Periods of Eurobeat

[Rain197]

Hello everyone

I would like to create playlists periods by periods but I don't know for non-SEB albums

I thinked of :

Old days Eurobeat :
All That's Eurobeat
That's Eurobeat Classics
That's Eurobeat Now

Modern Eurobeat
Super Eurobeat 9 to 62

Delta join :
Super Eurobeat 64 to 139
All Maharaja Night Hi-NRG Revolution
All Eurobeat Flash

Lots of labels on SEB :
Super Eurobeat 141 to 186

Extendeds are back :
Super Eurobeat 187 to 218

The renewal :
Super Eurobeat 221 to now

Any ideas to improve, change ?

[Lebon14]

Old days of eurobeat is NOT eurobeat. It's italo-disco and italo-disco/nrg. So, those don't count. The series have "eurobeat" in their name but it's not actual eurobeat until A-Beat-C joins in in 1990 with SEB Vol. 9 on Avex. "Modern eurobeat" Vol. 9 to 62? Just no, lol. There is so many sound change in that period...

My take:

Transitional Italo-Euro era:
That's Eurobeat/Classics/Now
Avex SEB 1 to 8.
Beat Freak SEB

"Old Eurobeat" era:
>SEB Vol. 9 to 30
>Maharaja Hi-NRG Revolution Vol. 1 to 10
A-Beat-C starts it all; the actual eurobeat sound!
Time joins in the fun.

"Evolution and experimentation era of Eurobeat"
>SEB Vol. 31 to 62
>Maharaja Hi-NRG Revolution Vol. 11 to 24
Sound gets faster, melodies are getting crazier.

"First Para Para Boom era"
>SEB Vol. 63 to Vol. 100
>Maharaja Euro Fire 25-27
Delta joins in. SEB goes into radio edit format.
Both Initial D First Stage and Second Stage are introduced: eurobeat and para para boom.

"Golden Age and Second Para Para Boom"
>SEB Vol. 101 to Vol. 180
SCP and Hi-NRG Attack joins at Vol. 141.
Vibration joins from Vol. 141 to 149
Asia joins from Vol. 161 to 170
Bratt Sinclaire leaves Delta (~Vol. 161)
Go Go's Music joins SEB at Vol. 177.

"The decline"
SEB Vol. 181 to Vol. 200
Asia joins back at Vol. 186.
SinclaireStyle joins SEB at Vol. 186.
Dima joins SEB at Vol. 187.
Eurogrooves joins at Vol. 192
Time and A-Beat-C are slowly disappearing.

"The struggle"
SEB Vol. 201 to Vol. 220
A-Beat-C completely disappears at Vol. 205. SunFire joins at Vol. 206.
Eurogrooves stops making original eurobeat at Vol. 203. Completely disappears after Vol. 217 after some J-Euro and "Healing" remixes.
Asia seems to be struggling; send SEB some hard dance "eurobeat" remixes done under Speed Records.
SEB hiatus: 2012

"The Dark Age"
SEB Vol. 221 to today
Low SEB CD sales, fans slowly disappears. Very few experimentation. Doujin eurobeat gaining traction.
Avex hinders CDJapan from selling SEB after 2016 releases even though Amazon and HMV are still selling oversea.
Roberto Festari leaves Hi-NRG Attack after SEB Vol. 225. Starts a solo career.
Roberto Gabrielli and Roberto Festari come back together to Eurobeat at Delta; releases first song on SEB Vol. 241.
SunFire disappears after Vol. 242. Stated to be a disaster by Dave Rodgers.
And the story continues...

[Crockett]

http://avexmusicpublishing.com/en/news/ ... beat-music

Who hasn't heard about 80's Eurobeat ?

I can't see that Avex Trax denies the existence of "Eurobeat" in any period.

Eurobeat word was always used in Japan as overall term by next generations, except Disco, for british, french, italian dance music constantly since 80's.

Italo Disco was known on european domestic market mainly from 1982 to 1987.

Nobody invented "Eurobeat" as a fake name of CD series, but because they started consider this music as Eurobeat already in 1986 and totally from 1988.

Also there is no reason to divide these all transitions, experiments as closer or further to "actual" Eurobeat, because these transformations lasted about 10 years and it's definitely better to focus on what was changing exactly.

All speculations what means real "Eurobeat" may be break by simple facts.

[Rain197]

Thank you Lebon and Crockett.
The idea is to try creating playlists with songs that sound similar.
The idea came after a SCP Music playlist. It was a pleasure to listen to a lot of songs by the same producer.
The problem with a random play of the "entire" collection (excluding non-stop) is that the genre evolved so much and this make a random play not good.
And for that, we need to decide to separate them by small periods.

Lebon, your period SEB 101 to 179 is too extended. For me, I would cut it to SEB 139, then SEB 141 to 179

[Crockett]

I know that the target was to make a playlist so probably it's better to gather a group of producers among specified periods, either one of them and his discography, to obtain what you need.

Anyway I've prepared before another summary which is not personal taste introduction, and just the story straight from Japan.

1986 – 1991 The first wave of popularity.

