems from far humbler roots. From the Chicago nightclubs of the 1970's to massive festivals today, the landscape of EDM has undergone a drastic shift. Rave as Commodity: From the Underground to the Festival [...]
examines the history of the live EDM scene, and asks two questions: Has live EDM become more commodified over time? If so: how has commercialization affected the live EDM scene?

How to use this project

To navigate this project: Begin by reading the introduction, thesis, and content warning. Use the scroll feature on your mouse or keyboard to move sequentially through the timeline. The timeline is or...

Content Warning

The intention of this project is to provide viewers with a representative sample of EDM media and perspectives over the course of history. In order to fulfill the educational aims of this project, min...
Thesis

Once an underground phenomenon, live EDM today is significantly more commercialized. However, like most revolutions, the commodification of live EDM is complex, and incomplete. On one hand, commercialization has transformed the way many view and participate in the scene. At the top level, celebrity DJs are paid hundreds of thousands for appearances, and manage small armies of 'ghost producers' in an arrangement akin to a record label with less credit given. (30) (33) High-end festivals are a mul [...]
tibillion dollar industry. (35) These clubs, shows, and festivals are completely commercialized; organized by industry professionals, and anywhere from $50 to $400 to attend. Commercialization has also greatly expanded and diversified the scene. Today's commercialized environment has pushed EDM farther into the mainstream and the for-profit sphere than ever before. On the other hand, the underground persists. Small shows still occur in illegal warehouse venues and local clubs. New collectives are redefining, and carrying on the legacy of D.I.Y. shows in the digital age. The question of commodification becomes not one of transformation, but of stratification and expansion. Commercialization is not the sole option in today's scene. Instead, it offers new options to club and festival-goers. Rather than eliminate the D.I.Y., small, local EDM show, commercialization has created an upper level to the scene. This upper level augments the existing scene by bringing EDM songs into the top 40, sustaining festivals with the capacity to entertain hundreds of thousands, and facilitating the rise of EDM entertainers to celebrity status.
Kraftwerk Releases the First Popular Electronic Music, Germany ‐ Nov 1, 1974

In 1974, Kraftwerk's pioneering album, Autobahn was released. Autobahn reached a wide international audience, becoming many listener's first encounter with the new sound of electronic music. Kraftwerk's sound laid the foundation for techno and numerous other genres. (1)

Listen to the Autobahn album 2009 remaster on Spotify
Paradise Garage Opens, United States ‐ Dec 8, 1978

Paradise Garage, a gay nightclub in New York paved the way for house music. The Paradise Garage was an underground nightclub, open to members only. Unlike other nightclubs, it focused solely on music; no alcohol or food was served. Without alcohol, parties could run as late as noon the next day. Larry Levan was the resident DJ at the Paradise Garage, pioneering a high-energy disco DJing style that kept dancers on their feet all night. (6)

Explore Larry Levan's Discography on Spotify

Paradise Garage Before Demolition (7)
The Night Disco Died ‐ Jul 12, 1979

"Disco Demolition Night" was a promotional event held at a Chicago baseball game in 1979 by a local radio DJ. Originally meant to be a short, planned destruction of a large number of disco records, everything changed when fans stormed the field. The scene became chaotic. Bonfires were started, and demonstrators chanted anti-disco slogans as they burned their own records. This demonstration marked a major shift in public sentiment against disco music, once a dominant mainstream genre. To Chicago [...]
DJs, Disco Demolition Night was a clear sign that they needed to try something new. (2)

Watch news footage of "Disco Demolition Night" on Youtube
House Music Invented at The Warehouse ‐ Jan 1, 1980

The Warehouse nightclub, the namesake and originator of 'house' music opened in 1977. The Warehouse primarily served the Black and Latino Gay communities. Under the musical leadership of resident DJ Frankie Knuckles, a close friend of Larry Levan, house was born. Knuckles retooled soul and disco records into an entirely new genre of music; Songs became more danceable played at higher tempos with additional percussion mixed in. Before long, Frankie Knuckles had attracted a large, devoted fanbase. [...]
(4)

Explore Frankie Knuckle's discography on Spotify
House becomes House at Importes Etc. ‐ Mar 1, 1981

