It’s the 20th summer of love this year and while there have been washouts, dropouts, too many over-cooked realities and dodgy clothes; it remains the last true musical revolution in recent decades.
Idols and glory - pop in a nut shell. Walls littered with posters of the latest god/ess with a guitar, Stage-front, spouting those incisive, unifying ditties about unrequited love, the ‘square peg in a round hole’ of teen angst or just how nice it all is to be lucky, lucky, lucky. All good stuff but there’s always been something a bit daft giving it up for someone who doesn’t even know you exist. God knows, I’ve done time thinking I was Prince, Mick Jones and the Beasties (imagine Adrock pogo-ing in paisley and before you know it, the word ‘cock’ will pop in there). The fabulous, formative years spent appropriating words and chords, moulding your little identity into a tangible lump of fierce opinion, sexuality and a dash of tenderness are essential to all punters.
Then acid house turned up, all exotic, open minded and faceless. Now, electronic music weren’t new or anything,
The story always ends the same, money to be made, see. Exclusivity, dress codes and duff drugs buffed and splintered the harmonious blob into a shiney smiley con or ‘Flaceeiiid!’ But as the last squeal echoed from the speaker stack, it’s musical legacy was left to run wild and flourish, before this dissolves into a Powerpoint presentation of Darwins’ ‘Evolution of Electronic Musique’, let’s just say there’s nothing ‘nu’ about glowsticks.
