House music, or simply house, has a steady beat that repeats every four beats and usually plays at a speed of 115–130 beats per minute. It began in the 1980s when DJs and music makers in Chicago changed disco songs to create a more mechanical sound. By 1988, house music became popular and replaced many of the common music styles from the 1980s.
Important people who helped create and develop house music in Chicago include Frankie Knuckles, Ron Hardy, Jesse Saunders, Chip E., Joe Smooth, Steve "Silk" Hurley, Farley "Jackmaster" Funk, Marshall Jefferson, Phuture, and others. House music first spread to New York City and then to cities like London before becoming a global trend.
House music has greatly influenced pop and dance music. It has been used by famous artists such as Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Janet Jackson, Madonna, Duran Duran, Pet Shop Boys, Kylie Minogue, and Lady Gaga. Popular songs inspired by house music include "Pump Up the Jam" by Technotronic, "French Kiss" by Lil Louis, "Show Me Love" by Robin S., and "Push the Feeling On" by the Nightcrawlers. Many house DJs also create new versions of songs for pop artists. Today, house music remains popular on the radio and in clubs, and it continues to be part of underground music scenes around the world.
Characteristics
The most common type of house music has a repeating rhythm. This rhythm includes bass drums, hi-hats, snare drums, claps, and snaps played at a speed of 120 to 130 beats per minute. Synthesizer sounds, deep basslines, and sometimes vocals are also used. In house music, the bass drum is played on beats one, two, three, and four, while the snare drum, claps, or other high-pitched sounds are played on beats two and four. Drumbeats are usually made using electronic drum machines, such as the Roland TR-808, TR-909, or TR-707. Claps, shakers, or hi-hat sounds add rhythmic patterns. A special rhythm, called the clave pattern, is often used in early Chicago house music. Congas and bongos may be added for an African sound, or metallic percussion for a Latin feel.
Sometimes, drum sounds are made louder to create a stronger effect. A type of house music called acid house uses sounds made by the Roland TB-303 synthesizer. House music was created using simple and affordable electronic equipment, which allowed independent musicians and DJs to produce tracks. The tools used by house producers were once considered too basic by other musicians. House music often uses recorded sounds, called samples, instead of hiring live musicians. Although house music combines many sounds, like drum beats and synth basslines, the overall sound is usually simple. Unlike pop music, which focuses on high-pitched melodies, house music emphasizes low-pitched bass sounds.
House music tracks usually have an introduction, a chorus, different verse sections, a middle part, and a short ending. Some tracks skip the verse and repeat parts of the chorus. House music often uses sections of eight bars that repeat. These sections are built around deep basslines made by synthesizers or samples from disco, soul, jazz-funk, or funk songs. When creating music for clubs, DJs and producers may make a longer version, called a "seven or eight-minute 12-inch mix." For radio, a shorter version, called a "three-and-a-half-minute radio edit," is used. House music builds slowly by adding more sounds and increasing the volume.
House music may include vocals similar to pop songs, but some tracks have no vocals at all. If a house track has vocals, the words or phrases used are often simple and repeated.
Origins of the term "house"
A book from 2009 explains that the term "house music" came from a club in Chicago named the Warehouse, which was open from 1977 to 1982. Most people who visited the Warehouse were Black gay men who danced to music played by the club's DJ, Frankie Knuckles, who is called the "godfather of house." Frankie started mixing different music records together because the records he had were too short for his audience. After the Warehouse closed in 1983, people began going to Knuckles' new club, The Power House, which later became The Power Plant and then Music Box, where Ron Hardy was the DJ. A 1986 film called "House Music in Chicago," made by Phil Ranstrom, showed the opening night at The Power House and is the only known video of Frankie Knuckles in this early time after leaving the Warehouse.
