house music all night long


Ali G: "Ain't the most worring things about these (ecstasy) that it actually make you enjoy House Music?"
Notwithstanding Ali G, here's a quickie collection that makes for a nice introduction to House Music.

From Wiki: House Music

House Music is an evolution. It is most fundamentally the direct descendant of Disco which was already an unusually inclusive and dynamic music form with a wide range of influences such as Soul, R&B, Funk, Salsa, Symphonic, Rock and Pop with an extremely progressive social perspective in which diversity was expected and embraced. House Music not only withstood the curious social backlash of a short-lived attempted Disco "bashing," but flourished despite of it. Evolving the hallmark element of inclusion, house music remained receptive to new stimulus such as New Wave, Reggae, Euro-Synth Pop, Industrial and Punk as well as the emerging Rap and Hip-Hop milieu. Experimenting with radically new and conceptual editing techniques along with the mastery of new "high-tech" electronic instruments (of the moment), this epoch witnessed and contributed heavily to the ascension of the "remix,""sampling" and the "DJ" along with many other musical and lyrical innovations.

From Disco To House: Late 1970s - Early 1980s

Wiki: Before Donna Summer recorded "I Feel Love", most disco recordings were backed up by acoustic orchestras. Although the likes of Kraftwerk had earlier pioneered all-electronic music, it has been said that it is the first disco-style song recorded with an entirely synthesized backing track, and has been enormously influential in the development of disco, house, electronica and techno music, thanks to Giorgio Moroder's innovative production. In particular, the song popularised the insistent, robotic bass line, which has been frequently imitated ever since. This is the original tune, not the extended 12" vinyl, which I feel has more of a House sound.

     Donna Summer: I Feel Love - 13.5MB

The milestone Trans-Europe Express album from these seminal automatons was justifiably voted #36 in music magazine New Musical Express 100 Greatest Albums of All Time.

     Kraftwerk: Trans-Europe Express - 3.37MB

After Joy Division's Ian Curtis hung himself, the band regrouped as New Order. The 12" single cover resembled a large 5¼" floppy disk. Pretty cool stuff.

     New Order: Blue Monday - 8.50MB


Chicago Years: Early 1980s - Late 1980s

Frankie Knuckles is considered the The Godfather of House Music. As a teenager in New York, he DJed in the early 1970s before he moved to Chicago ten years later and began spinning at the Warehouse before he opened his own club, the Power Plant. Here's an early collaboration with Jamie Principle.

     Frankie Knuckles with Jamie Principle: Your Love - 15.3MB

Phuture with the first Acid House track ever recorded.

     Phuture: Acid Trax [Album Version] - 27.0MB


The Detroit Connection: Early 1980s - Late 1980s

This Rhythim Is Rhythim song, Strings Of Life, became a cult classic in dance music clubs internationally. The band is also known as Mayday.

     Rhythim Is Rhythim: Strings Of Life (Flamboyant Mix) - 9.49MB


Developments - Late 1980s - Late 1990s

If there's ever been a song that's a guilty pleasure, it's this awfully produced, sample heavy, hokey song by Italian musician, Gino Latino. He sampled the soundtrack of Apple computers "Welcome" commercial of the day (here's the print ad). I'd only heard it in Baby Rock, a Tijuana club that never closed which I often visited due to my proximity to the Mexican border. When people known to have mucho dinero bellied up to the door, the waiters of the always overcrowded club would walk up to a table taken up by average club goers, lift it off the floor and raise the chairs, literally and unceremoniously dumping the poorer customers to the floor. It's where the elite went to meet, south of the border. I made sure I was accompanied by my rich Mexican friends so I wasn't treated like a bum and thrown out the back door.

Gino Latino's, Welcome, was played at least on the hour, patrons would tip the DJ to play it over and over again. The song is so clichéd that after the hundredth playing, it started growing on me like a joke so bad that there was something perversely enjoyable about it. The best part is hearing an Italian accent proclaiming "My name is Gino Latino, I'm the brains of the House Sound!" and how he "Really liked to party". A classic, but I'm not sure for what reason.

     Gino Latino: Welcome (Club Mix) - 9.31MB

Every genre has its Novelty Tunes, House is no exception. Charles Babie and Manfred Mohr, two Chicago producers that created 20 Fingers, teamed with rapper Sandra Gillette for Short Dick Man. The clean version of the single (Short Short Man) reached the Top 20, and Top Five on the dance charts. It also achieved gold-record status. It was followed by Lick It, whose topic I'll leave to your imagination.

     20 Fingers featuring Gillette: Short Dick Man - 4.43MB

     20 Fingers featuring Roula: Lick It - 7.19 MB

Wiki: Leftfield were a duo of electronica artists and record producers, Paul Daley (formerly of A Man Called Adam and the Brand New Heavies) and Neil Barnes, formed in 1989 in London, England. The pair were pioneers in the fields of intelligent dance music and progressive house, being the first to fuse house music with dub and reggae [Release the Pressure (1995)]. They furthermore were among the first electronic musicians to incorporate live guest vocalists, along with The Chemical Brothers and Underworld. Ultimately the duo have been influential on the electronic genre as a whole, with The Crystal Method's Scott Kirkland referring to them in 2005 as "The best Electronic band period."

     Leftfield: Release The Pressure - 17.5 MB

More from The Godfather of House Music.

     Frankie Knuckles: Its A Cold World - 7.85 MB

Ten City were a Chicago based dance-pop/house music trio which hit #1 in 1989 and again in 1999 with That's The Way Love Is. It's still considered to be a House classic today.

     Ten City: That's The Way Love Is (Ext. Version) - 18.7 MB


I hope you enjoyed this trip through the world of House Music as much as I delighted posting it.