subject: House Music Review - Things You Might Not Knew [print this page] House was first and foremost a direct descendant of disco. Disco had already been going for ten years when the first electronic drum tracks began to appear out of Chicago in 1980s. It means electronic dance music. It was initially popularized in mid-1980s discothques catering to the African-American, and Latino American communities; and gay communities; first in Chicago, then in Detroit, New York City, New Jersey, and Miami.
It then reached Europe before becoming infused in mainstream pop and dance music worldwide since the early to mid-1990s. Disco eventually collapsed because of the heavy weight of crass disco versions of pop records and an ever-increasing volume of records that were simply no good.
And the underground scene stepped off and was beginning to develop a new style that was deeper, rawer and more designed to influence people to dance. House is influenced by elements of soul and funk infused varieties of disco. House generally mimics disco's percussion, especially the use of a prominent bass drum on every beat.
While Frankie Knuckles had laid the groundwork for house at the Warehouse, it was another DJ from the gay scene that was creating the environment for the house explosion, called Ron Hardy.
Hardy was the DJ that went for the rawest, wildest rhythm tracks he could find. He made The Music Box the inspirational temple for pretty much every DJ and producer that was to come out of the Chicago scene. He was also the DJ to whom the producers took their very latest tracks so they could test the reaction on the dance floor. Larry Heard was one of those people.
"The Music Box was underground ", remembers Adonis. "You could go there in the middle of the winter and it'd be as hot as hell, people would be walking around with their shirts off. Ron Hardy had so much power. People would be praising his name while he was playing, and I've got the tapes to prove it!"
Despite the studied apathy of the American music business and repeated attempts to replace house in Britain, Soul II Soul and their numerous imitators proved more of a hiccup than anything else and entered the new decade stronger than ever. Underground dance scenes developing in new cities and new countries.
