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Detroit: Techno City

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Sounds and the City

Part of the book series: Leisure Studies in a Global Era ((LSGE))

Abstract

After the British marketing of Detroit’s take on electronic dance music in 1988, with the compilation Techno! The New Sound of Detroit, techno music has been interwoven with a particular representation of this North American city. Resonating internationally with other electronic dance music scenes, a unique mythology of Detroit techno draws new audiences to what was the capital of the Fordist automobile industry. Opening the discussion with Movement, the electronic festival central to Detroit’s annual Techno Week, we argue that Detroit and its citizens activate techno music to promote the renaissance of this once powerful industrial metropolis. It is shown that techno dance music has articulated the technoculture since the late 1980s: in other words, it signifies the lived experience of culture dominated by information and communication technologies in a city that had partly morphed into a post-industrial ruin.

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Correspondence to Hillegonda C. Rietveld .

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Rietveld, H.C., Kolioulis, A. (2019). Detroit: Techno City. In: Lashua, B., Wagg, S., Spracklen, K., Yavuz, M.S. (eds) Sounds and the City. Leisure Studies in a Global Era. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94081-6_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94081-6_3

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-94080-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-94081-6

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