What is House Music?
House music was created in the United States in the Chicago club scene in the mid 1980’s. It is closely related to the Disco genre popular in the 1970’s. House music is electronic dance music with a heavy beat. Originally this music was popular with the underground party scene.
Difference Between Disco and House Music
To a casual listener there is no difference between disco music and house music. They are both different ways to describe dance music commonly played in clubs around the world. But, for true music geeks, disco is the grandfather of disco music. The disco dance music of the late 1960’s and 1970’s rarely used sampling and the focus was on danceable melody, because radio airplay was still vital for commercial success.
House music isn’t concerned with melody at all and heavily samples from every genre of music, including disco.
Brief History of House Music
Was pioneered at a dance club called the Warehouse in 1980’s Chicago. The music quickly spread to Europe where it became much more popular than in the United States, and enjoyed a fair amount of commercial success in terms of record sales, and not just as dance tracks in clubs. Eventually the popularity of house music spread beyond Europe to Asia, Australia, and back to North America. Ironically, it was the partly the notion that the music was European that helped make it popular in the United States in the 1990’s, even though it originated in Chicago.
As house music spread, individual artists often became less important than the DJ’s making their own mixes and creating wild samples from dozens of different sources.
House Music and Pop Music
Many mainstream pop artists sampled house music in their major hits. Artists like Janet Jackson, Madonna, Bjork, and Paula Abdul relied on house music beats and samples for some of their biggest hits. Even older artists like Aretha Franklin were influenced by house music.
House music continues to influence modern pop artists including recent tracks from Lady Gaga, Britney Spears, and will.i.am.
Top Artists
House music has now matured to have a variety of different sub genres and remains popular in the club scene while still influencing both pop music and the underground music scene. You can download house music to hear some of the best examples of this genre. Artists like Frankie Knuckles, Larry Levan, Nicky Siano, David Morales are examples of popular, influential, and successful artists.