Videoplaylist

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6 videos (or more)
their selection

Every month we invite a guest to present their selection of six videos that exist online and that revolve around a subject of their choice, a favourite genre, a personal take on things or an obsession. Go ahead, take a look around our archive.

Sep. 2015
Carlos García

As the eighties rolled into the nineties, the music of the moment no longer focused on Madrid, becoming more danceable and more Mediterranean with record companies like Blanco y Negro in Barcelona, club scenes in Valencia and the Balearic Islands, and styles like the Sabadell Sound.

This is something I?ve discovered since I picked up a new hobby that I?m having a great time with. I somewhat ironically call it: "Musical Episodes in Iberian Dance".

The idea is to investigate odd episodes in the history of dance music produced or danced on the Peninsula. I start by choosing a particular place or time to look into, and I end up posting a text and a YouTube playlist with the best and strangest hits I find. I take my time and there are usually long breaks between each of these trips to the past, because my music tastes vary with the seasons and this is a type of music I usually feel like listening to in summer.

So far, the episodes I?ve studied are:

Balearic Beat: The Ibiza Sound that Revolutionized England

A survey of the music played from 1984-1989 on Ibiza?s dance floors, particularly at Amnesia, which English DJs took to London and Manchester, sparking the British rave scene.

The Eighties with an Accent: Sabadell Sound or Paella Disco

Sabadell Sound is a forgotten but pretty fascinating scene peopled by megamix producers who hire hitmen, linguistically audacious singers, and the New Year?s Eve TV special featuring Sabrina as a national climax and the decline of the eighties sound.

Dance up a Storm in Plain Spanish. Unknown or Forgotten Tracks from 1990-1995

For this episode, I set the following parameters: dance tracks that I hadn?t heard before or I?d forgotten, with Spanish lyrics, released between 1990 and 1995.

I?m also planning to study the Valencia scene that was the seed for the whole Ruta del Bakalao business, and any other musical episodes that spring to mind.

For this Videoplaylist I?ve stayed away from videos of songs that only show fixed images of turntables or photomontages, which are very common when dealing with these types of tracks.

Enjoy!

  • Amnesia's Killer Formula

  • Electronic Pioneers

  • The Artisan DJs of the Sabadell Sound

  • The Language Factor

  • A Forgotten Dance Group from the 90s

  • And an Unknown Group (at least they were unknown to me)

Amnesia's Killer Formula

In 1987, English DJs noted the ingredients that made up the Amnesia formula (the music, the dance style, the new drug doing the rounds of the island), and borrowed the recipe so that people back home could the same experience that they?d had in Ibiza. And then the British Rave and Acid House movement took off. This series of videos from 1989 is a good record of what it felt like to be there. I love seeing how much fun the two girls are having at 02:30, giving their all on the dance floor.

Electronic Pioneers

The early eighties electronic pioneers had their moment in the sun on the Amnesia playlist mid-decade, and people still loved dancing to the spasmodic beats of groups like Germany?s Liaisons Dangereuses, particularly if the singer managed the odd phrase in Spanish, like ?los niños del parque?.

The Artisan DJs of the Sabadell Sound

Megamixes were a strange phenomenon linked to the Sabadell Sound that generated millions in sales. It involved Spanish singers remixing themselves with popular Italian and English speaking singers, seasoned with flourishes added by DJs. It was analogue reel-to-reel editing: a handcrafted, manual process using cutter and tape. In this video of the Max Mix 2 tape reel we see the results of that cut and paste.

The Language Factor

Sabadell Sound singers went out of their way to appear international. With admirable audacity and arguable success, they ventured to record their tracks in English even though they were obviously short of some lessons and a few months of practice. Although this group is not strictly Sabadell Sound, it does meet the level of bad Spanglish required to be featured on this list. The video is taken from Spanish TV program La Bola de Cristal, and I also recommend watching their song Mi Chica Tiene un Lío con Satanás (My Girlfriend is Having an Affair with Satan) on YouTube.

A Forgotten Dance Group from the 90s

Those of you who, like myself, had forgotten ASAP will quickly recall this Eurodance group along the lines of 2 Unlimited, featuring a diva and a rapper, which rigorously meets all the clichés of the style.

And an Unknown Group (at least they were unknown to me)

Luxury Beat?s singer projects his voice with its somewhat rural Aragonese, somewhat gothic accent that I usually refer to as the Zaragoza school. In this song I particularly like the female vocal arrangements that come in now and then, climaxing at 03:52. You can?t get more 90s than this.