well lots of countries produce electronic dance music of various kinds which are played at a rave…

but my definition of a rave is the original British one that USE mentions and has more even to do with the actual nature of the event than the music played.

in the late 1980s American house music and hip hop was becoming popular in the UK.

here in England we made our own variants of this – balearic beats, street soul and “acid house/bleeps”. we played it on our pirate radio stations and wanted to dance to it, but it was not legal to have a nightclub opening later than 2am in most parts of England (3am in London) and those who owned clubs were paranoid about a new street culture where taking drugs was less taboo than previously.

many people, particularly those who took drugs which gave them more energy, wanted to go on partying longer than that and of course they did not want cops nicking them for drugs or bouncers throwing them out of the club,

an economic recession of the time meant there were lots of empty industrial buildings (warehouses) about, so people broke into these and held unlicensed all night parties in there.

That is what we originally callled a rave, and original rave music had loads of influences – house and hip hop, 1980s synthpop, even european pop music. during the 1990s it split into the various genres mentioned you see in the other posts..

in the 1990s some areas (rather grudgingly) changed their licensing laws to permit “rave-type” events, but because of the amount of drugs being sold attracting gangsters many of these events closed down either because cops raided them or the people who organised them were intimidated and sometimes even attacked or killed by gangsters – these sorts of raves had high entry prices and organised drug dealing networks so there was cash to be fought over..

so the scene split up.

some people carried on doing commercial events and fighting it out with cops and gangsters (for instance there is a scene called UK garage/grime which about fighting and proving yourself like in US gangsta rap – people even carry guns in a country where you are not supposed to have them!)

and others do commercial events which are bigger nightclub events but because they are held in normal nightclub venues it often costs loads to get in, people are searched, there are undercover cops around etc. (narcs)

but the real underground raves in warehouses and other buildings still happen, as well as outdoor festivals. Because some are not licensed and cops are increasingly trying to stop them you may not hear as much about them in public places any more – but this sort of event is a real rave, and at one of these you can hear just about any sort of music that was mentioned in the previous posts, often live stuff and tunes people have made themselves with their computers… (apart from AQUA of course..)