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House music

House is a genre of electronic dance music characterized by a repetitive four-on-the-floor beat and a typical tempo of 120-130 beats per minute as a re-emergence of 1970s disco.[10] It originated in the Black queer community in Chicago.[11] It was created by DJs and music producers from Chicago's underground club culture and evolved slowly in the early/mid 1980s as DJs began altering disco songs to give them a more mechanical beat.[1] By early 1988, House became mainstream and supplanted the typical 80s music beat.[12]

For the album, see House Music (album).

House music

House was created and pioneered by DJs and producers in Chicago such as Frankie Knuckles, Ron Hardy, Jesse Saunders, Chip E., Joe Smooth, Steve "Silk" Hurley, Farley "Jackmaster" Funk, Marshall Jefferson, Phuture, and others. House music initially expanded internationally, to London, then to other American cities, such as New York City, and ultimately a worldwide phenomenon.[13]


House has a large influence on pop music, especially dance music. It was incorporated into works by major international artists including Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Janet Jackson, Madonna, Pet Shop Boys, Kylie Minogue and Lady Gaga, and also produced many mainstream hits such as "Pump Up the Jam" by Technotronic, "French Kiss" by Lil Louis, "Show Me Love" by Robin S., and "Push the Feeling On" by the Nightcrawlers. Many house DJs also did and continue to do remixes for pop artists. House music has remained popular on radio and in clubs while retaining a foothold on the underground scenes across the globe.

Social and political aspects[edit]

Early house lyrics contained generally positive, uplifting messages, but spoke especially to those who were considered to be outsiders, especially African Americans, Latinos, and the gay subculture. The house music dance scene was one of the most integrated and progressive spaces in the 1980s; the black and gay populations, as well as other minority groups, were able to dance together in a positive environment.[46]


House music DJs aimed to create a "dream world of emotions" with "stories, keywords and sounds", which helped to "glue" communities together.[17] Many house tracks encourage the audience to "release yourself" or "let yourself go", which is further encouraged by the continuous dancing, "incessant beat", and use of club drugs, which can create a trance-like effect on dancers.[17] Frankie Knuckles once said that the Warehouse club in Chicago was like "church for people who have fallen from grace". House record producer Marshall Jefferson compared it to "old-time religion in the way that people just get happy and screamin'".[45] The role of a house DJ has been compared to a "secular type of priest".[17]


Some house lyrics contained messages calling for equality, unity, and freedom of expression beyond racial or sexual differences (e.g. "Can You Feel It" by Fingers Inc., 1987, or "Follow Me" by Aly-Us, 1992). Later on in the 1990s, independently from the Chicago scene, the idea of Peace, Love, Unity & Respect (PLUR) became a widespread set of principles for the rave culture.[47]

History[edit]

Influences and precursors[edit]

One of the main influences of house was disco, house music having been defined as a genre which "...picked up where disco left off in the late 1970's."[48][49] Like disco DJs, house DJs used a "slow mix" to "lin[k] records together" into a mix.[17] In the post-disco club culture during the early 1980s, DJs from the gay scene made their tracks "less pop-oriented", with a more mechanical, repetitive beat and deeper basslines, and many tracks were made without vocals, or with wordless melodies.[50] Disco became so popular by the late 1970s that record companies pushed even non-disco artists (R&B and soft rock acts, for example) to record disco songs. When the backlash against disco started, known as "Disco Demolition Night", held in Chicago, ironically the city where house music would be created a few years later, dance music went from being produced by major labels to being created by DJs in the underground club scene. That is until several years later by 1988, when major labels would begin signing acts from this new dance genre.[17]


While disco was associated with lush orchestration, with string orchestra, flutes and horn sections, various disco songs incorporated sounds produced with synthesizers and electronic drum machines, and some compositions were entirely electronic; examples include Italian composer Giorgio Moroder's late 1970s productions such as Donna Summer's hit single "I Feel Love" from 1977, Kraftwerk's "'The Man-Machine" album from 1978,[51] Cerrone's "Supernature" (1977),[52] Yellow Magic Orchestra's synth-disco-pop productions from Yellow Magic Orchestra (1978) or Solid State Survivor (1979),[53][54] and several early 1980s productions by hi-NRG groups like Lime, Trans-X and Bobby O.

List of electronic music genres

List of house music artists

Styles of house music

Music of the United States

Bidder, Sean (2002). Pump Up the Volume: A History of House Music, London: MacMillan.  0-7522-1986-3

ISBN

Bidder, Sean (1999). The Rough Guide to House Music, Rough Guides.  1-85828-432-5

ISBN

Brewster, Bill/Frank Broughton (2000). Last Night a DJ Saved My Life: The History of the Disc Jockey, Grove Press.  0-8021-3688-5. UK edition: Headline 1999/2006.

ISBN

Fikentscher, Kai (2000). 'You Better Work!' Underground Dance Music in New York City. Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press.  0-8195-6404-4

ISBN

Hewitt, Michael (2008). Music Theory for Computer Musicians. 1st Ed. U.S. Cengage Learning.  978-1-59863-503-4

ISBN

Kempster, Chris (Ed) (1996). History of House, Castle Communications.  1-86074-134-7 (A reprinting of magazine articles from the 1980s and 90s)

ISBN

Mireille, Silcott (1999). Rave America: New School Dancescapes, ECW Press.  1-55022-383-6

ISBN

(1998). Energy Flash: a Journey Through Rave Music and Dance Culture, (UK title, Pan Macmillan. ISBN 0-330-35056-0), also released in U.S. as Generation Ecstasy : Into the World of Techno and Rave Culture, London/New York: Routledge 1999. ISBN 0-415-92373-5

Reynolds, Simon

Rietveld, Hillegonda C. (1998). This is our House: House Music, Cultural Spaces and Technologies, Aldershot Ashgate. Reissue: London/New York: Routledge 2018/2020.  036713411X

ISBN

(2000). Modulations: A History of Electronic Music: Throbbing Words on Sound. ISBN 1-891024-06-X.

Shapiro, Peter

Snoman, Rick (2009). The Dance Music Manual: Tools, Toys, and Techniques — Second Edition: Chapter 11: House. Oxford, UK: Elsevier Press. p. 231–249.

. SPIN magazine, November 1986.

Barry Walters: Burning Down the House

. DJ Magazine (28 December 2003)

Phil Cheeseman: The History of House

– Liner notes on the early history of house (2005)

Tim Lawrence: Acid ⎯ Can You Jack?