Talk:Acid house

What about Charanjit Singh?

Released in 1982, his album Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat surely must be the first acid house/techno record? http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/apr/10/charanjit-singh-acid-house 85.226.47.4 (talk) 16:37, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

It has nothing to do with techno, except that it's electronic and has a somewhat fast tempo. It vaguely resembles certain types of trance music, but it's not trance. It's similar to acid house, enough to make some bloggers gush over it, but calling Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat an acid house record, or the first acid house record, is just hyperbolic. The first acid house record can't predate house music. It would be like calling "Funky Drummer" the first hip-hop record or Phaedra the first ambient trance record. The first time I heard Klaus Schulze's "Blackdance", I thought "this could come out today on Rephlex and everyone would think it was the latest Aphex Twin release." These kinds of proto-genre examples are common in music. No musical idea is that original.

Anyway, all that's not to say the Singh album can't be mentioned. You just need to carefully word it, perhaps with something to the effect of it being "an album of original synthesizer disco music from 1982, made in a style which, upon wider re-release in 2010, prompted some journalists and bloggers to question whether it may be considered an example of acid house." And then make sure the Guardian article is cited; it seems to be the only respectable, non-blog publication which talks about the topic. —mjb (talk) 00:17, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

What about Ceephax too? This article is biased.

Contentious "first acid house"

this edit is dubious at best one small Guardian item and a blog post are weak, and demonstrate undue weight, more verifiable secondary sources need to be found to support the claim of "first acid house record." An early example of TB-303 usage, yes, claims of "first" are debatable and need to be discussed. There are dozens of Italo Disco tracks etc. that sound acid houseish, and which pre-date this record. Acid house is acid house, records that sound like acid house because they feature similarly filter cut-off and resonance effects are not necessarily acid house. If cites exist to demonstrate otherwise no worries, let's use them. --Semitransgenic (talk) 14:30, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

It's not "one small Guardian item", but it's two seperate Guardian articles that both clearly state "first acid house" record. Maybe we could add a "possibly" next to it, but other than that, there's nothing dubious about it. As for the other blog source (or rather, two articles from the same source), it's written by an author who has written articles for many publications, and it's only used to provide more information on the record rather than to support the "first" claim. Either way, the record is notable enough to warrant a mention in the article. If you need more sources describing it as, or comparing it to, acid house, then there's plenty, such as this, this, and this. Anyway, I'll try have a second go at it and word it more carefully this time. Regards, Jagged 85 (talk) 17:25, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

(sorry was writing this as Mjb was posting) it reads more accurately now, thanks, have modified slightly. Have looked through the legitimate cites presented, cannot find a statement that says conclusively that "this is the first acid house record," there is speculation, based upon the fact that a TB-303 and 808 was utilised in the creation of disco-like music, in a similar fashion to Acid House. But, in a wider sense, both Singh and Jefferson were influenced by other artists, so what I find problematic, generally, about this kind of approach to creating a historical context, is that it ignores other examples that predate Singh's record, they should be highlighted. Record reviews are less than ideal as sources. --Semitransgenic (talk) 22:10, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Neither of the Guardian articles provides any evidence that anyone (except maybe the Guardian's music editor) considers it to be an acid house record. The first article only asks in an attention-grabbing headline whether it could be, and the body of the article essentially answers that no, it's only an obscure acid-house-like disco record entirely unconnected to actual acid house. The second uses the weasel-worded link text "some have labelled the first ever acid house record" with a link pointing back to the first article, so that's not really any better. The SPIN link you cited only says it sounds like acid house. Likewise the Hub link says Singh's record only "mirrored" the first acid house record, which it acknowledges was still "Acid Trax", implying that Singh's music is similar but does not qualify as a new "first acid house record" or even acid house at all.

