Chill-out music

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Chill-out (shortened as chill; also typeset as chillout or chill out) is a loosely defined form of popular music characterized by slow tempos and relaxed moods. [1] [2] The definition of "chill-out music" has evolved throughout the decades, and generally refers to anything that might be identified as a modern type of easy listening.

Contents

The term "chill-out music" – originally conflated with "ambient house" – came from an area called "The White Room" at the Heaven nightclub in London in 1989. There, DJs played ambient mixes from sources such as Brian Eno and Pink Floyd to allow dancers a place to "chill out" from the faster-paced music of the main dance floor. Ambient house became widely popular over the next decade before it declined due to market saturation.

In the early 2000s, DJs in Ibiza's Café Del Mar began creating ambient house mixes that drew on jazz, classical, Hispanic, and New Age sources. The popularity of chill-out subsequently expanded to dedicated satellite radio channels, outdoor festivals, and thousands of compilation albums. "Chill-out" was also removed from its ambient origins and became its own distinct genre.

Origins and definition

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There is no exact definition of chill-out music. [1] [3] The term, which has evolved throughout the decades, generally refers to anything that might be identified as a modern type of easy listening. Some of the genres associated with "chill" include downtempo, classical, dance, jazz, hip hop, world, pop, lounge, and ambient. [1] Chill-out typically has slow rhythms, sampling, a "trance-like nature", "drop-out beats", and a mixture of electronic instruments with acoustic instruments. In the "Ambient/Chill Out" chapter of Rick Snoman's 2013 book Dance Music Manual, he writes, "it could be said that as long as the tempo remains below 120 BPM and it employs a laid-back groove, it could be classed as chill out." [3]

The Orb performing in 2006 The Orb in performance (Walt Disney Concert Hall, 19-03-2006).jpg
The Orb performing in 2006

The term originated from an area called "The White Room" at the Heaven nightclub in London in 1989. [4] Its DJs were Jimmy Cauty and Alex Paterson, later of the Orb. [5] They created ambient mixes from sources such as Brian Eno, Pink Floyd, the Eagles, Mike Oldfield, 10cc, and War. The room's purpose was to allow dancers a chance to "chill out" from the more emphatic and fast-tempo music played on the main dance floor. This also coincided with the short-lived fad of ambient house, also known as "New Age house". Cauty's KLF subsequently released an album called Chill Out (February 1990), featuring uncredited contributions from Paterson. [4] In addition, during the early 1990s, the Beach Boys' Smiley Smile (1967) was reputed as one of the best "chill-out" albums to listen to during an LSD comedown. [6]

Ambient house declined after the mid-1990s due to market saturation. [7] In the early 2000s, DJs in Ibiza's Café Del Mar began creating ambient house mixes that drew on jazz, classical, Hispanic, and New Age sources. They called their product "chill-out music", and it sparked a revived interest in ambient house from the public and record labels. [7] The popularity of chill-out subsequently expanded to dedicated satellite radio channels, outdoor festivals, and the release of thousands of compilation albums offering ambient sounds and "muffled" beats. [1] Consequently, the popular understanding of "chill-out music" shifted away from "ambient" and into its own distinct genre. [7] Music critics to that point were generally dismissive of the music. [1]

Streaming

Streaming became the dominant source of music industry revenue in 2016. [8] During that decade, Spotify engendered a trend that became known among the industry as "lean back listening", which refers to a listener who "thinks less about the artist or album they are seeking out, and instead connects with emotions, moods, and activities". As of 2017, the front page of the service's "browse" screen included many algorithmically-selected playlists with names such as "Chilled Folk", "Chill Hits", "Evening Chill", "Chilled R&B", "Indie Chillout", and "Chill Tracks". [9] In 2014, the service reported that throughout the year "Chill Out" playlists had trended much higher than the national average on campuses across Colorado, where marijuana had been legalized in January of that year. [10] In an editorial piece for The Baffler titled "The Problem with Muzak", writer Liz Pelly criticized the "chill" playlists as "the purest distillation of [Spotify's] ambition to turn all music into emotional wallpaper". [9]

Associated terms

Chillwave

In 2009, a genre called "chillwave" was invented by the satirical blog Hipster Runoff for music that could already be described with existing labels such as dream pop. [11] [12] The pseudonymous author, known as "Carles", later explained that he was only "[throwing] a bunch of pretty silly names on a blog post and saw which one stuck." [13] Chillwave became one of the first genres to acquire an identity online, [14] although the term did not gain mainstream currency until early 2010, when it was the subject of serious, analytical articles by The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times . [15] In 2011, Carles said it was "ridiculous that any sort of press took it seriously" and that although the bands he spoke to "get annoyed" by the tag, "they understand that it's been a good thing. What about iTunes making it an official genre? It's now theoretically a marketable indie sound." [13]

