The first signs of house music came to light in 1977 when a club called The Warehouse opened in Chicago. There, a primarily black audience could enjoy DJ Frankie Knuckles, a pioneer of the genre, meshing pieces of different records together to form singular mixes, which manifested as an extension of disco. Disco and house are intertwined with church tradition and display quasi-religious elements as the genres originally took form through gospel music; the gospel through which house evolved exemplified a Christian rhetoric of the “Black experience” (Maloney 2018). Disco within itself was created for the marginalized, including those in the black, latinx, and gay communities in an effort to combat the segregation that plagued Chicago throughout the 1980s. Black and white communities were kept separate on an ideological basis; the black community then placed its focus on building its creative identity through the Church. Black homosexuals faced more severe prohibition from expressing their identity within their own communities, and articulated their identities through a disco as an individual revolution. In Notes on Camp, Susan Sontag defines the essence of camp as “its love of the unnatural,” (Sontag 1964). The craft of disco music took on various genres and sounds, allowing it to evolve into a genre never seen before; to many, this genre was unnatural and excessive. Disco embraced a subset of queer counterculture that music before had failed to address; the queer and black communities that identified with disco were able to exercise their own modes of aestheticism and create their own images. In Liam Maloney’s article chronicling the emergence of house music, he notes that disco “was not merely a vehicle for musical tropes, but rather a means by which to transmit ideological concepts that are now innate to the fabric of house music,” (Maloney 2018). House, through this, became known as an ideological aftershock and response to the segregation that minority groups had faced in America for years.
As the 1980s rolled in, the “disco sucks” movement picked up. Disco suffered a crash, only to re-emerge in 1984 as the genre we know today as house music. The advent of new technology allowed house DJs to use mixing and beat matching to create records, apply editing techniques, play narrative sets, and begin experimenting with new equipment. House was defined by the 4/4 beat, or “gospel break,” a consistent tempo derived from disco; this beat was facilitated by the use of drum machines and synthesizers (Maloney 2018). House music sourced musical elements from both the organ and the acoustic piano, instruments central to gospel music. House music DJs began to assist in the effort to merge musical roles, including those of DJs, producers, composers, and remixers by welding together elements of different original tracks at their own discretion.
As the 1980s rolled in, the “disco sucks” movement picked up. Disco suffered a crash, only to re-emerge in 1984 as the genre we know today as house music. The advent of new technology allowed house DJs to use mixing and beat matching to create records, apply editing techniques, play narrative sets, and begin experimenting with new equipment. House was defined by the 4/4 beat, or “gospel break,” a consistent tempo derived from disco; this beat was facilitated by the use of drum machines and synthesizers (Maloney 2018). House music sourced musical elements from both the organ and the acoustic piano, instruments central to gospel music. House music DJs began to assist in the effort to merge musical roles, including those of DJs, producers, composers, and remixers by welding together elements of different original tracks at their own discretion.
The onset of house music led to the height of the PLUR movement. PLUR is an acronym for peace, love, unity, and respect, a message remains present the house and electronic music scene today. The tendency of house fans to be younger, of middle-class status, and black originally defined the genre’s demographic. The Black church’s response to the racial segregation taking place throughout the 1930s and the Civil Rights Movement culminated in the emergence of PLUR related sentiments. PLUR symbolized the essence of what house music music sought to embody; it also exemplified the Christian gospel sentiment of coming together for love and acceptance and sparked excitement towards the counter culture of gay liberation. Black music represents a “sonic beyondness in a world of disenchanted existence” which ultimately serves to reflect the influence and legacy of aesthetics rooted in the intersection of European and African “determinations of the sacred and the transcendent,” (Maloney 2018). The genre and PLUR message projects a sense of unity as a manifestation of ideals (through tribal house styles of contemporary EDM).
