TOO far gone. No way back. A final confirmation that Ecstasy culture was mainstream had come to every high street in Britain. Just over a year later, a company that made its name at the tail-end of the illegal rave scene of the late eighties released a CD sponsored by a perfume for men. Fantazia had long ceased to promote huge parties, and had moved into the more lucrative and less demanding business of the mass-market dance compilation album.
Football teams have sponsors.
It doesn't affect the game,' responded Fantazia's Andrew Gallagher - although observers of the commodification of soccer during the nineties might disagree. This is Ecstasy culture as it approaches its tenth summer, reaching out as far as possible. More than 15 years after the first Britons were introduced to Ecstasy on excursions into New York nightlife, and over a decade after house music emerged from the black gay clubs of Chicago, the synthesis of the two has produced the largest and most enduring youth culture Britain has ever seen. The Ecstasy boom's sounds, signs, symbols and slang have become all-pervasive, part of the everyday landscape. The Post Office declares itself 'sorted'.