I actually enjoy the music without taking any drugs, but my default state is quite hyperactive. The loud bass, the energy of the crowd, the people feeling comfortable and enjoying themselves makes me feel energized and allows me to relax and dance in an enjoyable anonymity. To your point, when I was photographing concerts (&clubs/raves) regularly I did quickly realize I'm an outlier, and most people and performers were in fact consuming copious amounts of drugs... The least enjoyable events were those where everybody was escaping something - consuming drugs, over-drinking alcohol, destroying property – while the best events had a tight-knit community, proper security, pop-up drug labs ( https://drugfoundation.org.nz/articles/checkit-out ) and most importantly a mature audience.

Howdy! I've been huge into electronic music since I was 12 (currently 38). Literally fell in love with the music for the sake of the music. Started going out at 18, didn't try drugs until my mid-20's. Enjoy drugs, sometimes I'll take them, but most of the time I'm either sober or just a bit stoned. But even the weed isn't a requirement for me. I can be out until 5AM, loving the whole experience, because the music is what I want.

In fact, I've been absolutely cranking this[1] crazy shit on repeat for weeks now and have been sober each time! The mixing, the flow, and the leftfield-weirdness of the whole thing hits my soul juuuuuuust right.

So, we're out there. Much of the people who regularly support the scene are also often sober, or don't regularly party hard. Check your preconceived notions and blanket generalizations at the door, please, and then try coming out to a show. We'd be happy to show you how things actually are. :)

[1]https://soundcloud.com/dkmntl/azu-tiwaline-at-lentekabinet-2...

I have friends who really like EDM, and as far as I am aware 95+% of the time that they're listening to it they're stark-raving sober, so I don't think that being stoned is a prerequisite for liking it.

That said, I think that a possible explanation for the decline in club popularity is that a lot of people don't actually like it unless they're on drugs. Not just the music, but the whole club scene. It might be an acquired taste, entirely possible, but it's not a taste I ever felt the need to acquire.

Not quite apples to apples, but similar, about a year ago I realized that I actually don't like living in NYC. Moreover, I realized that I never really liked it, and I had been trying to convince myself that I did for the last decade. I don't like how expensive it is, I don't like going to bars, I don't like hipster art stuff, I do like the train, but not having a car is still inconvenient, etc. There's a million things that I know a lot of people in NYC really like (and more power to them if they do), but I do think that if people were more honest with themselves there would be a lot fewer people living in this city.

Oh, it's definitely not for everyone. I love most of the broad spectrum of electronic music (sans the more mainstream "EDM" crap, but I digress...), so my wife gets exposed to all kinds of weird, repetitive shit. And she can't stand most of it, it makes her very anxious and over-stimulated. There's one particular kind of electronic music, called Deep House, which is heavily rooted in Funk, Soul, Disco and Jazz, that she absolutely loves to go out and dance to with me. It's got a four-to-the-floor kick, but it's got the soul and sound of the other genres I listed, just slightly repetitive.

This[1] is a good example of what that kinda music sounds like, he's one of my favorite DJs/producers out there. I suspect it might still not be for you, and that's totally fine! This shit deeeeeeefinitely isn't for everyone. :)

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYS3OUKKGqc

Edit: And as an aside, I'm with ya on NYC. Every time I visited, all of my NYC friends would just regale me, and themselves, with stories about finding places to live and what they have to deal with living there. I don't understand it.

I've kind of inadvertently gone down a rabbit hole for different types of electronic music already, because at a previous job the guy who was in charge of playing music was really big into it, and he played a pretty broad spectrum of stuff.

I liked some stuff more than others, but never really clicked with any of it.

Just to be clear, not claiming that the stuff I listen to is "objectively" better or anything. 90+% of what I listen to is garage-punk stuff like NOFX or Misfits, which is its own kind of trash. It's just jived better for me (doesn't hurt that I was exposed to it much younger).

I don't regret moving to NYC, when I did it was probably an economically-ok decision; a lot more high-paying tech jobs here than in Dallas (where I lived before), and there are parts I still like about it, but there were definitely other parts that I was lying to myself about for a long time.

