Tune(s) of the Week: Rave-era Videos

The late 80s and early 90s saw a rise in electronic music thanks to the increasing popularity of the rave scene in the UK. Alongside increased popularity of the music came the pressure to promote it as other popular music was at the time, with music videos. A big problem with this is that computers, drum machines and synthesizers do not make for compelling visuals. This led to some curious and often unfortunate decisions by video producers and bands.

808 State struck the big time first by breaking into the UK top ten in 1989. Their video solution in 1990 for “Cubik” was to pantomime as if they created the tune with traditional instruments and having exactly one friend come in the dance along.

The Prodigy was very much the poster-child act for the rise of the rave scene in mainstream England. Their 1991 single, “Everybody in the Place”, reached number 2 in the UK charts. The solution to capturing dance music in a video was to focus on the dancing, which makes a fair amount of sense. However, the fact that they felt the need to candy color every shot in post-production emphasizes the inherent boring nature of such an undertaking.

GTO didn’t fair much better with the same tactic. In fact, the severely limited cast in this video seems downright depressing and serves as a kind of emphasis of how small a scene dance music really was back in the early 90s.

The following year hardcore legends Acen are still putting the emphasis on a couple of dancers, but mix up the footage with a strange combination of archival footage and claymation. This one definitely hits closer to the tone of the tune but is still no closer to a definite answer as how to capture the spirit of music made on computers for people dancing in the dark.