HOUSE MUSIC

Even though it shared a headspace with disco in terms of rhythm, intensity and danceability, house music started to take over when the world became fed up with disco near the end of the ‘70s. Visionaries such as Frankie Knuckles (who started mixing up a variety of musical styles at Chicago night club The Warehouse), Jesse Saunders and Farley Jackmaster Funk laid the foundations of house music, with Farley Jackmaster Funk’s cover of Isaac Hayes’ ‘Love Can’t Turn Around’ becoming the first international house hit.

Another figurehead of the first wave of house producers was Marshall Jefferson, whose style became synonymous with Chicago house. He tied the now trademark vocals, thumping piano and strings to the minimal, energetic rhythms whilst adopting a slightly faster tempo (bpm – beats per minute) than its New York counterpart. House music soon flourished across the United States, even more so when the demand for dance-floor-oriented tracks built a fire under the world of electronic equipment. By the mid-80s, the rise of drum machines, synthesizers and samplers had caused a whole world of new possibilities to open up, and house music thrived greatly in the slipstream of these technological developments.