Up until the climax of rave's national press coverage at the end of 1992, the majority of magazine coverage had been in the form of articles commenting on rave culture among other content. This was mainly in the form of the popular music press such as NME, though youth culture publications such as i-D also commented on Acid's growth on a number of occasions. Indeed, thanks to such articles, Acid was made to grow bigger, push it into the youth culture domain where newspaper articles were less likely to reach.

Six months before Acid House's explosion into the national newspaper press, three weekly music press publications began to cover the newly emerging Acid scene and began to predict a moral panic. The Record Mirror (20th February 1988), NME (16th July 1988) and Melody Maker (20th August 1988) all ran stories on ecstasy use in British clubs, with phrases such as, 'Tune in, turn on, drop out' and 'babbling E-talk'. By Summer 1988, the music, style and youth press were all wondering why the tabloids had yet to sensationalise Acid House and Ecstasy, complaining that they 'received little of the gutter press scare treatment afforded Crack yet the latter drug has yet to make any real inroads into British drug culture.' (NME, 13th August 1988)

As previously mentioned, youth subcultures feed off negative mass media representation and craved moral panic from the tabloids. Indeed, while the music press hyped up the scene, magazines such as Time Out actually began predicting the headlines in it's articles... these included 'London Gripped by Ecstasy', ''Drug Crazed New Hippies in Street Riots' and 'Yuppies on Acid' (Time Out 17-24th August 1988). Compare these to actual headline run by tabloids only months later such as 'Innocent face of Acid Hides a Sinister Drug World' (Today, 12th September 1988), 'Evil of Ecstasy' (The Sun, 19th October 1988) or 'Drug Crazed Acid House Fans' (The Sun, 28th October 1988), and it's difficult not to think the tabloids were in some way influenced by the subcultural press' build up to the moral panic.

Acid/Rave was seen as a ground breaking new movement, and the cutting edge of fashion, with i-D magazine bearing an Acid House 'smiley face' on its front cover in January 1988. Despite following mainstream media coverage, and the trivialisation of Acid House by the press, the underground rave scene, or warehouse scene as it was known then, still had support from youth subculture publications such as Mixmag and i-D until rave's real birth in 1991:

"The show is considered so domestic, familial and accessible that the ultimate put-down is to say a club event was more 'Top of the Pops on E than a warehouse rave." (i-D June 1990)

With the explosion of Hardcore (today referred to as Old Skool) in 1991, the extent of magazine coverage changed dramatically. The demand for a music press specifically for ravers became clear. New magazines specifically aimed at the rave audience such as Eternity, Core, Dream were set up specifically to target the audience while some fanzines such as 'ATM' grew from photocopied newsletters to full colour issues. Existing magazines such as DJ Magazine and Mixmag adapted to the increase in demand and expanded their readerships.

Dance magazines provided reviews of the latest records, interviews with up-front Djs and producers and perhaps most importantly for the rave scene's development, reviews and listings for events all over the country. All these elements meant the scene could establish itself better in youth culture, making it accessible to rave's niche audience without bringing it into the mainstream, deeming it too commercial to be 'cool'. However, thanks to event listings, organisations such as Slammin Vinyl, Helter Skelter, Club Kinetic, Dreamscape and Raindance could get national recognition and were able to build themselves up into profitable, legal events (many of these big events were originally illegal parties). Magazines allowed event organisers to advertise their nights across the country with eye-catching full page line-ups.

These magazines also covered other aspects of rave and youth culture as well. Publications including M8 and Dream magazines both included reviews of books, films and computer games, in addition to the latest clothing and other lifestyle related items. They also approached serious issues such as drug information. For instance, the survey of 4,000 ecstasy users conducted by Mixmag and Lifeline. An advertisement for Eternity Magazine featured in the May 1995 issue of Amiga Power Magazine describes the publication's content as, "Event reviews, record reviews, charts, drug information (Safe and Sound Advice) and as always much, much more." The cover of that month's copy of Eternity features a 'love dove' ecstasy tablet with the caption, "Ecstasy... is it worth the risk? Testing in conjunction with Central Television... in this issue."

