ACID HOUSE

noun (Music) (Youth Culture) A style of popular music with a fast beat, a spare, mesmeric, synthesized sound, few (if any) vocals, and a distinctive gurgling bass; in the UK, a youth cult surrounding this music and associated in the public mind with smiley badges, drug-taking, and extremely large parties known as acid house parties. Sometimes abbreviated to acid (also written acieeed or aciiied, especially when used as a kind of interjection). Etymology: The word acid here is probably taken from the record Acid Trax by Phuture (in Chicago slang, acid burning is a term for stealing and this type of music relies heavily on sampling, or stealing from other tracks); a popular theory that it is a reference to the drug LSD is denied by its followers (but compare acid rock, a sixties psychedelic rock craze, which certainly was). House is an abbreviated form of Warehouse: see house. History and Usage: Acid house music originated in Chicago as an offshoot of house music in 1986; at first it was called 'washing machine', which aptly described the original sound. Imported to the UK in 1988, acid house started a youth cult during the summer of that year, and soon spawned its own set of behaviour and its own language. The craze for acid house parties, at venues kept secret until the very last moment, exercised police forces throughout the south of England, since they often involved trespass on private land and caused a public nuisance, although organizers claimed that they had been maligned in the popular press. I suppose that a lot of acid house music is guilty of...being completely cold and devoid of any human touch. Spin Oct. 1989, p. 18 Aciiied was a figment of the British imagination. Like British R&B in the Sixties, it was a creative misrecognition of a Black American pop. Melody Maker 23-30 Dec. 1989, p. 34 Acid House, whose emblem is a vapid, anonymous smile, is the simplest and gentlest of the Eighties' youth manifestations. Its dance music is rhythmic but non-aggressive (except in terms of decibels). Independent 3 Mar. 1990, p. 12 See also warehouse