Wikipedia - Is House Music Derived From Garage?

An e-mail from Sam:

Seems to be some sort of editing war going on on Wikipedia, with one editor insisting that modern day House Music is derivative of Garage Music (without backing this up with any reliable links I might add!) and another insisting it isn't. Do you know the answer, oh '80s Guru?

LOL, Sam! Had a similar query a week or two back, but I'll address the question again - just for you! Wikipedia has many great folks involved with it but it is not, at the end of the day, a dependable source of information because anybody can edit anything and edit wars do take place! No, house music is not derivative of garage music. None of my 1980s/1990s literature on the subject mentions such a link. The two forms of '80s dance music are related as they were developing at the same time, but separately.  I believe New York garage slightly pre-dated Chicago house, but house broke through into the mainstream much earlier. The Channel 4 documentary Pump Up The Volume, which contains many interviews with original house music pioneers, describes 1983 as "Year Zero" for the genre. It was hitting the mainstream pop charts here in England from 1986 onwards. Garage was something I heard more of in the 1990s. I'm not sure about modern day house, but garage should certainly not be listed in the "stylistic origins" section for house on Wikipedia. That is potty.

I'm amazed that sources like the BBC link so readily to Wikipedia. It is worrying. Wikipedia is a great idea, but needs closer monitoring. It is one of the biggest purveyors of misinformation around - and that's a great shame.

House Music And Garage Music... Separate, Not The Same...

Joanne has written:

Were the dance music genres of the 1980s, House and Garage the same thing? I remember as a kid them being referred to separately, but I recently read of something called "Garage House" on a not very accurate site, and thought I'd turn to you for the answer!

Yes, they were separate, Joanne. House music as a distinct genre of electronic dance music began in Chicago - 1983 was described as "Year Zero" for house in the Channel 4 documentary, Pump Up The Volume. House, of course, hit the mainstream in the mid-1980s. Garage I knew little of until the 1990s, when I heard talk of "house and garage". There was also talk of something called "shed" at that time. It all seemed quite witty, but I was married by then and no longer part of the nightclub scene so know little about Garage. It apparently began in the early 1980s in New York and New Jersey, USA, and was influenced by the same sudden explosion of electronic instruments - synthesizers, drum machines, etc - as house.

The origins of the two genres are separate though.