During the early 1990s, the rave scene built on the acid house scene. Some DJs, wanting to be the only source for hearing certain tunes, used "white labels" records with no info printed on them — in an effort to prevent other trainspotters from learning what they were spinning. The rave scene changed dance music, the image of DJs, and the nature of promoting. The innovative marketing surrounding the rave scene created the first superstar DJs who established marketable "brands" around their names and sound. Some of these celebrity DJs toured around the world and were able to branch out into other music-related activities.

During the early 1990s, the compact disc surpassed the gramophone record in popularity, but gramophone records continued to be made (although in very limited quantities) into the 21st century, particularly for club DJs and for local acts recording on small regional labels. During the mid-1990s, trance music, having run rampant in the German underground for several years, emerged as a major force in dance music throughout Europe and the UK. It became one of the world's most dominant forms dance music by the end of the 1990s, thanks to a trend away from its repetitive, hypnotic roots, and towards commercialistic song structure.