Styles of house music

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

House music has many sub-genres:

• Acid house: A Chicago derivative built around the Roland TB-303 bassline machine. Hard, uncompromising, tweaking samples produce a hypnotic effect. ex: Adonis, L.A. Williams
• Afro house: A form of house developed in Brooklyn, New York which reflects the cultural heritage of Africa and the African Diaspora. Incorporates deep percussive elements, chants, and organic African instruments and voices. Artists include Osunlade, Jephte Guillaume, Ian Friday, Antonio Ocasio and DJ Sabine.
• Alan House: A form of house music developed in Manhattan in the early 2000s. A blend of Afro house and 1940s swing music. The Alan House dance craze fizzled very quickly when it became painfully evident that the man that started the craze had little to no dancing ability.
• Ambient house (see ambient music): Mixing the moody atmospheric sounds of New Age and ambient music with pulsating house beats. ex: The Orb ect.
• Baltimore House: A form of house music in Baltimore, Maryland Interchangeably referred as Baltimore Breaks built off of old samples drawing from a variety of genres of music and including heavy call and response and 'jingles' (singable choruses). Club music is still evolving in Baltimore, and has gone through periods of being driven by samples of popular music sped up and layered over existing loops from old house songs, to shouting out local neighborhoods and much more.
• Bassline house: A sub-genre of UK garage that began to emerge into the mainstream in the UK in late 2007. It is an evolution of UK garage but with more emphasis on bass. The scene started in 2002 at the Niche nightclub in Sheffield, which lends an alternative name for the genre.
• "Bitch House": Popular in the early to mid 1990s in gay clubs. It featured the spoken vocals of gay men, drag queens and transsexuals, usually African-American or Latino. Generally the lyrics spoke disparaging of other "queens" or other women and were generally thought to be quite funny. ex: Candy J, Fierce Men On Wax, Ride Committee ft. Roxy
• Bleep House: Another style of House music from the Early Rave Scene. ex: Sweet Exorcist, Cyclone, Fade II Black, Alternations, Hypersonic ect.
• Break House: A House music sound from the Early Rave Scene. ex: Lost Entity, Rhythm On The Loose ect.
• Chicago house: Simple basslines, driving four to the floor percussion and textured keyboard lines are the elements of the original house sound. ex: Jamie Principle, Steve Silk Hurley, Mr. Fingers, Nitro Deluxe, Farm Boy, Frankie Knuckles, Marshall Jefferson, Jungle Wonz, Chip E. ect.
• Deep house: A slower variant of house (around 120 BPM) with warm sometimes hypnotic melodies. ex: Gemini, Glenn Underground, Kevin Yost.
• Dream house: An oriented instrumental melody with relaxing beats. ex: Robert Miles, Nylon Moon.
• Disco house: A more upfront variant of house that relies heavily on looped disco samples. ex: Dimitri from Paris , Jordan Fields, DJ Sneak, Paul Johnson, Modjo, and Stardust, Stupid Disco, Shapeshifters, Freemasons.
• Dutch House: A Style of House music from the Netherlands. It has a more harder and elecronic edge, sound & beat. ex:Quazar, Dano, The Prodigy, Eq Lazer, Booming Support, Human Resource, Speedy Joe, Hardwell, Switch Krookers etc.
• Electro house: A style of dance music which has rapidly increased in popularity since the early 2000s. A common misconception is that electro house is influenced by early 80s Electro, when in fact it has a lot more in common with Electroclash, Synthpop and Italo disco. ex: Steve Angello, Eric Prydz.
• Epic house: A variant of progressive house featuring lush synth-fills and dramatic beat breakdowns.
• Eurohouse: House music mixed with Eurodance. ex: Wood Allen, Neon ect.
• Experimental House: House music crossed with Experimental music. ex: Westbam, Chemical Brothers ect.
• Fidget house: A style of house music that incorporates other dance music styles including rave, breakbeat and UK garage. ex. Switch and Hervé.
