House music expanded!

I remember when House music started to branch off and go in different directions in the early 90’s. After the rise of Heartthrob, there was a subgenre called Latin house. This was one of my favorite styles of house music. This was a Latin influenced style that had a house beat, (around 124 BPM) mixed with samples of Latin songs. One of my favorites was called Big Time, (Carlito’s Dream), by That Kid Chris. A decent YouTube link is: www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Gk6hcR9Eh0. This song was a sample from Santana’s “Oye Como Va”, and was mixed into a house beat. This along with other songs like I want to know, (Quiero Saber), by Latin Kings, www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_Zu8J8oUWU, were very popular in Latin communities mostly in larger cities like Chicago, New York and Miami. These were widely spread into Europe along with most other house music. As house music was expanding in the USA, It was starting to explode in Europe, especially in places like Ibiza, Spain, and The Netherlands. This was simply the start of a global expansion, which created the Rave generation. With a widespread dance genre that had so many styles that were being created, parties worldwide were getting larger and larger creating the need for more and more DJ’s and house producers. This in my belief created the celebrity status of the house DJ. For the first time there were DJ’s that were traveling not only from club to club, but also from city to city and country to country to perform at clubs making these DJ’s celebrities of the underground dance revolution. DJ’s like Frankie Knuckles and Paul Oakenfold were worldwide travelers that headlined in clubs and raves across the globe spreading the newest styles and subgenres of dance music. A great book to read about all of this is, Last Night A DJ Saved My Life, The History Of A Disc Jockey by Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton. All this being Said, House music was expanding.

Dance music EVOLVES

My last post ended with the beginning of the use of Electronic instruments in dance music. I was just a kid when I realized that there were other cities that liked house music other than Chicago. I was about 8 years old and was well addicted to house music due to having an older sister and older cousins who introduced me to house music. I used to save my money to buy the newest Bad Boy Bill Hottmix cassette at the record shops. The same time during the 80’s there was a big underground following of a style of house music called “Heartthrob” or “Freestyle”. This was a 120 to 126 BPM four on the floor beat that used electronic instruments that featured love songs that vocalists recorded. Some of the most famous of the time were George LaMond, Stevie B, Cynthia, and the Cover Girls. I think that it is funny due to how artists today like Pitbull and JLO are using and recreating the old heartthrob songs and people think that they are new. But, in reality that is all of the record industry. I happen to be in Florida on vacation with my family in the late 80’s when I was listening to the local radio stations and heard both house music and heartthrob and was amazed that there were other places outside of Chicago that was into these types of dance music. That was the same year that I purchased my first vinyl record by Kraftwork entitled Numbers. This was a single that was stolen from me years later that I understand is really rare today. This was also the time in my life when I realized that I wanted to be a DJ. Once again I was in the middle of the growing Dance music culture that eventually becomes EDM.

Where EDM came from

Hello everyone, this is the first blog that I have ever written so I will try my best to keep everything going as entertaining as possible. I have been involved in the club-dance scene now for around 15 years and have seen the dance scene turn from house parties, to club nights, to raves, to music festivals. I have seen the coming up of EDM music from its start to where it is today. The biggest question is where did EDM really come from? Many people believe that it came from house music, which is believed to originate in Chicago. I would like to believe this, but I believe that EDM as well as all dance music derived from the evolution of all music from all cultures. Disco started a craze that went international in the early 1970’s. I believe this was the seed that started to grow dance music culture across the globe. Since the US had the culture already established, we were able to evolve as a music culture faster. With the death of disco in 1979, dance music was forced to go underground and evolve. This is where house music got its start. It was named house music due to the music being played at house parties.  For the first time dance music was using electronic instruments that were just starting to enter the music scene in disco as primary and only instruments in the whole songs. This was the birth of EDM even though we didn’t really know it. I’m curious what everyone thinks of my perspective on this, please let me know what you think.