Importes Etc., a small Chicago record shop, became the hub for clubgoers looking for records played by DJ Frankie Knuckles. Once Frankie played a record he was sold by Importes Etc, they could sell dozens more copies to his fans. In order to help customers find the records Knuckles played, Importes Etc. created a "Warehouse music" section in the store. Eventually, this section was shortened to "house music", and house was born. (5) Importes Etc. was also the first buyer of the first original hou [...]
se record, "On & On" by DJ Jesse Saunders and producer Vince Lawrence. (10)

Listen to the first house record on Spotify
Detroit Techno and the Kraftwerk World Tour ‐ Jul 25, 1981

In 1981, the Kraftwerk world tour stopped in Detroit, Michigan. Kraftwerk's hard-hitting beats and industrial sound were perfectly suited to Detroit. Amongst the wreckage of crumbling industry, Detroit techno and warehouse clubs emerged. (11) Techno music gave voice to the feelings of devloution and displacement experienced by inner city residents as a result of white flight and the modernization of the auto industry. (35)

Watch a Detroit dancers dance to Kraftwerk on Youtube

Listen to Detroit Techno on Spotify
House Music Makes it Big in Chicago ‐ Feb 1, 1983

Up until the mid 80's house music had remained popular in Chicago and New York clubs, but otherwise relatively obscure. By 1983, house music was growing more mainstream, and in turn, more commercial. On Chicago radio, a group of DJs called the Hot Mix 5 had become the most popular radio program in Chicago. The Warehouse relocated, and renamed itself to the Music Box. The Music Box charged double the admission, frustrating DJ Frankie Knuckles, who left the club to start his own. The owner hoped t [...]
o find a new DJ to compete with Knuckles and hired DJ Ron Hardy. Before long, Hardy's hardcore, high speed style had attracted much larger, more diverse crowds than the Warehouse ever had. Hardy played a wide range of genres from house to new Detroit techno, and highlighted the work of local music producers in his sets. (8)(9)

Explore Ron Hardy's discography on Spotify

Listen to a recorded Hot Mix 5 broadcast on Youtube
From the Club to the Rave

House and Techno were born of identity. Both were heavily regional genres confined to communities of color and the LGBT+ community for much of their infancy. (10) The spaces created for house and techno in the United States in the 1970's and early 1980's were largely community spaces for people of color, and gay men. (11) The club allowed gay men to alternately interact in a context outside their sexuality in some contexts, and to experiment with their sexuality in others. (10)(6) However, by [...]
the late 1980's, the sounds of house and techno were catching on with a more diverse audience. House clubs began to see more diversity on the dancefloor, and some artists such as the Hot Mix 5 were achieving mainstream musical success. (10) As more people in the United States became aware of house and techno, they also began surfacing abroad in Ibiza clubs and cassette tape exchanges. (2) Before long, house and techno music had been adopted by an entirely different scene abroad. (11)
Genesis of Sound System Culture, United Kingdom ‐ Jan 1, 1980

In the 1980's the clubs in the UK looked very different from today. Clubs discriminated against people of color, and remained fairly slow-paced, stuffy occasions for an older, white, white-collar audience. It is common to see dancers wearing full business attire to the club in archival footage. On the fringes of established clubs, British East Indians hosted their own events in community centers, parks, and abandoned warehouses. These locations were ill-equipped for dance hall events, so local g [...]
roups maintained mobile "sound systems" that could be transported to events as needed. (11) At these parties, DJs played underground genres including reggae and dub that mainstream clubs and broadcasters refused to play. By the end of the 1980's, sound system parties had piqued the curiosity of a more diverse audience. (12)

Check out 1980's British Club Footage from the BBC Program "Hitman and Her" on Youtube

Watch the Merritone Sound System perform in 1987 on Youtube
Klub Shoom Opens ‐ Dec 5, 1987

In September of 1987 London DJs Danny Rampling, Paul Oakenfold, Nicky Holloway, and Johnny Walker returned from a trip to Ibiza. On their trip, they had been exposed to deep house records imported from Chicago, and fallen in love with the sound. It was clear the music they heard that week was going to be the next big thing in the UK. Danny Rampling was the first to take the leap in December, establishing an underground weekly house music show called Klub Shoom in London. Klub Shoom was tightly e [...]
xclusive. Although thousands of dancers lined up at the entry each weekend, the venue reached capacity at just 300. Organizers tried to accommodate the growing crowd by moving venues to a YMCA with a capacity of 1200, but they struggled to keep up with the club's exponential growth in popularity. (13)