Chillhop

In 2013, YouTube began allowing its users to host live streams, which resulted in a host of 24-hour "radio stations" dedicated to microgenres such as vaporwave, [16] a derivation of chillwave. [17] Music streaming platform Spotify added to the popular "lo-fi beats" wave by generating "Spotified genres", including "Chill Hits", "Bedroom Pop" playlists, and promoting numerous "chill pop" artists. [18] In 2017, a form of downtempo music tagged as "chillhop" or "lo-fi hip hop" became popular among YouTube music streamers. By 2018, several of these channels had attracted millions of followers [19] and Spotify's "Chill Hits" playlist had 5.4 million listeners. [18]

See also

Related Research Articles

Mixmaster Morris is an English electronica DJ and underground musician who has also recorded as The Irresistible Force. His work in the 1990s blended ambient music and chill-out influences with UK dance styles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ambient music</span> Music genre

Ambient music is a genre of music that emphasizes tone and atmosphere over traditional musical structure or rhythm. It may lack net composition, beat, or structured melody. It uses textural layers of sound that can reward both passive and active listening and encourage a sense of calm or contemplation. The genre is said to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual", or "unobtrusive" quality. Nature soundscapes may be included, and the sounds of acoustic instruments such as the piano, strings and flute may be emulated through a synthesizer.

Electronica is both a broad group of electronic-based music styles intended for listening rather than strictly for dancing and a music scene that came to prominence in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the term is mostly used to refer to electronic music generally.

Downtempo is a broad label for electronic music that features an atmospheric sound and slower beats than would typically be found in dance music. Closely related to ambient music but with greater emphasis on rhythm, the style may be played in chillout clubs or as "warm-up or cool-down" music during a DJ set. Examples of downtempo subgenres include trip hop, ambient house, chillwave, psybient and lo-fi hip hop.

Rare groove is music that is very hard to source or relatively obscure. Rare groove is primarily associated with funk, R&B and jazz funk, but is also connected to subgenres including jazz rock, reggae, Latin jazz, soul, rock music, northern soul, and disco. Vinyl records that fall into this category generally have high re-sale prices. Rare groove records have been sought by not only collectors and lovers of this type of music, but also by hip hop artists and producers.

Ambient house is a downtempo subgenre of house music that first emerged in the late 1980s, combining elements of acid house and ambient music. The genre developed in chill-out rooms and specialist clubs as part of the UK's dance music scene. It was most prominently pioneered by the Orb and the KLF, along with artists such as Global Communication, Irresistible Force, Youth, and 808 State. The term was used vaguely, and eventually fell out of favor as more specific subgenres were recognized.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Smooth Chill</span> Radio station

Smooth Chill is a British digital radio station dedicated to chill out, ambient and trip hop music. On 3 September 2019, Chill was rebranded as Smooth Chill to align it with the Smooth Radio brand. It is owned and operated by Global.

Balearic beat, also known as Balearic house, Balearic, Ibiza house or Ibizan chillout, is an eclectic blend of DJ-led dance music that emerged in the mid-1980s. It later became the name of a more specific style of electronic dance/house music that was popular into the mid-1990s. Balearic beat was named for its popularity among European nightclub and beach rave patrons on the Balearic island of Ibiza, a popular tourist destination. Some dance music compilations referred to it as "the sound of Ibiza", even though many other, more aggressive and upbeat forms of dance music could be heard on the island, such as Balearic trance.

Lo-fi, short for low fidelity, is sound quality lower than usual contemporary standards, and usually refers to lo-fi music.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dance music</span> Music composed specifically to facilitate or accompany dancing

Dance music is music composed specifically to facilitate or accompany dancing. It can be either a whole piece or part of a larger musical arrangement. In terms of performance, the major categories are live dance music and recorded dance music. While there exist attestations of the combination of dance and music in ancient times, the earliest Western dance music that we can still reproduce with a degree of certainty are old-fashioned dances. In the Baroque period, the major dance styles were noble court dances. In the classical music era, the minuet was frequently used as a third movement, although in this context it would not accompany any dancing. The waltz also arose later in the classical era. Both remained part of the romantic music period, which also saw the rise of various other nationalistic dance forms like the barcarolle, mazurka, ecossaise, ballade and polonaise.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Groovera</span> Radio station

Groovera was an independent, multi-channel, commercial-free, and listener-supported web-based radio station dedicated to "chill-out music". It was founded in 2005 by Timothy James Quigley, widely known as Tommy Ohmz, in his Seattle, Washington, living room initially as FrostByte Groove Lounge. Specifically, Groovera featured mixes of downtempo, future lounge, nu-jazz, vaporwave, ambient pop, trip hop, psybient and neo-soul, as well as other related and contributing genres. Groovera went offline temporarily in May 2012 and announced on Facebook on June 19, 2012, that Groovera had resumed operation and introduced three new channels: Exotic Lounge, Chill Surreal, and Soul Nouveau. Groovera introduced the VIP Lounge in March 2016 as a way to reward Groovera's contributors and supporters. Groovera New Modern Radio came to an official halt on the eve of what would have been the founder and general manager Tommy Ohmz's 50th birthday, July 29, 2020, at 12:08:13 p.m. Tommy Ohmz was in the process of renewing the Groovera Trademark with his California based attorney at the time of his untimely passing. As of February 2021, the Groovera web site is listed as "under construction". Groovera is no longer in operation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">RauteMusik.FM</span>

