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The History of House Music

© Katherine Wharmby

If you love house but you never knew where its musical roots lay or how they evolved into the present day's sounds, here's your chance to find out--and listen to a few of the classic tracks you might have missed.

History of House – 1985 to Now. This page covers the beginnings of house in Chicago, New York, and Detroit. It has bios of people like Todd Terry and Frankie Knuckles, and a couple of links to deep house and the New York scene. It's not, however, very diverse in its coverage of house music, focusing on the traditional sounds of dance and not covering the many offshoots of the genre. It lacks information about the Nineties and early 2000s, too.

The History of House is another history of early dance music, written by Phil Cheeseman for DJ Magazine, and featured on a lot of dance music sites. This goes into more human detail, telling us the stories of DJ feuds and club nights, as well as musical detail, chronicling the beginning of acid house and Belgian new beat. Again, this article doesn't cover the Nineties.

The History of Electronic Music breaks it down much more thoroughly, taking it back to 1916 and the very beginnings of music made without traditional instruments. It also goes up to 1997. It contains mini-descriptions of various dance music genres such as gabber, breakbeat and trance.

If you want to know all about the Ibiza sound, this is the site for you. They've compiled song clips from 1995 to 2000, all with comments. This is the perfect way to learn the history of the music you love—by listening to it. There's only so much reading about music you can do before you need to hear what the books are talking about. That's what makes a musical education musical!

In that vein, here's an audio archive to go with the first two histories I've listed. It also includes the Phil Cheeseman article, so you can read as you listen. It has classic house anthems like Mr Fingers' Can You Feel It? (which I remember dancing to all the way back in 1988), rave anthems (Together's Hardcore Uproar—my favorite track of 1989), and garage and disco classics (Where's Craig David? Isn't he a classic yet?).

You can find a first-person account of the history of jungle and drum'n'bass here, complete with snarky comments like "White gloves, vapour rub, you know the score." This is also the home of the Drum'n'Bass Webring, which, according to the page's creator, is "massive." Explore, and find some serious drum'n'bass resources.