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While it’s encouraging to see a few mainstream outlets loudly touting the Black roots of house music—a fact that many people are still unaware of, even in the US, despite the genre’s distinctly American origins—the larger narrative has little to do with setting the historical record straight. What’s emerging instead is a tale in which uber-famous pop artists are being cast as the saviors of house music, a genre that had, at least according to this story, apparently disappeared or died altogether. It’s not necessarily a purposeful mishandling of the facts—ignorance and star worship are much more likely root causes—but the narrative being spun remains woefully inaccurate all the same.
Dance music may not be a staple of the US pop charts, but it’s far from dead. On the contrary, it’s at the heart of a global, multibillion-dollar industry. (One caveat: in the face of inflation and various post-pandemic logistic struggle, dance music is grappling with several
economic red flags at the moment, but much of that pain is currently being felt across the entire live music sector.) And while that industry includes several different styles of music—including EDM, which is likely more familiar to the average Drake and Beyoncé fan—house music remains one of its foundational pillars, and continues to be some of the most popular genres in the world, especially outside of the US. The idea that it was in need of “resurrection” is borderline ludicrous.
Both people working in dance music and dedicated fans already know this, and there’s been some minor pushback, mostly in the form of grousing on social media. At the same time, there’s also been a wave of optimism, with hopeful artists positing that perhaps the Beyoncé and Drake albums will lead to some sort of trickle-down effect, with pop fans eventually discovering “real” house music and major labels enlisting credible independent artists for high-profile production work and big-budget remix projects. It’s a nice thought, especially considering how difficult it is for the average house music producer to earn a living these days, but in reality, the chances of turning back the clock to 1995, when acts like Masters at Work were cranking out three major-label remixes a week and getting five-figure checks for each one, are slim.
Perhaps things could change, but at the moment, artists like Drake and Beyoncé aren’t reaching deep into the “underground” (an admittedly nebulous term) to produce their latest work. The only genuine house music artist on
Honestly, Nevermind is Black Coffee, a South African producer who’s previously collaborated with Drake, and whose commercial bent has literally made him one of the biggest DJs in the world. On Beyoncé’s “Break My Soul,” her primary songwriting collaborators are Tricky Stewart and The-Dream—who are both incredibly talented, but neither one comes from house music—and while the track does sample the Robin S. classic “Show Me Love,” the repurposing of a ’90s anthem that’s been ubiquitous enough to power several generations of bar mitzvahs and drunken karaoke excursions can hardly be considered a subversive (or particularly innovative) act. I’m no Kanye West fan, but his song “Fade”—which sampled Mr. Fingers’ “Mystery of Love,” Hardrive’s “Deep Inside” and Barbara Tucker’s “I Get Lifted”—dove significantly deeper into the house music canon, and that came out back in 2015.
It’s nice to imagine that mainstream interest will somehow elevate the entire dance music sphere, but looking back at the history of major-label interaction with cultural subgenres, has that ever really happened? Even in the most successful cases (e.g. punk, grunge), the major labels haven’t invested broadly in music communities; they show up, scout for talent, throw money around, skim from the top and eventually move on once audience interest and / or the potential to make a profit dries up. Along the way, a handful of acts get big checks and maybe the chance to make a big-budget record they wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise, but the notion that it’s a net positive for the entire scene is highly debatable, or at the very least is something that can only be asserted with a boatload of caveats.
That’s especially true when so much of the current house music hype remains centered on global pop stars, as opposed to artists who come from an actual house music lineage. If this remains the dominant paradigm, whatever “opportunities” that come along for independent artists most likely won’t involve actually getting signed to a major label; if anything, they’ll look a lot more the recent remix albums from Dua Lipa and Lady Gaga. To their credit, those releases did enlist some credible artists; the former, 2020’s
Club Future Nostalgia, was executive produced by the Blessed Madonna and featured reworks from Moodymann, Mr. Fingers, Paul Woolford, Jayda G, Masters at Work, Yaeji and a slew of other acts. Lady Gaga’s
Dawn of Chromatica, which dropped last year, included remixes from Arca, LSDXOXO, Shygirl, Charli XCX and A.G. Cook, Doss, Jimmy Edgar and a number of other producers.
That’s a fairly impressive collection of dance music talent, and it’s good to know that these acts—some of which have been around for decades—presumably got both a decent payday and a bit of mainstream promotion. At the same time, it’s not an accurate snapshot of what’s popping in dance music’s most innovative and creatively interesting circles. Almost every artist involved is someone who was already a staple of the international club and festival circuit, and many of them were already plugged into the major-label system in some fashion. In terms of curation, these releases are only impressive in the sense that “these aren’t bad for major-label pop remix albums,” and that’s an exceedingly low bar to clear.
It’s also worth noting that outside of the discourse they’ve generated, none of these recent releases has had much of a lasting musical impact. Both
Club Future Nostalgia and
Dawn of Chromatica briefly topped the Billboard Top Dance/Electronic Albums chart, but they quickly faded into the ether, and now feel more like curios than collections of bona fide bangers. The response to Drake’s
Honestly, Nevermind has been lukewarm (at best), especially amongst American audiences, and while the ultimate legacy of “Break My Soul” will likely hinge on how Beyoncé’s forthcoming
Renaissance album is received when it drops next month, the cultural conversation to date has focused on lot more on the “reviving house music” angle and what
Beyoncé is trying to say about the Great Resignation than the quality of the song itself. Simply put, the pop world may be attempting to sell house music to the masses right now, but it’s far from clear that the average music fan is actually interested in buying it.
At this point, it’s too soon to know whether this renewed mainstream interest in house music will develop into anything concrete. Given the speed at which culture moves nowadays, it could easily become a “remember when?” moment within a matter of months. But even if it does take off, and house music becomes the hottest new trend in pop music, it’s unlikely that will be will something to celebrate, and not because it violates some (largely antiquated) notions of “selling out” the culture.
This isn’t the ’90s, and the major labels aren’t looking to lure artists out of the basement with huge checks and promises of becoming a star. In truth, they’re not really looking to corrupt or transform anyone; they no longer have to. Animosity to mainstream pop is lower than it’s been in decades, and major labels by and large aren’t looking to sign niche independent artists anymore. They’d rather take notes from those artists’ creative toolkits and then pass that information along to their established properties (i.e. people like Drake, Beyoncé and all the other pop stars looking to following in their footsteps). In a very real way, the modern-day pop machine is a kind of pyramid scheme, and while getting artists at the bottom to participate might require spending a little money, or doling out the occasional songwriting / production credit, it’s ultimately an extractive enterprise.
In the eyes of major labels—and the wider cultural mainstream—house music is simply another resource to be mined in the service of contemporary pop stardom. “Reviving” the genre music is not on their to-do list, and supporting the wider house music / dance music ecosystem in any kind of sustainable, long-term fashion isn’t even part of the conversation. Independent artists, many of them starved for resources, income and attention, might go along for the ride anyways, but in most cases, neither they or their fans are likely to be happy with the end result.
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