In a Channel 4 documentary titled Pump Up the Volume, Frankie Knuckles said he first heard the term "house music" when he saw a sign in a bar on Chicago's South Side that read, "We play house music." Someone in the car joked, "That’s the kind of music you play at the Warehouse!" A DJ named Leonard "Remix" Rroy claimed he put the sign in a tavern because the music he played reminded people of the kind of music they might hear at home, such as soul and disco records from his mother.
Farley "Jackmaster" Funk, a Chicago house music artist, said that in 1982, a DJ named Leonard "Remix" Rroy from a rival club called The Rink told him, "I have a new idea called house music that will bring people to my club instead of yours." He did not know where Rroy got the name.
In 1985, a Chicago artist named Chip E. released a song titled "It's House," which may have helped define house music. Chip E. said the name "house" came from how records were labeled at a record store called Importes Etc. where he worked in the 1980s. At the store, bins of music played at the Warehouse were labeled "As Heard at the Warehouse," which was later shortened to "House." Customers later asked for new music to add to these bins, which Chip E. said the store tried to do by stocking newer club hits.
In a 1986 interview, Rocky Jones, a DJ who ran a record label called DJ International Records, said the term "house" was a regional word for dance music. He did not mention Frankie Knuckles, the Warehouse, or Importes Etc., but agreed that "house" once meant older disco music and later referred to newer dance music.
Larry Heard, also known as "Mr. Fingers," said the term "house" came from DJs making music at home using electronic devices like synthesizers and drum machines, such as the Roland TB-303, TR-808, and TR-909. These tools were used to create a style called acid house. Juan Atkins, a pioneer of Detroit techno, said the term "house" described how certain songs were linked to specific clubs and DJs, who were called the "house" of that music.
Dance style
There are at least three dance styles connected to early house music: jacking, footwork, and lofting. These styles include many different techniques and types of dances, such as skating, stomping, vosho, pouting cat, and shuffle steps (also known as Melbourne shuffle). House music dancing can include movements from other dance styles like waacking, voguing, capoeira, jazz dance, Lindy Hop, tap dance, and modern dance. House dancing allows dancers to express themselves freely without limits.
One important part of house dancing is called "the jack" or "jacking." This style began in the early days of Chicago house music and appeared in the names of many songs, such as "Time to Jack" by Chip E. from the Jack Trax EP (1985), "Jack'n the House" by Farley "Jackmaster" Funk (1985), and "Jack Your Body" by Steve "Silk" Hurley (1986). Jacking involves moving the upper body back and forth in a wave-like motion that matches the rhythm of the music, as if a wave were passing through the body.
Social and political aspects
Early house music lyrics often shared positive and hopeful messages, especially for people who felt left out, such as African Americans, Latinos, and members of the gay community. During the 1980s, the house music dance scene was a place where people from different backgrounds, including Black and gay communities, could come together in a welcoming and inclusive environment.
House music DJs worked to create a "dream world of emotions" using music, stories, and repeated sounds to bring people together. Many songs encouraged listeners to "release yourself" or "let yourself go," which was supported by the nonstop dancing, steady beats, and use of club drugs that could make dancers feel deeply connected to the music. Frankie Knuckles once said that the Warehouse club in Chicago felt like "church for people who have fallen from grace." Marshall Jefferson compared the experience to "old-time religion" because it made people feel joyful and excited. The role of a house DJ was sometimes compared to a "secular type of priest," guiding people through music.
Some house songs included messages about equality, unity, and freedom from discrimination based on race or sexual identity. For example, the song "Can You Feel It" by Fingers Inc. (1987) and "Follow Me" by Aly-Us (1992) promoted these ideas. In the 1990s, the principles of Peace, Love, Unity, and Respect (PLUR) became central to the rave culture, spreading far beyond the Chicago house music scene.
