Mystic Styles
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Dec 14, 2000
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here's a pretty good one. its missing a few genres, but its much more accurate than iskhur's (though not all encompassing). Maybe some of the headz of genre's not represented could fill this out and we could make a sticky topic or something.
Electronica Dictionary
An Informative Compilation by JetaTek
Techno:
Rooted in the stiff synth and drum-machine minimalism of German innovators Kraftwerk and the Electro-Funk of DJ icon Afrika Bambaataa, Techno emerged as a distinct genre in the early 1980s. Detroit innovators Kevin Saunderson, Juan Atkins and Derrick May composed an electronic blueprint of repetitions, minor melodies, and mechanical textures. This electronic style has mutated -- and continues to mutate -- into new forms through fragmentation and cross-pollination with various digital styles.
Acid Techno:
Acid Techno is a hybrid genre incorporating the effects of Acid House with the cold, stripped-down structure of Detroit Techno. Acid Techno tracks by Aphex Twin, Plastikman and Dave Clarke feature a bare soundscape of driving beats, heavy basslines and jittery acid bits.
Minimalist Techno:
The earliest Techno of the '80s to emerge from Detroit was explicitly minimal in its production. The hard, futurist tracks of Kevin Saunderson, Juan Atkins, Underground Resistance and Derrick May were defined by their solid repetition and minute embellishment. Soon, in nearby Windsor, Ontario, Richie Hawtin was creating sharp, clinical dance tracks as Plastikman. In the '90s, this sound was picked up in Germany by labels Basic Channel and Chain Reaction that, along with artists Porter Ricks, Vainqueur and Monolake, create tracks that loop beats and clicks endlessly with almost imperceptible changes that evolve over the course of minutes. German artist Pan Sonic (formerly called Panasonic) creates scientific examinations of sound phenomena through repetition, while Pole create delicate approximations of Dub. Hawtin now releases his own tracks-as well as those by Theorem-on his M-nus label; these subtle pulsations create near-Ambient textures that are only incidentally rhythmic. While these artists' tracks become more and more austere, they still retain their Techno roots by producing hypnotic repetitions of even the most abstract sense of beats.
Neo-Electro:
Neo-Electro transplants groundbreaking Electro-Funk of the '80s into House and Detroit Techno styles. An amalgamation of Krautrock pioneers Kraftwerk's stoic grooves, genre godfather Afrika Bambaataa's groundbreaking hip-hop stylings, urban breakbeat innovator Mantronix's Techno affinity and "Rock-It"-era Herbie Hancock's mass appeal, late '90s artists adopt similar techniques to remember what music thought it would be fifteen years ago. Contemporary Neo-Electro acts like the DMX Krew, Panacea's alter-ego Bad Street Boy and Les Rhythmes Digitales update these early hip-hop styles into Hi-NRG, Orwellian dance floor fare.
Detroit Techno:
The early 1980s saw the eruption of Detroit Techno -- led by visionaries Kevin Saunderson, Juan Atkins and Derrick May -- as the Michigan city turned from industrial boomtown to urban wasteland. The general mood is a mixture of simultaneous euphoria and anxiety. Still alive in its Third Wave of popularity with artists like Jeff Mills, Stacey Pullen and Drexciya, Detroit Techno maintains minimalist, driving beats, smooth grooves and breakbeat excursions. The distinctive Detroit sound blends sonic themes of fear and poverty with a dim, but pervasive, light of hope and anticipation.
Trance:
Layered with 303 bass pulses, Doppler effects, sequencer riffs and stacks of percussion, Trance builds tension to which there is no climax and no release. Through minimal rhythmic shifts, distant synthscapes and repetitive effects, innovative artists like Paul Van Dyk, Jam & Spoon, and Sven Vath devised predictable structures aimed to disengage the mind while the physical body exhausts itself.
Trip-Hop:
Trip-Hop is hip-hop with the attitude levels set on low. A moody, down-tempo style that draws on influences from soul, reggae, jazz and rap, Trip-Hop rose out of England's former slave port, Bristol. Massive Attack introduced the subgenre with Blue Lines in 1991, but their Bristol contemporaries Portishead -- who had the international hit "Sour Times" -- and the gravel-voiced Tricky took the seductively eerie, interior sounds into the mainstream. With its breakbeat-based rhythms, looped samples and languid aura, Trip-Hop is soothing music for the angst-ridden.
Acid Jazz:
Acid Jazz refers to a conglomeration of danceable, groove-oriented musical styles that share the influences of Soul Jazz, Jazz-Funk, hip-hop, and Latin Jazz. In contrast to the majority of 1990s dance music, Acid Jazz most often takes the form of a live band, commonly featuring a rhythm section, organ, horns, and vocals. The music started in the 1980s, when British club culture became fascinated with American Soul Jazz of the 1960s and Jazz-Funk of the 1970s, all of which they called "rare groove." These sounds inspired a group of musicians and producers, who began creating music in a similar vein. In 1991, the Brand New Heavies, with their melding of Jazz-Funk and hip-hop styles, became the first of the new bands to achieve commercial success, and more was soon to follow, with the irresistible pop-Funk of Jamiroquai and the jazzy hip-hop grooves of Galliano. Americans soon rediscovered this style from the British; Acid Jazz scenes in New York and San Francisco produced the Funk-drenched supergroup Groove Collective and the genre-bending groove band Slide Five.
Ambient:
In its purest form, Ambient is a wordless bath of sound and light. Mesmerizing loop patterns, textures, stereophonic effects and drones carve out celestial synthscapes and deep sea spaces. The term was popularized by Brian Eno in the late 1970s with albums like Music for Airports. Techno acts like Aphex Twin and the Orb created numerous hybrids in the '90s by combining Ambient sounds with various electronic styles.
Ambient Dub:
The resonant sounds of Ambient Dub merge New Age psychedelia with Dub Reggae elements and ideals. Artists like Higher Intelligence Agency, Woob and Original Rockers create a tranquil sense of timelessness through the use of low frequency echo and reverb, radiant synth pulses and earthy rhythms. A feminine-identified form, Ambient Dub attempts to carve out an aural womb for the headphone listener.
Ambient Techno:
Often referred to as Intelligent Techno, Ambient Techno appeared on the U.K. electronic scene as an antidote to hedonistic rave music. In the early 1990s, labels like Warp, Apollo and GPR introduced tracks designed to cushion the comedown. Aphex Twin, Black Dog and Autechre led the movement, their dehumanized sound filled with tranquilized atmosphere and soft-focus synth strands. Unlike its New Age-y counterpart Ambient House, Ambient Techno chisels out aural crevices in the hazy soundscape; its textured basslines more like steel wool than goose down.
Dark Ambient:
If Ambient House is a sublime ascent into space, Dark Ambient explores a descent into nightmarish obscurity. In a somber milieu, this cinematic style weaves shadowy synths, eerie melodies and unsettling rhythms to evoke a chilling sense of gloom.