In essence, these magazine's brought together the raving community - strengthening the scene and laying the foundations on which today's dance culture is built.

Past research supports this by stating that media coverage is essential to the development of subcultures. Niche media like the music press construct subcultures as much as they document them. (Thornton 1995:117). They are central to the process of sub cultural formation, integral to the way we 'create groups with words'. (Bourdieu 1990:139)

In 1993 Rave split into Drum & Bass and Happy Hardcore, while House also emerged as a main form of dance music. Before this there had only been one form of dance and this development caused a division in the scene that would eventually be rave culture's downfall.

With the introduction of the Criminal Justice Act in December 1993, House took over in the nightclubs while Rave (now existing as Drum & Bass and Happy Hardcore), refusing to become so restricted, reluctantly moved to a number of exclusive legal venues and smaller scale illegal parties. House music began to make money while the weaker legal raves went bust and the illegal raves found fewer large scale venues where the police wouldn't shut them down.

Dance now had a Rave culture and a Club culture, with the two areas attracting quite different young people and therefore different music press coverage. For a number of years these two strains of magazine co-existed side by side, with both dance cultures growing in popularity. As clubbing music became more and more commercial, there grew more and more money for the commercial dance press to support themselves with and grow from - magazines including Mixmag and DJ opted for more Club coverage and began to slowly drop reviews of Rave records and events. The Club scene was easier to report on, having more regular nights in set venues and customers with clearer fashions and musical tastes.

Meanwhile, the rave scene was shrinking. While the big raves were no longer growing, some of them, such as Fantasia were beginning to cross over to the clubbing market where they could make more money. A steady trickle of ravers were beginning to move to the clubs as well. Magazines such as Core, Eternity and Dream were beginning to struggle - wanting to keep their coverage the rave scene their number one priority, but finding that without covering more of the clubbing scene, they were losing readers.

Magazines including M8, Dream and Muzik slowly began to shift their content while Core and Eternity went out of print. In 1998 Dream too dramatically stopped production when their management insisted they drop rave coverage. Refusing outright, the writers decided they would rather see the magazine close down than go back on its roots (explained in editorial of Dream UK Issue 1). Nearly twelve months later, Dream re-launched as Dream UK, with more club scene coverage, but still a clear support for rave music such as techno, underground trance and happy hardcore musical styles. The magazine had always been written by a staff base including a number of rave Djs and while it now covered both mainstream and underground dance music, it's biggest selling point was largely its rave music cover Cds. While it lasted a number of months, it soon went out of production again, concluding that there was no longer a place for rave coverage amongst that of mainstream clubbing, and that it was not possible to survive without covering the commercial scene.

It would seem that the commercialisation of dance music contributed largely to rave's downfall. While magazines at first covered dance music as a whole, as the music split into the commercially viable club scene and the seemingly 'untouchable' Rave scene, most media coverage from the popular music press opted for the money making alternative. The segregation of Dance music, and within it, Rave music, had split the scene apart. House had become so successful that Rave had no way of sustaining itself. While House compilations topped the UK album charts and dance singles appeared in the Top 40 singles' chart, Rave's many forms, including Happy Hardcore, Drum & Bass, and Hard Trance, found it too difficult to compete, having much smaller fan bases.

Rave, by definition could not go commercial as other music genres had. With no magazines promoting Rave as a whole, Djs and promoters had little money or recognition. With no more media coverage, the whole Rave ethos of not having to dress smart or dance well was made to look 'uncool' by the highly fashionable Club culture presented in DJ, Muzik and Mixmag. The big promoters soon began to abandon Happy Hardcore, Raves truest form, and replaced it with more popular Drum & Bass, Garage and House events. Still billing a Hardcore line-up, Helter Skelter's Millennium celebration flop of New Years Eve 1999/2000 bankrupted the organisation for 12 months.

Indeed, Rave culture has almost been replaced by House music's latest hybrid form, Hard House. In effect, this is a fashionable, more commercially viable form of Rave which is backed by most of the Club culture press. Containing many elements of the old Rave scene, it is however successful in both nightclub and warehouse venues and is very easily reported on. It also has a subculture acceptable to other music scenes, meaning that it can be reported on alongside Garage or Trance music without standing out as Happy Hardcore coverage did in the late 1990's.