• Filter Disco House: A variant of disco house similar to French house (but with less Italo-disco and synthpop crossover) that incorporates pronounced use of filters (e.g. cutoff, flanger, phaser, chorus, and similar effects) and enhanced dynamics processing (usually resulting in pumping basslines and swirling percussion) to render a distinctively analog or "oldschool funky" feel to the production. Filter Disco employed the use of disco loops that were altered as they repeated with the use of filters and other such effects as mentioned previously. ex. Gene Farris,Risque De Funk Electrique, Ian Carey, Hott 22.
• Freestyle house: A Latin variant of NY house music, which began development in the early 1980s by producers like John Benitez. Seen by some as an evolution of electro funk.
• 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. ex: Daft Punk, Alan Braxe, Le Knight Club, Synthique
• Funky house: Funky house as it sounds today first started to develop during the late 1990's. 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, Kid Creme, Seamus Haji, Martin Solveig, Basement Jaxx, Uniting Nations The Original, Bobsin Clar, ATFC ect.
• Garage: This term has changed meaning several times over the years. The UK definition relates to New York's version of deep house, originally named after a certain style of soulful disco played at legendary club the Paradise Garage. It may also be called the Jersey Sound due to the close connection many of its artists and producers have with New Jersey such as the legendary Shep Pettibone and Tony Humphries at Zanzibar in Newark, NJ. There is aslo Garage House which is a style of US Garage. ex: Blaze, Colonel Abrahams, Phase II, Jomanda, NYC Peech Boys, ect. Not to be confused with speed garage or the British style nowadays called UKG or UK garage.
• Ghetto house: A derivative of Chicago house with TR-808 and 909 driven drum tracks. Usually contains call-and-response lyrics, similar to the booty music of Florida. ex: DJ Godfather, DJ Deeon, DJ Milton, DJ Funk, DJ D-Man
• Gospel house: Vocal house with either gospel choires as backing vocals or lyrics about Jesus or God. (Michelle Weeks, Jasper Street Company, Kurt Lykes, Kenny Bobien, Ron Carroll, Barbara Tucker etc.)
• Glitch House: House music mixed with Glitch music. ex: Oval ect.
• Handbag house: A form of uplifting vocal house music mainly from around the mid 1990s and played in more commercial-orientated dance music venues. Takes its name from the notion of groups of girls dancing around a pile of their handbags on the dancefloor. Examples include Loveland, Nush, ect.
• Hardbag house: A darker & more harder version of Handbag house.
• UK hard house: In the US, a harder, more aggressive form of Chicago house. Sometimes contains elements of Ghetto house, Hip house. ex: CZR, DJ Bam Bam, Abstract Beating System. In the UK, hard house was what is now known as Hard dance
• "House Hop": The blending of mainstream Hip-Hop hits and House music. Differing from "hip house" in the 80s by its distinctly commercial-pop sound as opposed to the underground aspects of hip house. First reaching the mainstream in the HouseHop CD series by San Francisco radio host and music producer Ross.FM
• "Pop House": House-pop is more also known as "commercial dance" music as it is not strictly House nor strictly Dance-pop. House-pop is the first cousins of Dance-pop. It usually features 4/4 beats and deep bassline as House and the incessantly catchy melodies of Dance-pop. ex: Krush, Bomb The Bass, Coldcut., Yazz, Madonna, Danni Minogue, Penthouse 4 ect.
• Hi-NRG: Called "high energy". Derived from Dance music and Happy hardcore, you could say what happyhard is to techno, is what HI-NRG is to dance, it usually has female voices with natural pitch, its tempo is also around the same as techno, eg: DJ Nick Skitz, Miquel Brown, Kristine W, Paul Lekakis ect.
• Hip house: The simple fusion of rap with house beats. Popular for a brief moment in the late 80s. Most famous record is Jungle Brothers "Girl I'll House You." Other Hip-House artists include Mr. Lee, The Outhere Brothers, 2 in a Room, Ya Kid K and Freedom Williams.
