The Singles Jukebox

House Music is so omnipresent in today’s musical vernacular that it’s difficult to remember (or imagine) a time when it was a style of music so underground that there were no labels, no records to buy, no artists to follow and really only one place to go. It was simply what one heard at the Warehouse.  The tunes Frankie Knuckles was playing.

At first, it consisted mainly of the records he brought with him from New York to Chicago in 1977. The original, homegrown, largely gay and black NYC underground disco scene was at its apex of influence. In that same year Saturday Night Fever was released. As disco went from fantasy to fad, Knuckles had already begun to move on. The Chicago scene craved something different from the tracks loved by the New York bathhouse circuit. Harder. Faster. More electronic. More European. Funkier. Kinkier. Knuckles focused on more uptempo cuts with a heavy 4/4 footprint, booming bass and elements of Eurodisco. West Coast Hi-NRG, hard funk and NYC post-punk tracks were as likely to get thrown in the mix as Salsoul or Prelude 12-inches. It was about the beat, not about the scene. Frankie and his regulars at the Warehouse weren’t shocked or appalled by the Disco Demolition Derby. “As a matter of fact we thought Steve Dahl was hilarious.” Chicago was already well over disco. There just wasn’t a name for what was coming next.

When the output of domestic dance records started to dwindle in the early 80’s, FK started re-editing cuts, laboriously splicing them on reel-to-reel, then bringing them in to the Warehouse (and later the Power Plant, where he had even more control) and playing them for his clan. House mixes. House cuts.

Frankie Knuckles didn’t make the first House record – that would be Jesse Saunders, with the okay “On and On.” But he very quickly made some of the most timeless – tracks like “Your Love,” “Rain Falls” and “The Whistle Song” defy age and trend. But before he produced original tracks or collaborated with Jamie Principle on their legendary string of synthpop and house singles, he crafted a number of remixes based on his tape re-edits that connect the dots of early house. His read of “Let No Man Put Asunder” is a soulful late-disco stormer, and his edits of Italo hits by Jago, Kasso and My Mine highlight the influence of European dance records on the nascent scene (and FK’s ability to reinterpret them for his own community). We will discuss many other remixes and classic productions below. In considering what to write about, we went for the heart rather than the canon. If pop music is fickle, dance music is downright bitchy. Very few artists maintain the kind of flawless consistency in their production and remix work that Knuckles did. Almost none do so and also retain mass appeal.

Of course it would be absurd to contend that Frankie Knuckles was solely responsible for House Music. He would never have suggested that, and anyway the need for any kind of hagiography doesn’t exist. He was such a celebrated and acclaimed figure throughout most of his life that the work is already done.  The enormous amount of sadness one feels at his passing away so early can be tempered by the knowledge that he was loved and appreciated within his own time.

Perhaps that, in the end, was the secret behind Frankie Knuckles’ success, behind his benevolent mien and eternal, damnably-infectious smile.

We’re all happiest when we’re loved, when we’re dancing, when we’re free, in our own House.

Alfred Soto on “Waiting on My Angel“

Thanks to a few bars of high synth block chords, “Waiting on My Angel” has an afterhours melancholy that’s shown up two hours early, like the abrupt comedown after the E wears off. The sequencer holds it together. Atop this percolating mix is Jamie Principle’s affected vocal; he sings like he heard Heaven 17’s Glenn Gregory the night before last and thought it the greatest sound ever. Instead of distance, though, this tic makes it a more human performance.

Mallory O’Donnell on “Bad Boy“

“Bad Boy” is the kind of song that no one should have the good sense to be embarrassed by, not even its’ makers.  “Well you might call me a queer / well you might call me a freak / ewww whoa ahhh,” intones Jamie over a Hi-NRG fantasia beat that bubbles up like pink champagne. Everything conventionally masculine about House Music is cannily upended. Is it an indictment of gigolo-ism or a celebration of the same? Beep beep!

Kat Stevens on “Baby Wants to Ride“

Dancing has been a metaphor for (and simulation of) sex since approximately forever. The publicly acceptable face of intimate contact! Elizabeth Bennett and Mr Darcy did it in cotillons. Your parents did it in twists and bumps. Michael Flatley did it as a terrifying orgy of synchronised knees. “Baby Wants To Ride,” though? While it is absolutely about sex, uncomfortably so (I am embarrassed just typing the words into YouTube), I cannot see how you could dance to this in a socially-acceptable-yet-sexy way. You’d either be fucking right there on the dancefloor or end up on some sort of register. (Or more likely, I’m going to the wrong sort of club.)  Knuckles’ work is full of joyful flourishes, coaxing emotion from the robotic structure and using it as a firm base for hands-in-the-air gospel/soul acrobatics and warm disco bounce. But “Baby Wants To Ride” is eerie and sinister, a creepy voice in your head that’s only got one thing on its mind. There’s no subtlety here, just Jamie’s graphic moaning and gasping (and also yelling out “I WANT TO FUCK YOU!”). It’s incredibly intense, but if you’re going to be that direct about your intentions, why are you bothering to dance in the first place? Just go straight home and do the business (even then, perhaps not while listening to this — at 133bpm you’d give yourself a hernia trying to keep up). Thankfully this throbbing masterpiece has spawned plenty of PG-13 rated offspring to soundtrack the awkward emotional husks among us gingerly asking our prospective partners if they would like to ‘do-si-do.’