Ambient House:
Ambient House is a narrow subgenre that made a brief appearance in chill-out rooms of London clubs in the late 1980s. Calming, soothing tracks such as the Orb's "Little Fluffy Clouds," the Grid's "Floatation" and Innocence's "Natural Thing" were designed to encourage ravers to chill rather than dance. Breathy vocals, spiritual melodies and luminous shimmerscapes charged mid-tempo House grooves with a New Age positivity.
Beats & Breaks:
Composed of layered musical cliches borrowed from the 1980s, this general grouping of breakbeat innovators took electronic music further into the mainstream than any of their pre-1997 progenitors. Popularized by the Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim, Bentley Rhythm Ace and the Crystal Method, its chunky rhythms vibrate dance floors with rock textures, hip-swinging House and Techno grooves -- all seasoned with a heavy dose of hip-hop. With a premium on excitement and intensity, Funky Breaks/Big Beat tracks sound sliced and diced, with steep buildups, rough crescendos, quick drops, drum rolls and heavy sample usage.
Ambient Breakbeat:
With sample-heavy textures and twisted stylistic influences, Ambient Breakbeat is Trip-Hop's delinquent cousin and Big Beat's pot-smoking evil twin. A sinister roundup of Funk, rock, hip-hop, Ambient, jazz and soul, this queasy, instrumental-focused style emerged in the mid-'90s with Liquid Sky's DJ Wally, Mo' Wax artists DJ Shadow and DJ Krush, and Skint's Req and Lo Fidelity Allstars. This narrow subgenre features heavy, cinematic synths with somber vocals and fractured hip-hop beats.
Darkside:
Far from the ecstasy-addled headz grinning wider with every 808 beat, far from the beatific glow of Glam's glitter, far from the cuddly joys of the chill room is a sound far more Gothic in atmosphere. All dance and ambient music has a dark side, but some artists choose to dwell in grim and melancholic sounds, creating the alienated atmospheres of Dark Ambient, the harsh angularity of Industrial Dance and the post-Goth synth sounds of Darkwave.
Darkwave:
The intense rhythms of Vancouver's Skinny Puppy and Sheffield's Cabaret Voltaire and Clock DVA inspired artists in the Goth subculture to create dark, dance-oriented music that was not completely abrasive. Maintaining a "gothic" atmosphere, they embraced the emerging dance sounds of the '80s -- American Electro and Techno and European Synth Pop -- by using digital and analog drum machines and synthesizers. Inspired by the nostalgic atmospheres of Dead Can Dance and In the Nursery, many Darkwave artists such as Black Tape for a Blue Girl (whose Sam Rosenthal coined the term Darkwave) and Love Spirals Downwards focused on a romantic notion of the past, using classical instruments and synthesizers to create an ethereal, timeless sound. Other Darkwave artists look not to the past, but to an alienated, dystopian future -- the electric carnival of Attrition and edgy dance anthems of Xymox are cybernetic and unabashed in emphasizing the artificiality of their electronic instruments with vocals that are rough and disintegrated by technology.
Industrial Dance:
Dense with strange rhythms, Industrial Dance elaborates on the dance potential of the dark, disjointed beats of Industrial pioneers Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire by taking the cacophony of Industrial music to the dance floor. The results-a harsh mix of early Industrial, Electro and Funk-have found both niche followings and chart success. In the 1980s, bands Front 242 and Front Line Assembly created an extreme form of Electro called EBM (Electro Body Music or European Body Music). Industrial Dance bands My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult and Crash Worship have developed underground cult followings for their elaborate performances, while the Art of Noise and Nine Inch Nails gained considerable commercial success.
Hardcore:
Signaling more an uncompromising attitude than a specific style, Hardcore turned raves into arenas of good-natured assault when it reared its masochistic head in the early 1990s. With Prodigy's British chart- topping anthem "Charly," Orbital's urgently melodic "Chime," and the deliriously dark Nightmares on Wax classic "Aftermath," Hardcore smashed the molds of House, Techno and Jungle by intensifying basslines, escalating beats and looping effects with mind-evacuating repetition. The artificial energy and synthetic bliss of Hardcore is built on a here-and-now aesthetic: the druggy, disorientating noise isn't about nostalgia or the future, only the instant gratification that results from a temporary, explosive release. Hardcore quickly evolved to embrace more varied, specialized forms of aggression with Happy Hardcore, Digital Hardcore and the Dutch creation of Gabba.
Digital Hardcore:
German DJ Alec Empire, disillusioned with the fading politics of German rave culture and the rise of the Right Wing among German youth, began creating an aggressive strain of overtly anarchist Techno called Digital Hardcore. His band, Atari Teenage Riot, with political ranters Hanin Elias and Carl Crack, created a platform for political slogans with Metal and Punk guitar samples and distorted Techno beats, mixing the style and politics of Hardcore Punk with the dance beats of Hardcore Techno. Empire started Digital Hardcore Recordings to get this pent-up sound into distribution, releasing artists EC8OR and Shizuo. His signature sound soon extended beyond his label, a trend much endorsed by Empire, who encouraged others to "make their own riot sounds.""
Happy Hardcore:
Happy Hardcore is Jungle's nemesis. Sprouting out of the same London scene in 1994, Happy Hardcore's ruthless beats and breaks, sped-up piano riffs and shrill vocal hooks carry none of the dark, brow-furrowing seriousness that burdened the Jungle sound. These juvenile, rush- inducing tracks created by such European producers as Slipmatt, DJ Dougal and Hixxy & Sharkey focus on a buildup of euphoric intensity, maintaining positive rhythms and playful vibes.
Speedbass:
Speedbass is a development in Hardcore Techno and Gabba that began in San Francisco in 1998. The official Speedbass website (www.speedbass.net) describes the sound as "a kind of electronic dance music. Speedbass tracks generally feature bending sub-harmonic legato bass tones, machine gun tempos and ridiculous sound effects." The usually brief tracks are rife with samples that create self-reference (computer voices unendingly deadpan the word "Speedbass") and quick jabs (Abraham Simpson shouts, "Turn it up! Turn it up!") Samples tend to avoid obscurity, embracing the post-ironic ethos that no sample is too obvious. Key to the aesthetic of Speedbass is simplicity -- oftentimes to the point of purposeful monotony and absurdity. A product of the Internet and hotline as opposed to a local club culture, the sound disseminated across the globe quickly, finding artists anywhere there are modems and sound editing shareware.
Gabba:
Developed in the early 1990s by Dutch acts such as Paul Elstak and Darkraver, Gabba is right-wing Techno on fast-forward. A nightmarish style welcome only on the dance floor, Gabba is sensory overkill; think laser lights flashing frantically and a Roland-909 kick drum blasting out distorted rhythms at up to 300 beats per minute. Simplistic and aggressive as a video game, Gabba is militarized music with all the subtlety of an eight-year-old boy who thinks war is cool and all girls love pink.
