Are We Entering Into a New House Music Era?

There has been an ongoing belief that house music and its counterparts, disco and dance music, are lacking in substance and not to be considered as “real music”.

There have been mixed reviews following the release of Beyoncé’s house-inspired album, Renaissance. Many believe that the Queen Bey can do no wrong, while others questions whether this new album has the capability to coexist with her previous pieces of work.

The elements of disco and house music in this album are very evident. She even pulled house music producers, such as Honey Dijon, to help curate the most joyous experience for her listeners. The issue, though, is that American listeners have historically despised house music, despite its origination in the states.

House Music and Its Origins

House music is a genre of dance music stemming from disco that traces back to the underground clubs of Chicago in the late 1970s.

As disco was dying out, Black American DJs were searching for a new way to mix their sets and keep their audience moving. These DJs combined the sounds of disco, pop, and hip hop to create what we now know as house music—later evolving into more genres and sub-genres of electronic music.

It is believed by music historians that the name “house music” came from the Warehouse nightclub in Chicago’s South Side.

House music quickly spread beyond Chicago—first touching New York City and its urban gay culture. African American and Latinx LGBTQ partygoers accelerated dance and house music as they attended underground balls—safe havens that allotted queer folk the opportunity to escape social issues and be seen and respected as their true selves. Ballroom was often soundtracked by popular house tracks.

The Death of Disco

It is believed that the original influence for disco’s decline in the late 1970s was rooted in racism and homophobia.

On July 12, 1979, Bill Veeck, owner of the Chicago White Socks at the time, organized a promotional event at Comiskey Park that admitted fans with a disco record for $0.98. This event would be called “Disco Demolition Night” as the records brought into the field would be collected in a crate and later blown up in between the doubleheader games. The night would then end in riots.

Veeck, alongside anti-disco campaigner Steve Dahl, believed that they were locked in a war "dedicated to the eradication of the dreaded musical disease known as Disco.”

Following Disco Demolition Night, disco’s popularity would decline substantially. Less and less disco tracks appeared on Billboard’s Top 10 and lovers of dance had to look elsewhere for the upbeat tempos they craved.

This open market is what inspired DJs to dissect and reconstruct their mixing techniques—thus creating house music.

The Influence on Technology

House music influenced technology and the production of music.

Early DJ innovators such as Frankie Knuckles, Ron Hardy, Jesse Saunders, Chip E., Steve "Silk" Hurley, Farley "Jackmaster" Funk, Marshall Jefferson, and Phuture played a significant role in constructing house music from disco.

Many of these DJs lacked the basic equipment that their white peers possessed as they came from poverty. Therefore, they explored new ways of editing, mixing and remixing tracks as a means to overcome their limitations.

DJ Frankie Knuckles, nicknamed " the godfather of house”, created continuous dance loops by splicing together records with a steady four-on-the-floor pulse and tempos ranging from 120 to 130 beats per minute.

Knuckles would take the tape reels of preexisting tracks and use a reel-to-reel tape machine to add percussion breaks, rearrange sections, change the tempo, and extend breakdowns.

The extended breakdown was key in a lot of house music tracks as DJs wanted to keep their audience moving as long as possible. Unless the track was intended for radio play, these songs would be played for seven or eight minutes at a time in a club setting.

Many DJs exercised synthesizers, samplers, sequencers, and drum machines as they were what was most affordable and accessible. The sound that this equipment produced was peculiar as it was more edgy and raw than what listeners were previous acclimated to.

You may even find producers of today’s house music with equipment exclusively from the 1980s to authentically emulate house and dance music.

What House Music Looks Like Today

Festivals and raves were always home to house and dance music, and as technology evolved in the 2010s, more people were introduced to such.

Festivals were streamed over platforms like YouTube and photographs were shared across Tumblr and Instagram—opening up the culture to a broader audience.

DJs and producers overseas, such as David Guetta and Calvin Harris, were dominating the dance charts both in their home countries and America. Their efforts played a key role in keeping house music relevant throughout the 2010s.

Another DJ by the name of Kaytranada grew fame in the early 2010s via SoundCloud with dance-influenced mixes and mashups of pre-exisiting records.

Rapper Azealia Banks also gained notoriety around this time by rapping over house beats when not many others were doing such.

This past June however, Drake released a house music rap album entitled Honestly, Nevermind. Much like Beyoncé's newly released album, his fans were split on whether they felt like it was a good representation of not only Drake as an artist, but also house music as a genre.

But the fact that we’ve received two house music-influenced albums by two very notable artists in 2022 suggests that there will be plenty more house music records to come, and as listeners, we will be re-familiarizing ourselves with dance.