history of house music

The history of house music in 10 tunes

Tis the season for partying, and there ain’t no party like an S Club Party! No wait, we mean, like a house party!

And if you’ve ever wondered where it all began, let Le Blow take you back; back to the old skool, with a little lesson in the history of house…

Donna Summer – I Feel Love (1977)

With its completely synthetic backing track, this tune marked the start of something different, and the beginning of electronic music. House therefore is a direct descendant of disco. FACT.

Jessie Saunders – On and On (1984)

AKA the Originator of House music , this Jessie Saunders single was the first record with a house DJ as the main artist that was pressed and sold to the public. What? A non-musician making music? It’ll never take off…

Frankie Knuckles & Jamie Principle – Your Love (1986)

Frankie Knuckles gave birth to house music in 1977, when he opened a new kind of club which gave the genre its name. Called The Warehouse, he mixed disco classics, new Eurobeat pop and synthesised beats into a high- energy amalgamation of recycled soul. And when the classics got tired, they started making their own music, like this. Good, huh?

Marshall Jefferson – Move Your Body (1986)

This mighty track can be credited with putting the piano into house. Amen to that.

Mr Fingers – Can U Feel It? (1986)

This is when house started to get real DEEP. How fresh does it still sound 25 years on?!

Farley ‘Jackmaster’ Funk – Love Can’t Turn Around (1986)

The first house music record to cross over from the clubs into the UK Singles Chart.

Steve ‘Silk’ Hurley – Jack Your Body (1987)

This was the UK’s first house music number one – and paved the way for the aciiiiiiiiiiid house of the 80s.

Joe Smooth – Promised Land (1987)

An ANTHEM. So good – and changed things forever; in warehouse parties, nightclubs and Ibiza.

S’Express – Theme From S’Express (1988)

An early example of acid house and the trend for sampling the shit out of everything – in this track alone we can hear Rose Royce’s ‘Is It Love You’re After’ and TZ’s ‘I Got the Hots for You’ (as well as a fair few other songs). Even the hi-hat is sampled from an aerosol spray.

A Guy called Gerald – Voodoo Ray (1988)

The awesome hynotic trance of this track marked the UK’s ownership of this fresh new sound. Hurrah!

Every weekend, some 10,000 club kids would join the party. Radio 1 banned E-Zee Possee’s ‘Everything Starts With An E’. House music was discussed in da House of Commons! There was a happening, happening. It was the second Summer Of Love (the original, of course, being way back in psychedelic 1967).

Now in the twenty first century, house continues to reinvent itself. And it continues to move hearts and minds on dance floors across the globe. It is and always will be a feeling. A feeling of being free.

In the beginning there was jack. And Jack had a groove…

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