Popcorn (music style)

Last updated

Popcorn (sometimes Belgian popcorn or oldies popcorn) is a style of music and dancing first established in Belgium in the 1970s and 1980s. The style includes a wide variety of mostly American and British recordings of R&B and soul music made between the late 1950s and mid 1960s, often relatively obscure, and characterized by a slow or medium, rather than fast, tempo. The style has been described by musician and writer Bob Stanley as "possibly the last truly underground music scene in Europe."

Contents

Overview

According to Stanley, "the purity of Belgian Popcorn is its very impurity. R&B, Broadway numbers, tangos, Phil Spector-esque girl groups and loungey instrumentals, they are all constituent parts of a rare, and still largely undiscovered scene." By the 1990s, the Popcorn dance scene retained a core of aficionados even outside Belgium, having a level of recognition in venues and specialist clubs in Britain, Germany, and the US, with at least 30 compilations of American R&B and pop music in the Belgian Popcorn style being re-issued in Europe. [1] [2]

Examples of highly prized popcorn records include "Sweetheart" by Peggy Lee, "Image" by Hank Levine, [1] "Now I Lay Me Down to Weep" by Simone Dina, "The Tingle" by Jackie Weaver, "Who's Got the Action" by Phil Colbert, [3] "Heartless Lover" by Dick Baker, "La Tanya" by Jay Abbott, "Carmelita" by Jeff Lane, [2] "I'm Crying in the Rain" by Major Lance, "You Beat Me to the Punch" by Mary Wells, [4] "Comin' Home Baby" by Mel Tormé, and "Twine Time" by Alvin Cash. [5]

Origins

The Popcorn music scene first developed from dances held at the Groove discotheque in Ostend, where mid-tempo soul and ska music played by DJ Freddy Cousaert became popular in the late 1960s. [2] [4] Cousaert was later responsible for Marvin Gaye's move to Belgium in the early 1980s. [1]

In September 1969, a café, De Oude Hoeve, opened in a converted farm barn at Vrasene near Antwerp, and began holding dance competitions on Sunday afternoons. Soon up to 3,000 people began attending each week, dancing in a "slow swing" style to soul and funk records. The café was renamed the Popcorn – after the James Brown hit "The Popcorn"—and DJ Gilbert Govaert began playing more early soul and other records from the 1960s to suit the dance style. [2] [1] According to Stanley: "The beat was slow and slightly rickety, martial drums rolled under melancholy minor chords—The Marvelettes' 'Please Mr Postman' (1961) would have been typical." [3]

Following the Popcorn club's popularity, other clubs sprang up playing music in a similar style. These included the Festival in Antwerp, the Gatsby in Vliermaal, and the Versailles, beside the beach at Ostend. As well as Cousaert and Govaert, other leading DJs included Jeff Callebaut, Gerry Franken, and Georges Toniotti. Radio stations were set up to play the music, and rare music on obscure labels became especially prized. The scene in Belgium, in many ways, paralleled the Northern soul scene in Britain, but with a slower swing style of music favoured, rather than the fast dance styles characteristic of Northern soul. In some cases, DJs slowed down records, by pitch control and by playing 45 rpm discs at 33 rpm, to achieve the desired tempo and rhythm. The range of the music also broadened, to include some British and Italian pop music from the early 1960s, and eventually local bands were formed to emulate the style. [1] [3] [4]

See also

Related Research Articles

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

Disco is a genre of dance music and a subculture that emerged in the 1970s from the United States' urban nightlife scene. Its sound is typified by four-on-the-floor beats, syncopated basslines, string sections, brass and horns, electric piano, synthesizers, and electric rhythm guitars.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Disc jockey</span> Person who plays recorded music for an audience

A disc jockey, more commonly abbreviated as DJ, is a person who plays recorded music for an audience. Types of DJs include radio DJs, club DJs, mobile DJs, and turntablists. Originally, the "disc" in "disc jockey" referred to shellac and later vinyl records, but nowadays DJ is used as an all-encompassing term to also describe persons who mix music from other recording media such as cassettes, CDs or digital audio files on a CDJ, controller, or even a laptop. DJs may adopt the title "DJ" in front of their real names, adopted pseudonyms, or stage names.

House is a genre of electronic dance music characterized by a repetitive four-on-the-floor beat and a typical tempo of 120-130 beats per minute as a re-emergence of 1970s disco. It was created by DJs and music producers from Chicago's underground club culture and evolved slowly in the early/mid 1980s, and as DJs began altering disco songs to give them a more mechanical beat. By early 1988, House became mainstream and supplanted the typical 80s music beat.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rave</span> Dance party

A rave is a dance party at a warehouse, club, or other public or private venue, typically featuring performances by DJs playing electronic dance music. The style is most associated with the early 1990s dance music scene when DJs played at illegal events in musical styles dominated by electronic dance music from a wide range of sub-genres, including drum and bass, dubstep, trap, break, happy hardcore, trance, techno, hardcore, house, and alternative dance. Occasionally live musicians have been known to perform at raves, in addition to other types of performance artists such as go-go dancers and fire dancers. The music is amplified with a large, powerful sound reinforcement system, typically with large subwoofers to produce a deep bass sound. The music is often accompanied by laser light shows, projected coloured images, visual effects and fog machines.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Acid jazz</span> Music genre

Acid jazz is a music genre that combines elements of funk, soul, and hip hop, as well as jazz and disco. Acid jazz originated in clubs in London during the 1980s with the rare groove movement and spread to the United States, Japan, Eastern Europe, and Brazil. Acts included The Brand New Heavies, D'Influence, Incognito, Us3, and Jamiroquai from the UK and Buckshot LeFonque and Digable Planets from the U.S. The rise of electronic club music in the middle to late 1990s led to a decline in interest, and in the twenty-first century, the movement became indistinct as a genre. Many acts that might have been defined as acid jazz are seen as jazz-funk, neo soul, or jazz rap.

