German Techno and the Love Parade traces the evolution of the Berlin techno scene from the 1990s to the present day. It recounts how underground EDM (electronic dance music) raves transformed into mega festivals and in doing so shines a much-needed spotlight on the conflicted relationship between politics and popular culture in the age of neoliberalism, new urbanism and the internet.

In this timely cultural history, Joe Perry explores the people, places, and ideologies that cast the Love Parade as the central celebration of Berlin's spectacular 'club-culture' and turned the scene into a multivalent site of transgression that was entangled in a contradictory web of parties, profits, and politics. The Love Parade animated shifting constructions of self and community in a social world increasingly structured by virtual media, even as it accelerated the commodification of supposedly authentic alternative lifestyles. The book shows how city boosters successfully deployed techno to advance transnational, neoliberal schemes of urban development, burnishing the reputation of the 'New Berlin' and making the city the touristic club capital of the world.

Bringing together a deep ethnography of EDM countercultures and a fresh analysis of neoliberal urban planning agendas, Joe Perry reveals how the Love Parade and Berlin techno shaped identities, forged new communities and ruptured the boundaries between the underground and the mainstream. The result is a sophisticated study which adds significantly to our understanding of post-Wall Berlin and is valuable reading for anyone interested in musicology, popular culture and modern German history more broadly.