House - probably the most popular type of electronic dance music fills clubs from Chicago to Paris, Tel Aviv to Tokyo. It is hard to find any other music genre, in which DJs are so highly regarded like they are with house. Big hits from the likes of David Guetta, Armin van Buuren, Avicii and co. have turned house’s creators into superstars, bursting their busy schedule at the seams.
In part, these DJs have the "Godfather of House" Frankie Knuckles to thank for their success. From the late 70s onwards he regularly featured on set at the Chicago Club "Warehouse", which eventually gave its name to the genre. When Knuckles realized that the instrumental parts of his music sent his audience wild, he began to focus on mixing these sections, of old disco classics in parcicular, with new elements such as eurobeat, while leaving out the remainder of the songs. In doing so he created a deeper, raw style, known as Chicago house, which got the crowds dancing even more.
House music not only has roots in US disco music, but eurobeat aswell: European electronic pop music from Depeche Mode, Soft Cell or Giorgio Moroder, for example, was extremely popular in the clubs of New York and Chicago. Initially, Chicago house spread rapidly through the underground scene in the US. Sinnamon’s "Thanks to you", D Train’s "You're The One For Me" and The Peech Boys' "Do not Make Me Wait" captured a synthetic sound scattered with dub effects and drop-outs, which had never been heard before. Typical characteristics of house in general include the use of a repetitive 4/4 beat, rhythms delivered by electronic drum machines and artificial bass lines.
The influence of house can also be found today in mainstream pop and dance music. The chart success of Lady Gaga, Daft Punk, Black Eyed Peas and Calvin Harris demonstrate how pop and house have been skilfully joined together in some instances. The young DJs Robin Schulz and Felix Jaehn, both from Germany, are further examples of stars making their names by embracing a mixture of pop and house in their works, seen in their hit remixes of "Waves" (Mr Probz) and "Cheerleader" (Omi) respectively, taking the charts by storm.
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