The History of Dance Music

Disco:

Disco is a musical style that emerged in the early 1970s from America's urban nightlife scene, where it originated in house parties. In most disco tracks, string sections, horns, electric piano, and electric rhythm guitars create a lush background sound. Orchestral instruments such as the flute are often used for solo melodies, and lead guitar is less frequently used in disco than in rock. Many disco songs use electronic synthesizers, particularly in the late 1970s. Well-known disco performers include Donna Summer, the Bee Gees, Gloria Gaynor, KC and the Sunshine Band, the Village People, Thelma Houston, and Chic. Many non-disco artists recorded disco songs at the height of disco's popularity, and films such as Saturday Night Fever (1977) and Thank God It's Friday (1978) contributed to disco's rise in mainstream popularity. Disco was a key influence in the later development of electronic dance music and house music. Disco has had several revivals, including in 2005 with Madonna's highly successful album Confessions on a Dance Floor, and again in 2013 and 2014, as disco-styled songs by artists like Daft Punk (with Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers), Justin Timberlake, Breakbot, and Bruno Mars—notably Mars' "Uptown Funk"—filled the pop charts in the UK and the US. The term disco is derived from discothèque (French for "library of phonograph records", but it was subsequently used as a term for nightclubs in Paris). By the early 1940s, the terms disc jockey and DJ were in use to describe radio presenters. During WWII, because of restrictions set in place by the Nazi occupiers, jazz dance halls in Occupied France played records instead of using live music. Eventually more than one of these jazz venues had the proper name discothèque. By 1959, the term was used in Paris to describe any of these type of nightclubs. Dance music during the 1981–83 period borrowed elements from blues and jazz, creating a style different from the disco of the 1970s. This emerging music was still known as disco for a short time, as the word had become associated with any kind of dance music played in discothèques.

House:

House music is a genre of electronic dance music created by club DJs and music producers in Chicago in the early 1980s. Early house music was generally characterized by repetitive 4/4 beats, rhythms mainly provided by drum machines,off-beat hi-hat cymbals, and synthesized basslines. While house displayed several characteristics similar to disco music, which preceded and influenced it, as both were DJ and record producer-created dance music, house was more electronic and minimalistic. The mechanical, repetitive rhythm of house was one of its main components. Many house songs were instrumental, with no vocals; some had singing throughout the song with lyrics; and some had singing but no actual words. House music developed in Chicago's underground dance club culture in the early 1980s, as DJs from the subculture began altering the pop-like disco dance tracks to give them a more mechanical beat and deeper basslines. As well, these DJs began to mix synth pop, rap and even jazz into their tracks. The structure of house music songs typically involves an intro, a chorus, various verse sections, a midsection and an outro. Some songs do not have a verse, taking a vocal part from the chorus and repeating the same cycle. The drum beat is one of the more important elements within the genre and is almost always provided by an electronic drum machine, usually Roland's TR-808 or TR-909, rather than by a human drummer playing drumkit. House lyrics contained positive, uplifting messages for all people, from every different walk of life but spoke especially to those who were considered to be outcasts, especially African-Americans and the gay subculture.

Techno:

Techno is a form of electronic dance music that emerged in Detroit, Michigan, in the United States during the mid-to-late 1980s. The first recorded use of the word techno in reference to a specific genre of music was in 1988. Many styles of techno now exist, but Detroit techno is seen as the foundation upon which a number of subgenres have been built. In Detroit, techno resulted from the melding of African American music including Chicago house, funk, electro, and electric jazz with electronic music by artists such as Kraftwerk, Giorgio Moroder, and Yellow Magic Orchestra. Stylistically, techno is generally repetitive instrumental music, often produced for use in a continuous DJ set. The central rhythmic component is most often in common time (4/4), where time is marked with a bass drum on each quarter notepulse, a backbeat played by snare or clap on the second and fourth pulses of the bar, and an open hi-hat sounding every second eighth note. The tempo tends to vary between approximately 120 to 150 beats per minute (bpm), depending on the style of techno. The creative use of music production technology, such as drum machines, synthesizers, and digital audio workstations, is viewed as an important aspect of the music's aesthetic. Many producers use retro electronic musical devices to create what they consider to be an authentic techno sound. The success of house and acid house paved the way for wider acceptance of the Detroit sound, and vice versa: techno was initially supported by a handful of house music clubs in Chicago, New York, and Northern England, with London clubs catching up later. Some techno has also been influenced by or directly infused with elements of jazz.This led to increased sophistication in the use of both rhythm and harmony in a number of techno productions.

EDM:

Electronic dance music is a broad range of percussive electronic music genres made largely for nightclubs, raves, and festivals. EDM is generally produced for playback by disc jockeys (DJs) who create seamless selections of tracks, called a mix, by segueing from one recording to another. EDM producers also perform their music live in a concert or festival setting in what is sometimes called a live PA. In Europe, EDM is more commonly called 'dance music' or simply 'dance'. In the United States at that time acceptance of dance culture was not universal, and although both Electro and Chicago house music were influential both in Europe and the USA, mainstream media outlets, and the record industry, remained hostile to EDM. There was also a perceived association between EDM and drug culture which led governments at state and city level to enact laws and policies intended to halt the spread of rave culture. The term "electronic dance music" and the initialism "EDM" was being pushed by the United States music industry and music press in an effort to rebrand American rave culture. Early examples of music that influenced later electronic dance music include Jamaican dub music in the 1970s, the synthesizer-based disco music of Giorgio Moroder in the late 1970s, and the electro-pop of Kraftwerk and Yellow Magic Orchestra in the mid to late 1970s. Hip hop music has played a key role in the development of electronic dance music since the 1970s. Inspired by Jamaican sound system culture Jamaican-American DJ Kool Herc introduced large bass heavy speaker rigs to the Bronx.

Dance Pop:

Dance-pop is a pop and dance subgenre that originated in the early 1980s. It is generally uptempo music intended for nightclubs with the intention of being danceable but also suitable for contemporary hit radio. Developing from a combination of electronic dance music and pop music, with influences of disco, post-disco and synth-pop, it is generally characterised by strong beats with easy, uncomplicated song structures which are generally more similar to pop music than the more free-form dance genre, with an emphasis on melody as well as catchy tunes. The genre, on the whole, tends to be producer-driven, despite some notable exceptions. Dance-pop borrowed influences from other genres, which varied by producer, artist and period. Such include contemporary R&B, house, trance, techno, new jack swing, funk, synthpop, electropop and some forms of Europop. Dance-pop is a popular mainstream style of music and there have been numerous pop artists and groups who perform in the genre. At the beginning of the 2000s, dance-pop music was still prominent, and highly electronic in style, influenced by genres such as trance, house, techno and electro. Nonetheless, as R&B and hip hop became extremely popular from the early part of the decade onwards, dance-pop often borrowed a lot of its influences from urban music. Dance-pop stars from the 1980s and 1990s such as Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Madonna, Janet Jackson and Kylie Minogue continued to achieve success at the beginning of the decade. Whilst a lot of dance-pop at the time was R&B-influenced, many records started to return to their disco roots. The 2010s so far have, similarly to the late 2000s, seen strong electronic influences present within dance-pop and also heavy emphasis on bass-heavy drum beats.