Though I will admit, I think a good chunk of that is that I've just been here too long. I probably should move... I just need to convince my employer to let me go full-remote.

Thanks for sharing this. I have a similar wife it seems. Does not like most EDM, but Downtempo, ambient house & deep house she loves to dance to. That with a bit of Molly can be a ton of fun.

If you have SiriusXM their Chill station plays this type of music.

One of my favorite DJs is Nora En Pure.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nora_En_Pure

It is amusing to me that she was born after I graduated high school.

I’ll recommend Groove Salad from Soma FM (avail through TuneIn) for chill too, great station and no ads

Same here. I've been into electronic music since I was 16, and I did never take drugs until I was about 30. It's amazing how long you can stay up just with caffeine. Especially if you are young. I remember driving back from a big rave at eight in the morning. The police were stopping and searching everyone’s cars. They stopped ours too, but it took them about 30 seconds to figure out that everyone in there was sober.

I think sober partying and daytime partying are a good trend in general. I love taking drugs occasionally, but I like to party every weekend.

For what it's worth -

I enjoy electronic music. I enjoy dancing. I absolutely hated the club scene every time I went. All the ones I went to were in dark and fairly disgusting venues, where people spent hours moving back and forth between sitting around getting drunk with music blasting so loud you couldn't have a conversation, and awkwardly moving around a crowded dance for floor. As the other person said, it was hard to see how anyone was actually enjoying the situation, particularly considering everyone was paying a good deal of money and screwing up their sleep schedule for it.

I can get enjoying electronic music and dancing to it, but the club scene always seemed immensely unappealing.

Yeah, that's the unfortunate part, the spaces are never comfortable and certainly unappealing to a lot of people.

For me personally, I've always found it kinda funny how much I love those spaces. I generally have a strong dislike of crowds, large masses of people, yadda yadda. My primary happy places are at home all cozy with my family, and out in the mountains backpacking in the wilderness far away from a single soul.

But my third happy place is something akin to a dilapidated warehouse or building that is being used as an unlicensed venue for incredibly loud, repetitive music. The room is packed, with just enough room for cutting a rug, there's sweat on the walls, it's pitch dark save for a single red light over the DJ booth and there's not a snowball's chance in hell that you'll be able to chat with the person next to you. You're stepping in something wet and sticky, who the fuck knows what's on your shoes.

Get the music just right and I'll lose myself in that crowd and cathartically dance my ass off all night long.

Edit: I think part of it is that I've always found the existence of such underground spaces to be super cool. I like to experience things like that that are just below the surface of "normal society".

I think it’s a fair generalization but from my experience and my personal friend group I’d say 1/3 of ravers are on some serious mix of substances, 1/3 are keeping it more casual with some alcohol and cannabis, and the last 1/3 are as sober as can be. It really is a wide spectrum of folks who participate in raves

I'm honestly just a coward; I have no idea what's actually in drugs that people buy on the street, and if I get sick, what exactly am I going to do? Sue them?

My dad is an outlier who managed to never have any issues thankfully, but there is a pretty strong history of addiction (mostly alcoholism, but other stuff too) on my dad's side of the family, and as such I've always treated drugs pretty cautiously.

This is downvoted, but as someone who liked actual dancing and did not took drugs except alcohol, it is quite on spot. Imo, lower use of stimulants among young and young crowd choosing events that start sooner are correlated.

And while we are at it, alcohol use will be correlated to dancing itself. It helps to loose inhibitions a lot of us just would not overcome without it. Same deal.

You're both wrong about raves not being great sober, and the latent prejudice against "drugs". Source, I went to many raves sober, and I work in psycare on them (psychiatric ambulance of sorts).

For a festival that's proper shit without drugs, try Oktoberfest here in Munich.

>You might be the first person who went to one without taking drugs

I also don't line raves, but that makes me dislike them even more. So the point of "raves" is to get drugged while doing something you don't enjoy? Would you allow your kids to go to one?

Fortunately I think you're exaggregating or your experience is an outlier and people actually go there to have fun listening to loud music (while sometimes, indeed, using drugs).

I'd happily hit the dance floor sober for years. But now it's too loud and I like my sleep :-). I also don't feel the music like I used to either, but damn it was good.