The DNA of dance music and club culture

August 21, 2021 7:10 AM

The Dance Music Archive brings together 30 years of electronic music history through DJ mixes, radio shows, live sets, festival broadcasts, lost tapes, blogs, artwork, magazines and forgotten recordings. It is a time machine for our scene, containing an ever-growing library, collected and curated by our community from around the world.

Very UK-centric at the moment, but I'm not complaining.

posted by soundofsuburbia (7 comments total)

I'd like to learn more about dance music in general so this looks great, but I was surprised when my first search (for Depth Charge) returned zero hits. I assume if I've heard of that guy he can't be *that* obscure? At any rate, looking forward to digging through this!
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:17 AM on August 21, 2021

WOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWW! Thank you! I'm very excited to dive into this.
posted by rednikki at 8:25 AM on August 21, 2021

Is this a front for Spotify? Only plays 20 seconds unless logged into a spotify account.
posted by sammyo at 9:16 AM on August 21, 2021

That’s how Spotify embedded playlists always work. There’s lots of content there that’s not Spotify playlists, also. The archive videos are especially great.
posted by wemayfreeze at 9:58 AM on August 21, 2021

Also it seems entirely about the UK (and some adjacencies, like Ibiza). It’s yearly breakdown starts in 1988, which as a site that purports to be about electronic dance music history is a bit of a laff. Once I recalibrated my expectations tho I found lots of gems in there. Thanks for posting!
posted by wemayfreeze at 12:16 PM on August 21, 2021 [1 favorite]

(Cripes: 'Nightmares on Wax' dropped 20 years ago? I am old.)
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 1:12 PM on August 21, 2021 [3 favorites]

There's always Ishkur's guide to electronic music for a more detailed tree of different subgenres spawned off each other.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 8:53 PM on August 21, 2021 [2 favorites]