The most varied hype period in Eurobeat, music influenced so called new wave, Italo Disco, Hi-NRG from UK and US.

There are no rigid rules regarding features of the sound.

All italian labels compete and all japanese publishers take their works.

Independent albums and Best Disco, Eurobeat Fantasy, That's Eurobeat, Beat Express compilations are representative.

Millions of records sold.

Countless hit songs, Eurobeat is the king of discotheques.

1990 – 1996 The second wave of popularity.

Eurobeat sound slowly unifies, evolves and gains fame.

Independent albums and That's Eurobeat, Eurobeat Box, Super Eurobeat compilations are representative.

Revival of the importance in clubs with help of dedicated Maharaja Night series.

Millions of records sold.

Regular tours of artists across Japan.

1997 – 2004 The third wave of popularity.

Eurobeat struggles and is fine. Avex Trax is looking for new places and audience. Initial D, Anime hype, ParaPara becomes the only way to dance this genre. Customization to japanese pop culture, music is also the soundtrack at sport events and so on.

Independent albums and Super Eurobeat, Eurobeat Flash compilations are representative.

Millions of records sold.

Regular tours of artists to Japan are continued.

In the meanwhile, step by step Avex Trax withdraws promotion from magazines and the internet channel.

Occasional mentions appear once for a while.

2005 - ...... The fourth wave, popularity or decline.

Eurobeat still struggles, however new priorities in the contemporary music business and the result of sale of more and more new but unknown artists, don’t let achieve the success and earn money. All promotion is focused on occasional DVD discs and in the booklets of releases.

Eurobeat spills to social media and is supported by artists themselves who talk in english.

Thus, thousands of former fans are cut off. International fans get attention, what strongly is related with interest of the young japanese generation life style.

[Anthony McBazooka]

Anyway I've prepared before another summary which is not personal taste introduction, and just the story straight from Japan.

You list is very adequate (well, I didn't expect anything else). These periods also all have major changes in the overall sound and arrangement style of the songs. 1986-1991 was pretty much a mixture of Italo Disco and Stock, Aitken, Waterman sound. 1990-1996 was faster and experimenting with new sounds that arrived in Eurodance (which also led to Hyper Techno with Bulldozer – Dance Got Sick in 1992). Also a strong influence from Heavy Metal came into the sound of Eurobeat being more aggressive and with more macho style male vocalists, as you can perfectly hear in the development of Dave Rodger's voice which began as a rather thin Italo Disco voice and got a very powerful rough tone during that period. 1997-2004 was when the typical Eurobeat sound finally prevailed as most people know it. After 2005 more and more other modern electronic music styles became influential like trance and house. Eurobeat became less rock-ish and more pop-ish overall. Especially with the return of Mauro Farina into the SEB series, a new style of Eurobeat has emerged.

I would just add another drastic change in 2013 after the one year pause of Super Eurobeat. The sound has become even more mainstream and tries to sound like other modern EDM styles even more than before.

[Crockett]

It's truth, since 1997 Eurobeat is the most unified and lasts with this sound until today.

Avex Trax in the summary linked above clearly stated that the current wave has begun in 2005.

For artists who devoted all career Eurobeat this is the most noticeable unfortunately.

Recent at least 12 years were filled too similar kind of sounds and being in the same place of career what in 2005, limited and frozen. Certainly negative.

Therefore what importance has counting the years and volumes of CDs ?

Some of producers were lucky and had outstanding ideas that gain renown and fame thanks to Eurobeat within only a few years, but never in 2000's.

It happens to many stars who although seem to be ambitious, or changed the profile of music, nevertheless they remain in the shadow of own former successes.

"Golden Age"

>SEB Vol. 101 to Vol. 180

All of artists who have met the huge audience of Eurobeat, experienced the tours and work with friends at big studios, and got profits from sale in 80's or 90's surely wouldn't call golden these decades of SEB.

Except that's your expressing of private standpoint as non-japanese fan. In this point anyway exaggerated like a fancy tale, far from reality.

[Bonkers]

I do like to wonder what it was like in the clubs when all these songs prior to me finding out about the series were coming out.

[Crockett]

I do like to wonder what it was like in the clubs when all these songs prior to me finding out about the series were coming out.

One assumption I dislike and disagree generally - has somebody allegedly planned that Eurobeat was evolving so long that become what is since 20 years ?

Those probably 200-300 different people, who every week visited dozens of clubs during the second wave of popularity, grew up there, have been deprived about 20 years ago a classic sort of Eurobeat. No matter how it's theoretical, this must be much more customers than 1000 declared fans overseas, or even 3000 persons in Japan nowadays.

Dance music which has gone from discos, it's dead or underground.

I just always feel dizzy reading that the most active periods of Eurobeat perfect to enjoy in freestyle on the dancefloor, are treated as an uncertain transition phase to some real, typical Eurobeat.

In fact uninterrupted combat between all big and small labels gave this genre the widest audience and interest as stunning varied music - in opposite to stable trend ongoing only in ParaPara, games, Anime soundtrack and thanks to mixing with modern EDM.