Explore Danny Rampling's discography on Spotify

Listen to the house record that reached #1 on UK charts in 1987 on Spotify
The Hardcore Uproar Collective Begins Hosting House Parties ‐ Dec 30, 1987

Beginning in Tandem with Shoom, Acid House parties spread across the UK like wildfire. Parties drew on sound system culture, bringing in their own speaker systems, and hosting events in abandoned locations. The small town of Blackburn became a hotspot for house parties as hosts began taking advantage of the large number of abandoned industrial buildings left behind by a crumbling textiles industry. Local collective Hardcore Uproar organized the parties, and promoted them through flyers ad word o [...]
f mouth. As the scene expanded, a rivalry between partygoers and the police formed. Collectives resorted to a number of tactics to keep parties going, from vague flyers and decoy events, to flooding police raids with large crowds of people. Beyond the parties themselves, the crowd was also evolving. The demographic attending house parties was younger, more working-class, and more diverse than club-goers of the time. Unfortunately, the lighthearted atmosphere of the early house parties did not last long. The underground nature of the house party scene attracted organized crime. It wasn't long before drugs and violence rendered the scene unattractive to partygoers, and a criminal nuisance in the media. (14)

Explore Rave Posters from UK Acid House Parties at the Rave Presevation Project archives
Bright Bill Passed to Restrict Free Parties ‐ Jun 20, 1990

In 1990, UK Parliament passed the Entertainments (Increased Penalties) Bill. The bill, which placed heavy fines on party organizers, only drove the party scene deeper into organized crime. Although press coverage of raves had initially been positive, it soon turned to scare journalism. Tabloids sensationalized the drug use and underground nature of the scene, frightening lawmakers. (11) Confronted with increased penalties, and new challenges from specialized anti-party police units who had begun [...]
implementing more aggressive Miner's Strike tactics, the scene had no choice but to relocate. UK Ravers joined forces with a British nomadic movement called the New Travelers, and took the rave movement to the countryside. (15)
House Evolves into Gabber, Raves, Netherlands ‐ Jul 22, 1991

Similar scenes to the UK rapidly emerged and gained popularity worldwide in the 1990's. Raves were hosted in abandoned and out of the way locations from Northern California to the Netherlands. One notable example is the gabber scene in the Netherlands. Gabber, or happy hardcore, began as a more hardcore subgenre of house music. Youth flocked to underground raves held illegally in abandoned locations from 1991 to 1992. The small group hosting these raves evolved into the collective Multigroove, a [...]
nd settled into an old warehouse they named Warehouse Elementenstraat. By 1993, the warehouse had been raided by the police, and Multigroove had legitimized by acquiring a licensed venue. Faced with the closure of venues, and mockery in music and the mainstream media, the gabber craze fell off at the beginning of the millenia. Ultimately, the gabber scene was absorbed into modern hardcore EDM. Thunderdome, a large-scale gabber rave, popularized the gabber sound, and still occurs annually in the Netherlands. (16)

Listen to the Happy Hardcore top 100 on Spotify

Watch Gabber-style dancing, called 'Hakkuh' on Youtube

Experience Thunderdome 1993 on Youtube
Raving in California and the UK the early 1990's, United States

Explore DJ E.L. Fudge's collection of rave mixtapes on Soundcloud

Oral History Interview with DJ E.L. Fudge

In the interview below, DJ E.L. Fudge describes his experiences with the London and San Francisco rave scenes in the 1990's. How did you become involved with EDM? Strangely enough at my dad's Christia...
Raving in Colorado and California 1990s

Explore Rave Posters from California and Colorado at the Rave Presevation Project archives

Oral History Interview with Patrick
EDM in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1990s

Check out a Burning Man EDM party on Youtube

Explore a Classic Oakland Rave Venue on Reality Check TV

Oral History Interview with Hugh Mackenzie
Castlemorton, United Kingdom ‐ May 25, 1992

Facing increased police pressure, nomadic convoys converged on what was intended to be a small countryside festival at Castlemorton. The festival, which was only intended to accommodate a few hundred ravers for a weekend, became the largest illegal rave in British history, attracting 30,000 ravers and lasting five days. The crowds, and the perceived lack of police action led to a media frenzy. Media outlets dramatized resident complaints, and demanded action from the UK government. Eventually, [...]
this media pressure culminated in the arrest and trial of 13 members of the well-known Spiral Tribe nomadic group. Although the members of Spiral Tribe were acquitted, Castlemorton marked the end of the UK nomadic rave scene. Following their acquittal, Spiral Tribe departed the UK for other countries in Western Europe. (17)

