Styles of house music

 

 

A

Acid house

Emphasizes a repetitive, hypnotic and trance-like style, often with samples or spoken lines instead of lyrics. It has core electronic "squelch" sounds that were developed around the mid-1980s, particularly by DJs from Chicago who experimented with the Roland TB-303 electronic synthesizer-sequencer. ex: Adonis, Phuture, Tyree, 'Fast' Eddie Smith, L.A. Williams

Ambient house

Combines elements of acid house and ambient music, typically featuring synth pads and "atmospheric style" vocal samples. It emerged in the late 1980s. ex: The Orb

B

Balearic beat

Also known as Balearic house, initially was an eclectic blend of DJ-led dance music that emerged in the mid-1980s. It later became the name of a more specific style of electronic dance music that was popular into the mid-1990s. Balearic beat was named for its popularity among European nightclub and beach rave patrons on the Balearic island of Ibiza, a popular tourist destination. Some dance music compilations referred to it as "the sound of Ibiza," even though many other, more aggressive and upbeat forms of dance music could be heard on the island.

Bassline house

Emphasizes bass, similar to dubstep and grime, with most songs around 135 to 142 BPM. It originated from speed garage in Sheffield around 2002. ex: Agent X, H "Two" O, Platnum, DJ Q, T2, Wideboys

C

Chicago house

Simple basslines, driving four to the floor percussion and textured keyboard lines, influenced from jazz piano are the elements of the original house sound. ex: Chip E., Farm Boy, Frankie Knuckles, Jamie Principle, Marshall Jefferson, Larry Heard (Mr. Fingers), Steve Silk Hurley, Adonis

D

Deep house

A slower variant of house (around 120 BPM) with warm, sometimes hypnotic melodies. ex: Fingers Inc., MK, Moodymann, Theo Parrish

Dream house

An oriented instrumental melody with relaxing beats. ex: Nylon Moon, Robert Miles

Dutch house

A subgenre of house music from the Netherlands, originating around 2006. Not to be confused with "Dirty Dutch", which is a dance event from the Netherlands. Tracks are typically made up of complex percussion and drumbeats, dramatic buildups and short riffs of high-pitched synths. ex: Afrojack, Laidback Luke, Chuckie, Hardwell, Switch. Dirty South's earlier compositions also bear a strong resemblance to it.

E

Electro house

A subgenre of house music that has had influence from 80's music. Though its origins are hazy – different sources claim influence from '80s-electro, electroclash, pop, synthpop, or tech house – it has since become a hard form of house music. ex: Basement Jaxx, Benny Benassi, Jan Diesel & Steve Petrol, Steve Aoki, The Bloody Beetroots, deadmau5, Justice, Steve Angello, Wolfgang Gartner, Yasutaka Nakata, Zedd

F

Fidget house

A style of house music that involved a very erratic melody, usually consisting of very short and high pitched notes, often produced by altering the pitch of percussion instruments, based around a repetitive bass line, and hypnotic beat. ex: Crookers, Hervé, Switch

French house

A late 1990s house sound developed in France. Inspired by the '70s and '80s funk and disco sounds. Mostly features a typical sound "filter" effect and lower BPM. ex: Alan Braxe, Daft Punk, Bob Sinclar, Stardust, Le Knight Club

Funky house

Funky house as it sounds today first started to develop during the late 1990s. It can again be sub-divided into many other types of house music. French house, Italian house, disco house, Latin house and many other types of house have all contributed greatly to what is today known as funky house. It is recognizable by its often very catchy bassline, swooshes, swirls and other synthesized sounds which give the music a bouncy tempo. It often relies heavily on black female vocals or disco samples and has a recognizable tiered structure in which every track has more than one build-up which usually reaches a climax before the process is repeated with the next track. ex: Axwell, Basement Jaxx, Kid Creme, Martin Solveig, Seamus Haji, Uniting Nations, Moto Blanco

G

Garage house

One of the first house genres with origins set in New York and New Jersey. Garage house developed alongside Chicago house and the result was house music sharing its similarities, influencing each other. Garage house is generally piano oriented, a sound deriving from soul and disco, with a heavy emphasis on vocals, preferably female. One contrast from Chicago house was that the vocals in garage house drew stronger influences from gospel. Notable examples include Tony Humphries and Adeva. Kristine W is an example of a musician involved with garage house outside the genre's origin of birth.

