“Solipsism holds all cards at present; it is a kingdom whose domain engulfs even Elvis’s. But I can tell you one thing: We will never again agree on anything as we agreed on Elvis.”

There was once a time a time when young people had to avail themselves to whatever music was being played at the school sock-hop, or whatever band might be at the local roller rink. Today youth movements are an industry—and there is a music, lifestyle and/or clothing line to accessorize nearly every kid’s taste. In major cities like such as New York and Los Angeles, every possible sonic genre has its corresponding club scene. Like to dress mod and hear two-chord ‘60s punk? Go to East Hollywood ’s Garage. Got a fetish for goth? Try Contempt! on 14^th and Washington in Manhattan. Hell, there are even dance clubs for people who hate dance music—the Dungeon in New Orleans, for example, spins undanceable, old-school metal such as Black Sabbath and Rush. And the dancefloor fills up.

Without question, the most dominant school of club sounds over the years has been house-derived music (with its many, many subgenres, including electronica, drum & bass, techno, trip hop, and so on), with a distant second in rap (which also boasts a lordly number of subcategories—East Coast, West Coast, freestyle, ragga, gangsta, G-funk, urban soul, and so on). Both forms embrace deejay culture, which, cynically put, is a sort of ‘90s version of the sockhop. Coexisting with these forces are scattered clubs promoting such disparate genres as industrial, goth, the retro renaissance, and the metal scene, which— gulp—seems to be making a comeback on both coasts.

House By Many Other Names

Just like the disco scene from which it sprang, house clubs spin by-design dance music and, at their wicked best, fill up with all manner of young hedonists looking for sound and stimulation. Cocaine has been replaced with other controlled stimulants (initially, MDMA or X), and the music is more electronics-based, with emphasis placed on rhythm and bass, rather than the pop melodicism of, say, the Bee Gees. And the first thing you need to know about house music is that hardly anyone calls it house music anymore. Your preferred blend of beats and noises might be christened electro-funk, trip hop, breakbeat, Euro-dance, or even happy hardcore. Today’s main players seem to be techno, drum & bass/jungle, and trance. A brief summary of each is in order.

Techno: No “real” instruments allowed, please. Techno was and is defined by its electronics-purist agenda. This ultra-minimal form was designed as basic rhythm tracks to be mixed in clubs by deejays. It’s an odd sort who buys a purely techno album to listen to at home, but it has occurred sporadically, and the resulting acts (Prodigy, the Orb, Moby, Goldie) are rarely spun in the purist clubs. Techno can be slow and moody (ambient), or spun with ultrafast beats (hardcore). One thing it ain’t: Going away any time soon.

Drum & Bass/Jungle: Hardcore, the savagely speedy techno mentioned above (as measured by BPM— beats per minute), forms the foundation of the drum & bass sound, itself an English concoction. Generally an instrumental form of music, this hyper stuff is exactly what the name implies: drum machines careening rapidly over deep bass grooves. Certain critics have claimed that jungle, which sometimes references reggae, dub (what house was to disco, dub is to reggae), and R&B, is the “Africanized” version of drum & bass. Regardless, this form is a bit past its creative peak but still dominates many American and European dance halls.

Trance/Tribal: Somewhere between hardcore techno and ambient lies trance, an even-more-repetitious dance music founded in Germany on the principle Jerry Garcia employed for more than 20 years: your audience is already dazed from drug intake—finish ‘em off with sheer repetition. (Of course, no one nodding off with a trance deejay will have to endure endless electric guitar noodling.) As ever, under the trance umbrella exist several more sub-genres: hard trance, acid trance, psychedelic trance, all of which would seem to imply the same thing—use of mind-altering psychoactive agents—but trust us, there are subtle differences. The common goal is the use of repetition as a means of inducing a near-somnambulistic state for the listener (much as John Tesh does, unintentionally) by re-re-repeating simple melodic patterns over a never-shifting rhythm.

Hip Hop, Not Trip Hop

Hell, we all know about rap: started out in New York as a deejay with “two turntables and a microphone” (as fly whitey puts it), then was commercialized, then revitalized from the West Coast with gangsta, then multiplied into thousands of its own subgenera, including jazz-influenced, freestyle, ragga, rap-metal, and so on. The flava of the week still seems to be the materialistically obsessed urban soul of artists such as Puff Daddy, though Dre and Snoop Dogg are still moving plenty of booty with their patented, five-year-old G-funk formula. And lest we forget, the Wu-Tang empire’s myriad offshoot acts (RZA, Ghost Face Killah, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, Method Man, La the Darkman, etc.) are dominating club play in all urban zones.

