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House music has grown wide and tall in the three decades since it first took root in the after-hours clubs of Chicago. These days it is a global phenomenon with its own industry and countless distinct sub-cultures, sounds, and social movements branching off from the source. It's so big that when one person says they're "into house music," you can't exactly be sure what they're referring to—is it the slick, hypnotic house of Ibiza? The piano-heavy diva house of ’90s New York? The more restrained minimal house you're likely to hear in Berlin?
Even at the turn of the ’90s—only five or six years after the term "house music" had been uttered for the first time—the movement had reached the far corners of Europe and the Americas. The Brits in particular ran with the new records from Chicago, Detroit, and New York and added their own experimental edge to the mix, giving birth to the beginnings of rave culture. In the U.S., house music had already climbed the pop charts by the late ’80s, and underground producers were signing major label contracts. There were formidable domestic movements in Belgium, France, Italy, Japan, and South Africa, each with their own sound and style.
And while the decade's great producers are known more for successful club singles and mixtapes than for their long-players, a few memorable albums emerged from those early years. Below you can dig into a wide-reaching selection of LPs that illustrate the many forms that house music took as it began to mature into the music we know today.
Deee-lite, World Clique
Released: 1990
This pop crossover from the dawn of the decade is about as ’90s as it gets. I mean, look at that album cover: It's got that funky De La Soul font with outrageous primary color combos and some of the era's most eccentric B-boy attire. With a trio formed by Japanese producer Towa Tei, Ukrainian expat DJ Dmitry, and American front-woman Lady Miss Kier, it's about as multicultural as an early Benetton ad. World Clique is the debut record from Deee-lite, who you may remember from the ultimate wedding party request "Groove Is in the Heart." The group formed in 1986 in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and pretty much defined the campy, hip-house sound of Top 40 radio in New York at the time.
808 State, Utd. State 90
Released: 1990
This legendary British outfit, formed in 1987 in Manchester, were among the earliest ambassadors for American acid house across the pond. They, along with contemporaries like LFO and Baby Ford, put their own psychedelic spin on the stripped-back Chicago sound of the mid-’80s, leading to the birth of a distinct UK rave movement. Utd. State 90 was their first album to be distributed in the U.S. and came with a re-edited version of their breakout single, “Pacific State,” a track you may recognize from its infectious saxophone riff if nothing else. It laid the groundwork for the UK's electronic music explosion, and it inspired everyone from Björk to Aphex Twin and the Chemical Brothers.
Armand Van Helden, The Funk Phenomena
Released: 1996
Younger fans may know Armand Van Helden as one half of Duck Sauce, the contemporary duo behind silly big-room hits like “Barbra Streisand.” But Armand was also one of the star artists associated with New York imprint Strictly Rhythm, arguably the most important house label of the ’90s. While many of his productions from the late ’90s and early ’00s tended to touch on the more UK-centric breakbeat sound championed by acts like Fatboy Slim, tracks like “Witch Doktor” are essential parts of New York house history. The Funk Phenomena is his debut album, which includes many of the tracks that first catapulted him to international acclaim.
Mr. Fingers, Introduction
Released: 1992
Mr. Fingers is Larry Heard, a totemic figure in the history of Chicago house music. His 1986 master work “Can You Feel It?”—produced alongside Robert Owens and Robert Wilson as Fingers Inc.—endures today as one of the genre's most iconic tracks, and has been remixed and reworked by countless producers who came after. Throughout various interviews, Heard has characterized himself as an instrumentalist who prefers the more organic songwriting process to computer-based composition, and his 1992 album testifies to that. While much of it is built on top of drum machines and synths, it often sounds more like fully formed R&B or soul than the stripped-back club tracks many of his contemporaries were producing at the time.
Black Box, Dreamland
Released: 1990
The double platinum-selling debut album from the Italian group Black Box played a huge role in bringing house music to pop radio the world over. It wasn't without its share of controversy, however. First, the group came under fire for their heavy—and unlicensed, uncredited—sampling of pop star Loleatta Holloway on their breakout single, “Ride on Time.” Then, their label was forced to pay a large settlement to their hired vocalist, the American R&B singer Martha Wash, who Black Box failed to credit on any of the six songs she recorded with them. To add insult to injury, the group then hired a tall, skinny model to lip-sync in the music video for their album's second single—rather than giving camera time to the more heavy-set Wash. Despite the deeply shady business dealings, Dreamland remains one of the most iconic albums of the ’90s, even for non-house heads.
Danny Tenaglia, Hard & Soul
Released: 1995
Danny Tenaglia never enjoyed the pop success of contemporaries like Armand Van Helden or Deee-lite, but to this day he remains one of the seminal figures in New York house music. The prolific DJ and producer began his career in Brooklyn, DJing at roller discos in the late ’70s and early ’80s and later became a resident at legendary downtown dance spots like Twilo, Tunnel, and Vinyl. Hard & Soul is his debut full-length, and it helped define the sound of “tribal house” (as it was called at the time), a percussion-heavy style that often veered into darker, more ominous territory than the feel-good tracks coming out at the time. You can still catch Tenaglia playing all-night sets at spots like Output in Brooklyn or Space in Ibiza.
Moodymann, Silentintroduction
Released: 1997
This 1997 album is a masterpiece of audio collage, pulling in samples from jazz, gospel, funk and disco and threading them together into a hazy, hour-long dream sequence. It's the debut LP from Moodymann—a.k.a. Kenny Dixon Jr.—who, alongside artists like Theo Parrish and Marcellus Pittman, helped define the endearingly unpolished sound of deep house in Detroit. The album is a collection of previously released tracks from Dixon's own KDJ Records, which were then re-edited and re-issued as a long-player for Planet E Communications, the label owned by Detroit house and techno hero Carl Craig. Carl Craig's Landcruising from 1995 was certainly influential enough to be included on a best ’90s electronic albums list, though traditionalists would say it veers too far into techno territory to count on this one in particular.
Masters at Work, The Album
Released: 1993
“Little” Louie Vega and Kenny “Dope” Gonzalez are two of the most prolific producers in the history of house music. Together as Masters at Work, they helped define the funky, Latin-flavored sound of the New York club scene in particular and can still be found controlling the decks at top dance spots downtown. This 1993 album provides a vivid illustration of how hip-hop, house, and reggae once mingled on the streets of NYC, with an opening track that features Jamaican dancehall emcee Screechie Dan.
Theo Parrish, First Floor
Released: 1998
If you prefer your grooves rough around the edges, Theo Parrish's 1998 debut album is the one for you. First Floor saw the Chicago-born, Detroit-based producer re-writing all the rules with his unkempt and unfussy approach to deep, soulful house. Much like Moodymann, Parrish weaves a vibrant tapestry of gospel and soul sound bytes—though his stuttering loops, damaged samples, and general lack of respect for musical conventions set him apart from the rest of the pack. His famously adventurous DJ sets—which extend up to eight hours—touch on a broad range of genres across four or five decades, and have given him a reputation as one of the great record diggers of our time.
Daft Punk, Homework
Released: 1997
It's a harrowing thought that there's a generation of tweens who have only ever heard Daft Punk's comeback album, Random Access Memories. In case you were in Huggies the first time around, let’s be clear that the duo's 1997 album is the crowning jewel of French electronic music. While acts like Fatboy Slim were conquering the electronic charts with a juiced-up, rave-ready breakbeat sound, Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo were taking a different tact by bringing disco and funk to the fore. Their singular style turned a generation of teenagers in rock bands onto the joys of drum machines, samplers, and synthesizers, and changed the face of pop culture in the process.