Idris Elba's How Clubbing Changed the World Page #5

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Suddenly, it was OK for punk rockers

and people who were into new wave

to like dance music.

How does it feel

to treat me like you do?

When you laid your hands upon me

And told me who you are.

Kraftwerk became a big inspiration,

and it was finding a way

of emulating that.

It was done in binary code

in those days,

which was absolutely unbelievable.

They were the pioneers.

They were the first.

There's no other British band that

made electronic music like that.

It was incredible that, you know,

you can play it now

and it still sounds as fantastic

as it did in 1982.

Blue Monday went on to become

the biggest-selling 12-inch record

of all time.

Four years later, in 1987,

although we had fallen in love with

house music from the States,

we weren't making it ourselves.

But all of that

was about to change.

There was a kind of race to see

who was going to be the first

new breed of British DJ

to put out a DJ record.

Cold Cut got there first,

and, of course,

MARRS' Pump Up The Volume came out.

And I thought, "How can I take

the house sound and make it

something that's mine?"

So, I came up with

Theme From S-Express.

I thought "Oh, my God,

what have I done?

"I've made

a disco/house hybrid record,

"people are going to crucify me,

they're going to kill me."

The Theme From S-Express was

released in April of 1988,

and went to number one.

But, while that track was

a big tune on the UK charts,

it was a track called Voodoo Ray

by A Guy Called Gerald

that became the defining

British acid house anthem.

Voodoo Ray, you know, when I heard

that,

I couldn't believe that an

English person had made that record.

You're just like, "Wow, this

guy from Manchester's made this."

I just remember hearing that,

thinking "Oh, there's a way forward,

that's brilliant."

The feeling of the bass line

in Voodoo Ray

was like the hollow echoing

sound of The Hacienda,

and the toms and the drums

were basically

the steps or the dancers, like,

stepping.

Voodoo Ray went Top 20 in 1989,

a track made for the UK's

clubbing underground

had become a pop sensation.

I was very surprised about

Voodoo Ray getting into the charts.

It was mainly, like,

an underground acid house track,

and not

anything to do with chart music.

These days being a club DJ

is as cool as it gets.

But it hasn't always been that way.

If you told anyone you were a DJ

in the '70s, a full-time club DJ,

they'd just assume

you worked at Butlins.

When I started DJing

you were just above the glass

collector in the pond life of clubs.

DJs were the naffest

people in the world.

Suddenly it became the coolest thing.

Superstar DJs

Here we go.

In 1993 Paul Oakenfold

was asked to support

the biggest stadium rock band on

the planet, U2,

on their world tour.

In that moment the superstar DJ

was born.

Superstar DJs

Here we go.

I never thought I'd get offered

a tour as the opening act

in stadiums with U2.

I think the tag of the superstar DJ

only came about

because we was playing

to so many people.

The two monitors, turntables

and mixer, and a DJ,

rocking the house of 20,000 people.

Never before had club DJs

been so idolised.

By the late '90s, DJs had officially

become the new rock stars.

There was a period in the '90s when,

you know,

there was a ridiculous

amount of money being spent on DJs

and it was great.

I done Mick Jagger's 50th birthday

party, then they asked me

to go on tour with

The Rolling Stones.

But I said no.

Because they wouldn't pay me

enough money.

Most DJs aren't really oil paintings

to look at

but become superstars, sort of,

by default

because we put bums on seats, and

so we get treated like rock stars.

So, there you have it,

from the village disco to the

biggest venues in the world,

the club DJ has conquered it all.

Pack your glow sticks and join me

after the break

as we head out

to the sunny island of Ibiza,

we try and figure out what the

blouse and skirts Jimmy Savile has

to do with all of this,

and get our heads around

some proper dirty drum and bass.

Selecta!

Welcome back.

We've been counting down the most

defining moments

in the history of clubbing.

To fully understand the explosion on

the modern club culture,

we have to hop on a plane to Ibiza.

Terrible.

In 1987,

a young Paul Oakenfold decided to

celebrate his birthday on the island

with a few mates.

What they discovered would change

the course of club culture forever.

It was my birthday

and I wanted to go to Ibiza

and spend it with my friends.

Four of us went on holiday to Ibiza

to celebrate Paul Oakenfold's

birthday.

That's when house music was emerging

and there was all these

wonderful open-air clubs.

One night, the birthday party

went to a club called Amnesia

for an experience

they'd never forget.

You're on holiday,

dancing under the stars,

it's the first time I'd been

in an environment where I felt free.

The man on the decks at Amnesia

was a DJ called Alfredo,

and his non-stop eclectic

mix of tunes created a vibe

that the lads from London

had never experienced before.

Basically, I tried to play

music from every country.

Every style, of every time.

You're listening to Cyndi Lauper,

next to Run DMC,

next to Farley Jackmaster Funk

doing a house record.

And you're like, "Well, where the

hell are we going here?"

I know for a fact if someone had

done that in London in '87,

people would have

thrown bottles at him.

Once you set it in a magical setting,

it just becomes

something that people,

you know, that they

just live for it.

The sensation I got from the dance

floor, the atmosphere,

I wanted to make them dance.

I really wanted to make them dance.

What they had discovered

was an entirely new Balearic

clubbing lifestyle,

and they were determined to take the

vibe back home with them.

We didn't really want

the holiday to end,

so we ended up bringing

the music back with us.

It was, "OK, we're gonna do this

back in London", that's what we did.

And we went our separate ways

and we did our own thing.

The holiday that has gone down in

clubbing folklore.

But what exactly did they do when

they got back to London?

Well, bear with me,

we'll get to that later.

The figure of the club DJ became so

big in the '90s that suddenly

any pop star worth their salt

wanted a piece of clubbing's cool.

The age of the club remix

was upon us.

And I miss you

Like the deserts miss the rain...

I think, in the '90s,

what basically happened

was people understood that

power of dance music.

And then you got a large amount of

records that were being released

where the remix was better

than the original version.

In 1996 Armand Van Helden was asked

to remix a song

by a kooky American songstress,

Tori Amos.

The result bore no relation to the

original whatsoever,

and took the idea of the remix

to a whole new planet.

I was given Tori Amos' Professional

Widow original with the parts.

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