Precursors to house: 1970s to early 1980s

Fully electronic music tracks predated house. Early American Sci- fi films and the BBC Soundtrack to popular television series, Doctor Who helped to stimulate the development of space rock bands of the 1970's such as Gong and Hawkwind, which had "spatial" and "floating" background sounds, mantra loops, electronic sequences, and futuristic effects, all over rock music song structures.

The late 1970s saw disco utilize the (by then) somewhat developed electronic sound and a limited genre emerged, appealing mainly to gay and black audiences. In 1977, disco music crossed over into the mainstream American culture, following the popularity of hit film Saturday Night Fever and its accompanying soundtrack. As disco clubs filled there was a move to larger venues. The Paradise Garage club opened in New York in 1978, featuring DJ Larry Levan, and Studio 54, another New York disco club, was popular. The clubs played Diana Ross, Chic, Gloria Gaynor, Kool & the Gang, Donna Summer, and Larry Levan's own hit, “I Got My Mind Made Up.” The disco boom was short-lived.

There was a backlash from Middle America, epitomised in Chicago radio DJ Steve Dahl's "Disco Demolition Night" in 1979. Disco returned to the smaller clubs and warehouses in Chicago. During the Seventies there was a battle of the DJ's Opening in 1977, the Warehouse on Jefferson street in Chicago, was a key venue in the development of house music. The main DJ was Frankie Knuckles.

At the other end of house was Ron Hardy, his sound was a more raw driving DJ sound as opposed to Frankie's smooth melodious Disco sound. Many of the club staples were a combination of New Wave and the old disco tunes but the limited number of records meant that the DJ had to be a creative force, introducing more deck work to revitalize old tunes. The new mixing skills also had local airplay with the Hot Mix 5 at WBMX.

Development of House music
House music is the direct descendant of the 1970s dance style of Disco, which blended soul, R&B, funk, salsa, rock and pop with a progressive, pro-diversity message. House music also incorporated other influences, such as New Wave, Reggae, Euro-Synth Pop, Industrial and Punk as well as the emerging Rap and Hip-Hop styles. House music DJs experimented with new editing techniques and electronic instruments, such as "remixing," "sampling".

House music was developed in the houses, garages and clubs of Chicago and Detroit, and it was produced for local club-goers in the "underground" club scenes, rather than for widespread commercial release. As a result, the recordings were much more conceptual, longer than the music usually played on commercial radio. House, techno, electro and hip-hop musicians used analog synthesizers and sequencers to create and arrange the electronic elements and samples on their tracks. House music "humanized" of the new electronic instruments by combining live traditional instruments and percussion and soulful vocals with preprogrammed electronic synthesizers and "beat-boxes".

The chief source of this kind of records in Chicago was the record-store Importes Etc, where the term “house” was introduced as a shortening of "Warehouse". Despite the new skills, the music was still essentially disco until the early 1980s when the first stand-alone drum machines were invented. House tracks could now be given an edge with the use of a mixer and drum machine. This was an added boost to the prestige of the individual DJs.

The Colonel Abrams track "Trapped" produced by Richard James Burgess in 1984 was a huge international club hit throughout 1985 and contains many of the elements that would become typical of house music - the four to the bar kick drum pattern, programmed bass-synth and driving sixteenth note hihat/snare part. Burgess and Jesse Saunders worked together in 1986 on a Geffen project. And these early collaborations brought New York and Chicago's house greats together for the first time. British producers Stock Aitken Waterman would exploit house by mixing it with bubblegum lyrics.

 Chicago years: early 1980s - late 1980s
The style started out in gay clubs and warehouses of Chicago. People started going to these nightspots to hear this new style that was still called "Disco". Soon people shortened the phrase to "I'm goin down to the house...." and the style became popular in straight circles as well.

In 1983 the Music Box club opened in Chicago. Owned by Robert Williams, the driving force was a DJ, Ron Hardy. The chief characteristics of the club's sound were sheer massive volume and an increased pace to the tunes. The club also played a wider range of music than just disco; artist such as Kraftwerk, Man Parrish, Yello and Blondie were played along with the "Disco" songs.

Two music tracks were arguably the first House music, each arriving in early 1983. The tune that was chronologically first was Jamie Principle and Frankie Knuckles' "Your Love", a huge hit in the clubs, but only available on tape. The second, "On and On" by Jesse Saunders was later put on vinyl (1985). Immediately on the tails of these recordings was Chip E.'s "The Jack Trax" featuring the songs “It’s House” and “Time to Jack”, which defined the genre with its complex rhythms, simple bassline, use of sampling technology, and minimalist vocals.

