When I was younger, I used to be massively into some of the music that would be played on pirate radio and UK raves back in the early 90's- not that I was in the UK at the time, but I grabbed whatever trickled into the US from the UK. I didn't understand the culture or context behind the music at the time, I just liked what I heard. The sense of 'anything goes' could really be felt in the underground music in the UK from that era. Here is a prime example of the kind of music I was into:
This specific style of anarchic breakbeat music came to an end with the passage of the
Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, more popularly known as the 'UK Rave Act.' Raves were becoming huge gatherings in the British Isles, and it was scaring some people. For those into electronic dance music, tracing how styles developed and emerged after England cracked down on raves is very interesting. A lot of rave music, like the above-linked example, sounded like every influence thrown into a blender, so artists could sample from anywhere, use any kind of beat, and go for any kind of emotional tone, and it could all work together in the same DJ set. After the UK Rave Act effectively outlawed raves, party-goes would end up more at local clubs, and regional styles grew that would turn into their own subgenres such as jungle, dubstep, UK garage, acid trance, chill-out music, and everything in between. It's a shame that the early 90's breakbeat music lost that 'anything goes' vibe, but out of its death grew dozens of popular genres for which it provided the seeding influence. The ridiculous reactionary law of the UK Rave Act would ironically end up making electronic dance music more popular than ever by spawning so many different subgenres that are now popular across the world.