Wow, just returned from a week of internet silence and hasn't this thread taken some twists and turns?
On
Energy Flash, the tone is definitely pro-hardcore, but this needs to be seen in the context of music writing in the mid-90s which was pretty much unremittingly anti-hardcore. From 1992-1994 Reynolds was pretty much the only music journalist in Britain covering hardcore in a non-pejoritive way.
As for the intelligent records that get a bit of a slagging in the book (eg, FSOL, B12, first wave Detroit minimal techno) - 90s dance journalists were making some absurd claims on behalf of records like these, often egged on by the artists themselves it must be said. I have a lot of time for Jeff Mills but some of his 90s press interviews were so ultra serious as to be beyond parody.
At the point when he wrote
Energy Flash Reynolds was very much in the position of the small boy who sees that the emporer's got no clothes on, so it should be read with that in mind. I do agree that now the consensus position on hardcore has become more balanced and it does seem a bit polemical as a result, but it was a polemic that was sorely needed at the time.
On the political 'meaning' of X...
Drugs can definitely be revolutionary in personal terms, I've found that and I'm sure lots of other people have too. If this revolutionary energy has failed to manifest itself anywhere outside of the personal, compared to the 60s couterculture, I think a lot of blame must lie with the general tenor of our times. We've had 25 years of government along lines that by 60s standards are pretty ultra rightwing, at least economically, and we seem to be at the point where this has destroyed people's sense of the public realm.
I've been appalled by the way people I know, who are generally intelligent and principled, seem to lack any sense of how their personal actions resonate politically. I had a massive go at my Dad over Christmas for opining that 'people lack all sense of community these days' directly after a 20 minute conversation with his brother about how great his accountant is, and how much tax he's not paying as a result. Another of my friends is constantly getting on his high horse about really token environmental issues like saving plastic bags, but takes four or five long haul flights every year.
Conservative culture has thrown up an iron wall between personal and family life and the public realm, with the latter having to play second fiddle to the former. Tory and New Labour politics encourages people to put the comfort of themselves and thier families above all other considerations, and to think of larger socio-economic forces as inpenetrable absracts that can only be made relatable to everyday life if they are expressed in explicitly consumerist terms ("This Is Not A Plastic Bag").
Expecting X and rave culture to overturn that all on it's own is just asking too much of a mere chemical. The 60s counterculture came on top of 20 years of postwar rebuilding in the developed world where people were encouraged, if not compelled, to put the big picture before thier personal comfort. Thus the structures were in place to deliver the real. lasting reforms of the 60 like legislation to end racial and gender segregation, better healthcare, etc.
