Styles of house music
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A
- Emphasizes a repetitive, hypnotic and trance-like style, often with samples or spoken lines instead of lyrics. It has core electronic "squelch" sounds that were developed around the mid-1980s, particularly by DJs from Chicago who experimented with the Roland TB-303 electronic synthesizer-sequencer. ex: Adonis, L.A. Williams
- Combines elements of acid house and ambient music, typically featuring synth pads and "atmospheric style" vocal samples. It emerged in the late 1980s. ex: The Orb
B
- Emphasizes bass, similar to dubstep and grime, with most songs around 135 to 142 BPM. It originated from speed garage in Sheffield around 2002.
C
- Simple basslines, driving four to the floor percussion and textured keyboard lines influenced from Jazz piano are the elements of the original house sound. ex: Chip E., Farm Boy, Frankie Knuckles, Jamie Principle, Marshall Jefferson, Mr. Fingers, Steve Silk Hurley
D
- A slower variant of house (around 120 BPM) with warm, sometimes hypnotic melodies. ex: Fingers Inc., Kaskade, MK
- A form of uplifting vocal house music mainly from around the mid-1990s and played in more commercial-orientated dance music venues. Takes its name from the notion of groups of girls dancing around a pile of their handbags on the dancefloor. ex: Loveland, Barbara Tucker, Robin S, Ultra Nate and David Morales.
- An oriented instrumental melody with relaxing beats. ex: Nylon Moon, Robert Miles
- A subgenre of house music from the Netherlands, originating around 2006 and strongly influenced by British DJs, notably Matt Schwartz. Often referred to as "Dirty Dutch". Tracks are typically made up of complex percussion and drumbeats, dramatic buildups and short riffs of high-pitched synths. ex: Afrojack, Laidback Luke, Chuckie, Hardwell, Switch. Dirty South's earlier compositions also bear a strong resemblance to it.
E
- A subgenre of house music that has had influence from '80s music. Though its origins are hazy – different sources claim influence from '80s-electro, electroclash, pop, synthpop, or tech house – it has since become a hard form of house music. ex: Basement Jaxx, Benny Benassi, Steve Aoki, The Bloody Beetroots, deadmau5, Justice, Steve Angello, Wolfgang Gartner, Yasutaka Nakata, Zedd
F
- A style of house music that involved a very erratic melody, usually consisting of very short and high pitched notes, often produced by altering the pitch of percussion instruments, based around a repetitive bass line, and hypnotic beat. ex: Crookers, Hervé, Switch,
- A late 1990s house sound developed in France. Inspired by the '70s and '80s funk and disco sounds. Mostly features a typical sound "filter" effect and lower BPM. ex: Alan Braxe, Daft Punk, Le Knight Club
- Funky house as it sounds today first started to develop during the late 1990s. It can again be sub-divided into many other types of house music. French house, Italian house, Disco house, Latin house and many other types of house have all contributed greatly to what is today known as Funky house. It is recognizable by its often very catchy bassline, swooshes, swirls and other synthesized sounds which give the music a bouncy tempo. It often relies heavily on black female vocals or disco samples and has a recognizable tiered structure in which every track has more than one build-up which usually reaches a climax before the process is repeated with the next track. ex: ATFC, Axwell, Basement Jaxx, Bob Sinclar, Kid Creme, Martin Solveig, Seamus Haji, Uniting Nations, Moto Blanco
G
- A derivative of Chicago house with TR-808 and 909 driven drum tracks. Usually contains call-and-response lyrics, similar to the booty music of Florida and the Ghettotech style of Detroit. ex: DJ Funk
H
- A style of house music dating back to the early 90s, hard house is defined by its aggressive sounds and distorted beats. One of the most recognizable of these is the Hoover sound, invented by Joey Beltram and recently re-popularized by DJs like Surkin or Bobmo leading to a small Hard house revival. One of the most popular Hard house tracks is Felix - "Don't You Want Me", from 1992.
- The simple fusion of rap with house beats. Popular 1988–1990. Most famous record is Jungle Brothers' "Girl I'll House You". ex: 2 in a Room, Freedom Williams, Mr. Lee, The Outhere Brothers, Reel 2 Real, Ya Kid K
I
- Slick production techniques, catchy melodies, rousing piano lines and American vocal styling typifies the Italian ("Italo") house sound. A modulating Giorgio Moroder style bassline is also a trademark of this style.
K
- Kwaito is a music genre that emerged in Johannesburg, South Africa, during the 1990s. It is a variant of house music featuring the use of African sounds and samples.
L
- Borrows heavily from Latin dance music such as salsa, Brazilian beats, Latin jazz etc. It is most popular on the East Coast of the United States, especially in Miami and the New York City metropolitan area. Another variant of Latin house, which began in the mid-1990s, was derived in the Los Angeles metropolitan area and is based on more Mexican-centric styles of music such as Mariachi. Artists include Proyecto Uno (best known for "El tiburón"), Artie The One Man Party (best known for "A Mover La Colita"), and DJ EFX (best known for his remix of "Volver Volver").
M
- Madchester was a music scene that developed in Manchester, England towards the end of the 1980s and into the early 1990s. The music that emerged from the scene mixed alternative rock, psychedelic rock and dance music. ex: 808 State, A Guy Called Gerald, Happy Mondays, James, The Farm, The Stone Roses
- A sub-genre label of house music that David Guetta uses to describe certain records he plays.[1][dead link]
- Microhouse is a derivative of tech house & minimal techno with sparse composition and production. ex: Akufen
- Fusion of dutch house and reggaeton at 108-112 BPM. ex: Munchi, Diplo, Dillon Francis
N
- A rather brief phenomenon (even for the style-a-minute world of dance music), New Beat emerged late in the '80s as a midtempo derivation of acid house.[2] ex: The KLF, Lords of Acid
O
- Modified style of UK garage and speed garage. It still utilizes the distinctive, syncopated 4/4 percussive rhythmic pattern with shuffling hi-hats and beat-skipping kick drums, but puts exceedingly more prominent emphasis on organ synth instrumentation as the main melody and recurring pattern throughout the song. Its reliance sound preset in many of its tracks are mostly derived from the Korg M1 Organ 2 Preset, but many other synths to this day have been replicated to emit an organ, low-key quality sound to emulate the quintessential organ style. Mainly underground as of the 2000s/2010s.[citation needed]
P
- Progressive house is typified by accelerating peaks and troughs throughout a track's duration and are, in general, less obvious than in hard house. Layering different sounds on top of each other and slowly bringing them in and out of the mix is a key idea behind the progressive movement. It is often related to trance music. ex: Alesso, Avicii, Axwell, Calvin Harris, Dave Seaman, Deadmau5, Eric Prydz, John Digweed, Moguai, Nick Warren, Sasha, Sebastian Ingrosso, Steve Angello.
S
- Swing house is a genre of electronic dance music that fuses 1920s-1940s jazz styles including swing music and big band with 2000s styles including house music, electro music, hip hop, drum n bass, and dubstep. ex: Caravan Palace, Parov Stelar
T
- House music with elements of techno in its arrangement and instrumentation. ex: Dave Angel, Mark Dynamix
- Popularized by remixer/DJ Steve Lawler in UK, Junior Vasquez in New York, characterized by lots of percussion and world music rhythms.
U
- In the US, a harder, more aggressive form of Chicago house. Sometimes contains elements of Ghetto house, Hip house. ex: CZR. In the UK, hard house was what is now known as Hard dance.
References
- ^ Loben, Carl. "DJ Mag Top 100 DJs". DJ Mag. Retrieved 13 February 2012.
- ^ Newbeat in All Music