Undead, Undead, Undead…

Goth: You know it, you weird out on it. After its initial early ‘80s inception with Brit bands such as Bauhaus, early Cure, and the Cult (then called Southern Death Cult), certain Siouxsie & the Banshees disks, and the Sisters of Mercy, the black faction faded for a while. But it remains undead, and has enjoyed something of a full resurrection of late. Goth clubs often mix it up with fetishes, and it’s not uncommon to see rubber and bondage gear paraded alongside the traditional all-black overdressing that typified the early scene. The newer artists are often classified as darkwave, which retains the somber themes and intonations of early Goth while making use of dark, ambient, minimalist sounds pioneered by Brian Eno in the early ‘80s.

Set Yer Watch Back 40 Years

Retro Renaissance: While the swing/big band scene seems to be fading, clubs can still be found where this style of music dictates a tough lifestyle: the vintage threads are costly, learning the dances time-consuming. Don’t even think about hitting the dancefloor freestyle—this is all about the accurate re-creation of a time few of its participants have any firsthand knowledge of. Similarly, the Surf music craze, brought back ashore with the help of the Pulp Fiction soundtrack in 1994 and a series of very good recent Dick Dale recordings, has lost much of its power of late. Not so the rockabilly scene, which is more popular than ever, and more demanding than any genre music outside gangsta rap, lifestyle-wise. To stand out in the rockabilly scene, you’ll need tattoos (“cool” ones only; skulls, flames, dice, and hot rods are fine, but Japanese family crests and Zodiac symbols are not suggested). If you’re male, it doesn’t hurt to have a pre-’65 American-made automobile, a can or two of pomade slickin’ your hair back, and a Betty Page lookalike on your arm. Both surf and rockabilly (which has factioned into western swing, cowpunk, psychobilly and hot rod, to name a few) appeal to kids who like their clubs stocked with actual bands playing actual live musi—very old hat in the club game. But old hat is what it’s all about here, and smaller scenes involving ‘60s mod, garage punk, ‘70s glam, and even ‘80s hair-metal also obsess solely on the way we were.

Downward Spiral

Industrial: You have to look pretty hard to find a club spinning industrial dance anymore. Most of the mainstays have broken up (Skinny Puppy, KMFDM), started sucking (Ministry, Einstürzende Neubauten), or gone MIA (Nine Inch Nails). Rest assured it will be back—there’s too much angst in the world still to be marketed at.

You’ll Dance To Anything

Tired of flashing lights, pumping bass, and people wearing clothes? Check the drum circles of annual events such as Burning Man and the Rainbow Gathering.

Club This!

Raves: If you’re looking to eschew the club scene entirely and focus on the larger, communal element, keep your head up for a rave. Fancy-talk for a big party full of people on drugs dancing to beats, raves started sprouting up well over a decade ago and are still a part of youth culture. As we said, keep your head up—oftentimes rave organizers don’t publicize the whereabouts and times of the event; no one wants cops involved, as cops tend to be fun-spoilers by profession. Fun, sure, but some ravers prefer to think of their culture in grander terms. One personal web site offers this gem: “Clearly there are analogies to be drawn between the Rave and something like the Sufi musical and dance ceremony, or indeed any kind of trance or meditation music, dance, action theater scenario in any traditional culture.” And the web site www.raveworld.net, as quoted by URB magazine, defines rave as a culture of “peace, love, unity, respect” above all.  Much like Woodstock (the original, 1969 Woodstock , that is), some people believed it was important cultural event signifying the coming together of peoples for music and dance. Others thought it was a great way to get plowed and dance in a permissive environment. So it goes with today’s rave culture. But the clock is ticking on rave—no one cool wants to belong to their uncle’s scene. To capture the next generation, a new name will have to be devised.

And so it goes. There’s no place for stoner rock like Fu Manchu, new metal like Korn, or indie noise like Sonic Youth on the dancefloor. No Depression (once called country-rock) can stay out to pasture as far as clubs are concerned, and the days of straight-up country line dancing are, thankfully, done. While the revivalists are working on getting prog rock (now called math rock) back onto the charts, you won’t be hearing it on America ’s modern dancefloors. Despite the splintering, factioning, and subcategorization (not to mention the renaming, remanufacturing, and cross-pollination) inherent to the club music scene, one obvious truth emerges: Shakin’ the booty is all-important. And that was as true for Elvis as it is for Tricky.