Acid House vs Rave: What Is the Difference?
People often use "acid house" and "rave" to mean the same thing. They are closely linked, but they are not the same. One is a sound, the other is a culture.
Acid house is a sound
Acid house is a specific style of electronic music, defined by the squelching Roland TB-303 bassline over a house beat. It is a genre with a clear origin in mid-1980s Chicago.
Rave is a culture
Rave describes the events and the culture: the all-night parties, the warehouses and fields, the crowds, the DJs and soundsystems, and the whole way of life around them. Many different genres have been played at raves, acid house among them, but also hardcore, jungle, techno and trance.
How they connect
Acid house was the sound that kick-started British rave culture in 1988. So acid house helped create rave, but rave quickly grew far bigger than any single genre. You can have acid house without a rave, and a rave without a single acid house record.
DOVEDUP’s name and mark reach back to this moment, when a sound and a culture arrived together.
DOVEDUP is a rave-heritage electronic music project. Explore the rave dictionary and what “doved up” means at dovedup.com.