Music Mondays - House Music

Hello everyone, I would like to announce my first guest blogger! Music Mondays will be taken over by Juan R, from BrooklynEar. He works in the music industry for a well known company as a producer, and has a great love of music. Who better to take the wheel on these posts? Here he is!

The past year and a half saw me become a fan of a kind of music I didn't think I would ever become a serious fan of - House music. Specifically Progressive House music. I always ask my friends "How did we become house music fans?"  The answers always range from Jersey Shore (which we are HUGE fans of) to the gyms we go to, but that's besides the point.

There's no denying that House music has taken over the radiowaves lately. If I had to point to a specific DJ/Producer who started this rise, it would have to be David Guetta. Guetta has always been popular over seas, but he never really found mainstream success here until his album Nothing But the Beatwhich featured performances from Nicki Minaj, Usher, Lil Wayne, and many other artists. My favorite song on that album was Titanium, which featured Austialian singer - Sia. From then on, I became a House Music junkie.

After Titanium, I liked a handful of House songs, but none really connected with me. Until I discovered the now defunct supergroup Swedish House Mafia. Consisting of DJs/Producers Axwell, Steve Angello and Sebastian Ingrosso, Swedish House Mafia had two major hits off of their last album Until Now. These songs were Don't You Worry Child and Save The World.  After hearing those two songs, I quickly started searching for more music from the members of Swedish House Mafia, either together or individually. As I did, I discovered artists such as Hardwell, Avicii, Steve Aoki, and Zedd.

Zedd is a Russian-German producer and he currently has one of the biggest songs in the United States (and one of my favorites) - Clarity. Featuring English singer Foxes, it's no surprise that Clarity became one of the biggest singles released this year. It has everything working for it! First, the song has top notch production that starts slow and slowly builds. Second, it features a singer. Don't get me wrong, I love House music that doesn't have vocals, but it is extremely difficult for a sans-vocal House song to gain mainstream success. Lastly (and this is going to sound silly) it has chants. It's a personal theory of mine that any song will become instantly successful if it has a chant that a crowd can participate in during a live performance (see The Wanted's Glad You Came and The Lumineers Ho, Hey)

 

Ultimately, I'm glad that the US is finally catching up to what the rest of the world already knew. I'm glad that House Music is here and I hope it stays for a long time.

- Juan R.