By 1985, house music dominated the clubs of Chicago, in part due to the radio play the music received on 102.7 FM WBMX as the radio stations mix shows progressed from an Italio Disco, Hip-Hop, Pop format to one of House Music. This was made possible by WBMX then program director Lee Michaels and WBMX's resident DJ team, the Hot Mix 5.

The music and movement was also aided by the electronic music revolution - the arrival of newer, cheaper and more compact music sequencers, drum machines (the Roland TR-909, TR-808 and TR-707, and Latin percussion machine the TR-727) and bass modules (such as the legendary Roland TB-303 in late 1985) gave House music creators even wider possibilities in creating their own sound, indeed the creation of acid house is directly related to the efforts of DJ Pierre, Larry Heard (Mr. Fingers), and Marshall Jefferson on the new drum and rhythym machines.

In 1985, two of the important record labels in the Chicago house music scene were DJ International Records, owned by Rocky Jones, and Trax Records, owned by Larry Sherman. Many of the songs that defined the Chicago house music sound were released on these two record labels. Steve “Silk” Hurley's "Music is the Key", Chip E's & K-Joy's "Like This", and Fingers Inc.’s "Mystery of Love" (1985) came from DJ International. In 1985, Trax released "Jack the Bass" and "Funkin with the Drums Again" by Farley Jackmaster Funk.

In 1986, Trax released "No Way Back" by Adonis, Larry Heard's (as Fingers Inc.) "Can You Feel It" and "Washing Machine", and an early house anthem in 1986, "Move Your Body" by Marshall Jefferson. This latter song helped to boost the popularity of the house style outside of Chicago.

Steve 'Silk' Hurley became the first house artist to reach number one in the UK in 1987 with "Jack Your Body". This and other tracks such as "Love Can't Turn Around" by Farley "Jackmaster" Funk helped moved house from its spiritual home to its commercial birthplace —the United Kingdom. The Acid house and hip-house scenes were dominated by international producers like Tyree Cooper, Mr. Lee, Fast Eddie, Kool Rock Steady and Ralphi Rosario at the end of the 1980s. Other Notable DJ's that came from the House movement in Chicago were Bad Boy Bill, Mike "Hitman" Wilson, Julian "Jupin" Perez, Lil Louis and Derrick Carter.

The British connection: late 1980s - early 1990s
In Britain the growth of house can be divided around the "Summer of Love" in 1988. House had a presence in Britain almost as early as it appeared in Chicago; however there was a strong divide between the House music as part of the gay scene and "straight" music. House grew in northern England, the Midlands and the South East. Founded in 1982 by Factory Records the Hacienda in Manchester became an extension of the "Northern Soul" genre and was one of the early, key English dance music clubs.

Until 1986 the club was financially troubled; the crowds only started to grow when the resident DJs (Pickering, Park and Da Silva) started to play house music. Many underground venues and DJ nights also took place across the UK, such as the private parties hosted by an early Miss Moneypenny's contingent in Birmingham and many London venues. House was boosted in the UK by the tour in the same year of Knuckles, Jefferson, Fingers Inc. (Heard) and Adonis as the DJ International Tour.

One of the early anthemic tunes, "Promised Land" by Joe Smooth, was covered and charted within a week by the Style Council. The first English House tune came out in 1986 - "Carino" by T-Coy. Europeans embraced house music, and began booking legendary American House DJs to play at the big clubs, such as Ministry of Sound, whose resident, DJ Harvey brought in Larry Levan.

The underground house scene in cities such as Birmingham, Manchester and London were also provided with many underground Pirate Radio stations and DJs alike which helped bolster an already contagious, but otherwise ignored by the mainstream, music genre.

One of the earliest and most influential UK house and techno record labels was Network Records (otherwise known as Kool Kat records) who helped introduce Italian and US dance music to Britain as well as promoting select UK dance music acts.

But house was also developing on Ibiza. In the 1970s Ibiza was a hippie stop-over for the rich party crowd. By the mid-1980s a distinct Balearic mix of house was discernible. Several clubs like Amnesia with DJ Alfredo were playing a mix of rock, pop, disco and house. These clubs, fueled by their distinctive sound and Ecstasy, began to have an influence on the British scene. By late 1987 DJs like Paul Oakenfold and Danny Rampling were bringing the Ibiza sound to UK clubs like Shoom in Southwark (London), Heaven, Future, Spectrum and Purple Raines in Birmingham. But the "Summer of Love" needed an added ingredient that would again come from America.

