Chemical generation
The Chemical Generation refers to a collection of writers in the 1990s who created work responding to the hedonistic ecstasy culture of the 1990 era of ecstasy and rave culture. Irvine Welsh's book Trainspotting is often described as inciting the movement. The Chemical Generation created a large body of DJ-led literature, where the key aspiration was authenticity. Stylistically, texts leaned into recreating the affective characteristic of rave music, with Welsh stating that he wrote in Scottish vernacular because he "...just liked the beat, the 4/4 beat. The Englis language is weights and measures - controlling, imperialistic - and I don't want to be controlled". Notable writers in the genre include Welsh, Roddy Doyle, Alan Warner, John King, Jeff Noon, Nicholas Blincoe, Gordon Legge and Laura Hird - all of whom participated in the survey of the scene carried by Steve Redhead for the publishers of Rebel Inc., Canongate, in his book Repetitive Beat Generation,. The book's title was an attempt to draw a parallel between the ecstasy culture, singled out by government as 'repetitive beats', and the Beat generation before it. Welsh made the comparison himself, pointing to the frequency of reading appearing alongside DJs, and often bering performed in clubs, as an echo of the Beats. Key works include Irvine Welsh's Ecstasy and Daren King's Boxy an Star. The concept of a group of writers addressing drug culture was further developed in 1997 by Sarah Champion, whose Disco Biscuits became the UK's bestselling fiction anthology of all time. In addition to the authors listed above the book was notable for the inclusion of writers such as Alex Garland, Bill Drummond, Will Self, Grant Morrison, Esther Freud, Douglas Coupland, Neal Stephenson, Poppy Z. Brite and Robert Anton Wilson. As the relevance of club culture faded with the onset of a return to guitar-based bands in the ascendancy, the writers progressed onto more staple projects, though there was an overlap with many of the writers present in 2000's New Puritans anthology. Their style and approach have been mirrored among younger British writers however, such as Richard Milward and Michael Smith. References

External links
Sarah Champion's homepage
Repetitive Beat Generation

British literary movements