Explore footage of Castlemorton on Youtube
Criminal Justice Act Passed ‐ Sep 13, 1994

If the UK rave scene was all but deceased by 1994, the Criminal Justice Act would certainly be the nail in the coffin. Passed in September of that year, the act strengthened anti-trespass laws and criminalized gatherings where music with 'repetitive beats' was played. Ravers fought back, staging marches and parties to protest the bill. Unfortunately, these marches were met with a violent response by UK police, and failed to prevent the act from coming into effect. The loss of free parties both i [...]
ndoors and in the country left a significant gap for the UK's entertainment industry to fill. Where raves withered, new commercial clubs and festivals emerged. (18)

Compare 'Hitman and Her' footage from 1992 on Youtube, Has the commercial club absorbed the rave?
The Dawn of the Festival

The underground scene of the late 1980's and early 1990's certainly followed the old adage ' the candle that burns twice as bright, burns half as long'. More outspoken than the club scenes it evolved from, and more raucous and uncouth than the festival scene to come, the underground was doomed from the start by its reliance on the exploitation of blind spots in law enforcement and licensing. (11) For a short, shining moment, the underground was everywhere, and raves shook UK warehouses, Dutch bi [...]
ke tunnels, and any number of strange venues across the US. Then, just as quickly as it had begun, it was largely extinguished. Difficulties with law enforcement, drugs, and crime had simply become too much to bear. (34) Despite the degradation of the underground EDM scene, desire for EDM remained. In fact, interest in the music spiked significantly in the 1990's and again in the 2010's. (20) (30) Left to fill this gap in the UK was the traditional entertainment industry. (18) In the United States, many promoters chose to professionalize. Liscenced venues commercialized and further restricted the scene by collecting fees, and restricting drugs, and other subcultural elements including pacifiers, glow sticks and baggy clothing (35) Across the European and North American continents, outdoor festivals and new commercial clubs established to meet the needs of a growing cadre of EDM fans. The festival scene offered incredible new possibilities in production quality and event size, but other aspects of the scene were entirely left behind. Most notably, the non-commercial, DIY youth culture feeling was gone. One member of the Spiral Tribe described the shift as feeling that the culture they had helped develop-- their music, their land-- were all being sold back to them by corporate entities. (18)
The Love Parade, Germany ‐ Jul 1, 1989

As the Soviet Union Neared collapse, a group of Berlin club-goers organized a demonstration unlike any before. On July 1st, 1989, The Love Parade danced through West Berlin with a small crowd of 150 ravers. Four months later, the fall of the Berlin Wall completely transformed the city. Techno clubs rose from the ashes of the receding Soviet Union, forming a new, vibrant EDM scene. The Love Parade continued each year, growing exponentially as the German EDM scene exploded in popularity around 199 [...]
2. By 1996, the Love Parade had outgrown its original route through a small shopping district, and relocated to the historically significant Brandenburg Gate. By 1999 the event had become an iconic symbol of Berlin and EDM culture. That year, parade attendance peaked at 1.5 million ravers. Media fame, the struggle to remain apolitical with meaning, and mass popularity, among other factors, were drawing the parades to a crossroads. In 2001, the Love Parade lost its status as a political demonstration, turning the costs of security and cleanup over from the German government to the parade's organizers. Attempting to cope with increasingly complicated attendance and logistics, the parade struggled to stay afloat, and was cancelled in 2004 and 2005. In 2006, the Love Parade was sold as a brand to German Fitness company McFit. Under McFit, the parade was heavily commercialized, and the parade route was moved away from Berlin. Attendance flagged until the parade was cancelled due to a mass panic at the 2010 parade that claimed the lives of 21 people. (19)(20) Beginning in 1997, a counter-demonstration called The Fuckparade also takes place annually in Berlin. The parade aims to protest the commercialization of The Love Parade and Berlin nightlife. (21)

Listen to the iconic track "Meet Her at the Loveparade" by DaHool on Spotify

Explore Footage of the Love Parade on Youtube

Watch the Iconic Techno Viking video from the 2000 Fuckparade on Youtube
The EU festival Scene Expands, Belgium ‐ Jan 1, 1990

