…And House Music Was Born: Constructing a Secular Christianity of Otherness

ABSTRACT

The stories of both disco and house music are often marginalized in the broader narrative of popular music, but house music’s stylistic features are reflective of wider sociocultural developments. Taking its cue from disco, house is often seen as a purely evolutionary musical development, when in fact the seeds of house music were sown with the Civil Rights Movement, Stonewall, and gay liberation. This article asserts that disco’s use of gospel elements created a quasi-religious proto-PLUR (Peace, Love, Unity, Respect) ideology on the dance floors of the 1970s, and that this was an expression of those made Other by aspects of either race or sexuality. This expression of Otherness became the founding principle underpinning house music’s form. This article critically reappraises the narratives of both disco and house and interrogates inconsistencies in popular historical accounts using new qualitative interviews with authoritative individuals (DJs, producers, vocalists, authors). Furthermore, the article offers a thematic analysis of house music’s stylistic tropes, drawing direct parallels to Christianity and disco’s gospel influences to create a secularized religious ideology comparable to a PLUR ideology. Finally, the article explores the church’s response to racially motivated economic sanctions as a potential trigger to the generation of house music.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. In PLUR, Peace concerns both inner and outer peace–i.e. harmony internally and societally. Love concerns not only the self but the wider community or world. Unity refers to the dancers operating within the spaces of club culture by transcending social boundaries of race, class, nationality, religion, gender, etc. Respect is for those different from oneself and those beyond the community (Sylvan 139).

2. This article uses the term “Black” to respect the individuals interviewed who identified as such in the primary research. Inconsistency of terminology may occur when directly quoting from other texts, but any such inconsistency is maintained for accurate citation.

3. The gospel break/disco break refers to the bass drum maintaining a rhythmic pulse played on every beat of the bar (in 4/4) while structural elements are removed or reintroduced.

4. Disco Demolition, 12 June 1979 at the baseball stadium Comiskey Park in Chicago orchestrated by Steve Dahl, a radio DJ for the WLUP rock station. The event saw approximately 50,000 “protesters” (a conservative estimate, although accounts and estimates vary) attend the burning of disco records as a radio-station publicity event/anti-disco protest. The event saw attendees vandalize the stadium and surrounding property. (See “Disco Riot.”).

5. Lawrence highlighted First Choice’s “Double Cross” as an example of the pain, stating “She’s like ‘you stole my love,’ and she’s exclaiming that, she’s crying that out!” He cited BeBe Winans’s “Thank You” as example of an exclamation of joy.

6. “Redlining is the practice of arbitrarily denying or limiting financial services to specific neighborhoods, generally because its residents are people of color or are poor” (Hunt). Although this practice is discussed here with particular reference to Chicago, redlining occurred in many cities throughout the USA.

7. CEDM sees contemporary Christian music expressing itself using the palette of EDM to minister to audiences. There are instances of this material being performed in contemporary churches or megachurches.

8. Certainly there are dance-music forms built around other rhythmic conventions (drum & bass, jungle, breakbeat, 2-step garage, dubstep, UK funky). However, the 4/4 gospel-break bass-drum pattern presents in house, techno, acid house, trance, psytrance, hardcore, etc. at varying tempos.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Liam Maloney

Liam Maloney is a Ph.D researcher at the University of York. His research is explores the interplay between listening and self-selected goals. His additional research interests concern electronic dance music and LGBT+ history.