Actually, the house sounds WERE before freestyle. CHRles covered it a bit with the Giorgio Moroder electronic sounds.
In the early days, the sound was experimental and VERY underground when guys like Larry Levan and Frankie Knuckles were spinning soulful tracks (Philly Sound) and mixing it with Italo Disco at the Paradise Garage in NYC. It was when Frankie Knuckles went to the Warehouse in Chicago in the early 80's and did the sounds there, that the Chicago guys (Farley Keith, Marshall Jefferson, Jesse Saunders, just to name a few) just ran with it and made house their own
Proud house head since 1985
Now, regarding freestyle and yeah, I am going to create controversy here. Sure the sound came to form 25 years ago and is STILL hugely popular in NYC, Miami, So. Jersey/Philly, Springfield, MA, just to name a few. But, and I am going to call this out, after 1992, once all of the Top 40 Urban stations like Hot 97 in NYC changed format,
NEW freestyle dropped off and NEVER had that popularity anymore. Part of the problem were that some of the labels only cared about putting music out, but never cared about the quality of the sound. It all became "cheesy" at that point. Because of that, stations like 'KTU and Pulse 87 (in NYC) kept to the old skool sounds of the late 80's and early 90's but stayed away from anything current based.
I'll go somewhere else. Freestyle was HUGE 25 to 20 years ago where a lot of us were in our teens to early thirties. That crowd is now in their late thirties to the early fifties. What boggles my mind is the fact that those that are of that peak era wants to still keep pushing a current brand (yet 80's influenced) sound of freestyle to the younger generation. The problem is, and I had a BIG discussion about this at a freestyle meeting.....kids that are currently in their teens to twenties (and I did ask a teenage girl on this) think of freestyle as their "parents music". And let's face it, why would teens want to be into something their parents would like? LOL.
The point I'm making...yeah, freestyle "lives", but it's the same stuff from that 80's peak beaten to death
over and over and over and over and over again. Nothing new was ever made to bubble. And lets face this...the freestyle crowd (the thirty somethings to the fifty somethings) is VERY hypercritical of new, bashing on that and fixated on the old, so in that sense the music was never really allowed to morph.
If freestyle has a chance to get to the next generation...it cannot sound like ANYTHING we grew up with (think of rock....are kids today listening to the 80's new wave sounds religiously? From our generation, are we fixated on Motown? Not that any of the musics were bad....far from it, but we grew up with a sound that associated with the time we lived in as teens to twenty somethings.). The music shouldn't even be called
FREESTYLE! It has to have new blood (as in those that are in their teens to twenty-somethings, working class Latinos, Italians, etc. singing new tracks that have a current based sound instead of being like the 80's).
I could never say this on freestyle related boards because everyone thinks I HATE the music and would bash. That is NOT the case. I grew up with freestyle and loved it at the time. And IMHO, freestyle to me is the sounds from the breakbeats (early 80's) to the early 90's. Concerts like the Freestyle Free For All in Atlantic City are perfect for that and for the artists of that time, it is an excellent showcase to remember those days.
But if the music CAN become alive again, it has to shed off that "freestyle" label and start anew with new blood into the sound. The first generation can be of help as they "mentor" the next generation, so as to learn from past mistakes in order to make things stronger for the music.
Sorry for the length. I've been wanting to say this for the longest time but, as I said, if I put this up on a freestyle board everyone in there would want to tear a new "hole" in me for having the audacity to SUGGEST what I'm saying here.
So, Morpheux, I'll keep it here. Its safer.