House:
House emerged from the fog of Disco-phobia in the early 1980s. While the mainstream deemed Disco soul-less, mechanistic and pass,, Chicago DJs Frankie Knuckles, Farley "Jackmaster" Funk, Jesse Saunders, Steve "Silk" Hurley and Ron Hardy pioneered a resurrection of Disco by magnifying the very qualities that some found most offensive: synthetic textures, inorganic repetitions, and disembodied vocals. Defined by four-on-the- floor beats, rasping hi-hats, artificial hand claps, bass loops and drum rolls, House drew inspiration from jazz, rap, soul, R&B, Synth Pop, and Dub Reggae, and has spread globally since its birth. As much as it draws from disparate sources, House has splintered into many different sub- styles, merging with Ambient, Tribal and other musical movements.
Acid House:
Chicago witnessed the birth of Acid House in 1987 with the release of the Phuture label's Acid Tracks compilation. Created accidentally by Phuture DJs and musicians during a test session with a Roland TB 303 bass machine, Acid House's squiggly bass sound is a mind-warping, compelling hook. Acid effects emitted from the machine swirl, stab, and spiral uncontrollably across House's four/four beat. The mix has a sour sensation that is difficult to follow and virtually impossible to recreate. The term "acid" was utilized to describe the new sound for the peculiar, hallucinogenic effect it had in the clubs and for its kinship to Acid Rock. With its lack of sampling, Acid House tapped into a different kind of emotion than its famously sample-heavy predecessor known as House. Rather than developing a mature, soulful sound, Chicago-based Acid House satisfied a craving for all-night dancing euphoria worldwide. After spending a summer spinning to Acid House tracks in the open-air clubs of Ibiza, Spain, DJs Paul Oakenfold, Danny Rampling, Johnny Walker, and Nicky Holloway returned to the U.K., bringing the pleasure-principled "Balearic" sound to London's clubs. England quickly transformed Acid House into rave culture, while many of Acid House's architects brought the sounds even further, creating new and emerging forms.
Garage:
With its traditional, song-oriented Deep House sound, Garage recalls the early '70s Disco underground. The style originated in New York upon the closing of Larry Levan's Paradise Garage in 1987 by artists like Junior Vasquez, Tony Humphries, Masters at Work, and Roger Sanchez. Capitalizing on notions of upward mobility, classy diva vocals loyal to soul and R&B reign over dub-inflected production. Garage was defined in the late '80s the sultry jazz-inflected House of Nu Groove and the dirtier, feverish grooves that characterized mixes from Strictly Rhythm. In England, Garage was a trend toward recreating a spiritual experience for former ravers who matured beyond Acid House.
Tribal House:
Closely associated with Ambient House's emphasis on atmosphere and layered aural textures, Tribal House is sometimes referred to as "world dance." Banco de Gaia, Loop Guru and Eat Static infuse traditional elements of Techno, hip-hop, Ambient, Dub and rock with ethnic rhythms, melodies and sound samples. Tribal House emanates an earthy sensuality and a warm cyberdelic futurism.
Deep House:
With spiritual ties to the expressive sounds of disco-fied Garage, Deep House is an aphrodisiac restricted to after-hours grooving. Saturated with deep rolling basslines, slow funk and soft, moody beats, such artists as Deep Dish and Kevin Yost deflower classic, Acid, Progressive and Tribal House styles, smoothing over a bare four/four structure with atmospheric jazz chords and "seduce me" melodies. Alluring vocals, poignant lyrics and enticing rhythms simmer the energy level down to a comfortable tempo, revitalizing late-night dance floors into intimate arenas of desire. Deep House is a lushly textured, groove-heavy style for romantics.
Progressive House:
A catch-all category for album-oriented electronica acts, Progressive House relies on a complex blend of melodies and effects to appeal to the head and not just the body. While artists such as BT, the Underworld and Faithless employ more traditional ideas of musicality -- as in song structure -- most Progressive House is not necessarily intended to motivate a crowd to their feet. This is music for your headphones.
Intelligent (IDM):
Intelligent (IDM) is a broad classification of post-Rave sounds sculpted from the inspired imaginations of such innovators as Aphex Twin, Autechre and DJ Spooky. Startling rhythms incorporating contemplative combinations of unrelated genres react against established dance floor rules, favoring individualism over conformity. Often heard in open-minded chill-out rooms, basements of hip London pubs or in the bedrooms of art students in New York, styles such as Illbient, Experimental and Blip, Bleep are the most texturally stimulating, self-absorbed styles of Electronica.
Digital Design:
As digital sound editing, processing and synthesis have become more prevalent in music production, many artists have begun to explore the nature of sound and its possibilities in the digital realm. Their radically different approaches to digital sound are not new methods for creating traditional music, but new forms with their own sets of properties and limitations. Viennese artists Pita, Farmers Manual and Fennesz have taken to exploding sound into microscopic fragments, arranged as non-narrative, arrhythmic, formalist constructions. American artists Terre Thaemlitz resists apolitical and formalist conventions by contextualizing his production within a politicized queer framework. From Japan, Ryoji Ikeda confronts the listener with arrangements of extreme tones and drones. Conversely, Spain's Francisco Lopez and Germany's Bernhard Gunter create almost imperceptible music of digital silence accented by gentle clicks and subtle textures. America's DISC, Japan's Yasunao Tone and Germany's Oval maximize the limitations of digital sound by arranging its disruptions and glitches. While the recordings and performances of these artists are compositionally and stylistically disparate, the uniting factor is investigation into digital sound phenomena.
Illbient:
Forged in mid- to late 1990s New York, Illbient was created by a group of educated musicians and DJs raised on hip-hop, Dub and 20th Century Classical. Dubbed "Illbient" by DJ Olive of performance art/electronica trio WE for its dark street groove and contemplative ambience, the new music gleaned sounds from many sources. Illbient DJs combine Drum 'n' Bass with Krautrock, playing off of Illbient musicians who combine processed guitars with heavy Dub beats. The Asphodel, WordSound and Mille Plateaux labels are and were the foremost proponents of the complex and eclectic experiments of Illbient artists like DJ Spooky, WE and Sub Dub.
Blip, Bleep:
The moody, robotic sounds of Blip, Bleep (often referred to as "Drill 'n' Bass") came out of a resurgence of interest in Electro in Manchester in the mid-'90s. Named after the Blip, Bleep: Soundtracks to Imaginary Video Games compilation, a more extreme example of the genre featuring V/VM and Soundcard, the music is a thinly rendered Electro sound played with the frenetic abandon of Jungle. Led by headphone experimentalists such as Plaid, Autechre and Mu-Ziq, and championed by labels SKAM and Warp, Blip, Bleep is far too irregular for the dance floor yet often too disruptive for passive listening.