Popular music of the United Kingdom in the 1980s built on the post-punk and new wave movements, incorporating different sources of inspiration from subgenres and what is now classed as world music in the shape of Jamaican and Indian music. It also explored the consequences of new technology and social change in the electronic music of synthpop. In the early years of the decade, while subgenres like heavy metal music continued to develop separately, there was a considerable crossover between rock and more commercial popular music, with a large number of more "serious" bands, like The Police and UB40, enjoying considerable single chart success.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Northern soul</span> Music and dance movement that emerged, initially in Northern England in the late 1960s

Northern soul is a music and dance movement that emerged in Northern England and the Midlands in the early 1970s. It developed from the British mod scene, based on a particular style of Black American soul music with a heavy beat and fast tempo.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sexual Healing</span> 1982 single by Marvin Gaye

"Sexual Healing" is a song recorded by American singer Marvin Gaye from his seventeenth and final studio album, Midnight Love (1982). It was his first single since his exit from his long-term record label Motown earlier in the year, following the release of the In Our Lifetime (1981) album the previous year. It peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and is listed at number 198 on Rolling Stone's list of 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. "Sexual Healing" is written and composed in the key of E-flat major and is set in time signature of 4/4 with a tempo of 94 beats per minute.

Minimal techno is a subgenre of techno music. It is characterized by a stripped-down aesthetic that exploits the use of repetition and understated development. Minimal techno is thought to have been originally developed in the early 1990s by Detroit-based producers Robert Hood and Daniel Bell. By the early 2000s the term 'minimal' generally described a style of techno that was popularized in Germany by labels such as Kompakt, Perlon, and Richie Hawtin's M-nus, among others.

Beach music, also known as Carolina beach music, and to a lesser extent, beach pop, is a regional genre of music in the United States which developed from rock/R&B and pop music of the 1950s and 1960s. Beach music is most closely associated with the style of dance known as the shag, or the Carolina shag, which is also the official state dance of both North Carolina and South Carolina. Recordings with a 4/4 "blues shuffle" rhythmic structure and moderate-to-fast tempo are the most popular music for the shag, and the vast majority of the music in this genre fits that description.

Baltimore club, also called B'more club, B'more house or simply B'more, is a music genre that fuses breakbeat and house. It was created in Baltimore, Maryland in the early to late 1990s by 2 Live Crew's Luther Campbell, Frank Ski, and DJ K-Swift, among others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">A Split-Second</span> Belgian electronic body music band

A Split-Second is a Belgian new beat and electronic body music (EBM) band established in 1985. The band is seen as one of the pioneers of EBM and their music influenced the creation of the new beat genre.

Big beat is an electronic music genre that usually uses heavy breakbeats and synthesizer-generated loops and patterns – common to acid house/techno. The term has been used by the British music industry to describe music by artists such as The Prodigy, the Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim, the Crystal Method, Propellerheads, Basement Jaxx and Groove Armada.

Alternative dance is a musical genre that mixes alternative rock with electronic dance music. Although largely confined to the British Isles, it has gained American and worldwide exposure through acts such as New Order in the 1980s and the Prodigy in the 1990s.

Colin Curtis is a British DJ whose career spans several decades and musical developments.

New beat is a Belgian electronic dance music genre that fuses elements of new wave, hi-NRG, EBM and hip hop. It flourished in Western Europe during the late-1980s.

Freddy Cousaert was a Belgian DJ, club owner and concert promoter, who was influential in developing an audience for authentic rhythm and blues music in Europe, and, in particular, for his role in the career of Marvin Gaye.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of DJing</span> Aspect of history

DJing is the act of playing existing recorded music for a live audience.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Bob Stanley, "Belgium's 'Popcorn': the last underground music scene in Europe", The Guardian, 5 February 2014. Retrieved 6 February 2014
  2. 1 2 3 4 Michel Scarpone, "History of Belgium Popcorn", first published in Discoveries magazine Archived 27 January 2011 at the Wayback Machine . Retrieved 6 February 2014
  3. 1 2 3 Bob Stanley, "A voyage of discovery to Belgium's Popcorn clubs", Frieze, no. 147, May 2012 Archived 23 February 2014 at the Wayback Machine . Retrieved 6 February 2014
  4. 1 2 3 "Brief overview of the birth of 'Popcorn' oldies.", PopcornOldies.be. Retrieved 6 February 2014
  5. ↑ Foisy, Patrick (21 September 2012). "A Beginner's Guide to Soul Music: Part II – The obscure sub-genres [sic]". Parka Avenue (blog). Retrieved 6 February 2014.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.