Geek obsession: Chicago house music
Why it’s daunting: Chicago house trafficked, like most dance music, in a rarified realm of singles that proved fleeting almost by design. They came and went, played by DJs at specific times in specific places, and they remain hard to gather for all their chaotic glory. Beyond that, distinguishing what constitutes house music requires at least a decent working notion of what constitutes techno by comparison. It helps to know that Chicago house evolved in tandem with techno in Detroit. Both shared certain mechanistic allegiances, but Chicago house diverged significantly in telltale terms of “soul.” House was more directly descended from disco, which made it more buoyant and fleshy than techno—more transfixed by the body, both as a vessel for the soul and as a machine that could be tweaked according to all sorts of seamy, sinister desires. Prior to the rise of house, in fact, Chicago had been the site of an infamous 1979 episode known as “Disco Demolition Night,” a stunt during which a radio-station DJ detonated a stock of disco records and incited a riot after a White Sox game at Comiskey Park.
http://www.avclub.com/articles/chicago-house,32686/
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
