Styles of Music

DISCO - (from the French, discotheque). Modern substitute for the dance hall and the almost extinct dance orchestra; a gathering where pop records are introduced by a disc-jockeying MC (Master of Ceremonies) and played at a high dynamic level for youthful but prematurely deaf dancers, probably semi-blind, too, as the setting is dominated by flashing coloured lights. Discos had become widely popular by the 1970s, having been first introduced in the USA. The kind of music used was mainly black in origin. It became widely popular after the film Saturday Night Fever.

HEAVY METAL - (coming from a Williams Burroughs` phrase `heavy metal thunder`). A brand of rock music developed in the 1960s. Bands of this kind come into their own at live concerts, and rock festivals, where their followers, known as head-bangers, can enjoy the physical nature of the music, in their own macho way. The bands tend to produce the basic rock and roll, which was particularly popular in the early 1980s, that appeals to the unsophisticated followers of the music.

RAP – Dance craze of the 1970s, cultivated by black and Latin teenagers in New York; developing from disco music with a stronger beat as background to break dancing; becoming known as rap when MCs took to reciting street poetry over the music. Also known as hip-hop. It continued in the 1980s more as a social than musical phenomenon, kept alive by its usefulness to the advertising world and as a teenage line of communication.

RAVE – Raves began in England in the early 1990s. They are like big parties where thousands of young people go to dance all night to different kinds of non-stop music like techno and jungle. This music is made by computer, it is very fast – and usually has no words. For many young people today, the best kind of music is rave music, music you can dance to.