The Virgin Encyclopedia of Dance Music

It started with Chicago House and Detroit Techno. From then on, dance music was -- along with rap -- one of the dominant forces in the music and youth culture of the 1980s. And the boom goes on. But in a way that has never happened before, the music has continued splintering off and re-inventing itself into a myriad of styles, each with its own heroes and folklore.

In an area rarely documented in any depth, The Virgin Encyclopedia of Dance Music is an essential companion for finding your way round all those key developments and their prime movers: the bands, the producers and the re-mixers.

The encyclopedia includes entries on performers who have often remained deliberately anonymous, on bands who have achieved the crossover to mainstream commercial success (Prodigy leading the way). There's the inner-city beat of Goldie, the studio wizardry of the Aphex Twins and the ambient sounds of the Orb, plus all the cutting-edge artists, from Carl Craig to Frankie Knuckles, and from Gaun Atkins to Kevin Saunderson.

Like all the Virgin music encyclopedias, the entries contain essential dates, key career facts, and a recommended discography -- including star ratings. Backed by the authority of The Encyclopedia of Popular Music, they form a genuinely unique and important source for all aspects of house, techno and ambient music.