Experimental Techno:
Electronic music has boundless Experimental possibilities. Blurts of noise, anti-grooves and minimal melodies are the stylistic marks of DJs and artists who try to humanize technology rather than simply fill dance floors. Pioneers such as techno prankster Aphex Twin, dancefloor experimentalist Cristian Vogel and electronic extremist Twisted Science exaggerate the possibilities in electronic, beat-based music to countless and dissimilar ends. Some aim to keep the flow danceable, others merely aim for the future.
Video Game Music:
Originally made up of rudimentary blips and bleeps (if anything at all), the musical accompaniment to video games was once, at best, an afterthought. As games grew more sophisticated and intent on captivating players, so did their soundtracks. Composers in this genre borrow from a wide array of instrumental artists and influences, from Kraftwerk to Vangelis to Henry Mancini. As designers strive to put the player in the thick of things, doing their best to blur the lines between fantasy and reality, they require music that fulfills today's video gaming penchant for sensory overload.
Jungle/Drum 'n' Bass:
Jungle, with its seething polyrhythms and treacherous breakbeats, was born of Hardcore in early 1990s as the U.K.'s response to the States' Old-School hip-hop. Jungle tells a working-class urban youth's angry tales of social disintegration and instability, reflecting the fear and desperation of the times. A digitized offshoot of reggae, Jungle's language is comprised of muffled melodies and fractured loops. Reared by British B-boys like Goldie, Aphrodite and 4 Hero, who subsisted on Electro, body-popping and graffiti, Jungle spawned a number of subgenres, including the dark, anxiety-producing sounds of Tech-Step.
Artcore/Jazz 'n' Bass:
Shortly after Jungle rose to popularity in early '90s London, producers took the classic "Amen" and "Apache" breaks-the classic sampled beats which had given rise to the Jungle genre-and began cutting and splicing them into intricate patterns. At the same time, influenced by Acid Jazz and Ambient styles, they introduced soulful vocals, warm strings, and lush atmospheric sounds into a music that had been previously dominated by Hardcore aggression. This new breed of Jungle, often dubbed "Artcore" after the influential compilations of the same name, was designed more for the chill room and the living room than the dance floor. In a parallel development, some artists left the breakbeat intact, but added live instrumentation. The artists who perfected this diverse group of styles have proven that Drum 'n' Bass serves more purposes than merely dishing out tough breaks for ambitious B-Boys or providing hard-edged beats to rock the party.
Jump-Up:
In the mid-1990s, London producers hit on a magic formula for making dancefloors stomp! Beat masters such as Aphrodite and Ray Keith took the convoluted, polyrhythmic Jungle beat and straightened it out to the point where it resembled sped-up hip-hop breaks. Cooking up a seemingly endless batch of rolling, hip-shaking basslines, they punctuated the tracks with anthem-like hardcore hip-hop and Ragga samples. Occasionally an MC would flow over the top of this mix. The result: Jump-Up, a warmer and funkier brand of Jungle that took more influence from the organic sounds of hip-hop and Dancehall reggae than it did from Hardcore Techno.
Techstep:
Tech Step rose out of the experimentation of a core of Drum 'n' Bass programmers from the No U-Turn label: Trace, Nico and Ed Rush. Pushing their drum samples to the point of distortion, they generated dirty, aggressive breaks and created ultra-low frequencies -- inaudible on most stereos -- rather than catchy synth hooks. The anxious Jungle breaks and rumbling bass frequencies created a very physical, sometimes unsettling sensation. Tech Step is a dark, mean sound, miles across the dance floor from ecstasy-inspired Techno. Still, as much as Tech Step pushes the boundaries of sound, it remains true to the dance floor and does not ignore a groove for experimentation.
Hardstep:
Hardstep turns the anxiety of Techstep and the good-natured brashness of Jump-Up into anger and chest-pounding bravado. In mid-'90s London, impassioned producers high on testosterone and vitriol added several bass kicks to the basic two-step breakbeat, creating tough, swaggering breaks that ruthlessly stomped their way across the dancefloor. Turntable scratches, greased-lightning synth squiggles, vocal snippets, and seething basslines create a snarling, aggressive atmosphere that brings to mind a tribe of warlike post-industrial scavengers gearing up for battle.
Mainstream:
Mainstream dance music gathers together floor-friendly genres that stay true to standard pop song structures with vocal hooks and carefree rhythms. Dance Pop and Disco artists such as Madonna and Donna Summer dominated the charts in the '70s and '80s due to the extensive club play of each, their reign over the airwaves and the accessibility of their music. Signaling crossover styles from the rock/Acid House hybrid Alternative Dance to the Latin-identified Techno blend of Freestyle, with the help of commercial radio, mainstream dance music surpasses other electronic styles in popularity and financial success.
Alt Dance:
Alternative-Dance merges rock elements with electronic music's futuristic bent. Popularized in the late 1980s by Manchester bands like the Stone Roses and Primal Scream, this radio-friendly pop-techno hybrid incorporated rock's romanticism with a mood of optimistic anticipation and idealism. Traditional pop songs were filtered through Dub and Techno with acoustic and electric guitar melodies offering inviting hooks over danceable beats. Think Jesus Jones' "Right Here Right Now" or EMF's "Unbelievable" for the most commercially known examples of this. In the '90s, pop-industrial bands like Nine Inch Nails made dance floor fodder with darker themes and harder beats, while the more esoteric electronica genres became the norm for club-goers.
Euro-Dance:
With easy-to-remember song structures, candy-coated melodies, and catchy hooks underscored by a synthetic drumbeat, Euro-Dance is energized pop. Boasting acts that span decades, this commercial form has consistently scored high on the European charts, from the Netherlands' 2 Unlimited to Sweden's Abba, to Roxette and Ace of Base. Euro-Dance's mass appeal works well on pop radio and dance floors alike.
Hi-NRG:
With little to no resemblance to a pop structure, post-Disco artists such as the Real McCoy, Abigail and Commander Tom employ mechanical beats, synthesizers and empty vocals to generate a shallow, soul-less sound. Hi-NRG gave rise to the funky sounds of early House and the robotic vibes of Techno.
Dance Pop:
A broad classification for dance music that combines club rhythms with distinctive pop song structures, Dance Pop emphasizes upbeat grooves and hook-filled textures. Monster Dance Pop acts like Madonna and Michael Jackson strongly impacted the charts during their Top-40 reign in the 1980s. Dance Pop prioritizes a simplistic form with prescribed beats, infectious vocals and bright effects.
Freestyle:
Running parallel to Dance Pop, Freestyle features saucy vocals and accessible dance rhythms in a pop song structure. This radio-friendly genre was spearheaded by such acts as Lil Suzy with her 1991 hit "Take Me in Your Arms" and the 1994 chart-topper "I've Been Thinking About You" by Jocelyn Enriquez. Replete with deep basslines and predictable movements, Freestyle is particularly popular in Latin communities in the United States.
