New Beat Music | Discogs

New Beat Music Description

New Beat was a wave of electronic dance music specific to the Belgian club scene from around 1987 and into 1990, with its greatest popularity in 1988 and 1989. New Beat was often characterized by a relatively slow beat incorporating samples, synths and hypnotic bass lines. There's not a lot of "pure" New Beat music; it was always a fusion genre, constantly incorporating the sounds of other popular dance music of its era, including synth-pop, EBM/industrial dance, electro, house, acid house, and to a lesser extent, Detroit techno.

New Beat had a significant, reciprocal influence on the stabby, buzzy "rave" aesthetic in techno music. Influences from New Beat evolved into the foundation of trance music (e.g. Age of Love's "The Age of Love" and Revelation's "First Power"/"Synth-It"). New Beat faded into history as its artists increasingly converted to making higher-tempo music more strongly associated with techno or trance. In between of New Beat and Belgium Techno around 1989 there was Hard Beat, also named Skizzo but mostly used is the term Hard Beat for that transition sound of 1988 New Beat to 1990 Belgium Techno sound. (e.g. Boy Toy - Touch My Body and Nasty Thoughts - Rock The House)