Club Classics

At the beginning of the 1980s, many night clubs in major UK cities such as London played hip hop, electro and rare groove, and a few clubs laid northern soul. Late in the decade, the house music and rave scene dominated British dance culture. American house music hit the British charts in 1986, but British club DJs were often unwilling to play the music. Those who did, such as Colin Faver and Mike Pickering, found a hostile audience. Around that time, British DJs Paul Oakenfold, Nicky Holloway, Johnnie Walker and Danny Rampling, were vacationing in Ibiza, where an Italian DJ named Alfredo was spinning a variety of Italian disco, industrial music, soul and alternative rock tracks. When the DJs returned to the UK, they founded new clubs, such as Rampling's Shoom, Oakenfold's Spectrum and Holloway's The Trip. These clubs quickly became popular. In 1989, several promoters realized that space was too limited for clubs to contain all the people who wanted to attend, so they founded outdoor raves such as Sunrise and Energy.