History
House music was greatly influenced by disco. House music began in the late 1970s, taking over where disco left off. Like disco DJs, house DJs used a "slow mix" to connect songs together into a mix. In the early 1980s, after disco became very popular, record companies pushed many artists, such as R&B and soft rock musicians, to make disco songs. However, when people started to dislike disco, an event called "Disco Demolition Night" happened in Chicago. This event marked a shift in dance music production, as major record companies stopped making disco songs, and DJs in underground club scenes began creating new music. By 1988, major labels started working with DJs who made this new genre of music.
Disco music often used orchestras, strings, flutes, and horns. Later, some disco songs used synthesizers and electronic drum machines. One of the earliest examples was Giorgio Moroder’s work with Donna Summer on the song "I Feel Love" (1977). Other examples include albums by Cerrone, Kraftwerk, Yellow Magic Orchestra, and Hi-NRG groups in the 1980s.
Audio mixing and editing techniques developed by disco, garage house, and post-disco DJs, producers, and engineers helped shape house music. While most post-disco DJs played traditional dance records, Frankie Knuckles and Ron Hardy, two important house DJs, used unusual and non-mainstream music. Knuckles, known as "the Godfather of House," worked at the Warehouse club in Chicago from 1977 to 1982. He mixed early disco music with new sounds like post-punk and post-disco. He also used drum machines and reel-to-reel tape players to create new tracks with deeper bass and faster beats. Knuckles said Kraftwerk’s music was a key influence on house music in Chicago.
Ron Hardy made DIY mixtapes and later played them at the Music Box club. Like Knuckles, Hardy mixed tracks with synths and drum machines, inspired by European music. Marshall Jefferson, who later created the house classic "Move Your Body (The House Music Anthem)" (1986), said he got into house music after hearing Hardy’s work at the Music Box.
A song called "Trapped" by Colonel Abrams, produced in 1984, is considered a precursor to house music and a step toward "garage house," a subgenre also called "garage music."
Charanjit Singh’s 1982 album Synthesizing: Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat combined Indian ragas with disco beats, which later influenced acid house music. However, this album did not affect house music until it was rediscovered in the 21st century.
The steady bass drum in house music may have come from DJs adding drum machines to their mixes during live performances.
In the early 1980s, Chicago radio DJs like Hot Mix 5 (including Farley "Jackmaster" Funk) and club DJs such as Ron Hardy and Frankie Knuckles played a variety of dance music, including older disco, electro funk, Italo disco, and electronic pop. Some DJs made their own edits of songs using reel-to-reel tape and added electronic effects, drum machines, and synthesizers.
The song "On and On," produced in 1984 by Jesse Saunders and Vince Lawrence, had early house music elements like the Roland TB-303 synthesizer and a Roland TR-808 drum machine. It used a bassline from a 1979 disco record called "Space Invaders." "On and On" is sometimes called the first house record, even though it was a remake of a disco bootleg. Other early house tracks include J.M. Silk’s "Music is the Key" (1985).
Starting in 1985 and 1986, more Chicago DJs began making original house music using affordable electronic instruments and styles of disco and other dance music. These songs were played on Chicago radio and in local clubs. Subgenres like deep house and acid house quickly developed.
Deep house began with Mr. Fingers’ soulful tracks "Mystery of Love" (1985) and "Can You Feel It?" (1986). This style brought house music back to the rich, emotional sound of early disco.
Acid house, a rougher and more abstract style, came from experiments with the Roland TB-303 synthesizer. The first acid house track was "Acid Tracks" by Phuture (1987). This group, made up of Nathan "DJ Pierre" Jones, Earl "Spanky" Smith Jr., and Herbert "Herb J" Jackson, was the first to use the TB-303 in house music. DJ Ron Hardy played "Acid Tracks" at the Music Box, and the crowd responded positively.
In Chicago, house music grew because of DJs like Ron Hardy and Lil Louis, local record shops like Importes Etc. and State Street Records, and radio shows like Hot Mix 5 on WBMX-FM. Later, DJs and producers from Detroit also joined the genre. Labels like Trax Records and DJ International Records helped spread house music.