Electronica Dictionary
An Informative Compilation by JetaTek
Techno:
Rooted in the stiff synth and drum-machine minimalism of German innovators Kraftwerk and the Electro-Funk of DJ icon Afrika Bambaataa, Techno emerged as a distinct genre in the early 1980s. Detroit innovators Kevin Saunderson, Juan Atkins and Derrick May composed an electronic blueprint of repetitions, minor melodies, and mechanical textures. This electronic style has mutated -- and continues to mutate -- into new forms through fragmentation and cross-pollination with various digital styles.
Acid Techno:
Acid Techno is a hybrid genre incorporating the effects of Acid House with the cold, stripped-down structure of Detroit Techno. Acid Techno tracks by Aphex Twin, Plastikman and Dave Clarke feature a bare soundscape of driving beats, heavy basslines and jittery acid bits.
Minimalist Techno:
The earliest Techno of the '80s to emerge from Detroit was explicitly minimal in its production. The hard, futurist tracks of Kevin Saunderson, Juan Atkins, Underground Resistance and Derrick May were defined by their solid repetition and minute embellishment. Soon, in nearby Windsor, Ontario, Richie Hawtin was creating sharp, clinical dance tracks as Plastikman. In the '90s, this sound was picked up in Germany by labels Basic Channel and Chain Reaction that, along with artists Porter Ricks, Vainqueur and Monolake, create tracks that loop beats and clicks endlessly with almost imperceptible changes that evolve over the course of minutes. German artist Pan Sonic (formerly called Panasonic) creates scientific examinations of sound phenomena through repetition, while Pole create delicate approximations of Dub. Hawtin now releases his own tracks-as well as those by Theorem-on his M-nus label; these subtle pulsations create near-Ambient textures that are only incidentally rhythmic. While these artists' tracks become more and more austere, they still retain their Techno roots by producing hypnotic repetitions of even the most abstract sense of beats.
Neo-Electro:
Neo-Electro transplants groundbreaking Electro-Funk of the '80s into House and Detroit Techno styles. An amalgamation of Krautrock pioneers Kraftwerk's stoic grooves, genre godfather Afrika Bambaataa's groundbreaking hip-hop stylings, urban breakbeat innovator Mantronix's Techno affinity and "Rock-It"-era Herbie Hancock's mass appeal, late '90s artists adopt similar techniques to remember what music thought it would be fifteen years ago. Contemporary Neo-Electro acts like the DMX Krew, Panacea's alter-ego Bad Street Boy and Les Rhythmes Digitales update these early hip-hop styles into Hi-NRG, Orwellian dance floor fare.
Detroit Techno:
The early 1980s saw the eruption of Detroit Techno -- led by visionaries Kevin Saunderson, Juan Atkins and Derrick May -- as the Michigan city turned from industrial boomtown to urban wasteland. The general mood is a mixture of simultaneous euphoria and anxiety. Still alive in its Third Wave of popularity with artists like Jeff Mills, Stacey Pullen and Drexciya, Detroit Techno maintains minimalist, driving beats, smooth grooves and breakbeat excursions. The distinctive Detroit sound blends sonic themes of fear and poverty with a dim, but pervasive, light of hope and anticipation.
Trance:
Layered with 303 bass pulses, Doppler effects, sequencer riffs and stacks of percussion, Trance builds tension to which there is no climax and no release. Through minimal rhythmic shifts, distant synthscapes and repetitive effects, innovative artists like Paul Van Dyk, Jam & Spoon, and Sven Vath devised predictable structures aimed to disengage the mind while the physical body exhausts itself.
Trip-Hop:
Trip-Hop is hip-hop with the attitude levels set on low. A moody, down-tempo style that draws on influences from soul, reggae, jazz and rap, Trip-Hop rose out of England's former slave port, Bristol. Massive Attack introduced the subgenre with Blue Lines in 1991, but their Bristol contemporaries Portishead -- who had the international hit "Sour Times" -- and the gravel-voiced Tricky took the seductively eerie, interior sounds into the mainstream. With its breakbeat-based rhythms, looped samples and languid aura, Trip-Hop is soothing music for the angst-ridden.
Acid Jazz:
Acid Jazz refers to a conglomeration of danceable, groove-oriented musical styles that share the influences of Soul Jazz, Jazz-Funk, hip-hop, and Latin Jazz. In contrast to the majority of 1990s dance music, Acid Jazz most often takes the form of a live band, commonly featuring a rhythm section, organ, horns, and vocals. The music started in the 1980s, when British club culture became fascinated with American Soul Jazz of the 1960s and Jazz-Funk of the 1970s, all of which they called "rare groove." These sounds inspired a group of musicians and producers, who began creating music in a similar vein. In 1991, the Brand New Heavies, with their melding of Jazz-Funk and hip-hop styles, became the first of the new bands to achieve commercial success, and more was soon to follow, with the irresistible pop-Funk of Jamiroquai and the jazzy hip-hop grooves of Galliano. Americans soon rediscovered this style from the British; Acid Jazz scenes in New York and San Francisco produced the Funk-drenched supergroup Groove Collective and the genre-bending groove band Slide Five.
Ambient:
In its purest form, Ambient is a wordless bath of sound and light. Mesmerizing loop patterns, textures, stereophonic effects and drones carve out celestial synthscapes and deep sea spaces. The term was popularized by Brian Eno in the late 1970s with albums like Music for Airports. Techno acts like Aphex Twin and the Orb created numerous hybrids in the '90s by combining Ambient sounds with various electronic styles.
Ambient Dub:
The resonant sounds of Ambient Dub merge New Age psychedelia with Dub Reggae elements and ideals. Artists like Higher Intelligence Agency, Woob and Original Rockers create a tranquil sense of timelessness through the use of low frequency echo and reverb, radiant synth pulses and earthy rhythms. A feminine-identified form, Ambient Dub attempts to carve out an aural womb for the headphone listener.
Ambient Techno:
Often referred to as Intelligent Techno, Ambient Techno appeared on the U.K. electronic scene as an antidote to hedonistic rave music. In the early 1990s, labels like Warp, Apollo and GPR introduced tracks designed to cushion the comedown. Aphex Twin, Black Dog and Autechre led the movement, their dehumanized sound filled with tranquilized atmosphere and soft-focus synth strands. Unlike its New Age-y counterpart Ambient House, Ambient Techno chisels out aural crevices in the hazy soundscape; its textured basslines more like steel wool than goose down.
Dark Ambient:
If Ambient House is a sublime ascent into space, Dark Ambient explores a descent into nightmarish obscurity. In a somber milieu, this cinematic style weaves shadowy synths, eerie melodies and unsettling rhythms to evoke a chilling sense of gloom.
