Idris Elba's How Clubbing Changed the World Page #3

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than Coca-cola and Pepsi,

which were the establishment.

There's been an on-going

co-opting of not just club culture,

but sort of like club aesthetics.

On a more mainstream retail level,

it is a little bit disconcerting.

For brands, clubbing represents an

attractive, energetic lifestyle.

But there is another aspect of club

culture that has filtered into

our every day lives.

And it all started in a cafe

on the island of Ibiza.

It's a place to watch

the sunset in San Antonio.

He was playing the right music

and they start to make CDs

and they got a massive success.

After raving it up all night,

most people need to relax.

In 1994, Cafe Del Mar released their

first compilation album

to cater to this need.

A whole new genre was born.

Chill out.

These compilations really were

the brand that started this sound,

and they went on to sell millions.

Ironically, chill out has become the

sound track to our daily grind.

It is the sound of your bank putting

you on hold,

or getting your legs waxed.

The aesthetics of the chill out area

have also influenced the look

of the modern corporate environment.

Our whole world has been

reconstructed by night clubs.

You look at this chair, this chair

would have been in a chill out area

in Space in 1989,

but it's now in an office, in 2012.

Offices look like chill out areas.

They're cool, they're designed,

they're basically a nightclub.

Foxtons is a really good example.

They've turned the estate agency

concept on its head.

They ripped it all out,

and turned it into a chill out room.

A bar environment.

I think they do it now without

even realising.

But dance music isn't always as cool

and sophisticated

as it likes to think it is.

I was doing The Hitman

and Her at Sale, the guy said

"Ladies and gentlemen,

Pete Waterman."

Ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah, I just

went, "What the sh*t is this?"

I literally took the record off him,

and phoned the guy in Belgium

and bought the record before

I started filming the recording.

Y'all ready for this?

In 1991, Pete Waterman released

2 Unlimited's Get Ready For This.

It stormed the charts globally, and

euro house has become the

soundtrack to our summer

holidays ever since.

Yeah! Yeah!...

Every year there's one record that

completely dominates the charts,

in kind of August and September

time,

that has been the big

holiday island smash.

Oh, we're going to Ibiza

Woah!

Back to the island...

These are cheesy, horrible,

horrible records,

but the very core of them,

it just means holiday.

But enough of these cheesy holiday

tracks,

it's time to go back, way back.

To the birthplace of house.

The year is 1984,

and the city is Chicago.

It started here in Chicago,

it's just a real underground thing.

You made the music out of your home.

We didn't have money to buy this

stuff, you know, so

everyone had to borrow everybody's

equipment, so you might have

one drum machine or keyboard going

all through the city of Chicago.

House is really a raw,

simplified version of disco.

DJs like Frankie Knuckles and

Ron Hardy began playing these

homemade disco tracks at clubs, such

as the Music Box and The Warehouse.

House music was born.

From this moment on, the sound

of clubbing would be electronic.

Whatever Frankie would play at

The Warehouse, that is house music,

everybody just went nuts over it.

The music that they heard,

they heard nowhere else in the city.

All of a sudden these little parties

start popping up.

Some of them would have signs

in their window that say,

"We play house music."

It was contagious, you know,

the whole city got into it.

In 1987, a Chicago house track

called Jack Your Body

by Steve Silk Hurley

went straight to number one in

the UK charts,

with virtually no radio support.

Jack, jack, jack your body

Jack your, jack your body

Jack, jack, jack your body

Jack your, jack your body...

Jack Your Body went to

number one, somehow.

Still don't know to this day how it

did, but it went to number one.

But that was the power of house

music.

Jack your body was a black and white

video of people

kind of jazz dancing,

and I thought, "That is so cool."

It was just so different to what you

were hearing on the radio.

So different to what pop culture

sounded like.

Jack Your Body brought house

music to Europe.

With the success of that, they were

flying us out there in droves.

A music with no popular appeal in

America whatsoever

had found its way across the

Atlantic, and been embraced

by a new generation of British

youth, hungry for change.

Gotta have house

Music, all night long

With that house

Music, you can't go wrong...

It was after four or five years of

this bleak economic landscape

of the UK then, bang, house music.

It was like "Yes!"

Set me free...

To me, it was a minority

kind of music here in America.

And, first time I went to the UK,

and I'm thinking,

"It's all white people here."

I hate to say this but, at that

time, nobody could dance.

Not like the States, man.

These people were dancing all goofy,

they didn't care how

they were looking,

they were horrible dancers, right?

But I love that,

because they didn't care, man,

cos it was just about having

a good time.

Gonna set you free...

Where would house be without the UK?

The birth was Chicago,

to take it global was the UK.

No sooner had Chicago house

conquered the UK

then another sound was beginning to

emerge from neighbouring Detroit.

That sound was techno.

Chicago House had more kind of,

it was wonderfully electronic,

but it had like a great sort of foot

hold in disco, whereas I think

Detroit techno had a kind of science

fiction element to it.

It was looking forward.

The music from Detroit was

slightly more harder edged

and slightly more industrial.

Because Detroit was a

pretty hardcore town.

Detroit is the grimmest place I've

ever been to in my life.

And it was making this amazing,

euphoric, electronic music.

In 1987, a track called Strings

Of Life by Derek May's,

Rhythim Is Rhythim exploded

onto the underground.

Detroit techno had truly arrived.

If you listen to Strings Of Life,

this was just phenomenal that record.

And when the piano dropped it made

you cry, it made you laugh,

all these emotions came out

when you heard that,

you just thought "Wow, I'm here."

We'd not heard

strings in movement of this speed.

And, you know, on top of something

so industrial and spare

and stripped down.

And so it was kinda like strings,

and industry just met head on, man,

and it just made this most

beautiful noise.

Despite its huge influence, techno

remained an underground phenomenon.

But, in 1988,

Kevin Saunderson's Inner City

released a track called Big Fun,

and the sound of Detroit techno

hit the UK top ten.

We don't really need a crowd to

have a party...

I wasn't planning on having hits,

didn't think about having a hit

actually,

I just wanted to make a great track

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