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Hi-NRG (High Energy) is high-tempo disco music (often with electronic instrumentation), as well as a more specific, derivative genre of electronic dance music that achieved mainstream popularity in the mid- and late 1980s.
Terminology
In 1977, Donna Summer was interviewed about her single "I Feel Love,"[citation needed] which was a mostly electronic, relatively high-tempo disco song without a strong funk component. In the interview, she said "this song became a hit because it has a high-energy vibe."[citation needed] Following that interview, the description "high-energy" was increasingly applied to high-tempo disco music, especially (but not exclusively) songs dominated by electronic timbres.[citation needed] The tempo threshold for high-energy disco was around 125 to 127 BPM.[citation needed] Much of the music in the emerging subgenres of Eurodisco was above this threshold and thus was "high energy" as well.
In the 1980s, the term "high-energy" was stylized as "Hi-NRG" with increasing frequency, and it stopped being used as an adjective before the word "disco" or "dance music".
As early as 1983, but especially in the latter half of the decade, "Hi-NRG" referred not just to any high-tempo dance music, but to a specific genre, only somewhat disco-like, reflecting a highly polished aesthetic and stylistic trends beyond just tempo and instrumentation. This form of Hi-NRG is typified by an energetic, staccato, sequenced synthesizer sound, where the bass often takes the place of the hi-hat, alternating a more resonant note with a dampened note to signify the tempo of the record. There is also often heavy use of the clap sound found on drum machines.
Ian Levine, one of Hi-NRG's pioneering DJs & producers in the UK, defines Hi-NRG as "melodic, straightforward dance music that's not too funky."[1] Music journalist Simon Reynolds adds "The nonfunkiness was crucial. Slamming rather than swinging, Hi-NRG's white European feel was accentuated by butt-bumping bass twangs at the end of each bar."[1]
Waves of popularity
From 1979 to 1983, Hi-NRG disco was especially popular among gay males in U.S. coastal cities such as New York and San Francisco. In particular, DJ/producer Patrick Cowley helped popularize Hi-NRG music at the "The End Up" club in San Francisco. Much of the music was produced in Canada and France, although Cowley and New York producer and composer Bobby Orlando were behind a number of Hi-NRG hits in this era. Examples of artists or singers of early 1980s Hi-NRG include Amanda Lear, France Joli, Sylvester James, Divine, and the Weather Girls.
In the same period, a form of Hi-NRG became popular in Canada. The most popular groups of this style are Trans-X and Lime. It wasn't as closely associated with the gay club scene as the form that was popular in the U.S.
In 1983 in the UK, music magazine Record Mirror championed the gay underground sound and began publishing a weekly Hi-NRG Chart. Hi-NRG also entered the mainstream with hits in the UK pop charts, such as Hazell Dean's "Searching (I Gotta Find A Man)" and Evelyn Thomas's "High Energy".
In the mid-1980s, Hi-NRG producers in the dance and pop charts included Ian Levine and trio Stock Aitken Waterman, both of whom worked with many different artists. Stock Aitken Waterman had two of the most successful Hi-NRG singles ever with their productions of Dead or Alive's "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" (UK #1 & US #11 in 1985) and Bananarama's "Venus" (US #1 & UK #8 in 1986).
American music magazine Dance Music Report published Hi-NRG charts and related industry news in the mid- and late 1980s as the genre reached its peak. By 1990, however, house music had superseded Hi-NRG in popularity in the clubs, and Hi-NRG went back into obscurity.
Hi-NRG still enjoys an underground following, usually in the form of Hi-NRG versions of mainstream pop hits. Almighty Records, for example, is a recording label which releases many remixed versions of mainstream pop hits in Hi-NRG format, targeting a mainly gay market.
During the mid to late 1990s, the French term (Nu-NRG) was used in the UK to describe a new, hard dance music style which evolved during the early 2000s, also called Hard NRG or Scouse house. Those UK Nu-NRG/Hard NRG hits, which many UK fans call simply "NRG". Many fans feel that this style has nothing to do with older Hi-NRG music styles, nor with Nu-NRG as it is used by French fans.
Artists
Number Ones
These records reached Number One in the Hi-NRG charts compiled by James Hamilton and Alan Jones in Record Mirror
Cover Versions in the Hi-NRG style
References
- ^ a b Reynolds, Simon (2006). Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978-1984. p.380. ISBN 9780143036722.
- Jones, Alan and Kantonen, Jussi (1999) Saturday Night Forever: The Story of Disco. Chicago, Illinois: A Cappella Books. ISBN 1-55652-411-0.
External links
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