Ambient House:
Ambient House is a narrow subgenre that made a brief appearance in chill-out rooms of London clubs in the late 1980s. Calming, soothing tracks such as the Orb's "Little Fluffy Clouds," the Grid's "Floatation" and Innocence's "Natural Thing" were designed to encourage ravers to chill rather than dance. Breathy vocals, spiritual melodies and luminous shimmerscapes charged mid-tempo House grooves with a New Age positivity.
Beats & Breaks:
Composed of layered musical cliches borrowed from the 1980s, this general grouping of breakbeat innovators took electronic music further into the mainstream than any of their pre-1997 progenitors. Popularized by the Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim, Bentley Rhythm Ace and the Crystal Method, its chunky rhythms vibrate dance floors with rock textures, hip-swinging House and Techno grooves -- all seasoned with a heavy dose of hip-hop. With a premium on excitement and intensity, Funky Breaks/Big Beat tracks sound sliced and diced, with steep buildups, rough crescendos, quick drops, drum rolls and heavy sample usage.
Ambient Breakbeat:
With sample-heavy textures and twisted stylistic influences, Ambient Breakbeat is Trip-Hop's delinquent cousin and Big Beat's pot-smoking evil twin. A sinister roundup of Funk, rock, hip-hop, Ambient, jazz and soul, this queasy, instrumental-focused style emerged in the mid-'90s with Liquid Sky's DJ Wally, Mo' Wax artists DJ Shadow and DJ Krush, and Skint's Req and Lo Fidelity Allstars. This narrow subgenre features heavy, cinematic synths with somber vocals and fractured hip-hop beats.
Darkside:
Far from the ecstasy-addled headz grinning wider with every 808 beat, far from the beatific glow of Glam's glitter, far from the cuddly joys of the chill room is a sound far more Gothic in atmosphere. All dance and ambient music has a dark side, but some artists choose to dwell in grim and melancholic sounds, creating the alienated atmospheres of Dark Ambient, the harsh angularity of Industrial Dance and the post-Goth synth sounds of Darkwave.
Darkwave:
The intense rhythms of Vancouver's Skinny Puppy and Sheffield's Cabaret Voltaire and Clock DVA inspired artists in the Goth subculture to create dark, dance-oriented music that was not completely abrasive. Maintaining a "gothic" atmosphere, they embraced the emerging dance sounds of the '80s -- American Electro and Techno and European Synth Pop -- by using digital and analog drum machines and synthesizers. Inspired by the nostalgic atmospheres of Dead Can Dance and In the Nursery, many Darkwave artists such as Black Tape for a Blue Girl (whose Sam Rosenthal coined the term Darkwave) and Love Spirals Downwards focused on a romantic notion of the past, using classical instruments and synthesizers to create an ethereal, timeless sound. Other Darkwave artists look not to the past, but to an alienated, dystopian future -- the electric carnival of Attrition and edgy dance anthems of Xymox are cybernetic and unabashed in emphasizing the artificiality of their electronic instruments with vocals that are rough and disintegrated by technology.
Industrial Dance:
Dense with strange rhythms, Industrial Dance elaborates on the dance potential of the dark, disjointed beats of Industrial pioneers Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire by taking the cacophony of Industrial music to the dance floor. The results-a harsh mix of early Industrial, Electro and Funk-have found both niche followings and chart success. In the 1980s, bands Front 242 and Front Line Assembly created an extreme form of Electro called EBM (Electro Body Music or European Body Music). Industrial Dance bands My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult and Crash Worship have developed underground cult followings for their elaborate performances, while the Art of Noise and Nine Inch Nails gained considerable commercial success.
Hardcore:
Signaling more an uncompromising attitude than a specific style, Hardcore turned raves into arenas of good-natured assault when it reared its masochistic head in the early 1990s. With Prodigy's British chart- topping anthem "Charly," Orbital's urgently melodic "Chime," and the deliriously dark Nightmares on Wax classic "Aftermath," Hardcore smashed the molds of House, Techno and Jungle by intensifying basslines, escalating beats and looping effects with mind-evacuating repetition. The artificial energy and synthetic bliss of Hardcore is built on a here-and-now aesthetic: the druggy, disorientating noise isn't about nostalgia or the future, only the instant gratification that results from a temporary, explosive release. Hardcore quickly evolved to embrace more varied, specialized forms of aggression with Happy Hardcore, Digital Hardcore and the Dutch creation of Gabba.
Digital Hardcore:
German DJ Alec Empire, disillusioned with the fading politics of German rave culture and the rise of the Right Wing among German youth, began creating an aggressive strain of overtly anarchist Techno called Digital Hardcore. His band, Atari Teenage Riot, with political ranters Hanin Elias and Carl Crack, created a platform for political slogans with Metal and Punk guitar samples and distorted Techno beats, mixing the style and politics of Hardcore Punk with the dance beats of Hardcore Techno. Empire started Digital Hardcore Recordings to get this pent-up sound into distribution, releasing artists EC8OR and Shizuo. His signature sound soon extended beyond his label, a trend much endorsed by Empire, who encouraged others to "make their own riot sounds.""
Happy Hardcore:
Happy Hardcore is Jungle's nemesis. Sprouting out of the same London scene in 1994, Happy Hardcore's ruthless beats and breaks, sped-up piano riffs and shrill vocal hooks carry none of the dark, brow-furrowing seriousness that burdened the Jungle sound. These juvenile, rush- inducing tracks created by such European producers as Slipmatt, DJ Dougal and Hixxy & Sharkey focus on a buildup of euphoric intensity, maintaining positive rhythms and playful vibes.
Speedbass:
Speedbass is a development in Hardcore Techno and Gabba that began in San Francisco in 1998. The official Speedbass website (www.speedbass.net) describes the sound as "a kind of electronic dance music. Speedbass tracks generally feature bending sub-harmonic legato bass tones, machine gun tempos and ridiculous sound effects." The usually brief tracks are rife with samples that create self-reference (computer voices unendingly deadpan the word "Speedbass") and quick jabs (Abraham Simpson shouts, "Turn it up! Turn it up!") Samples tend to avoid obscurity, embracing the post-ironic ethos that no sample is too obvious. Key to the aesthetic of Speedbass is simplicity -- oftentimes to the point of purposeful monotony and absurdity. A product of the Internet and hotline as opposed to a local club culture, the sound disseminated across the globe quickly, finding artists anywhere there are modems and sound editing shareware.
Gabba:
Developed in the early 1990s by Dutch acts such as Paul Elstak and Darkraver, Gabba is right-wing Techno on fast-forward. A nightmarish style welcome only on the dance floor, Gabba is sensory overkill; think laser lights flashing frantically and a Roland-909 kick drum blasting out distorted rhythms at up to 300 beats per minute. Simplistic and aggressive as a video game, Gabba is militarized music with all the subtlety of an eight-year-old boy who thinks war is cool and all girls love pink.
