New Beat
| New Beat | |
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| Stylistic origins | |
| Cultural origins |
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| Typical instruments | |
| Derivative forms | Rave |
| Subgenres | |
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| Fusion genres | |
| Italo dance | |
| Regional scenes | |
| Belgium | |
| Other topics | |
| Big beat | |
New Beat is an electronic dance music term that was used in the 1980s with two different meanings, one a collective term used in the U.S. for various electronic music styles, and the other a reference to the New Beat sound: a particular electronic music genre that flourished in Western Europe during the mid-1980s. New Beat is also used as a reference to the wider Belgian underground music scene and subculture during the 1980s.
The European new beat sound originated in Belgium in the late 1980s, especially in 1987 and 1988. It was an underground danceable music style, well known at clubs and discos in Western Europe. It is a crossover of electronic body music (EBM, which also developed in Belgium) with the nascent Chicago-originated acid and house music. New beat is the immediate precursor of hardcore electronic dance music (at the time known as rave), which developed in the neighboring Netherlands and elsewhere around 1990.
The genre was "accidentally invented" in the nightclub Ancienne Belgique (AB) in Antwerp when DJ Dikke Ronny (literally "Fat Ronny") played the 45 rpm EBM record "Flesh" by A Split-Second at 33 rpm, with the pitch control set to +8. In addition to A Split-Second, the genre was also heavily influenced by other industrial and EBM acts such as Front 242 and The Neon Judgement, as well as new wave and dark wave acts such as Fad Gadget, Gary Numan and Anne Clark. Mega-nightclubs such as the Boccaccio soon made the genre a major underground success.
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