Styles of house music
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See also: House music
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: Adamski, Adonis, Fast Eddie, Phuture, S'Express, Tyree, 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
- Also known as Balearic house, initially was an eclectic blend of DJ-led dance music that emerged in the mid-1980s. It later became the name of a more specific style of electronic dance music that was popular into the mid-1990s. Balearic beat was named for its popularity among European nightclub and beach rave patrons on the Balearic island of Ibiza, a popular tourist destination. Some dance music compilations referred to it as "the sound of Ibiza," even though many other, more aggressive and upbeat forms of dance music could be heard on the island.
- Baltimore club is a style of house music closely related to the "booty bass" of Ghetto House and Miami Bass. It is characterized by a heavy use of looped vocal samples similar to ghetto house but with Breakbeat drum patterns at around 130 BPM. These samples are often of popular hip hop and contemporary R&B songs or of pop culture references such as themes from television shows. It often features horns and call-and-response vocals similar to Go-Go. It originated in Baltimore in the late 1980s, Scottie B. being one of its innovators.[1]
- Emphasizes bass, similar to dubstep and grime, with most songs around 135 to 142 BPM. It originated from speed garage in Sheffield around 2002. ex: Agent X, H "Two" O, Platnum, DJ Q, T2, Wideboys
- Big room songs straddle dutch house, often incorporating drops built around minimalist, percussion drops, regular beats, sub-bass layered kicks, simple melodies and synth-driven breakdowns. ex: Steve Angello, Axwell, Swedish House Mafia
- Brick City club or Jersey club is Newark's equivalent of Baltimore Club. Both genres are centered around 4/4, 130-140 BPM beats with chopped repetitive samples and syncopated kick patterns. The difference between the genres lies in some of the mixing techniques and sounds used; Jersey club uses its own signature harder kick and chops the samples even more, while Baltimore club uses more horns. DJ Tameil is often credited as the genre's pioneer.[2]
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, Steve Silk Hurley, Marshall Jefferson, Frankie Knuckles, Jamie Principle, Larry Heard (Mr. Fingers), Jesse Saunders, Todd Terry
- Chicago deep house is a name given to a subgenre of house music coined in the mid- to late 1980s.
- House music created by Christians. Usually the tracks contain Christ-centered lyrics.
- Complextro is typified by glitchy, intricate bass-lines and textures created by sharply cutting between instruments in quick succession. ex: Knife Party, Lazy Rich, Madeon, Skrillex
D
- A slower variant of house (around 120 BPM) with warm, sometimes hypnotic melodies. ex: Blue Six, Fingers Inc., Arnold Jarvis, Hani, Late Night Alumni, Miguel Migs, MK, Moodymann, Theo Parrish, Kevin Yost
- Disco house, nu-disco or nu-house is a genre which came about in 2002 as a renewed interest in 1970s and early 1980s disco, Italo disco, Euro disco and P-Funk. ex: Boris Dlugosch, Dimitri From Paris, Funkstar De Luxe, Mousse T., Joey Negro, Phats & Small, Room 5, Byron Stingily
- Diva house or handbag house is an anthemic subgenre of house music that became most popular in gay clubs during the second half of the 1980s. ex: Demet Akalın, Jocelyn Brown, Loleatta Holloway, M People, Martha Wash
- An oriented instrumental melody with relaxing beats. ex: Robert Miles, Nylon Moon
- A subgenre of house music from the Netherlands, originating around 2006. Not to be confused with "Dirty Dutch", which is a dance event from the Netherlands. Tracks are typically made up of complex percussion and drumbeats, dramatic buildups and short riffs of high-pitched synths. ex: Afrojack, Chuckie, Hardwell, Laidback Luke, Switch. Dirty South's earlier compositions also bear a strong resemblance to it.
E
- A subgenre of house music that has had influence from 80's 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: Steve Angello, Steve Aoki, Basement Jaxx, Bedük, Benny Benassi, The Bloody Beetroots, Cedric Gervais, deadmau5, Wolfgang Gartner, Justice, Erdem Kınay, Yasutaka Nakata, Zedd
- Generally a vocal style of house, Euro house emerged in the late 1980s and was developed in songs which retained a strong influence of dance-pop music, on the background of house music. The History of Euro house is related to the other Euro styles. It has evolved in parallel with Eurodance music along the 1990s, as many bands from those times, which employed this style, like M People and Deee-Lite.
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, Bob Sinclar, Stardust
- 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: Axwell, Basement Jaxx, Seamus Haji, Kid Crème, Moto Blanco, Martin Solveig, Uniting Nations
- A style originating in the mid 2010s, often described as a fusion of Deep house and Electronic Dance Music. ex: Tchami, Oliver Heldens
G
- One of the first house genres with origins set in New York and New Jersey. Garage house developed alongside Chicago house and the result was house music sharing its similarities, influencing each other. Garage house is generally piano oriented, a sound deriving from soul and disco, with a heavy emphasis on vocals, preferably female. One contrast from Chicago house was that the vocals in garage house drew stronger influences from gospel. Notable examples include Adeva and Tony Humphries. Kristine W is an example of a musician involved with garage house outside the genre's origin of birth.