Similarly, Drum & Bass' culture is today acceptable, gaining a commercial status in magazines and on the radio, while keeping some of its underground routes. While many Drum & Bass nights are held in top nightclubs, the remaining Rave organisations such as Helter Skelter and Slammin Vinyl heavily feature Drum & Bass line-ups.

Today, the only magazine coverage of the underground (non-commercial) Rave scene comes in the form of Wax magazine, sister magazine to M8, one of the original rave magazines. While M8 is now almost entirely covering commercial dance genre's, Wax concentrates on the underground elements of dance music. M8 bought Wax in 1998 and at first they were largely similar in content, but with M8 basing itself around Scottish clubs and raves, and Wax on those in England. However, as M8 shifted coverage to the mainstream, it almost seemed to transfer more and more underground support to Wax's pages. Currently, it would seem that Wax is supplying the underground with coverage thanks to financial support from M8's mainstream exploits. Indeed, it is questionable as to whether Wax, or a magazine similar to it could survive on underground coverage alone without having such support.

The Conclusion

It is undoubtedly the case that the printed media did contribute in a number of key ways to Rave's development since its Acid House roots of the late 1980's. Sparked off by the sub culture music press in 1988, the tabloids' media/moral panic catapulted the scene into the public domain and caused a mass unity of Britain's youth. When the panic died down Acid returned underground and re-emerged in 1991 as Hardcore. Britain's youth again became addicted to Rave culture and despite less mass media coverage, they found a growing number of Dance music magazines providing the coverage they needed to form a well established music industry and way of life. Thanks to these magazines the music became segregated, creating a Club culture and a Rave culture, each with their own different elements. House music's acceptance by the mass media and its meant that it flourished to become today's Dance scene, while Rave culture, unable to leave the underground, struggled and subsequently lost its music press. Today the only coverage of Rave in the media comes in the form of one or two magazines and the occasional reference in association with drugs.

While most of the media's effects on the Rave scene were largely down to natural evolution of music scene relations instead of conscious decisions by media personnel, the treatment of Rave by the tabloids from 1988-1991 and decisions by magazines to drop Rave coverage in the mid-1990's are two of the biggest elements in the way Rave developed to become what it is today. Had it not been for the sensation then perhaps there would have been no Rave scene, and had Dance music not become commercial, perhaps Rave would still be a large contender in the current music world.

Indeed, it could be argued that the media as a whole created Acid House-cum-Rave-cum-Club culture by defining it for all to see. It is because of the media that elements of subcultures are given names, identities and reputations. Acid House already existed but the media made it famous - while the music press are responsible for promoting and establishing new genres of music and associating their names, and the names of those working within them, with the actual music itself. The media appears to label and simplify what can be otherwise complicated elements of a subculture for all to see, understand and access.

For the future, Dance music as a whole will continue to rely on the media to promote its culture to the next generation of youth and to keep it in the public domain. Club music seems to be getting ever more commercial, with most large tracks eventually making it into the charts thanks to radio and magazine promotion. The Rave scene will have to sustain what subcultural media coverage it has if it is to survive. While small illegal parties are on the increase, publicity for larger legal raves and the actual music releases will prove to be a crucial part of Rave's future. In both cases, music magazines tailored specifically for their needs, as opposed to media panics, will play a key role in the further development of Dance music in the 21st Century.

While this research paper may not have uncovered many new ideas concerning Dance/Rave and the media, it has perhaps tried to make the effects of print journalism on this particular youth movement easier to see and understand. The tabloids' obsession with ecstasy death, as well as possible political agenda in their coverage of Acid House, are two aspects that beg further investigation, while the other suggested elements in this piece can still be researched further. While Rave's apparent demise may seem down to deliberate media intervention at times, it is unlikely such conscious editorial decisions took place. However, this fact does not make it any less important or relevant for future research to try and understand Rave media relations further.     by DJ DIZZY