Mallory O’Donnell on “I Want a Dog (Frankie Knuckles Remix)“

As originally extrapolated, “I Want a Dog” is a slight, downright dotty synth track about loneliness and scratching that might occasion a titter or two amongst the PSB faithful.  While the boys’ own sense of humor has been avidly documented, Frankie subtly one-ups them here, treating their juvenilia in exactly the same way he would’ve handled any high-minded deep diva rumination about love or respect or time or whatever. That’s right, by crafting a meticulous, cavernous, uplifting mix with pianos dancing on the ceiling and some kind of distant yearning. Suddenly, sweet and jokish lines like “when I get back / to my small flat / I want to hear somebody bark” become acutely resonant. The Buddha smiles.

Tara Hillegeist on “Tears“

I don’t believe in God, if he’s not a god who can dance. And you can argue that Frankie Knuckles is the closest thing in the world to God to me, because he was all around me for years before I saw his handiwork for what it was. He taught me how to love my body again. House music and its descendents didn’t stop me from dropping out of college, but they made sure when I did, I did it mostly intact. The sleek, buttery pulse of house’s post-disco rhythms crooned me to sleep on days my antisocial neuroses kept me dorm-bound; I was spending so much time alone and inactive that all the energy built up inside and I couldn’t relax any other way. I came up in the era of DFA and Deee-Lite and spent what should have been semesters writing papers in college self-medicating my ADD and dysphoria and depression with Soulseek downloads–a third of which were house tracks. I grew up surrounded by East Coast hardcore punks — without a mosh pit I was adrift for my normal means of tension release and for a trans woman the whole thing about other kinds of stimulation was they were too much about the body to work. My soul needed to slip its mortal coil, not fear it. House music connected me with my history like time travel; Chi-town house culture wasn’t ball culture, but it was close enough to leave the borders porous — just the sound of it, the way tracks like “Tears” blurred between tonal flatness and fluting vocal skyscrapers, created a space that would be nothing if it wasn’t fluid, slippery and queer. It was sadness as celebration. Call it “house,” not “post-disco,” because it’s about location. It’s about filling a dark warehouse with light and laughter and love. One word could wash them away — one word could take their place. It’s not about fixing a world made of hurt, but making a new one, here, right now, where the hurts no longer matter. My body is light. My body is heaven. My body is the house of God. Oh death, where is your sting? Not here. This house is too busy drippin’ and droppin’ and drippin’ and droppin’ and drippin’ and droppin.’

Edward Okulicz on “Too Many Fish“

Frankie’s album with Adeva, Welcome to the Real World, was a bargain-bin staple by the time I’d worked out that I could squirrel away money I should have been spending on lunches and textbooks to buy second-hand records instead. I’d bought it on the strength of “Too Many Fish,” an underrated house-‘n’-b number which shows that trailblazers looking back over lands already conquered can sometimes be damned satisfying too. It fits into all sorts of great pop traditions — dance, R&B, soul, the anger, the hurt, and then the kiss off — and while it sounds every one of its 19 years in age, it wears the of-their-time cliches well. There’s cute tinkles, those much-loved drum presets that were retro a second after being laid down, house piano like an easter egg in the mix and some great songwriting from the pair, letting Adeva be sweet and strong and indignant. Frankie’s tiny spoken bit — “This woman must be out of her mind!” — is dorky and endearing, because for that minute, he’s like a director giving himself a cameo in his own film and not really fitting in to a narrative (here, about a woman who does not want to be some in some man’s life, or some man’s wife or have his child and is basically telling him he’s forgettable fluff). It feels endearing because he’s inserting himself slightly lamely just to set his featured vocalist up for a joyous Diva Moment of Empowerment before the final chorus. Not that the rest of the track doesn’t also nicely set that sort of thing up, but the magnanimity is cute.

Anthony Easton — Four Thoughts on “Rock With You (Frankie Knuckles Remix)“

1) I think that one of the things that an excellent DJ does is add or complicate the voice that already exists. It becomes a kind of synthesized marginalia.

2) When you have a voice as distinct as Jackson’s and one that has changed so much, maybe this marginalia can act as a kind of re-framing. Knuckles returns or restores, or if I was being cynical, originates the Jackson as conventionally heterosexually seductive. Which becomes an ironically queer act.