In America the music was being developed to create a more sophisticated sound, moving beyond just drum loops and short samples. New York saw this maturity evidenced in the slick production of disco house crossover tracks from artists such as Mateo & Matos and Blaze. In Chicago, Marshall Jefferson had formed the house 'super group' Ten City (from intensity), demonstrating the developments in "That's the Way Love Is". In Detroit there were the beginnings of what would be called techno, with the emergence of Juan Atkins, Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson.

Atkins had already scored in 1982 as part of Cybotron with the track "Clear" and in 1985 he released Model 500 "No UFOs" which became a big regional hit, followed by dozens of tracks on Transmat, Metroplex and Fragile. One of the most unusual was "Strings of Life" by Derrick May, who described his sound as "George Clinton and Kraftwerk jamming together in an elevator". It was a darker, more intellectual strain of house that followed its own trajectory. "Techno-Scratch" was released by the Knights Of The Turntable in 1984 which had a similar techno sound to Cybotron and is possibly where the term techno originated, although this is generally credited to Atkins, who borrowed the term from the phrase "techno rebels" which appeared in writer Alvin Toffler's book The Third Wave, 'Techno' being used in Cybotron's 1984 hit 'Techno City' (see Sicko 1998).

The records were completely independent of the major record labels and the parties at which the tracks were played avoided commercial music. The combination of house and techno came to Britain and gave House a phenomenal boost. A few clubs began to feature specialist House nights - the Hacienda had "Hot" on Wednesday from July 1988, 2,500 people could enjoy the British take on the Ibiza scene, the classic "Voodoo Ray" by A Guy Called Gerald (Gerald Simpson) was designed for the Hacienda and Madchester.

Factory boss Tony Wilson also promoted acid house culture on his weekly TV show. The Midlands also embraced the late 80s House scene with many underground venues such as multi storey car parks and more legal dance stations such as the Digbeth Institute (now the 'Sanctuary' and home to Sundissential).

In 1990 Electribe 101's debut album Electribal Memories hit the racks (it had been preceded by the single "Talking With Myself"), the groups music combined the slick techno-jazz of Larry Heard with hints of the Detroit sound, added avant garde lyrics sung by a deep soulful voice (Billie Ray Martin) and garnished it all with dollops of hip-hop beats and a dreamy soundscape reminiscent of "Dusty In Memphis". The group were immediately and vastly influential on everything from House to Downtempo and the earliest examples of Drum and Bass.

US developments - late 1980s to early 1990s
Back in America the scene had still not progressed beyond a small number of clubs in Chicago, Detroit and New York. Paradise Garage in New York City was still the top club, although they now had Todd Terry, his cover of Class Action's Larry Levan mixed "Weekend" demonstrated the continuum from the underground disco to a new House sound with hip-hop influences evident in the quicker sampling and the more rugged bass-line. While hip-hop had made it onto radio play-lists, the only other choices were Rock, Country & Western or R & B. Other notable New York producers and DJs of the time were Bobby Konders, Tommy Musto, Frankie Bones all of whom had their work licensed internationally in the 1980s. In fact, many of the recordings on the nascent XL Recordings (UK) came from those artists.

Other influences from New York came from the hip-hop, reggae, and Latin community, and many of the New York City super producers/DJs began surfacing for the first time (Erick Morillo, Roger Sanchez, Junior Vasquez, Danny Tenaglia, Jonathan Peters) with unique sounds that would evolve into other genres (tribal house, progressive house, funky house). Producers such as Masters At Work and Kerri Chandler also started pioneering a richer Garage sound that was picked up on by 'outsiders' from the worlds of jazz, hip-hop and downbeat as much as it was by House aficionados.

Influential gospel/R&B-influenced Aly-us released "Time Passes On" in 1993 (Strictly Rhythm), then later, "Follow Me" which received radio airplay as well as being extensively played in clubs. Another US hit which received radio play was the single "Time for the Perculator" by Cajmere, which became the prototype of Ghettohouse sub-genre.

Cajmere is held by many to be one of the revitalising forces in Chicago Houses's rebirth of the early 1990s. Most of the 1980s generation were burnt out by bad contracts or had moved to New York or Europe. Cajmere started the Cajual and Relief labels (amongst others) offering a home to any producer in Chicago, no matter the style. By the early 1990s artists such as Cajmere himself (under that name as well as Green Velvet and as producer for Dajae), DJ Sneak, Glenn Underground and others were bringing out fresh records at a furious pace. Artists from the also recently-revitalised Dance Mania such as DJ Rush, Robert Armani and his cousin Paul Johnson recorded for both and were in high demand as DJs in the lucrative European club circuit. Derrick Carter also became a deeply respected producer and a legendary DJ at this time.