House:
House emerged from the fog of Disco-phobia in the early 1980s. While the mainstream deemed Disco soul-less, mechanistic and pass,, Chicago DJs Frankie Knuckles, Farley "Jackmaster" Funk, Jesse Saunders, Steve "Silk" Hurley and Ron Hardy pioneered a resurrection of Disco by magnifying the very qualities that some found most offensive: synthetic textures, inorganic repetitions, and disembodied vocals. Defined by four-on-the- floor beats, rasping hi-hats, artificial hand claps, bass loops and drum rolls, House drew inspiration from jazz, rap, soul, R&B, Synth Pop, and Dub Reggae, and has spread globally since its birth. As much as it draws from disparate sources, House has splintered into many different sub- styles, merging with Ambient, Tribal and other musical movements.
Acid House:
Chicago witnessed the birth of Acid House in 1987 with the release of the Phuture label's Acid Tracks compilation. Created accidentally by Phuture DJs and musicians during a test session with a Roland TB 303 bass machine, Acid House's squiggly bass sound is a mind-warping, compelling hook. Acid effects emitted from the machine swirl, stab, and spiral uncontrollably across House's four/four beat. The mix has a sour sensation that is difficult to follow and virtually impossible to recreate. The term "acid" was utilized to describe the new sound for the peculiar, hallucinogenic effect it had in the clubs and for its kinship to Acid Rock. With its lack of sampling, Acid House tapped into a different kind of emotion than its famously sample-heavy predecessor known as House. Rather than developing a mature, soulful sound, Chicago-based Acid House satisfied a craving for all-night dancing euphoria worldwide. After spending a summer spinning to Acid House tracks in the open-air clubs of Ibiza, Spain, DJs Paul Oakenfold, Danny Rampling, Johnny Walker, and Nicky Holloway returned to the U.K., bringing the pleasure-principled "Balearic" sound to London's clubs. England quickly transformed Acid House into rave culture, while many of Acid House's architects brought the sounds even further, creating new and emerging forms.
Garage:
With its traditional, song-oriented Deep House sound, Garage recalls the early '70s Disco underground. The style originated in New York upon the closing of Larry Levan's Paradise Garage in 1987 by artists like Junior Vasquez, Tony Humphries, Masters at Work, and Roger Sanchez. Capitalizing on notions of upward mobility, classy diva vocals loyal to soul and R&B reign over dub-inflected production. Garage was defined in the late '80s the sultry jazz-inflected House of Nu Groove and the dirtier, feverish grooves that characterized mixes from Strictly Rhythm. In England, Garage was a trend toward recreating a spiritual experience for former ravers who matured beyond Acid House.
Tribal House:
Closely associated with Ambient House's emphasis on atmosphere and layered aural textures, Tribal House is sometimes referred to as "world dance." Banco de Gaia, Loop Guru and Eat Static infuse traditional elements of Techno, hip-hop, Ambient, Dub and rock with ethnic rhythms, melodies and sound samples. Tribal House emanates an earthy sensuality and a warm cyberdelic futurism.
Deep House:
With spiritual ties to the expressive sounds of disco-fied Garage, Deep House is an aphrodisiac restricted to after-hours grooving. Saturated with deep rolling basslines, slow funk and soft, moody beats, such artists as Deep Dish and Kevin Yost deflower classic, Acid, Progressive and Tribal House styles, smoothing over a bare four/four structure with atmospheric jazz chords and "seduce me" melodies. Alluring vocals, poignant lyrics and enticing rhythms simmer the energy level down to a comfortable tempo, revitalizing late-night dance floors into intimate arenas of desire. Deep House is a lushly textured, groove-heavy style for romantics.
Progressive House:
A catch-all category for album-oriented electronica acts, Progressive House relies on a complex blend of melodies and effects to appeal to the head and not just the body. While artists such as BT, the Underworld and Faithless employ more traditional ideas of musicality -- as in song structure -- most Progressive House is not necessarily intended to motivate a crowd to their feet. This is music for your headphones.
Intelligent (IDM):
Intelligent (IDM) is a broad classification of post-Rave sounds sculpted from the inspired imaginations of such innovators as Aphex Twin, Autechre and DJ Spooky. Startling rhythms incorporating contemplative combinations of unrelated genres react against established dance floor rules, favoring individualism over conformity. Often heard in open-minded chill-out rooms, basements of hip London pubs or in the bedrooms of art students in New York, styles such as Illbient, Experimental and Blip, Bleep are the most texturally stimulating, self-absorbed styles of Electronica.
Digital Design:
As digital sound editing, processing and synthesis have become more prevalent in music production, many artists have begun to explore the nature of sound and its possibilities in the digital realm. Their radically different approaches to digital sound are not new methods for creating traditional music, but new forms with their own sets of properties and limitations. Viennese artists Pita, Farmers Manual and Fennesz have taken to exploding sound into microscopic fragments, arranged as non-narrative, arrhythmic, formalist constructions. American artists Terre Thaemlitz resists apolitical and formalist conventions by contextualizing his production within a politicized queer framework. From Japan, Ryoji Ikeda confronts the listener with arrangements of extreme tones and drones. Conversely, Spain's Francisco Lopez and Germany's Bernhard Gunter create almost imperceptible music of digital silence accented by gentle clicks and subtle textures. America's DISC, Japan's Yasunao Tone and Germany's Oval maximize the limitations of digital sound by arranging its disruptions and glitches. While the recordings and performances of these artists are compositionally and stylistically disparate, the uniting factor is investigation into digital sound phenomena.
Illbient:
Forged in mid- to late 1990s New York, Illbient was created by a group of educated musicians and DJs raised on hip-hop, Dub and 20th Century Classical. Dubbed "Illbient" by DJ Olive of performance art/electronica trio WE for its dark street groove and contemplative ambience, the new music gleaned sounds from many sources. Illbient DJs combine Drum 'n' Bass with Krautrock, playing off of Illbient musicians who combine processed guitars with heavy Dub beats. The Asphodel, WordSound and Mille Plateaux labels are and were the foremost proponents of the complex and eclectic experiments of Illbient artists like DJ Spooky, WE and Sub Dub.
Blip, Bleep:
The moody, robotic sounds of Blip, Bleep (often referred to as "Drill 'n' Bass") came out of a resurgence of interest in Electro in Manchester in the mid-'90s. Named after the Blip, Bleep: Soundtracks to Imaginary Video Games compilation, a more extreme example of the genre featuring V/VM and Soundcard, the music is a thinly rendered Electro sound played with the frenetic abandon of Jungle. Led by headphone experimentalists such as Plaid, Autechre and Mu-Ziq, and championed by labels SKAM and Warp, Blip, Bleep is far too irregular for the dance floor yet often too disruptive for passive listening.
