"In the psychedelic tradition, music is widely viewed as the expression of music makers´own experiences with drugs: music is created under the influence of drugs; and drug experiences are conveyed to the listeners via the music. This tradition is also recognisable in messages transmitted by the music media, where words like ´trippy´ may be used to describe music.
From a market perspective, the linkage of music to drugs might even be seen as a sales strategy. In the heyday of raves, the very mention of the word ´ecstasy´ in a song text was enough to evoke loud cries of jubilation from the dance floor. Yet the simultaneous rise and popularity of electronic dance music and ecstasy also approximately coincided with an emerging new theoretical view on how drugs and music interrelate.
In contrast to the psychodelic approach inspired by the 1960s and 1970s protest generation, there was little evidence of a political orientation in the new generation. The new musical style arose in the era of HIV and AIDS. The driving beat of electronic music, coupled with the drug -induced ecstatic high on the dance floor, resonated perfectly with the quest for bodily pleasure without dangerous sex ..."
