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EVENTS
The New Rave Bands You'd Almost Forgotten
Why wasn't the New-Rave movement that took over the mid 2000's a mainstay in the music industry rather than a flash in the pan?
The New-Rave movement is much like the awkward middle child of contemporary music. Dance music is the older brother with Indie-rock being the younger sibling, and New-Rave is the awkward middle child your family forgets is alive till they come back for the Christmas holidays.
The flash in the pan middle child is a blend of various music Genres taking elements of Indie Rock, Electronic music, Techno and Dance to create a genre that very briefly seemed to lead us on a musical revolution and it all started in the mid-noughties.
The mid-noughties were strange and in post Britpop Britain the music industry was looking for something energetic and vibrant to hang on to.
In hindsight it’s no surprise the Music industry went this way, by 2005 the indie explosion was in full flight The Strokes released the album Is this It? four years earlier and The White Stripes were killing it in the Detroit scene with The Hives also making there mark.
Just as The Killers released there debut album Hot Fuss and guitar heavy four-pieces seemed to dominate the charts something different spring up from almost nowhere.
When something new becomes popular in music it is quick to develop, and with development comes different kinds of music and the Skins generation wanted music to drink to not just listen to on the bus.
Then Along came James Righton Jamie Reynolds and Simon Taylor-Davies, three friends who formed Klaxons, The Boys from England beat Amy Winehouse to win a mercury prize for there 2007 album Myths of the near future.
The Klaxons
The reason they are credited (or blamed depending on your perspective) with starting the New-Rave movement is because they had an extremely energetic live act using Neon colours and glowsticks. This blend was extremely popular and led to the indie boom dying die out.
The Klaxons debut album is without a doubt the best music to come from the era and it wouldn’t be unreasonable for me to describe the album as a classic blending of Indie-rock and Dance songs such as ‘Two Receivers’ and ‘Magick’ were impossibly catchy.
Sweeping tons of awards this seemed like a new era in music unfortunately it was just a flash in the pan.
Decent Records released by Shit-Disco and Trash Fashion, aside Klaxons were an expectation rather than the rule. Klaxons second album was solid and more pop focused as they publicly rejected the New-Rave tag and with the second album not being as genre defining as there debut more bands came along and left the trio behind.
The Trash Fashion
Hot chip burst onto the scene bringing a blend of Dance and pop music that was so catchy it felt like an itch you constantly needed to scratch.
Lcd Soundsytem also brought a Dance-punk sound to the Indie generation and EDM and Dubstep started to drown Indie rock, Calvin Harris stopped making Electronic music and started making Dance music and it seemed DJ's were the 'New Four Piece' indie band flooding the music industry.
New Rave music was more or less forgotten by 2009 and the Klaxons never could shake the early success or the New-Rave tag, The movement it seemed was more of a fast-food burger than a well-grilled stake. Fame got to the Klaxons and there musical output got more mediocre the further they ventured from there new-rave roots. The Middle brother was stuck with a dodgy hair cut that people just couldn’t forget.