Detroit was mostly known for techno and large labels such as 430 West, KMS and Serious Grooves with producers such as Kevin Saunderson, Marc Kinchen, Octave One (as well as fellow travellers from Chicago such as Chez Damier & Ron Trent who released records on Detroit labels regularly). During this period Underground Resistance were just as likely to release a pumping piano and vocals garage track as they were an electro track and had their Happy Records subsidiary.

Also at this time stirrings of a chilled dance scene relatively unconnected to the Chicago, Detroit, and New York scenes was springing up in the Los Angeles area with parties organised by Hardkiss and UK expats like DIY and Charles Webster. House music eventually came to clubs in cities like Boston, Massachusetts, Providence, Rhode Island, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington D.C..

House in the new millennium
Dance music arguably hit its peak at the turn of the millennium in the US and UK. A number of reasons are seen for its decline in mainstream popularity during the 2000s:

• Many people felt that club promoters had gone too far in what they were asking people to pay on a weekly basis to enter clubs. A prime example was on New Year's Eve at the turn of the Millennium. Some promoters had been asking upwards of £100 ($180) to attend clubs and various event venues across Britain. A large number of club goers instead decided to stay away all together or go to local parties. Many in general grew tired with paying up to £20 ($35) on a weekly basis for poor quality club nights which had little variation from week to week and venue to venue.

• Older people that had been with the scene from the beginning started to move away. Many in their 30s started having families and settling down. Many younger people viewed Dance music as becoming increasingly outmoded with the same set of DJs playing in Clubs and on the Radio year after year.

• The democratization and mainstreaming of electronic music composing through ever-cheaper computer software made electronic music as a whole less novel and more commonplace. This also affected its marketability, since most music marketing requires a high degree of novelty to drive sales and cultural interest.

• Many older clubbers who did have families remained active in the scene, and small-scale events organisers, invariably not tied to a venue, began to appear to cater to a group that was increasingly ostracised by younger clubbers, and unable to go clubbing more than once or twice a month. This scene subsequently has expanded and about half of those involved are under 30.

• A lot of the same music was being played on commercial dance shows, and in bars, supermarkets, and television advertisements. This along with a lack of invention in the mainstream left many people feeling increasingly bored with the music. This has inevitably led to the music being forced back underground to its roots.

• Ecstasy, the drug of choice for many on the Dance scene during the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s, started to lose its popularity to Cocaine and Ketamine. Both these drugs changed the nature and the atmosphere of the scene. In part this was due to the decreasing proportion of MDMA in Ecstasy, which was increasingly being cut with Amphetamines, Ketamine as well as a generally greater amount of inert 'bulk' substances.

• The global rise of hip hop during the late 1990s as well as the re-emergence in the UK of a strong Rock and Indie scene drew many away from Dance Music.

2000s House music

As of 2003, a new generation of DJs and promoters, including James Zabiela, Miguel Migs and Mylo, were emerging, determined to kickstart a more underground scene and there were signs of a renaissance in Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, New York and other racially-mixed cities, as well as in Australia, Canada, Scandinavia, Scotland and Germany. For example, in 2004 the Montreal club Stereo, co-owned by David Morales and party aficionado Scott Lancaster, celebrated its sixth year in operation and in 2006 The Guvernment in Toronto with Mark Oliver is celebrating its 10th anniversary.

Stereo, opened in 1998, was modeled after the seminal New York City club Paradise Garage, focusing the experience on the quality of sound and lighting. The key to house music was re-invention. A willingness to steal or develop new styles and a low cost of entry encouraged innovation. The development of computers and the Internet play a critical role in this innovation. One need only to examine how house music has evolved over time to evaluate the effect computers and the Internet have had on house music and music in general.

In 2005 radio stations came under increasing scrutiny because of their blatant homogenization of radio. By, 2007, Save Internet Radio campaign was launched to prevent the lose of internet radio stations, especially those who play exclusively House music and other electronic dance music styles. Some audiences are fragmenting into different camps based around the old-guard house sound and a darker, more synth-driven sound influenced by 1980s retro sentiment. This is an entirely new genre of music, having more to do with techno, electronica and EBM music than house.

Just recently, Richard M. Daley, Mayor of Chicago proclaimed August 10, 2005 to be House Unity Day in Chicago last July 27, 2005 in celebration of House Music's 21st anniversary. DJs like Frankie Knuckles, Marshall Jefferson, Paul Johnson and Mickey Oliver were cited among the many other DJs who came together to celebrate the proclamation at the Summer Dance Series event organized by Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs. Two newer forms of house called Ghetto House and sometimes Juke--named after the dance Jukin'--in addition to the "Footworkin'" dance craze have been gaining ground in Chicago.