HISTORY OF DANCE MUSIC

Disco

  • in the early 70's nightclubs were known as discos, they employed DJ's to play dance tracks as this was cheaper than hiring live bands
  • in the mid-70's tracks emerged which had a new rhythm, making them easier to dance to (a simple four-on-the-floor bass-drum beat with hi-hat on the offbeats)
E.g. Bee Gees - Night Fever (1977)





House
  • in the early 80's a new style of disco known as 'house' developed in the gay clubs of New York and Chicago 
  • similar to disco, the songs had catchy melodies with lyrics about going out and having fun
  • these also had pounding four-on-the-floor disco rhythms; using music drum machines and synthesizers instead of drum kits and other instruments, although the piano remained central in most house music 
  • in the late 80's house music reached the UK, with the artist Basement Jaxx bringing about a second wave of house music in the late 90's with their hit 'Red Alert'
E.g. Black Box - Ride on Time 





Techno
  • club DJ's began making electronic dance tracks in the early 80's in Detroit, America 
  • drum machines were used to create electronic rhythms and synthesizers with keyboards to add chords and melodies
  • older records were also incorporated in samples, especially short drum breaks 
  • a sub genre of techno called Trance developed in Europe in the early 90's, with it still being highly popular today, here techno rhythms were mixed with layers of electronic sound - most tracks built up to a climax followed by a breakdown where the beats would stop leaving only the electronic sounds 
  • most trance music didn't include vocals, but in the early 2000's a sub genre known as vocal trance became popular
E.g. Inner City - Ain't Nobody Better 



E.g. Stella - Jam & Spoon 



EDM

  • the mix of techno style rhythms and unusual electronic sounds created a new style of music known as progressive EDM 
  • this was developed with the idea that the music should be good for both dancing to and listening to, hence these were often played in special areas of raves where people wanted to relax after dancing 
  • in the late 80's when audio editing software became available producers could 'cut and paste' sound files to create new pieces of music, then when this reached the UK a new genre called Big Beat was developed. Artists used sampled sound files of drums and other instruments to build their tracks, so this didn't sound as electronic as most EDM
  • in progressive EDM samples of old gospel, soul and funk records were mixed with techno-style rhythms 
  • another style which developed in the 90's is 'drum and base', this had very deep base sound, jazzy breakbeat rhythms and is very fast and aggressive 
  • then from drum and base, in the mid 2000's dubstep developed, this was also very base heavy but is much slower and often has a darker and atmospheric feel 
E.g. 808 State - Pacific 97 (progressive EDM)



E.g. Fatboy Slim - Praise You (Big Beat)



E.g. Skrillex - Ragga Bomb with Ragga Twins (Dubstep) 





Dance Pop

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