• Hooligan House: Came around 2002 with Audio Bullys in the UK and played a big part with UK magazine Muzik.It has strong samples of Punk and SKA and sometime UK garage.
• 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 a trademark of this style.
• Kwaito house: House music that originated in Johannesburg, South Africa in the mid 90's. It is characterized by slow beats, accompanied by (mostly male) vocals - often shouted and not sung - set against melodic African loops.
• Latin house: Borrows heavily from Latin dance music -- 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 1990's, was derived in the Los Angeles metropolitan area and is based on more Mexican-centric styles of music such as Mariachi. Artists include Artie The One Man Party (known best for "A Mover La Colita") and DJ EFX (known best for his remix of "Volver Volver").
• Leftfield House: Another House music sound from the Early Rave Scene. ex: Leftfield, Rhythmatic ect.
• Merenhouse: Merenhouse is the combination of Merengue and House music, particularly Garage/House or House-pop. This style is most popular in the same places Latin House is most popular.
• Microhouse: Is A derivative of Tech house & Glitch House with sparse composition and production. ex: Akufen, Gamat 3000, etc.
• Minimal House: House music mixed with Minimal. It has a very futuristic House sound. ex: Egotronic, Todd Sines, Alton Miller, etc.
• New York house: New York's uptempo dance music, referred to simply as club music by some. This type of house is popular in the extreme East Coast in areas like New York City, Long Island, New Jersey, New England, Boston, Philadelphia, and sometimes Baltimore and Washington DC.
• Rave House: The biggest of all Rave House music ex: 808 State, Altern8, Cola Boy, Liquid Oxygen, Shut Up& Dance, Bay Ford, Fast Eddie, Lil Louis ect.
• Soulful House: Started in the UK and USA in the mid 90's,and has a similar style to Funky House but less upbeat and influenced by soul music rather than funk. Such music from Robert Owens with Things That Make You Feel Good use the soulful style. Soulful House also prominently uses Disco beats and uses a lot of deep male and female vocals.
• Parfume House [sic]: As advertized by Pussycat OTD, a Swiss gay party label, it is yet to find out how this sounds like and why perfume is written completely wrong.
• Piano House: Piano House is the cousin of Italo House. However, Piano House is filled with electronic Piano Strings. ex: baffa, Electric Choc, Liberation, Denno Lenny, System ect.
• 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 sound on top of each other and slowly bringing them in and out of the mix is a key idea behind the progressive movement. Some of this kind of music sounds like a cousin of trance music.
• Scouse house: A sub genre of House music that originated in Liverpool, United Kingdom. This style is most popular in the north west and north east of England. It takes the word scouse from the local dialect and is a relatively new genre. The structure of the music is characterized by its very 'bouncy' texture and use of samples from happy hardcore tracks.
• Technohouse: House music with Techno that was popular in the Early Rave Scene. ex: Bizarre Inc., Tricky Disco, Forgemasters, Neux 21, Orbital, The Hypnotist, Cubik22, R&V, MK, Space Opera, Real 2 Real, Chubby Chunks, Basstonik, Man With No Name, Model 500 Unique 3, ect. It is not to be confused with Tech house, which is a latter version of Technohouse.
• Tech house: House music with elements of techno in its arrangement and instrumentation. ex: Rino Cerrone, Dave Angel
• Traxx house: A drum-oriented variant of Chicago house built around compact drum machines of the late '80s and early '90s. ex: Trackhead Steve, DJ Rush, Paul Johnson
• Tribal house: Popularized by remixer/DJ Junior Vasquez in New York, characterized by lots of percussion and world music rhythms.
• Underground House: A Style Of House music made for the underground. ex: Samim, Claude VonStroke, Marc Houle, Gus Gus, The Youngsters, ect.
• Vocal house: Composed of soulful vocals and often jazz loops.
• Wonky House: A mix of Minimal House, Techhouse and Techno it's self.