3) Knuckles is also a historian. Jackson was too weird to fully be a nostalgia act, but post-Thriller, for a wide variety of reasons, no one quite knew what to do with him. The strangeness and the scandal took over. In how this concentrates on the voice, that floats over that romantic, string and piano, construction, is an act of openness and generosity. It reminds the listener that Jackson had something to offer. That the original was before Thriller, at the end of the Disco era, it suggests a kind of narrative of African American dance music that was more seamless, an elegant line from Duke Ellington onward. At this point, Jackson was part of that tradition.

4) Released in 1995, when Jackson was at his most messianic (the paranoid, megalomaniac, military inspired, Riefenstahl quoting HiStory sessions), to have Knuckles push back and make something so discreet  and gentle, was an act of passive resistance. They worked together on this problem of memory, preserving what must remain, extending what is beneficial, helping forget what must be left.

Patrick St. Michel on “Happy (Frank-tified Remix)“

The Chicago House scene that Frankie Knuckles played a central role in nurturing functioned as an international melting pot of sound. Teddy Pendergrass crossed paths with Kraftwerk, Yellow Magic Orchestra rubbing elbows with Chaka Khan. This Midwestern-molded music then spread all over the world, a style built from global influences going out as something new, ready to be embraced by the same places that unknowingly shaped it. Knuckles achieved may wonderful things sonically and within the clubs he presided over, but one of his most impressive feats was helping forge something so wide reaching. In the mid ’90s, he remixed the song “Happy” by Japanese producer Towa Tei. An appropriate choice — Tei helped spread House even further, first as a member of Deee-Lite and then as a popular solo artist in his home country. His original take is breezy and in no hurry, a wonderful song in its own right that locates happiness in content. In his “Frankti-fied” take, though, Knuckles pushes for ecstasy. It’s always pushing forward, the Sunday-morning sweet talk Tei introduced turned angelic. It’s simpler than that — Knuckles builds a track to lose yourself in completely. And, as dance music inspired by what Knuckles did only grows larger and scenes pop up in the most remote places, it’s a reminder of just how borderless it is.

Will Adams on “Million Dollar Bill (Frankie Knuckles Remix)“

What do you do when you’re on the periphery of a musical legend recently passed away? Being a young kid interested in music means getting told what sort of music you should be interested in. Ya know, the Beatles, Dylan, Chili Peppers, U2, the classics, you don’t know those guys, seriously, how can you not know about them, you should listen to them. I listened, liked it all right, but couldn’t connect. I didn’t know if this was music I loved.

But I knew I loved dance music. I remember hearing “Together Again” on the radio when I was six. That uptempo 4×4 pulse, Janet’s pillow-soft vocals, the subtle pads in the background made me giddy. From then on, I became obsessed with dance music and dance remixes, the way producers could re-fit any song for the dance floor, providing that same bouncing energy. Practically, extended mixes allow DJs to more easily transition between songs by overlapping the dry beats. But they also allow the remixer to show off their talents. Extended mixes may hold secret treasures – an epic breakdown or a contrasting B-section – but mostly, extended mixes feature unabashed reeling in the music, letting the beats play forever. These sections are often excised for radio edits. That nearly a third of my iTunes library consists of extended dance remixes (some stretching past the ten minute mark) is all thanks to Frankie Knuckles. Though, like many pioneers, I am not versed in his catalog, I am no doubt aware of the contribution he made to house music, the extended mix, and remixes of pop songs.

His remix of Whitney Houston’s “Million Dollar Bill” is one of his later works, but it still sounds classic — in a way that the more maximalist Freemasons remix misses – letting Whitney belt it out unencumbered. A slight bump in the tempo accelerates the sleek original into something that asks you to put your hands in the air, rather than merely suggesting it. My favorite section is the coda beginning at 5:20, where the bassline holds still and the guitars begin to fade as Whitney repeats the chorus, as if she just can’t stop singing the praises of this man. I only selectively believe in something like Heaven; I’d like to think that Frankie and Whitney are up there, DJing the party.

David Turner on “Blind (Frankie Knuckles Remix)“

Idols don’t breathe, don’t exhaust and don’t fall down; they never leave the DJ booth. Andy Butler’s Hercules and Love Affair project exists to raise up people from the lush history of Dance music to these heights, but it’d be hard to imagine the group’s existence without Frankie Knuckles. “Blind” with Antony Hegarty was the single that brought Andy’s little group nearly unmatched critical acclaim. That Frankie Knuckles provided such a soft-touched remix of “Blind” couldn’t have been a greater compliment to Butler. All Frankie had to do was rethread the song’s seams — a bit more piano here, a splash of cosmic swirl there — only patching the work, to exemplify the skills of his progeny. People don’t need to be made into myths. Ones who receive those accolades just force humanity to widen its limited scope of itself. Frankie Knuckles found the space, allowed in the people, spun records and eventually recorded the tracks that let there be House. Thankfully for Andy and all of us, Frankie never thought so small.