Disco and House

[Dermot]

Here's a brief history of disco and house music. :3

Disco music originated as a fusion of popular dance music from the black, Hispanic and gay communities of the late 1960s and early 1970s.  It was named after the French word "discothèque", a portmanteau of "disque" (record) and "bibliothèque" (library) - a discothèque was a dance house where music was played from records rather than from live performances.  As a music genre, disco was marked by a steady danceable 4/4 timing with rhythm on most of the 16th notes, set to soul music.  In the early 1970s, disco was mostly a gay and minority dance genre, but it reached mainstream popularity in the middle 1970s.  This was soon followed by a heavy record label commercialization of the genre, then a general backlash against the genre in the late 1970s and early 1980s.  Disco fell out of mainstream appeal, and it is generally agreed that the old "disco" was commercially dead by 1982.

The organic roots of the genre went back underground, with musicians continuing to create new music for small urban dance clubs.  The genre re-emerged with a more subdued popularity, but this time rebranded as "house" (named after the dance houses - "disco" still had too much stigma from the backlash).  Generally free from corporate meddling and stigma, house saw most of its success in Chicago dance clubs, and so the early popular style of house is usually called "Chicago house".  Detroit was also a center of emerging house music, where it was called "Detroit techno".

House continued steadily in popularity in various parts of the world through the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s and on to today, fueled by much of the same original underground dance club appeal it had before disco was popularized in the 1990s.  But since then, house has become not one, but many genres, as it was adapted to new and different kinds of sounds - acid house, disco house (with a "retro" feel), electro house, hard house, Italo house, rave, trance, tribal house, etc..  Most modern house indeed sounds very differently from the popular disco of the 1970s, but even the 1970s disco musicians generally agree that house music is disco evolved under a different name.

Here are some disco and house musical selections from YouTube you can listen to.  These are actually ones I like, to varying degrees. :3

• A Taste of Honey - Boogie Oogie (1978)
  
• Gloria Gaynor - I Will Survive (1978)
  
• Dschinghis Khan - Moskau (1979)
  
• Weather Girls - It's Raining Men (1982)
  
• Rozalla - Are You Ready to Fly (1992)
  
• Robert Miles - Children (1995)
  
• Nightbeat - Children RMX (1996)
  
• Spice Girls - Who Do You Think You Are (1997)
  
• Cher - Strong Enough (1999)
  
• Jase Chong - Call Me an Angel (2000?)
  
• Aquagen featuring Rozalla - Everybody's Free (2002)
  
• Eric Prydz - Pjanoo (2008)
  

[Vy'drach]

I like pretty much every song or artist on that list, but my understanding on house is a bit... newer than those songs.

My version of house is essentially this,

Noir - It's All About House Music.

*Warning* Bit of swearing.

I love the guy's mini-rant in this song.

But for me, if it has a good beat, I like it.

[Geo Stelar]

House, but no disco

[Dermot]

I like pretty much every song or artist on that list, but my understanding on house is a bit... newer than those songs.

Like I said, house has exploded in diversity.  It's spawned so many subgenres, many of which are becoming (or have already become) separate genres in their own right.

In fact, one of my friends complains that most of what I like is 90s house.  He likes 00s house more. X3

[Guest DRL]

I like some disco songs.

That Donna Somers "On the radio"

or like that.

And that one I can not remember the name,

"We are melody" or like that...

[Asper Sarnoff]

To me, they are the same. S***!

Just never cared for music like that.

[Guest Julius Quasar]

House, but no disco

Seconded. 

"Disco Sucks!" 

[Mr. Foxer]

What in the hell is "house".

[Dermot]

What in the hell is "house".

Did you read the description or listen to any of the samples?  House is disco as it continued to evolve naturally past 1981.  They're really...the same genre - "disco" is early disco/house, and "house" is later disco/house, including all modern disco/house.  Disco "died" in 1981, and house was "born" then.  There are very complex music fan politics involved that enforce this quasi-artificial distinction.

Here, let me draw a little diagram.

Monospaced Text

gay dance -            /-- Chicago house ---

                      /                     

Latin --- disco -- post-disco ------------- house -- house subgenres

            /                                /

soul ------/            -- Detroid techno --/

They're even named after the same thing - disco is from discothèque (which means dance house), and house is from...dance house.

House became the natural heir to disco in the 1980s and 1990s, as it is not only directly descended from disco, but also keeps in more in common with its disco roots than any other modern genre disco influenced - the tempo, the beat, the rhythms, the soulful music, and continued support by all three original musical communities that originally gave birth to disco.  So house is the de facto natural continuation of disco, something acknowledged even by most original disco artists.

If you listen to some of the songs I linked, some of the later ones (especially in the 1990s like "Strong Enough") became just like old disco songs - but since disco "died", they're not called disco, but rather "disco house".

[Mr. Foxer]

Hm that strange, I didn't see that wall of text before. Anyway, never EVER heard of house until now. So either that style is dead or everyone calls it by a different name. I'd guess the latter.

[Dermot]

Hm that strange, I didn't see that wall of text before. Anyway, never EVER heard of house until now. So either that style is dead or everyone calls it by a different name. I'd guess the latter.

No, house music is still very much alive.  It's mainly a niche dance genre.  Its main outlet is the nightclubs and gay bars and such.  Same way disco got its start.  But you can still hear it here and there...there was even a very nice electro-house song in F-Zero Maximum Velocity on GBA.

IMO, Pjanoo is one of the most exquisite examples of modern recent house music. (Seven and a half minutes, and takes almost two minutes to build up.  A lot of disco and house songs are like this. XD)

[Braux]

A firend of mine told be about house, but hes mainly into the techno style'd music, like Daft Punk. Although I'm not too sure that that is considered "House" or not.

[Dermot]

I like some kinds of disco/house songs that are really long (upwards of 8 minutes), with a lot of "buildup" areas of gentler music - by the time the strongest part of the music is reached is when the most people are all dancing.  House music is even more about club dance than disco was, with it being like a sensual experience that consumes body and soul.

I tried to find more of these songs on YouTube, but no dice. If only I could share MP3s or something. XD

["User"]

House is mainly known as, at least in the Western World, a very popular T.V. series..... 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_%28TV_series%29

[Dermot]

House is mainly known as, at least in the Western World, a very popular T.V. series..... 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_%28TV_series%29

I know.  Sometimes I listen to house before watching House.

[Sabre]

House is mainly known as, at least in the Western World, a very popular T.V. series..... 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_%28TV_series%29

Ah, you young 'ns. If you lived through the 90s you most likely know house from the acid house scare.

...Wait. Your profile says your 27. Must have been a British thing.

["User"]

Ah, you young 'ns. If you lived through the 90s you most likely know house from the acid house scare.

...Wait. Your profile says your 27. Must have been a British thing.

Must have. :P

[Asper Sarnoff]

Meh, a house has four walls, a roof, and you live in it! That's the only definition I've got of that word. :lol:

[Sabre]

Must have.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iVAZKreer8

4mins in

Also I get alot of use out of that episode.