Having spent the last month interviewing and reminiscing with many of the key figures from the acid house revolution from 20 years ago for this Sunday's OMM, the most striking thing was not how frazzled the serotonin-depleted memories of ageing ravers were, or the fact that most of the original DJs are still making a nocturnal living playing records well into late middle age.
No, it was the depressing realisation that no musical movement in the last two decades has come close to having the monumental effect that acid house had. The paucity of possibly contenders in the two decades since is frighteningly sobering, particularly given that this is a country that sees itself as being at the vanguard of global youth culture.
What have we really had since? Britpop? Nu-metal? Emo? Er, the new acoustic movement? Please. The drum'n'bass scene felt incendiary at its peak in the mid-Nineties, but didn't really break out of London, Manchester and Birmingham, and one could argue that many of the main protagonists like Fabio and Grooverider were old hands from the house days anyway.
Like many musical revolutions, acid house was an accidental alchemy of a new music meeting a new drug at a time when there was desperation for something new. Arguably more than any other music movement before or since, it touched a whole generation - scallies and students, black and white, straights and gays, north and south.
That utopian period may have only lasted a year or so - before criminal elements began to move in and the atmosphere changed, before the first ecstasy-related deaths and, most deplorably of all, the development of the superclub and superstar DJ ethos; but for that short time, it was one of those rare moments in youth culture when then the authorities and older generation really didn't have a clue what was happening. All teenage generations look for something new that goes against or shocks their parents. Acid house arrived so fast that even most older siblings were left behind.
Of course, that underground gestation period could never happen in today's post-digital world. Pop culture now runs at a speed that demands any new embryonic movement is immediately uploaded, blogged or Facebooked, and every tabloid has several pages loosely covering music every day.
There's no doubt the new digital tools of communication, distribution and copying of music that are now available to any teenager in their bedroom are having and will continue to have huge ramifications for the music industry itself; it's a shame they don't seem to have yet helped form a new musical movement we can get truly excited about.
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