“This particular 808 is arguably the single most important drum machine in history”: The origin of house music in 5 key tracks

In our latest genre focus, we've dived deep into the origins of house music, and how its sound (and name) derived from one venue - Chicago's Warehouse. Before long, it exploded outwards and would change electronic music forever.

Here are five essential tracks which tell that origin story better than any words can, across these tracks, you can literally hear history being made - and some of the sickest, OG-sounds of classic house music in action

1. Jesse Saunders and Vince Lawrence - On and On (1984)

It's widely regarded as the first house track, although obviously it's fair to say that it wasn't the first track made with a 4/4 kick pattern. But what this did have was a TR-808 producing the kicks and those shuffling snares that would define the genre in the late '80s and early '90s.

This particular 808 is arguably the single most important drum machine in history - being as it gave rise not just to house music, but most dance music of the last 40 years. Actually make that 'easily' not 'arguably'

2. J.M. Silk - Music is the Key (1985)

J M Silk ‎– Music Is The Key (House Key) [1985] - YouTube

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Steve 'Silk' Hurley's track is another big slice of house history and while On and On might have been the first house record, Music is the Key defined the sound even further and gave the genre wings by becoming one of the first big name tunes that was exported from Chicago to the UK. Suddenly the house word was spreading.

3. Marshall Jefferson - Move Your Body (1986)

“It was horrible songwriting in house music. You got DJs doing it and they don't know anything… People said to me 'where's that piano come from, that isn't house music'. It is now!” Marshall Jefferson is a huge figure in house and acid house (see below) and with this track he introduced the piano, a sound so heavily associated with commercial house records from then on.

4. Farley 'Jackmaster' Funk (featuring Jesse Saunders, performed by Darryl Pandy) - Love Can't Turn Around (1986)

Love Can't Turn Around - Farley Jackmaster Funk, featuring Darryl Pandy - ORIGINAL VIDEO! - YouTube

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Love Can't Turn Around was Farley 'Jackmaster' Funk's version of a Steve 'Silk' Hurley house version of Isaac Hayes' 1975 song I Can't Turn Around. Keeping up at the back? It's a complicated history - as with a lot of house music - but the important note here is that the final track found itself in the UK top 10 in late 1986 and helped start the (second) Summer of Love that gave us the last four decades of dance music.

5. Phuture - Acid Tracks (1987)

PHUTURE - ACID TRACKS (1987) VINYL - YouTube

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Phuture was DJ Pierre, Earl Smith Jr and Herbert Jackson with Marshall Jefferson producing this legendary track in 1987. The 'Acid' name in the title again has some controversy behind it – of course it does – with Phuture claiming ownership, but there's also a story that DJ Ron Hardy played the track so much (as early as 1985) that it became known as 'Ron Hardy's Acid Track'.

Either way, both Hardy and Phuture are now seminal figures in the house story, and acid house which came from this, was an even more virulent form of house, especially in the UK where house, and dance music exploded in the late '80s.