Acid House

[Abercrombie-Ai]

Anyone into it then?

[My Aural Stimulator]

I have a dumb question: what's the difference between acid house and house music? Is acid house all ravey and stuff, and house is radio-friendly (think D-Mob)?

I've been lying awake since 1990-something trying to figure this out.

[Abercrombie-Ai]

Acid is actually the art of sampling sounds and songs from other artist(often times artist who have nothing to do with House, i.e. James Brown). Rave came Shortly after that. And House, is just House music in general.

[beatschool]

[quote][i]Originally posted by Abercrombie-Ai[/i]
<br>Acid is actually the art of sampling sounds and songs from other artist(often times artist who have nothing to do with House, i.e. James Brown). Rave came Shortly after that. And House, is just House music in general.


[/quote]

Ah, House music. I was a wee DJ back in 1986, out doing some record shopping when I met one of the countless Pacific NW military dudes, this one from Chicago, who played me some really early mixed House cassettes. It was love at first sight, er, sound. Wish I had those tapes.

I'm gonna have to disagree with Abercrombie's description of Acid House. House, in my opinion, was basically undergound, blacker Disco without the silly violin sounds or novelty songs. Take a 4/4 beat, 121 BPM, then add a dash of piano, pump up the bassline, and make the beat stronger. Some of the early artists included Marshall Jefferson, Frankie Knuckles, Fingers Inc., Steve "Silk" Hurley", and Farley "Jackmaster" Funk. Wikipedia has a pretty good definition of the music and how it originated.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_music

Acid House was a variation of House that included the use of tweaked sounds or noises, blips and bleeps where you wouldn't expect them, and for me, was almost a convergence of Detroit Techno and Chicago House. The British music scene then took Acid and kept building on it. I've read varying accounts of how Acid got the name. One claimed that listening to the music was like being on acid, where another claimed that it was as if the artist producing the music was on acid, thus the inclusion of the odd sounds. Some of the founding fathers of Acid include Bam Bam, Phuture, Jamie Principle, and Mr. Lee.

Acid went on to become much more pop-oriented due to the efforts of British recording artists. Baby Ford, S-Express, D-Mob, and others my rotting brain can't recall all managed to dominate the British charts. Stock, Aitken, Waterman started outputting their craptastic version of House/Acid House through folks like Bananarama, Dead Or Alive, Samantha Fox, and Bros. You also saw more talented artists like New Order working with a lot of House and Detroit Techno producers on remixes.

Another variation was Hip House, a rap-infused version of House. Fast Eddie and the Cookie Crew are the only artists I can think of right now.

I guess I have to go visit my House records now. I've neglected them for a few years and they probably deserve some attention.

[obs]

Hmm, I've heard both explanations for it being Acid, although I think the latter one is the correct one. At least that is what it refers to now.

Acid -> Burn -> Steal(ing samples)

Acid -> Roland 303 -> birdy sounds


Wasn't that big of a house fan, although there are house tracks that I like (Inner City, really early WestBam). I didn't really get into underground dance music until New Beat, since it sounded more like the Industrial/Body Music style that I loved.


And now, without further ado, I'm pleased to present one of the finest Acid tracks ever produced:
<a href="http://s11.quicksharing.com/v/7870355/04_Omen_Mix.mp3.html" target=_blank>Stakker Humanoid (Omen Mix)</a>
from the <a href="http://www.discogs.com/release/48231" target=_blank>1992 re-release</a>

It's more raw acid, as opposed to the higher pitched birdy acid.

[Jeffrey]

It's interesting that this topic is being brought up. Acid was definitely using the Roland 303 for all those tweaking sounds and blips and bleeps. It made the music "trippy" sounding. I basically described it to my friends as "psychedelic dance music". Just like we had "Acid Rock" in the 70's which focused on and/or could accompany drug taking experiences, "Acid House" rather did the same. Those smiley faces and allusions to "The Summer of Love" seemed to be a throwback to the Hippie Culture of yesteryear.

Now, "New Beat" confused me. The original definiton I first heard of was DJs in Ibizia using dubs and instrumentals of 80's electro records by, for instance, Soft Cell and Ultravox which they would play at 33 1/3 instead of 45 rpm and then pitch them up to +8 on the turntable. It was a slow and sexy electronic experience. Then, originality came and new productions were being made. It was a unique and risque genre of music and quite the trip.


Jeffrey

[obs]

Yep, that's New Beat. And then there was Hard Beat, which was ... harder! Well, heavier bass ... industrial ...