Is New Rave the New New Wave?

Everyday (in the past month or so) I run into this. New Rave. It started with hearing MIA's "Where Were You in '92", which is about the London rave scene in, uh, 1992. Diplo's beat gives me flashbacks of strobe lights, big silver pants and a throbbing "unce unce unce" circa 98/99. I don't know if the song itself could be classified as New Rave, but more on that in a sec. Last week, I think, Fashionista posted about Brit cult fashion mag POP's feature story about New Rave. I've decided to take an independent study on this phenomena that could possibly effect mainstream culture in the next 10 years or so. But then again, it could just be repackaged electroclash with a faster BPM and equally short shelf life.

New Rave is more about the scene than it is the music. It's like the New Wave revival only less true to its original form. It's a cyclical thing, like any trend. It's all about 20 years ago. Only with New Rave, the fashions, not the soundtrack, are equally neon and outrageous as their early 90's clubkid predecessors. Glow sticks, colorful hair, artistic makeupry dictated by the likes of SuperSuper, Gareth Pugh, House of Holland, etc etc.

The term was coined by the Klaxons (who will be in Boston 4/11 at Great Scott if anyone wants to go with me) in an interview with NME mag (which is the British equivalent to Rolling Stone, I think/guess). It was just a joke but the mag ran with it and started dubbing every disco punk band that has come out since late 2006 "new rave". the thing that gets me is that this is not techno by any means. It really is just disco punk/electroclash/whatever genre for electrorock you can think of that has been thrown around in the past 7 years or so. It's all in the marketing, like progressive house, for the guido set, which is very similar to IDM, for the goth/industrial set (Caroline is going to kill me for the comparisson, which I made 7 years ago when she first played IDM for me).

Anyway, this is all supposed to be this huge underground movement in London. I don't know if it's making it's way fully to NYC yet seeing that I'm not there, but I'm sure the tastemakers that brought New Wave back to downtown are trying to make the same happen for this. I have Mike scoping out SuperSuper for me while he's there because I can't fully grasp this idea. Especially the music! I feel like it's all a different style of electroclash that swept NYC in 2002 with it's assymetrically cut shirts, fishnets and sense of irony about the 80's. At least the look went with the music. Maybe it's the reformed clubkid from the suburbs in me but the look doesn't match the beat. However, I do love the theatrics and can't wait to see what kind of looks come out of this. Move over James St James...