ENGLISH-LANGUAGE EDITIONS
The original Picador edition with bonus CD of rave classics, 1998 (tracklist available as YouTube playlist)
And with the full cover revealed
Generation Ecstasy: Into the World of Techno and Rave Culture - the Little, Brown hardback of the US edition (abridged - but with an additional chapter on DJing), 1998. The different title came about because the working title was Generation E - and that didn't translate to America, where they call the drugt X, so it was changed to Generation Ecstasy. Then, when - quite late in the day - I decided it should be called Energy Flash, the marketing people were like, "no, the Generation Ecstasy really works much better". So that's how it got stuck with the gruesome pun.
A gorgeous cover (the vertical text and computer dots are meant to be a pill dissolving in the esophagus). The designer's original radical idea was to have no title or author name on the front, I had to put my foot down there - "what about point of sale impact?!
Back cover of Little, Brown edition, with author photograph by Jerry Bauer (RIP)
Routledge US paperback edition, 1999
A far nicer cover than the Picador precursor - evocative of neurons firing in the synapses - this is Soft Skull's 2012 American edition of the first expanded / updated edition. Note that the right, original title of the book is restored (but with a nod to the US edition's prior existence - "A Generation Ecstasy Extended Remix for the Twenty-First Century").
The second updated / expanded edition - and most likely final version - this time for Faber & Faber and with the best cover yet. 2013.
Foreign Editions
First Italian edition, published 2000, by Arcana Musica, as Generazione Ballo / Sballo (it apparently translates as something like "Generation Let's Go For It HARD").
Correction / update: Pixi tells me via Twitter that the title is actually "an untranslatable pun ('ballo'='dance', 'sballo'='drug trip')"
Second Italian edition on Arcana, 2010
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Spanish edition on the Barcelona publisher Contra, 2013. Possibly the best cover of all, especially in the full wraparound.
Croatian edition, 2009, on Naklada Ljevak. Do like the typography and colour palette although it doesn't scream "rave" really
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Forthcoming editions
Russian translation, through the auspices of the publishing program of the museum V-A-C (which stands for ‘Victoria – the Art of being Contemporary’), at some point in 2022.
Related Publications
Hardcore! - collection of hardcore continuum writings, in French translation - forthcoming on Editions Audimat, probably August of 2022.
I'm reading Energy Flash at the moment (after reading your Wire Hardcore Continuum series) and I'm loving it (it's been good covid (which I probably got while out dancing) recovery reading). I can't find it in the book now, but recall you saying that a discography of all the tunes mentioned in the book is available on your blog. Have I got that right? And, if so, can you help me find it, please? Thank you!
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