Ghetto house

A derivative of Chicago house with Roland TR-808/909 driven drum tracks. Usually contains call-and-response lyrics, similar to the booty music of Florida and the Ghettotech style of Detroit. ex: DJ Funk

Glitch house

A style of house and glitch music with distorted beats and a combination of influences from sounds of ambient, electro, techno and chiptune/video game music.

H

Hardbag

Hardbag was a genre popular in the mid-1990s which evolved out of the handbag house scene in 1993–1994. "Don't You Want Me" by Felix is largely considered to be the track that launched the hardbag explosion. By early 1997, the hardbag craze had died down, and the sound evolved into what is now known as UK hard house. ex: Amen UK, Blast, Candy Girls, The Ethics, Nush, Tony De Vit

Hard house

A style of house music dating back to the early '90s, hard house is defined by its aggressive sounds and distorted beats. One of the most recognizable of these is the Hoover sound, invented by Joey Beltram and recently re-popularized by DJs like Surkin or Bobmo leading to a small hard house revival. One of the most popular hard house tracks is Felix - "Don't You Want Me", from 1992.

Hip house

The simple fusion of rap with house beats. Popular in the late 1980s to mid-1990s. Most famous record is Jungle Brothers' "Girl I'll House You". ex: 2 in a Room, Freedom Williams, Mr. Lee, The Outhere Brothers, Reel 2 Real, Technotronic, Ya Kid K

I

Italo house

Slick production techniques, catchy melodies, rousing piano lines and American vocal styling typifies the Italian ("Italo") house sound. A modulating Giorgio Moroder style bassline is also characteristic of this style.

K

Kwaito

Kwaito is a music genre that emerged in Johannesburg, South Africa, during the 1990s. It is a variant of house music featuring the use of African sounds and samples.

L

Latin house

Borrows heavily from Latin dance music such as salsa, Brazilian beats, Latin jazz etc. It is most popular on the East Coast of the United States, especially in Miami and the New York City metropolitan area. Another variant of Latin house, which began in the mid-1990s, was derived in the Los Angeles metropolitan area and is based on more Mexican-centric styles of music such as Mariachi. Artists include Proyecto Uno (best known for "El tiburón"), Artie The One Man Party (best known for "A Mover La Colita"), and DJ EFX (best known for his remix of "Volver Volver").

M

Madchester

Madchester was a music scene that developed in Manchester, England towards the end of the 1980s and into the early 1990s. The music that emerged from the scene mixed alternative rock, psychedelic rock and dance music. ex: 808 State, Paris Angels, A Guy Called Gerald, Happy Mondays, Sub Sub, The Farm

Microhouse

Microhouse is a derivative of tech house & minimal techno with sparse composition and production. ex: Akufen

Moombahton

Fusion of Dutch house and reggaeton at 108–112 BPM. ex: Munchi, Diplo, Dillon Francis

N

New beat

A rather brief phenomenon (even for the style-a-minute world of dance music), New Beat emerged late in the 1980s as a midtempo derivation of acid house.^[1] ex: The KLF, Lords of Acid

Nu-disco

Nu-disco or nu-house is a genre which came about in 2002 as a renewed interest in 1970s and early 1980s disco, Italo disco, Euro disco and P-Funk.

P

Progressive house

Progressive house is typified by accelerating peaks and troughs throughout a track's duration and are, in general, less obvious than in hard house. Layering different sounds on top of each other and slowly bringing them in and out of the mix is a key idea behind the progressive movement. It is often related to trance music. ex: Alesso, Axwell, Calvin Harris, Dave Seaman, Deadmau5, Eric Prydz, John Digweed, Moguai, Nick Warren, Sasha, Sebastian Ingrosso, Steve Angello

S

Swing house

Swing house is a genre of electronic dance music that fuses 1920s–1940s jazz styles including swing music and big band with 2000s styles including house, electro, hip hop, drum & bass and dubstep. ex: Caravan Palace, Parov Stelar

T

Tech house

House music with elements of techno in its arrangement and instrumentation. ex: Dave Angel, Mark Dynamix

Trap

Tribal house

Popularized by remixer/DJ Steve Lawler in UK, and Junior Vasquez in New York, it is characterized by lots of percussion and world music rhythms.

 

 

 

 

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