The way around funky house music

Added: 01/26/2006

Since its origination in the early 80s, house music has evolved and spanned a lot of subgenres, including acid house, ambient house, garage, hip house, tribal, and much more. This article gives an insight into one of the most popular and intriguing house genres called 'funky house' and some of the bands famous for working in this field of music, such as 'Basement Jaxx' and 'Daft Punk'.

Funky house music is slightly different from the usual house music forms. It merges funk and R&B music elements into generic drum machine beat and synthesized backing tracks. Often funky house DJs use samples from 1970s and 80s funk in their sets. A lot of famous funky house tracks are funk or soul songs remixed by house DJs.

Funky house music became popular in the UK in the mid-90s and still remains one of the most remarkable subdivisions of the genre. One of the first artists to become involved in funky house music was the British funk band 'Jamiroquai'. Formed in 1992 by singer and songwriter Jay Kay, 'Jamiroquai' became the biggest star to have risen from London acid jazz scene.

Even though the band itself has never written club house music, the remixes of their hits made by famous DJs such as David Morales, Masters At Work, Bob Sinclair and many others became international dance floor hits. In fact, Morales classic club mix of their 1994 hit 'Space Cowboy' is one of the early examples of the genre. The unique instrumentation and versatile musical talents of 'Jamiroquai' combined with hypnotizing house beats inspired many DJs to experiment with funky house.

The subsequent development of the genre brought more prominent groups and DJs to the funky house music scene. One of the best and most popular today is 'Basement Jaxx', a London DJ duo of Simon Ratcliffe and Felix Burton that is already responsible for some of the house dance music classics mixing their quirky house tracks with vocals from funk stars such as Prince and Me'Shell Ndegeocello.

'Basement Jaxx' released their debut album 'Remedy' in 1999 and immediately became famous for experimenting and constantly stretching the boundaries of house music with each album. In fact, they had already been famous before for working on remixes and releasing three EPs with hits like 'Flylife', which became one of the anthems of 1997. The second album 'Rooty', which followed two years later, is considered their best effort by many fans. 2003's 'Kriss Kross' was full of collaboration with funk and R&B stars introducing another field they can work out.

One more famous duo working in the funky house vein is 'Daft Punk'. Their music includes some of the early funky house classics, as well as more commercial retro synth-pop on the later albums. 'Daft Punk' was formed in Paris by Guy-Manuel de Homem Christo and Thomas Bangalter, who started working together in the late 80s and released their first single under the name 'Darlin'', in 1992. One of the UK music magazines described the song as 'a bunch of daft punk', which, ironically, gave the name for the new project.

In 1995, Daft Punk released the classic 'Da Funk', which is also famous for its remarkable music video. 'Da Funk' brought the French duo to prominence, and the second album 'Discovery' repeated the success of their previous works. Early 2005 saw the release of the less successful 'Human After All', which incorporated minimalist rock music elements into their style. Bangalter's other projects include 'Stardust' with their famous 1998 club hit 'Music Sounds Better With You'. In reality, there is much to say about funky house music, and one article is hardly to express that power of sound funky house brings to the world.

Rate this article:

Bad

Good

Article comments:

No comments for this article yet. Post your comment now!

Return to top of the page