Experimental Techno:
Electronic music has boundless Experimental possibilities. Blurts of noise, anti-grooves and minimal melodies are the stylistic marks of DJs and artists who try to humanize technology rather than simply fill dance floors. Pioneers such as techno prankster Aphex Twin, dancefloor experimentalist Cristian Vogel and electronic extremist Twisted Science exaggerate the possibilities in electronic, beat-based music to countless and dissimilar ends. Some aim to keep the flow danceable, others merely aim for the future.
Video Game Music:
Originally made up of rudimentary blips and bleeps (if anything at all), the musical accompaniment to video games was once, at best, an afterthought. As games grew more sophisticated and intent on captivating players, so did their soundtracks. Composers in this genre borrow from a wide array of instrumental artists and influences, from Kraftwerk to Vangelis to Henry Mancini. As designers strive to put the player in the thick of things, doing their best to blur the lines between fantasy and reality, they require music that fulfills today's video gaming penchant for sensory overload.
Jungle/Drum 'n' Bass:
Jungle, with its seething polyrhythms and treacherous breakbeats, was born of Hardcore in early 1990s as the U.K.'s response to the States' Old-School hip-hop. Jungle tells a working-class urban youth's angry tales of social disintegration and instability, reflecting the fear and desperation of the times. A digitized offshoot of reggae, Jungle's language is comprised of muffled melodies and fractured loops. Reared by British B-boys like Goldie, Aphrodite and 4 Hero, who subsisted on Electro, body-popping and graffiti, Jungle spawned a number of subgenres, including the dark, anxiety-producing sounds of Tech-Step.
Artcore/Jazz 'n' Bass:
Shortly after Jungle rose to popularity in early '90s London, producers took the classic "Amen" and "Apache" breaks-the classic sampled beats which had given rise to the Jungle genre-and began cutting and splicing them into intricate patterns. At the same time, influenced by Acid Jazz and Ambient styles, they introduced soulful vocals, warm strings, and lush atmospheric sounds into a music that had been previously dominated by Hardcore aggression. This new breed of Jungle, often dubbed "Artcore" after the influential compilations of the same name, was designed more for the chill room and the living room than the dance floor. In a parallel development, some artists left the breakbeat intact, but added live instrumentation. The artists who perfected this diverse group of styles have proven that Drum 'n' Bass serves more purposes than merely dishing out tough breaks for ambitious B-Boys or providing hard-edged beats to rock the party.
Jump-Up:
In the mid-1990s, London producers hit on a magic formula for making dancefloors stomp! Beat masters such as Aphrodite and Ray Keith took the convoluted, polyrhythmic Jungle beat and straightened it out to the point where it resembled sped-up hip-hop breaks. Cooking up a seemingly endless batch of rolling, hip-shaking basslines, they punctuated the tracks with anthem-like hardcore hip-hop and Ragga samples. Occasionally an MC would flow over the top of this mix. The result: Jump-Up, a warmer and funkier brand of Jungle that took more influence from the organic sounds of hip-hop and Dancehall reggae than it did from Hardcore Techno.
Techstep:
Tech Step rose out of the experimentation of a core of Drum 'n' Bass programmers from the No U-Turn label: Trace, Nico and Ed Rush. Pushing their drum samples to the point of distortion, they generated dirty, aggressive breaks and created ultra-low frequencies -- inaudible on most stereos -- rather than catchy synth hooks. The anxious Jungle breaks and rumbling bass frequencies created a very physical, sometimes unsettling sensation. Tech Step is a dark, mean sound, miles across the dance floor from ecstasy-inspired Techno. Still, as much as Tech Step pushes the boundaries of sound, it remains true to the dance floor and does not ignore a groove for experimentation.
Hardstep:
Hardstep turns the anxiety of Techstep and the good-natured brashness of Jump-Up into anger and chest-pounding bravado. In mid-'90s London, impassioned producers high on testosterone and vitriol added several bass kicks to the basic two-step breakbeat, creating tough, swaggering breaks that ruthlessly stomped their way across the dancefloor. Turntable scratches, greased-lightning synth squiggles, vocal snippets, and seething basslines create a snarling, aggressive atmosphere that brings to mind a tribe of warlike post-industrial scavengers gearing up for battle.
Mainstream:
Mainstream dance music gathers together floor-friendly genres that stay true to standard pop song structures with vocal hooks and carefree rhythms. Dance Pop and Disco artists such as Madonna and Donna Summer dominated the charts in the '70s and '80s due to the extensive club play of each, their reign over the airwaves and the accessibility of their music. Signaling crossover styles from the rock/Acid House hybrid Alternative Dance to the Latin-identified Techno blend of Freestyle, with the help of commercial radio, mainstream dance music surpasses other electronic styles in popularity and financial success.
Alt Dance:
Alternative-Dance merges rock elements with electronic music's futuristic bent. Popularized in the late 1980s by Manchester bands like the Stone Roses and Primal Scream, this radio-friendly pop-techno hybrid incorporated rock's romanticism with a mood of optimistic anticipation and idealism. Traditional pop songs were filtered through Dub and Techno with acoustic and electric guitar melodies offering inviting hooks over danceable beats. Think Jesus Jones' "Right Here Right Now" or EMF's "Unbelievable" for the most commercially known examples of this. In the '90s, pop-industrial bands like Nine Inch Nails made dance floor fodder with darker themes and harder beats, while the more esoteric electronica genres became the norm for club-goers.
Euro-Dance:
With easy-to-remember song structures, candy-coated melodies, and catchy hooks underscored by a synthetic drumbeat, Euro-Dance is energized pop. Boasting acts that span decades, this commercial form has consistently scored high on the European charts, from the Netherlands' 2 Unlimited to Sweden's Abba, to Roxette and Ace of Base. Euro-Dance's mass appeal works well on pop radio and dance floors alike.
Hi-NRG:
With little to no resemblance to a pop structure, post-Disco artists such as the Real McCoy, Abigail and Commander Tom employ mechanical beats, synthesizers and empty vocals to generate a shallow, soul-less sound. Hi-NRG gave rise to the funky sounds of early House and the robotic vibes of Techno.
Dance Pop:
A broad classification for dance music that combines club rhythms with distinctive pop song structures, Dance Pop emphasizes upbeat grooves and hook-filled textures. Monster Dance Pop acts like Madonna and Michael Jackson strongly impacted the charts during their Top-40 reign in the 1980s. Dance Pop prioritizes a simplistic form with prescribed beats, infectious vocals and bright effects.
Freestyle:
Running parallel to Dance Pop, Freestyle features saucy vocals and accessible dance rhythms in a pop song structure. This radio-friendly genre was spearheaded by such acts as Lil Suzy with her 1991 hit "Take Me in Your Arms" and the 1994 chart-topper "I've Been Thinking About You" by Jocelyn Enriquez. Replete with deep basslines and predictable movements, Freestyle is particularly popular in Latin communities in the United States.