RauteMusik is an internet radio station based in Germany. RauteMusik was first broadcast on 20 April 2003 with just one main stream. In the next four years, RauteMusik established itself as one of Europe's biggest internet radio stations. Currently up to 37,000 people listen to RauteMusik simultaneously.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">DI.FM</span>

DI.FM is an Internet radio broadcaster consisting of over 90 channels dedicated to electronic music, such as house, trance, techno, drum and bass, and dubstep. DI.FM broadcasts handpicked selections consisting of classic, new and up-and-coming hits, as well as weekly and monthly mixed shows from professional DJs. It was founded in December 1999 as a hobby project by Ari Shohat in his Binghamton University dorm room and was one of the first Internet radio stations. It has often been listed as one of the top internet radio stations.

Chillwave is a music microgenre that emerged in the late 2000s. It is characterized for evoking the popular music of the late 1970s and early 1980s while engaging with notions of memory and nostalgia. Common features include a faded or dreamy retro pop sound, escapist lyrics, psychedelic or lo-fi aesthetics, mellow vocals, slow-to-moderate tempos, effects processing, and vintage synthesizers.

Lofi hip hop is a form of downtempo music that combines elements of hip hop and chill-out music. It was popularized in the 2010s on YouTube.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lofi Girl</span> Music label and YouTube channel

Lofi Girl is a French YouTube channel and music label established in 2017. It provides livestreams of lo-fi hip hop music 24/7 through live streams and videos, accompanied by a Japanese-style animation of a girl studying or relaxing.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Rosen, Jody (June 7, 2005). "The Musical Genre That Will Save the World". Slate .
  2. ↑ Snoman, Rick (2013). Dance Music Manual: Tools, Toys, and Techniques. Taylor & Francis. pp. 88, 340–342. ISBN   978-1136115745 . Retrieved 17 May 2014.
  3. 1 2 Snoman 2013, p. 331.
  4. 1 2 Reynolds, Simon (2012). Energy Flash: A Journey Through Rave Music and Dance Culture. Soft Skull Press. p. 167. ISBN   978-1-59376-477-7.[ permanent dead link ]
  5. ↑ Partridge, Christopher; Moberg, Marcus (2017). The Bloomsbury Handbook of Religion and Popular Music. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 429. ISBN   978-1-4742-3734-5.
  6. ↑ Kent, Nick (2009). "The Last Beach Movie Revisited: The Life of Brian Wilson". The Dark Stuff: Selected Writings on Rock Music. Da Capo Press. p. 44. ISBN   978-0-7867-3074-2.
  7. 1 2 3 Snoman 2013, p. 330.
  8. ↑ Rosenblatt, Bill (April 8, 2018). "In Music's New Era, Streaming Rules, But Human Factors Endure". Forbes . Retrieved September 17, 2018.
  9. 1 2 Pelly, Liz (2017). "The Problem with Muzak". The Baffler .
  10. ↑ "Year in Music 2014". Spotify. Archived from the original on 2014-12-18.
  11. ↑ Fitzmaurice, Larry (14 October 2019). "How Chillwave's Brief Moment in the Sun Cast a Long Shadow Over the 2010s". Pitchfork.
  12. ↑ Schilling, Dave (April 8, 2015). "That Was a Thing: The Brief History of the Totally Made-Up Chillwave Music Genre".
  13. 1 2 Cheshire, Tom (March 30, 2011). "Invent a new genre: Hipster Runoff's Carles explains 'chillwave'". The Wired .
  14. ↑ Scherer, James (October 26, 2016). "Great artists steal: An interview with Neon Indian's Alan Palomo". Smile Politely.
  15. ↑ Hood, Bryan (14 July 2011). "Vulture's Brief History of Chillwave". Vulture.
  16. ↑ Alemoru, Kemi (June 14, 2018). "Inside YouTube's calming 'Lofi Hip Hop Radio to Relax/Study to' community". Dazed Digital .
  17. ↑ Coleman, Jonny (May 1, 2015). "Quiz: Is This A Real Genre". Pitchfork .
  18. 1 2 Werner, Ann (2020-01-02). "Organizing music, organizing gender: algorithmic culture and Spotify recommendations". Popular Communication. 18 (1): 78–90. doi: 10.1080/15405702.2020.1715980 . ISSN   1540-5702.
  19. ↑ Winkie, Luke (July 13, 2018). "How 'Lofi Hip Hop Radio to Relax/Study to' Became a YouTube Phenomenon". Vice. Retrieved September 13, 2018.
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