From 1984 to 2000, house music expressed its cultural elements rooted in religious expression as the “musical grandchild of gospel passing through the Black and gay nexus of disco” (Maloney 2018). However, in 2000, the repertoire of house music began to shift. House music provides a beat that allows people to enter into a “trance.” This feature, combined with the notions projected by PLUR, paved the way for the rise of popularity and streamlining of house music; Electronic Dance Music (EDM) emerged as a commercialized and popular form of house (Radano 2003). The music industry rationalized the production, distribution, and consumption of the genre as a means for profit, and the audiecne became streamlined. In the late 1990s, festivals such as Electric Daisy Carnival (EDC) and Ultra Music Festival emerged as major trends. This is when the general population started to associate house music with drug culture and a site for the masses to convene in a non-authentic house music scene. The values and counterculture embodied by PLUR were diminished by the commodification of the genre. In essence, entertainment corporations seeking profit turned the niche subculture of house music into what Adorno and Horkheimer understand to be a culture industry. In Dialectic of Enlightenment, Adorno and Horkheimer critique popular culture on the basis that it leads to industrialized media production that creates a culture driven by money. The house music industry is no longer focused on the specificities of those it caters to, but rather the consumption of EDM on a mass scale. Calvin Harris’s release of “Feel So Close” in 2011, followed by Swedish House Mafia’s release of “Don’t You Worry Child” in 2012, and Avicii’s “Addicted to You,” in 2013 signify the ascent of today’s interpretation of house and dance music. These songs, composed by white artists, gained major traction in white mass culture and the music festival setting. The focus of house music shifted from the actual music and the elements that composed it to the audience and who it had the capability to attract, diluting its original nature. The widespread popularity of these artists and songs no longer represents the once authentic image of the house music subculture.
From 1984 to 2000, house music expressed its cultural elements rooted in religious expression as the “musical grandchild of gospel passing through the Black and gay nexus of disco” (Maloney 2018). However, in 2000, the repertoire of house music began to shift. House music provides a beat that allows people to enter into a “trance.” This feature, combined with the notions projected by PLUR, paved the way for the rise of popularity and streamlining of house music; Electronic Dance Music (EDM) emerged as a commercialized and popular form of house (Radano 2003). The music industry rationalized the production, distribution, and consumption of the genre as a means for profit, and the audiecne became streamlined. In the late 1990s, festivals such as Electric Daisy Carnival (EDC) and Ultra Music Festival emerged as major trends. This is when the general population started to associate house music with drug culture and a site for the masses to convene in a non-authentic house music scene. The values and counterculture embodied by PLUR were diminished by the commodification of the genre. In essence, entertainment corporations seeking profit turned the niche subculture of house music into what Adorno and Horkheimer understand to be a culture industry. In Dialectic of Enlightenment, Adorno and Horkheimer critique popular culture on the basis that it leads to industrialized media production that creates a culture driven by money. The house music industry is no longer focused on the specificities of those it caters to, but rather the consumption of EDM on a mass scale. Calvin Harris’s release of “Feel So Close” in 2011, followed by Swedish House Mafia’s release of “Don’t You Worry Child” in 2012, and Avicii’s “Addicted to You,” in 2013 signify the ascent of today’s interpretation of house and dance music. These songs, composed by white artists, gained major traction in white mass culture and the music festival setting. The focus of house music shifted from the actual music and the elements that composed it to the audience and who it had the capability to attract, diluting its original nature. The widespread popularity of these artists and songs no longer represents the once authentic image of the house music subculture.
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Bibliography
Adorno, T. and Horkheimer, M. (1944). Dialectic of Enlightenment. pp. 1-12.
Maloney, L. (2018). …And House Music Was Born: Constructing a Secular Christianity of Otherness. Retrieved November 13, 2019, from Popular Music and Society website: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03007766.2018.1519099
Radano, R. (2003). Lying up a nation : race and Black music. Chicago: University Of Chicago Press.
Sontag, S. (1964). Notes on camp
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