How the Swedes rebuilt French House out of the 80s

French House was a Parisian story between 1995 and 2000, built on Roulé, Crydamoure and filtered loops taken from 70s disco and funk records, and by the turn of the decade most of the people who made it had moved on to something else. Stockholm didn't start the sound until 2002, which meant the Swedes were never part of a scene. They were working from records, picking up something whose originators had already left, with nothing much to be faithful to.

The Swedes in question are Steve Angello, Sebastian Ingrosso, Axwell and Eric Prydz, three of whom ended up in Swedish House Mafia and all of whom spent the first half of the decade making filtered loop house, years after Paris had finished with it.

Different decade

The first thing they changed is where the samples came from. Paris looped 70s disco, and Stockholm looped 80s synth pop.

"Call On Me" takes Steve Winwood's "Valerie" from 1987. Supermode's "Tell Me Why" is the only release Angello and Axwell ever put out under that name. It takes its music from Bronski Beat's "Smalltown Boy" and its chorus from "Why?" which are both from 1984. Axwell's "Feel The Vibe" takes its drums from Luther Vandross's "She's A Super Lady" from 1982, and Mohito's "Slip Away" is Howard Jones from 1984 and Angello is on the main mix.

Hear it

Steve Winwood - Valerie (1987 remix)

Eric Prydz - Call On Me

Bronski Beat - Smalltown Boy

Supermode - Tell Me Why

Luther Vandross - She's A Super Lady (listen to the drums, not the hook)

Axwell - Feel The Vibe

Howard Jones - Like To Get To Know You Well

Mohito - Slip Away

80s source material is colder and more synthetic than 70s disco, and it tends to arrive with an enormous vocal hook already attached, which is how a genre built on anonymous white labels ended up producing chart singles. "Call On Me" went to number one, and it was the lowest selling number one single in the UK that year, because the charts weren't counting downloads yet. "Tell Me Why" went to thirteen.

The same six people

The other thing about the Swedish records is how few people actually made them.

Angello and Ingrosso released as General Moders, Outfunk, Buy Now, The Sinners, Fireflies and Mode Hookers, Prydz and Andreas Postl were Dukes of Sluca and got remixed by Ingrosso, Axwell remixed "Slammin'", Henrik B remixed "Call On Me", and Angello opened Size in 2003 with the Simplicity EP before putting General Moders out as its tenth release the following year.

There's an Englishman sitting in the middle of it as well. Hal Ritson played the replay on "Call On Me", reconstructed the vocals on "Tell Me Why", and is one half of Mohito. Clearing 80s pop was expensive, so a lot of it got quietly rebuilt from scratch instead, and he did a fair amount of the rebuilding.

Where it went

The sound didn't disappear so much as get absorbed, it merged into electro and progressive house, Prydz stretched the structures out past seven minutes, and somewhere along the way the samples stopped turning up at all.