Poll Post: What's New With House Music

I've never been a house music person. I listen to tunes by Deadmau5 and a few others when I feel like it, but not often. Instead, I comfort myself with (who I consider) classic alt rock artists like the Arctic Monkeys and Spoon. Plus, a few Pandora sessions here and there keep me from getting bored by providing me with new favorites and playlist fillers. Recently, though, I haven't been using Pandora, and songs are starting to annoy me when they get stuck in my head. So I thought I'd hit refresh and turn to a genre I haven't listened to in a while: house music. 

Although house music isn't my personal favorite, I think it's great to get yourself pumped up while exercising, dancing at a party, or just in the mood for house.

House is a mixture of electronic, pop, and dance music. Sometimes it can even cross into dubstep territory. The balance of each of these depends on the artist and their style. House music is pretty popular, so you can usually catch a few tunes on Top 40 radio stations like Z100 and 92.3 Now. And house music is basically all that's played at clubs (hence the name "house").

Most popular house songs have dancey and/or poppy melodies with an electronic twist. This can get boring because the main focus of the song is the melody, with the electronics as an enhancer in the background. However, there are definitely some creative artists out there. One of them is Avicii. You may know his super popular song "Levels", a sorta-remix of "Good Feeling" by Flo Rida. It was huge this past summer. Avicii caught my eye because 1) A kid in my first period class really likes him and told us about his new album, and 2) Since I wanted to do a post on music, I looked into his new album, True, and thought his style was pretty cool. (True was released on 9/13/13. So technically it isn't that new.)

Avicii always features some sort of melody in his songs; you never feel like you're waiting for the song to start after a full minute. "Dear Boy"'s vocal melody does start late, but the catchy tune preceding it was skillfully edited to make a smooth transition into the melody. Although vocals are usually a significant aspect of Avicii's music, it's waay more electronic. It took some analysis on my part to discover this. I used to think that "Levels" was just a plain old remix of "Good Feeling", but if you actually listen to the song, you'll find that the vocals are just used as support for the electronics. It's also pretty obvious in "Dear Boy", an 8-minute song whose majority is electronic despite the flowing melody it seems to be centered around. 

A big part of Avicii's style I think is really cool is how he can take two very different types of music and fuse them to come out with a happy medium. Let's use "Dear Boy" as an example again. The tune leading up to the melody is very exact and driving. It almost seems too harsh to be leading up to the flowing melody that comes next. To rule out that imbalance, Avicii added electronic background music to make the vocals more driving. He also adds an electronic melody to harmonize with the vocals, which sounds surreal but totally cool. 

He emphasized this "fushion" in some of his songs on True by remixing country tunes into his songs. Country! To hear it, listen to "Wake Me Up", which is his most popular song right now (according to Spotify). Personally, I'm not into country music or "Wake Me Up", but regardless, I really admire that Avicii's going in that direction because it's so different. Most DJs would be scared to do mix country songs, but he gladly took the plunge.

So, have you just been enlightened? How do you feel about house music, Avicii, and what he's trying out? Share your thoughts in the comments below and email me at leatherandrouge@gmail.com.