Inspired by the Love Parade, and drawing on the tradition of UK rock festivals music festivals spread rapidly across Europe. These largely commercial ventures, attracted large crowds and celebrity DJs. Often, they were seen as a lucrative tourism draw by host cities. EDM Festivals remain wildly popular today. Festivals such as I Love Techno in Ghent and Sonar Barcelona have run continuously since the 1990's, and the European festival lineup has since grown to include large-scale festivals like T [...]
omorrowland in Belgium. (22) Festivals are constantly innovating and expanding. By 2019, a large festival like Tomorrowland could sell millions of tickets at hundreds of dollars apiece, and could be speculated to bring in tens of millions of dollars in profit each year. (23) Compared to the D.I.Y raves of the 1990's, festivals boast exponentially larger budgets and offer unprecedented production value and crowd size.

Watch incredible crowd control at the Defqon 1 festival in the Nethrlands on Youtube

Enjoy a live set by David Guetta at Tomorrowland 2010 on Youtube

Compare the set from 2010 to a Tiësto set at Tomorrowland 2023 on Youtube
Electric Daisy Carnival Establishes the US Festival Scene, United States ‐ Sep 1, 1997

Beginning in 1997 with the first Electric Daisy Carnival festival in Los Angeles (EDC later relocated to Las Vegas), the American festival scene quickly expanded to meet new demand for electronic music. The first large US festival was held as a satellite event to the Miami Music Conference in 1999. Ultra Miami, as the festival became known, quickly became even more popular than its host conference, turning into one of the largest EDM festivals in the world. By 2011, EDC had migrated to Las Vegas [...]
and was entertaining crowds of over 200,000. Festivals, which were initially considered a financial gamble on a niche genre of music, soon transformed into a lucrative industry. (22) (24) (25)

Explore Daft Punk's Discography on Spotify

Explore Footage from Electric Daisy Carnival 2000 on Youtube

Compare footage from 2000 to a set by Marshmello and SVDDEN DEATH at EDC 2023 on Youtube
The Underground and the Internet, Germany ‐ Sep 7, 2011

Beneath the current of mainstreamed EDM, the internet offered a safe haven for smaller EDM subcultures, and valuable exposure for niche subgenres. Throughout the late 1990's and early 2000's, underground raves, especially in the United States, relied on internet communications and email mailing lists to covertly disseminate information about location and timing. (27) Today, these online communities persist under the cover of ambiguous social media pages and hidden message channels. (28) With th [...]
e advent of file compression and music sharing platforms like LimeWire, Youtube, and Soundcloud, the world of EDM suddenly was a lot less far apart. Small artists gained the ability reach new audiences, and ravers across the globe could share music and cultural norms more efficiently. (27) Microgenres largely confined to the internet such as nightcore, thrived. (29) As the 2010's advanced, consumers shifted from media like radio with established programming to streaming platforms like Spotify and Soundcloud. There, small artists gained the ability to attract larger, more consistent listener bases. (30) This accessibility was further augmented by the implementation of recommendation algorithms on both social media and streaming platforms. For the first time in history, listeners no longer had to seek out EDM to be exposed to it. While the viral nature of the internet has sometimes led the electronic underground to ridicule (such as in the viral goths under a bridge video, which now boasts tens of millions of views), it remains a key avenue of discovery for new listeners, and a valuable space for underground communities to concentrate and interact.

Watch the iconic "Goths Under a Bridge" viral video on Youtube

Enjoy a nightcore remix on Youtube
Monstercat and NCS Pioneer the Youtube-Centered Record Label, Canada ‐ Jul 1, 2011

As dubstep rose in popularity, and platforms such as Youtube expanded, a new type of record label developed. Monstercat of Canada and NoCopyrightSounds, of the UK were established within days of each other in 2011. Both labels shared music through streaming platforms, and offered EDM producers exposure to a large audience of young people and gamers. NCS further expanded on the concept by offering their music to content creators to use free of charge with due credit in their online videos. This [...]
strategy was wildly successful, and the use of NCS music by popular Youtube channels skyrocketed the label's popularity. Today, NCS generates hundreds of billions of plays, and has been used in over 250 million videos according to their website. (32) Monstercat releases now top music charts, and the label has expanded into live events. Through sheer numbers, partnerships with popular Youtube creators, and use in video game soundtracks, these streaming-based independent labels became key players in the introduction of new listeners to EDM in the 2010s. (31)

