Let’s talk music again shall we. If you read my blogs than you will know that I’m mostly digging folky/ bluesy indierock bands or loopy indiepop with the occasional singer/songwriter thrown in the mix. Apart from that I also dig 80s new wave, 60s beat music, 70s rock, Motown, doo wop, 90s bubble gum pop, grunge, 90s R&B and a good dose of dance. That dose of dance I would like to highlight for you today. I like several types of dance music. From the type of dance music that is hot and happening right now (i.e. Dirty Dutch House) to the more eclectic underground sounds of progressive trance, elektro and the like. My one major weakness in dance music are the classics. The oldies that go back to the beginning, when dance was still called house and back when people thought it required rappers. And that folks, is what I would like to talk you about today.
Last year I already wrote a post dedicated to 90s rave music. You can find that post by clicking here. Today I don’t want to talk about rave, but about house music. House is what pretty much got everything started. Back in the 80s, in Chicago, the first house tracks started to emerge in clubs. THE classic Chicago house song is Love Can’t Turn Around by Farly Jackmaster Funk:
I love how you can definitely tell how this song is heavily influenced by funk (It’s based on an Isaac Hayes song). It’s as if funk and synthesizers went and had babies. Including slightly cheesy piano solo that is so typical of many early house songs. It is listed as the first house hit song and crossed over from the clubs into mainstream charts. Mind you this song is from 1986 so this was a huge thing at the time.
Another 1986 song is Jack your Body by Steve Silk Hurley:
This is a good example of how house en hiphop influenced on another. Back in the early and mid 80s both house and hiphop were on the rise and so there are plenty of cross overs and influences that go back and forth between the two styles. You can definitely hear that here.
Fairly quickly, ‘straight up house’ started to develop into different styles. One of the is acid or acid house. One of the very first Acid House tracks was done by Phuture in 1987:
This 10+ minute mindblowing track called Acid Tracks of repetitive beats and bleeps is all you need to go on a very very happy trip. Hence the name, acid house. Acid house continued to develop itself and in the early 90s a club in Belgium named Cherrymoon Traxx made a team and began to produce songs as well. The tracks were all a reincarnation of 80s acid. Which sounds something like this:
Acid Dream showcases a drowning repetitive beat with a driving and a stomping layer of rhythm of overlay that counts as the melody line. Again, that this song was made to dance to while tripping on some heavy drugs is quite obvious I’d say.
House as such also developed and through the Second Summer of Love held on Ibiza in the late 80s, meant a spread of house music to England where DJs such as Carl Cox took up the style and began to develop it further. In the early 90s Carl Cox produced a few tracks that are now real dance classics. His 1991 single I Want You (Forever) signaled a new phase in House Music and a spread across continental Europe.
House quickly became infused with 90s Euro Dance and became a whole new beast after that. Were you familiar with any of these songs? What is your opinion on these old school house songs? Love it? Hate it? Leave a comment below and let me know what you think!