RAVE

The Helldivers 2 community has grown incredibly fast thanks, as evidenced by weeks of developer Arrowhead Game Studios juggling player feedback and intense server demands. Every time a new major order appears, it’s quickly completed, and minor orders disappear without so much as a thought. The one part of the game the entire community can’t praise enough, though, is its Warbond battle pass system. Warbonds are the game’s futuristic version of real-life War Bonds. Helldivers earn them by completing missions and…

Dua LipaIt would be inaccurate to say that Dua Lipa is entering her flop era – the first singles from her upcoming album, Houdini and Training Season, are currently in or around the top 20 most streamed songs globally on Spotify. But there’s something a little gimlet-eyed in how they’re written – catchy in a grimly determined rather than breezily natural way – that makes them hard to love, and some mean media types (not me, yet!) are wondering if she could be on the way down the other side of fame’s hill.Well, this…

Having fun is big business. Without the factories and mills that first drew hundreds of thousands to towns and cities, today’s modern metropolis is expected to sustain itself and its residents through the manufacturing of leisure and the commodification of a good time. The zeitgeist phrasing is telling: the night-time is now its own economy – one worth an estimated £66bn in the UK. Cities are no longer expected to sleep – sleep is wasted consumption time, after all. But from nightclubs to pubs and restaurants, the story…

Shrek, one of Dreamworks Animations’ best films, is about a green ogre who makes a deal with Lord Farquaad to rescue a princess in order to salvage control of his swamp overrun by fairy tale creatures. Believe it or not, while Shrek is obviously a cultural phonemon, the lovable ogre is also a hit with the partying crowd. Viral TikToks captured visuals of the ogre at a rave, and I know some people are freaked out by this.One of the reasons why Shrek is one of the best classic family films is because it shows the…

‘Tis the season for some holiday cheer, and for those lucky enough, Tom Cruise’s annual Christmas cake. For those unaware, every year Cruise sends a beautiful coconut cake to some of his former co-stars and friends around the holidays. The cake is legendary and apparently delicious. The last few years, Hayley Atwell found her way onto this exclusive cake list after collaborating with the action star on Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning. She recently posted a picture of the package on Instagram, and the wrapping is…

Never mind “repetitive beats”, a keystone of the infamous 1994 Criminal Justice Act that effectively banned raving in fields, the story of UK clubland has also been told again and again, lionising a very British cultural phenomenon. It usually goes like this: in 1987, a coterie of UK DJs went to Ibiza and came back transformed by Balearic dancefloor sounds and MDMA. Paul Oakenfold, Johnny Walker, Danny Rampling and Nicky Holloway returned and founded acid house. Raves, the Haçienda and the rise of the superstar DJ…

This summer brings a new way to deal with grief. It’s not a helpline or a new antidepressant – instead artist Annie Frost Nicholson has created a disco where you can dance away your existential pain.The Fandangoe Discoteca, a brightly coloured kiosk whose design is inspired by De Stijl and postmodernist architect Ettore Sottsass and which holds up to eight dancers, arrives at London’s Canary Wharf this month before touring the UK and Europe over the summer.As well as DJ sets, there’ll be meditation and yoga workshops,…

Photo by Han Myung-Gu/Getty Images for Paramount Pictures Warner Bros. may have put too much stock in the hype train for The Flash, with the reviews and box office projections hardly reflective of a movie the studio had spent months hyping as one of the greatest comic book adaptations of all-time. That doesn’t mean it won’t be a fun time at the theaters – and it’ll almost certainly do a decent turn at the box office – but the cynics were out in force when the celebrity endorsements started rolling in. Tom Cruise…

Parklife’s blend of DJs and live acts separates it from the band-centric Reading and Leeds and rap-heavy Wireless in the youth-cultural big leagues, but this year the headliners are a band and a rapper: the 1975 and Aitch, raised in the region and with Manchester dear to their hearts.Rave culture, though, remains at Parklife’s core – everywhere you go, artists address the crowd as “ravers”. The Rinse FM stage hosts quality UK garage from aficionados such as Girls Don’t Sync, Interplanetary Criminal, Conducta and Salute;…

In a public square in Dalston, east London, out the back of the kind of bog-standard white van more used to transporting fitted kitchens or cleaning supplies, a crowd of ravers are in a jubilant mood, all sweat-sheen and wide smiles. Inside the van DJs spin tunes characteristic of this itinerant party, dubbed HomeBass: garage, jungle, drum’n’bass. It begins to rain but they remain in place, arms upraised, waiting for the first drop from rising jungle star Nia Archives.What began with the van pulling up to forest raves…