In fact, I've been absolutely cranking this[1] crazy shit on repeat for weeks now and have been sober each time! The mixing, the flow, and the leftfield-weirdness of the whole thing hits my soul juuuuuuust right.
So, we're out there. Much of the people who regularly support the scene are also often sober, or don't regularly party hard. Check your preconceived notions and blanket generalizations at the door, please, and then try coming out to a show. We'd be happy to show you how things actually are. :)
[1]https://soundcloud.com/dkmntl/azu-tiwaline-at-lentekabinet-2...
That said, I think that a possible explanation for the decline in club popularity is that a lot of people don't actually like it unless they're on drugs. Not just the music, but the whole club scene. It might be an acquired taste, entirely possible, but it's not a taste I ever felt the need to acquire.
Not quite apples to apples, but similar, about a year ago I realized that I actually don't like living in NYC. Moreover, I realized that I never really liked it, and I had been trying to convince myself that I did for the last decade. I don't like how expensive it is, I don't like going to bars, I don't like hipster art stuff, I do like the train, but not having a car is still inconvenient, etc. There's a million things that I know a lot of people in NYC really like (and more power to them if they do), but I do think that if people were more honest with themselves there would be a lot fewer people living in this city.
I think sober partying and daytime partying are a good trend in general. I love taking drugs occasionally, but I like to party every weekend.
This[1] is a good example of what that kinda music sounds like, he's one of my favorite DJs/producers out there. I suspect it might still not be for you, and that's totally fine! This shit deeeeeeefinitely isn't for everyone. :)
[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYS3OUKKGqc
Edit: And as an aside, I'm with ya on NYC. Every time I visited, all of my NYC friends would just regale me, and themselves, with stories about finding places to live and what they have to deal with living there. I don't understand it.
I liked some stuff more than others, but never really clicked with any of it.
Just to be clear, not claiming that the stuff I listen to is "objectively" better or anything. 90+% of what I listen to is garage-punk stuff like NOFX or Misfits, which is its own kind of trash. It's just jived better for me (doesn't hurt that I was exposed to it much younger).
I don't regret moving to NYC, when I did it was probably an economically-ok decision; a lot more high-paying tech jobs here than in Dallas (where I lived before), and there are parts I still like about it, but there were definitely other parts that I was lying to myself about for a long time.
Though I will admit, I think a good chunk of that is that I've just been here too long. I probably should move... I just need to convince my employer to let me go full-remote.
If you have SiriusXM their Chill station plays this type of music.
One of my favorite DJs is Nora En Pure.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nora_En_Pure
It is amusing to me that she was born after I graduated high school.
I enjoy electronic music. I enjoy dancing. I absolutely hated the club scene every time I went. All the ones I went to were in dark and fairly disgusting venues, where people spent hours moving back and forth between sitting around getting drunk with music blasting so loud you couldn't have a conversation, and awkwardly moving around a crowded dance for floor. As the other person said, it was hard to see how anyone was actually enjoying the situation, particularly considering everyone was paying a good deal of money and screwing up their sleep schedule for it.
I can get enjoying electronic music and dancing to it, but the club scene always seemed immensely unappealing.
For me personally, I've always found it kinda funny how much I love those spaces. I generally have a strong dislike of crowds, large masses of people, yadda yadda. My primary happy places are at home all cozy with my family, and out in the mountains backpacking in the wilderness far away from a single soul.
But my third happy place is something akin to a dilapidated warehouse or building that is being used as an unlicensed venue for incredibly loud, repetitive music. The room is packed, with just enough room for cutting a rug, there's sweat on the walls, it's pitch dark save for a single red light over the DJ booth and there's not a snowball's chance in hell that you'll be able to chat with the person next to you. You're stepping in something wet and sticky, who the fuck knows what's on your shoes.
Get the music just right and I'll lose myself in that crowd and cathartically dance my ass off all night long.
Edit: I think part of it is that I've always found the existence of such underground spaces to be super cool. I like to experience things like that that are just below the surface of "normal society".
For a festival that's proper shit without drugs, try Oktoberfest here in Munich.
I also don't line raves, but that makes me dislike them even more. So the point of "raves" is to get drugged while doing something you don't enjoy? Would you allow your kids to go to one?
Fortunately I think you're exaggregating or your experience is an outlier and people actually go there to have fun listening to loud music (while sometimes, indeed, using drugs).
My dad is an outlier who managed to never have any issues thankfully, but there is a pretty strong history of addiction (mostly alcoholism, but other stuff too) on my dad's side of the family, and as such I've always treated drugs pretty cautiously.
And while we are at it, alcohol use will be correlated to dancing itself. It helps to loose inhibitions a lot of us just would not overcome without it. Same deal.