Easing the stiff upper lip…
Aside from having dance music play everywhere, one of the largest differences that I have found with the English culture is that people seem to keep to themselves a lot. In a lot of smaller towns people will greet each other on the street and generally look forward to meeting new people. On the flip side, in the big cities people keep their heads down and generally mind their own business.
As I mentioned above, dance music (mostly house) is everywhere here. Even today I was having lunch in an amazing Chinese resteraunt and heard the following track:
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Make Your Move (Dare Me) Club mix |
Dave Armstrong | Boss Records 2007-04-06 |
8:58 | $1.48 |
This is not exactly your typical Chinese restaurant music.
I was pondering why dance music took off so fast and furious over here in the 80s and it wasn’t really making sense. There is so much heritage and culture in England but that doesn’t explain it. People have their own musical tastes in all areas of the world, so that doesn’t explain it.
It didn’t click for me until I was walking down the street in London and someone bumped into me and didn’t say a word. One word jumped out at me “ecstasy”. With such a lack of friendliness and togetherness in day to day street life in the super-cities like London, its no wonder why the feeling of oneness that the combination of dance music and drugs like ecstasy caught on so quickly and took the highly-populated nation by storm.
You will see it in the clubs here in London; kids freaking out with each other, hugging, smiling, laughing and letting all of the stresses and the self mindedness go. People party together when dance music is present and the feelings that it brings up can defiantly be addictive, especially when you are raised in a culture where the people keep a ‘stiff upper lip‘ and their heads down in the big city.