Explore the NoCopyrightSounds music library on their website

Explore new releases on the Monstercat website
Miami Ultra Festival Attendance Doubles, US Festivals Expand, United States ‐ Mar 15, 2015

Between 2012 and 2013, the attendance of Ultra Miami EDM festival doubled to 330,000. (27) But what caused this sudden growth? First, the growth of the internet. In the early 2010s, Dubstep, once an underground UK genre, rose to mass popularity abroad through online platforms. Key in promoting this new genre was American DJ Skrillex, who pioneered a new style of dubstep that proved more commercially successful with US audiences. The rise of dubstep also coincided with the mainstreaming of Electr [...]
onic Dance Music by Daft Punk during their landmark 2006 Coachella performance. Daft Punk's 2006 set represented both a technical milestone for live electronic music, and a new recognition for EDM by mainstream crowds. Taken together, both celebrity DJs and the internet helped drive demand for Electronic Dance music, and led to surging ticket sales at US festivals by the 2010's. (22) (27) As festivals expanded, so did EDM as an industry. Large industry conferences such as the Amsterdam Dance Event, and the Miami Winter Music Conference (the birthplace of Ultra), emerged as spaces for EDM artists to view their music through the lens of business. Conferences offer artists, producers, and event coordinators opportunities to network, learn marketing strategies, and hone their craft. (22) (26)

Explore Daft Punk's Discography on Spotify

Listen to Skrillex's landmark debut EP on Spotify

Watch Daft Punk's Pioneering 2006 Live Coachella Set

Enjoy a live set by Martin Garrix at Ultra Miami 2023
EDM Industry and Culture Today

As festivals and the EDM industry continue to diversify and expand, they are redefining participation in the EDM scene at every level. Today, a festival ticket can cost $400, a significant number that impacts crowd demographics at EDM events, especially at large festivals. The concept of the DJ and the music producer are undergoing great change, and in some cases, becoming one. Today, there is much more pressure than ever on DJs to produce their own original music. Large DJs have been forced to [...]
redefine themselves as brands, defined by a signature sound, and fueled by armies of well-compensated, but unrecognized 'ghost producers'. (30) DJing itself has become a much larger industry. Today, top DJs can demand over $100k for live appearances. (33) In the meantime, a new generation of local collectives, DJs, and producers are reforming the underground to appeal to a new generation. Social media collectives such as Davis Rave Co., ETA 45, and numerous others utilize platforms like Instagram to create a distinctly modern EDM community.
EDM in Davis and Uganda Today ‐ Apr 23

Explore Homsy's music and mixes on Linktree

Oral History Interview with Noah Homsy King
EDM in Philadelphia Today ‐ Apr 10

Explore AP's discography on Spotify

Listen to AP's picks for the most influential songs of the 2020's on Youtube

Oral History Interview with AP Hatton
EDM in Rochester and Buffalo Today

Listen to JP's picks for the most influential songs of the 2010's on Youtube

Oral History Interview with JP
Conclusions and Reflections on EDM Today

Throughout the interviews conducted for this project, a general consensus emerges. Rather than evolving, the live EDM scene has expanded. More commercial opportunities in live EDM exist today than ever before. However, the underground still remains just as vibrant as ever. The new underground skirts the lines of commodification as it balances new-age social media marketing with traditional, DIY-style events. Today, the core values of Peace, Love, Unity, Respect (P.L.U.R), and community in the [...]
underground scene must contend with the allures of fame and profit available to larger, more commercial operations. The ladder of commercialization to the top of the industry is tempting, but the underground also risks their community and identity when they become for-profit. This inherent tradeoff has led to a stratification of the electronic scene in recent years. While the underground maintained a steady pace of small, localized events, the highest levels of DJs and festivals have seen exponential growth in the last few years. As smaller collectives begin to see momentum through social media, one question remains: Will the underground choose to remain obscure? Or will the viral nature of social media bring everyone into the mainstream?
Works Cited & Attribution ‐ May 1, 2024

Attribution

Project authored by undergraduate Milena Kahan at the Rochester Institute of Technology, and completed on May 1, 2024. Excluding oral history interviews, external links are not the intellectual proper...

Works Cited

Dreyer, S.-A., Wenzel, M., & Schaar, T. (n.d.). The legend of kraftwerk - google arts & culture. Google Arts and Culture. https://artsandculture.google.com/story/the-legend-of-kraftwerk-visit-duesseld...