Following on from the discussion above (did you see the previous section?), I would much rather see this record acknowledged in the way we did it in the article on techno music: by having a separate, low-importance section for techno-like (or in this case, acid house-like) antecedents. This keeps the uncontentious, very definite and widely agreed-upon examples and historical info up front, separate from the different points of view of how far back one should reach for examples and how dissimilar from the established genre such "precursors" can be. To this end, I've moved your revised text to its own section, and edited it slightly to avoid overstating the relationship to acid house; e.g. even the word "precursor" implies it influenced/led to acid house, whereas by all accounts it was not influential at all. —mjb (talk) 21:35, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

I think the article seems fine now. However, one thing I do find surprising is your claim that record reviews are unreliable sources? Do you have any references (like, for example, a page from Wikiproject Music) to support this claim? Regards, Jagged 85 (talk) 01:25, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

If the article seems fine now, then you won't mind making similar edits to your work at Charanjit Singh (musician)? :)

While we await Semitransgenic's reply, I would say they are reliable sources for what particular reviewers have written, and if it's important to mention the fact that at least n reviewers said such-and-such, then sure, mention it. But be really careful how you characterize it. As someone who has written (even professionally) reviews without fully knowing what I was talking about at the time, I want to stress that if someone has written something dubious or contentious in a review, we can't present their questionable impressions as fact, only as their perceptions. And since we can't know what all reviews say, we have to be careful not to imply that even a set of concurring reviews are representative of a majority point of view. —mjb (talk) 06:14, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Actually, that's pretty much what I just recently did at the Charanjit Singh article, presenting it as the opinions of reviewers. I was just surprised when one of Semitransgenic's edit summaries mentioned record reviews as not reliable. If he just meant it in the sense that they should be presented as opinions rather than facts, then I don't have a problem with it. Regards, Jagged 85 (talk)

@Jagged, I view album reviews etc. as very weak sources of information but if, in the absence of scholarly secondary sources, they are used, certain questions need to asked, this should be clear from issues highlighted in WP:NMUSIC WP:NALBUMS: does the source meet WP:RS requirements? is it notable? is the reviewer a notable music expert, music journalist etc.? Additionally, reviews supplied by record resellers are useless, and should not be used. Boomkat for example is not a reliable source, nor is any source that has a commercial stake, however, you supply this as a cite, the website this links to is a distributor of the album discussed in the article, so is therefore not independent of the article's subject, plus, the list of endorsements, in the form of review out-takes, are mostly from record resellers, blog reviews, etc. for the latter WP:WEB & WP:SPS are concerns. I would dispute the acceptability of this cite, or any cite that has similar problems. Semitransgenic (talk) 15:42, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

US newspaper articles from 1988

I've been sitting on a small collection of US newspaper articles from mid/late 1988, found via a NewsBank InfoWeb search for "acid house" at a public library. Someone needs to go through the articles and comb them for facts to add to this article. I thought I'd have time to do it, but several years have elapsed and I'm constantly distracted, so I would rather hand them off to someone else. Let me know if you're interested, and I'll send you a link to a .zip of the files. —mjb (talk) 22:02, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

i would be interested in seeing this stuff for sure, but like you, don't have much time to make use of it at the moment. Semitransgenic (talk) 15:44, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Hardfloor?

Why no mention of Hardfloor in this article. Their 1992 single Acperience and subsequent work has reinvigorated Acid House during the 1990's. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.151.143.115 (talk) 23:27, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

I think it's more generally that we don't have any coverage beyond the original US & UK scenes that were "pure" acid house in its original incarnations.

We really should mention the embrace, by producers working primarily in other genres, of the dominant TB-303 "acid" sound of acid house. Hardfloor was more in this category, making a hybrid sound that was more techno and trance than acid house, per se. They're certainly notable, just not as strictly acid house artists.

The only notables I can think of who really kept a relatively pure acid house torch alive were the Phuture crew, Green Velvet, and Aphrohead, mostly in the mid-'90s, and even then they were mixing it with a dense, higher-tempo "hard house" sound bordering on techno. It wasn't until more around the mid/late 2000s that there was a revival of a much less diluted and much more retro acid house vibe, but it's way underground, with no notable artists, even though Hardfloor participated.

The problem is that if we are to mention them, we need reliable sources covering these developments... —mjb (talk) 08:26, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the replies. I know Hardfloor came later than the original 85-89 Acid period and have more of a Techno-y style to them. However I mentioned them due to a lot of their work still retaining much of the old-skool Acid sound in it - especially their X-Mix 'Jack in the Box' comp and 'All Targets Down' album (with collaborations from Phuture) they did in '98. Didn't wan't to add something which wasn't right to the proper Wiki page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.152.245.252 (talk) 11:42, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Ah, I missed those examples in my crate digging...I have only very old and very new Hardfloor. Anyway, like I said, I think we do need to add something about acid house's legacy and revivals. It's just going to require some research. —mjb (talk) 11:50, 7 March 2012 (UTC)