If I was to point to a specific year where you could dance all night with a pack of shirtless sweaty gay boys tweaking their tits off to great House music but then go down to the local record shop and easily pick up a complete traditional album of the music you heard… 1996. These to me were THE four albums that year that epitomized this dying concept of the intelligent producer putting together not just your typical one hit dance floor single but an entire album built around a specific style of dance music and a gifted female vocalist. Every drag queen in existence has done a stage number around at least one of these songs which frankly is why I call it Gay House music.
First thing I remember that year was Brian Wayne Transeau which you might now know as the legendary BT who was just starting out at the time and had produced the album Billie Ray Martin ~ Deadline For My Memories The album came out around late 1995 but all the fabulous singles came out in 1996 when I heard it at Tracks in DC and picked it up.
Next up was Paul Oakenfold another legendary producer just starting out with Steve Osborne who created Grace ~ If I Could Fly which included several huge Perfecto dance floor hits on this hard to find album. Some of these tunes are still being remixed and updated to this day. If you happen to unearth this old album in some cutout used CD bin be sure to grab it and believe me you will not be disappointed by the raw talent represented here.
The Drag Queen’s best friend Kristine W ~ Land Of The Living goddess of big hair, big costumes, big voice, came out with her Mariah Carey inspired entry produced by the 90s dance floor hit maker Rollo who was from the well known duo Rollo & Sister Bliss. Kristine then proceeded to commit career suicide later on by pulling a Donna Summer and becoming a Holy Roller and denouncing her gays which is never a good idea. Since then she has swallowed her pride and tried to make a small come back to steal some more disco diva spotlight from the Kylie/Gaga crowd but who cares.
Last up is Everything But The Girl ~ Walking Wounded which the band created after having a huge single with Todd Terry remixing their song Missing off an earlier acoustic album “Amplified Heart” and then the vocalist worked with Massive Attack for another huge single “Protection” which was one of the best cuts off that album. This was not a huge hit for them unfortunately. They probably should have let Todd Terry produce the whole album but instead kept it in the band creating a rapid beat, sparse, more simplistic, electronic sound (We now call Drum n’ Bass) that did not catch on with the kids till much later on. This is prime material for rediscovery though.
Anyway, you will see me refer to these albums because they were such a major part of my experience with dance music and if you are interested be sure to check your local used CD shop or Amazon for these wonderful albums that can be grabbed for next to nothing. A couple of these albums can be found on iTunes even. There are earlier 90s pioneers I am not going over here like M People and Deee-Lite who probably deserve some love too but some other time.
Tags: Music
