I
Balearic dance music

Under the influence of the Hi-NRG music made in countries like France and Germany and the Italo disco from Italy Spain came up with it’s own kind of popular dance music. Balearic Beat or Balearic House was an eclectic blend of DJed dance music that emerged in the mid-eighties. A key role in the development of Balearic beat was the nightclub Amnesia on the island of Ibiza. Being a hippie and counter culture hang out in the seventies it changed into a dance club at the start of the eighties picking up on the Italo and Hi NRG styles from other European countries. An act like Righeira had international success.

It was the British however that made the Balearic scene internationally big. In 1987 Paul Oakenfold and Danny Rampling - discovered the Amnesia scene and brought it back to the UK, where US-influenced house music was just taking off. Thus began the rise of the superstar DJ, and nowadays it is the non Spanish DJs more than the venues themselves that draw in the crowds. Oakenfold and Rampling are still two of the major players who return to Ibiza every summer.

It later became the name of a more specific style of house music that was namely popular in the mid-nineties. The ‘Ibiza’ compilation albums are numerous namely due to the UK interest in the island’s house scene. The Balearic house scene also has it’s chill-out segment namely pushed by Spanish DJ José Padilla and his Café del Mar compilations.

Footnotes: Brewster, Bill & Broughton, Frank (2006-05-22), Last Night A DJ Saved My Life: The history of the disc jockey