\n\tThis week,\u00a0<\/em>Billboard<\/a>\u00a0is publishing a series of lists and articles celebrating the music of 20 years ago. Our\u00a0<\/em>2006 Week<\/a>\u00a0continues here with a look back at the brief (and possibly media-created) sensation that was the U.K.\u2019s new rave movement, kicked off in \u201906 with a pair of breakout singles from London dance-rock group Klaxons.<\/em><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tExplore\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p><\/div>\n \t\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/div>\n <\/p>\n \t<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n See latest videos, charts and news<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n \n\tThe 2008 BRIT Awards were something of a fever dream. For anyone who had spent the past two years living through the new rave era \u2013 a short-lived, chaotic fusion of electronica and indie-rock \u2013 it would have been vindicating to see Rihanna up on stage performing \u201cUmbrella,\u201d a global No. 1 smash, backed by Klaxons, the scene\u2019s leading and most recognisable name. After all the jokes, the parties and glowsticks, the scrappy scene proved it could go toe-to-toe with pop megastars \u2013 before falling apart completely.<\/p>\n \n\tThe seeds for this madness were sown in 2006. That was the year that the term new rave (or nu rave, as it was often styled) entered the British lexicon, and when bands like Klaxons, Late of The Pier and New Young Pony Club provided a garish alternative to Arctic Monkeys\u2019 buttoned-down indie-rock. New rave shared many of the hallmarks of electroclash and dance-punk, two similarly frenetic and enlivening subgenres that had success on both sides of the Atlantic and throughout Europe.<\/p>\n \n\tIn recent years, new rave has been one of the micro-genres swallowed up by the catch-all \u2018indie sleaze\u2019 label. The latter has been applied retroactively to a number of bands, artists and fashion styles that appeared in Lizzy Goodman\u2019s totemic Meet Me in the Bathroom<\/em> \u2014 an oral history of New York\u2019s post-9\/11 rock revival \u2014 and renewed interest in several of the acts. Though that book focused on the New York scene, British acts from the era were soon included into the \u201cindie sleaze\u201d aesthetic with Bloc Party, The Libertines and Franz Ferdinand among them.<\/p>\n \n\tNew rave, however, provided an alternative to the trilby hats, leather jackets and winklepickers from acts looking to capture the same spirit as the post-punk bands of the late \u201870s and \u201880s. Instead they paid homage to the U.K. rave scene during 1989\u2019s \u201cSecond Summer of Love,\u201d and its attire was vibrant and a fusion of mid-00s high-street fashion (Topshop, H&M) with nods to \u201870s psych style. Glowsticks were worn as accessories. The more neon shades you could wear at once, the better. It was bold, silly and, according to the people who were there, barely even a scene at all.<\/p>\n \n\tKlaxons, formed by Jamie Reynolds, James Righton and Simon Taylor-Davis, were at the heart of it. The invention of the term was, in their own words, a ploy to give the music press a story to latch on to. \u201cThe whole idea of new rave was to take the piss out of the media by making them talk about something that didn\u2019t exist, just for our own amusement,\u201d founding member Reynolds told MTV<\/em>.<\/p>\n \n\tBut for journalists in the U.K., particularly at new music-focused weekly NME<\/em>, it was an opportunity to create excitement for readers and bring together disparate artists, parties and characters into an umbrella term. A compelling narrative, particularly one that a title tries to own, is a shrewd way to shift magazines, however tenuous it may feel.<\/p>\n \n\tSpeaking to Daniel Dylan Wray for his authoritative oral history in Vice<\/em><\/a>, the paper\u2019s former editor Connor McNicholas said: \u201cPeople underestimate just how much the music press was driving forward these things. People always say to me I was incredibly lucky that there was so much going on during the time I was NME<\/em> editor. And I\u2019m like, \u201cAre you f\u2013king kidding me? We built that s\u2013t.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tFor Klaxons, 2006 was the start of their breakthrough moment. The group released their thundering debut single \u201cGravity\u2019s Rainbow\u201d in March 2006, which eventually landed at No. 35 on the U.K. Singles Chart, with follow-up \u201cAtlantis to Interzone\u201d (which the Billboard<\/em> staff\u2019s just named one of the year\u2019s 100 best songs<\/a>) arriving in June. Both were bombastic, intense and nailed the often-daunting task: a rock band matching the intensity of dance music. Following radio plays by influential DJs on British radio like Zane Lowe, Steve Lamacq and Jo Whiley, and the release of their Xan Valleys<\/em> EP, the group landed a deal with Polydor Records.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tIn August the group played a fervent show at Reading & Leeds Festival, a rite of passage in the U.K. for post-exam students. It was music that felt thoroughly modern and fun and buzzed with electricity, and captured those who liked moshing to guitars, and those who wanted to drop a pill and cut some shapes on the dancefloor. Many soon graduated to Erol Alkan\u2019s popular club night Trash, held in London from 1997 to 2007, which helped outsiders find a home and connect artists.<\/p>\n \n\tIn late 2006, NME\u2019s New Rave Revolution tour \u2013 a riff on the New Rock Revolution tag initially attributed to many of the acts featured in MMITB <\/em>\u2013 starred Klaxons, Shitdisco and Datarock and took the sound to students across the U.K. Channel 4\u2019s zeitgeisty teen drama Skins<\/em>, which showcased scenes of debauched parties soundtracked to cutting-edge music, only added to the mystique and plausibility of the new rave title.<\/p>\n \n\tWhile those within the sub-genre bristled at the label, the fashion styles and inclusive spirit created a low barrier for entry. Alkan told Vice<\/em>, \u201cI try to think of what it\u2019s like to be a kid in the middle of nowhere, reading about something and seeing there\u2019s some kind of movement they can relate to. It can be exciting for people on the outside looking in.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tIn January 2007, Klaxons released their debut album Myths of the Near Future<\/em> which landed at No. 2 on the U.K.\u2019s Official Albums Chart. The band\u2019s profile in mainstream platforms was growing, and a year before their BRITs performance, saw them bring pop into their own world with a cover of Justin Timberlake and T.I.\u2019s Billboard Hot 100 <\/a>chart-topper \u201cMy Love.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tThey would go on to win the U.K.\u2019s acclaimed Mercury Prize in October of that year, but the group grew weary of their associations with the term. What started as an inside joke soon had been blown up and was outside of their control. In November, the group banned glowsticks from their show at London\u2019s Brixton Academy and acts like CSS distanced themselves from the name, feeling that their work was being restricted. Journalists, too, turned on it quickly with The Guardian<\/em><\/a>\u2019s John Harris labelling acts like Klaxons and Shitdisco as \u201cold rubbish.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tLike most underground music scenes, the end is swift. The genre\u2019s defining throughline \u2013 party all the time \u2013 eventually had a detrimental effect. Drugs, predictably, played a role in the creative breakdown as did changing trends. After shifting over 350,000 copies of their debut, Klaxons\u2019 2010 follow-up Surfing the Void<\/em> came too late and the dance scene had moved onto dubstep and EDM. Pointedly, the New Rave Revolution tour did not come around again in the following years and by February 2007, NME<\/em> had already rebranded it to the Indie Rave tour.<\/p>\n\n
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