- A derivative of Chicago house with Roland TR-808/909 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
- A style of house and glitch music with distorted beats and a combination of influences from sounds of ambient, electro, techno and chiptune/video game music.
H
- Hardbag was a genre popular in the mid-1990s which evolved out of the diva house scene in 1993–1994. "Don't You Want Me" by Felix is largely considered to be the track that launched the hardbag explosion. By early 1997, the hardbag craze had died down, and the sound evolved into what is now known as UK hard house. ex: Amen! UK, Blast, The Candy Girls, The Ethics, Nush, Tony De Vit
- Hard bounce, scouse house or bouncy house is a subgenre of house music that features an upbeat and energetic sound often described as being "bouncy", influenced somewhat by happy hardcore (which is often sampled by Scouse house producers). The genre originally developed in Liverpool and the other cities in the northwest of England. Examples of Scouse House producers include The Blackout Crew and Hyper Deejays.[3]
- Hard dance is a cross over genre between hard house, Eurodance and hard trance.
- 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. ex: Klubbheads, Loop Da Loop
- Hard NRG, NRG, Filthy hard house, or more recently just Filth, is an electronic music genre similar in structure (with regard to sequencing & programming) to UK hard house.
- The simple fusion of rap with house beats. Popular in the late 1980s to mid-1990s. Most famous record is Jungle Brothers' "Girl I'll House You". ex: 2 in a Room, Fast Eddie, Freedom Williams, Mr. Lee, The Outhere Brothers, Reel 2 Real, Technotronic, 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 characteristic of this style.
J
- The fusion of house rhythms and jazz atmospheres is a difficult style to pin down, most likely because so many artists have been influenced by jazz that it undoubtedly colors every house production ever put on wax. Also, the methods of Jazz-House producers vary widely, from simply translating the atmosphere in an electronic setting to attempting a synthesis of electronics with jazz soloing. Jazz-House is more of a way to identify artists caught between the polar extremes of mainstream house/techno and ambient/intelligent electronic music. Larry Heard, the first great house producer, was also the first to layer his productions with jazz-based chords and atmospheres. Thanks in part to his continuing influence, dozens of producers began looking back to jazz heroes like Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, and Lonnie Liston Smith for inspiration.[4] ex: Black Jazz Chronicles, Blaze, Roy Davis, Jr., Faze Action, Jay-J, François Kevorkian, Miguel Migs, Lisa Shaw, Ten City, Ben Watt
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, Paris Angels, The Farm, A Guy Called Gerald, Happy Mondays, Sub Sub
- Minimal house or microhouse is a derivative of tech house & minimal techno with sparse composition and production. ex: Akufen, Todd Edwards
- Fusion of Dutch house and reggaeton at 108–112 BPM. ex: Diplo, Dillon Francis, Munchi
- Moombahcore is a style of different moombahton incorporating dubstep influences.
N
- A rather brief phenomenon (even for the style-a-minute world of dance music), New Beat emerged late in the 1980s as a midtempo derivation of acid house.[5] ex: The KLF, Lords of Acid
- By 1996–97, there was a steady flow of UK based hard house that threw away the fun & uplifting parts to incorporate the "Hoover" & other gritty, menacing sounding elements at a slightly higher tempo than the conventional hard house and thus, the style effectively became known as "Nu-NRG" when Blu Peter coined the phrase in a magazine interview.
O
- Outsider house (also called outsider dance) combines elements of early house music, techno, noise and experimental electronics. Emphasis is placed on the use of analogue hardware rather than more modern studio techniques, resulting in a rough and distorted sound. The term was first coined in 2012 by DJ Ben UFO and music journalist Scott Wilson, encompassing artists and labels such as Oneohtrix Point Never, Actress, LIES Records, and Anthony Naples.
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, Steve Angello, Axwell, Deadmau5, John Digweed, Calvin Harris, Joey Harrison, Sebastian Ingrosso, Moguai, Eric Prydz, Sasha, Dave Seaman, Satoshi Tomiie, Nick Warren, Vicetone
S
- Swing house or electro swing is a genre of electronic dance music that fuses 1920s–1940s jazz styles including swing music and big band with 2000s styles including house, electro, hip hop, drum & bass and dubstep. ex: Caravan Palace, Parov Stelar
- House music saturated with feeling – full of melodies, vocals and true soul. Steady warm 4/4 vibes
T
- House music with elements of techno in its arrangement and instrumentation. ex: Dave Angel, Mark Dynamix, Ian Pooley, Erol Temizel
- Popularized by remixer/DJ Steve Lawler in UK, and Junior Vasquez in New York, it is characterized by lots of percussion and world music rhythms. ex: Victor Calderone, Peter Rauhofer, Danny Tenaglia, Thunderpuss
- Tropical house, often abbreviated as trop house, is a fairly new house music subgenre. It is pioneered by the Australian DJ and producer Thomas Jack. The name of the genre itself started off as a kind of a joke, but has since been gaining popularity among listeners.
See also
References
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