[8] Alfredo played an eclectic mix of dance music[7] with his style encompassing the indie hypno grooves of the Woodentops, the mystic rock of the Waterboys, early house, Europop and oddities from the likes of Peter Gabriel and Chris Rea.
[31] Returning to Ibiza during the summer of 1987, Oakenfold[32][33][34][35] rented a villa where he hosted a number of his DJ friends, including Danny Rampling, Johnny Walker,[36][37] and Nicky Holloway.
Fueled by their use of Ecstasy and an emerging fashion style based on baggy clothes and bright colors, these Ibiza veterans were responsible for propagating the Balearic subculture within the evolving UK rave scene.
Pitchfork traces back elements of Balearic beat music to the 1982 Indian album Disco Jazz, sung by Rupa Biswas and composed by Aashish Khan.
A mish mash of styles (soul, hip hop, reggae) all moulded over a rock solid beat met the 'anything goes as long as it's danceable' criteria—and more importantly, it allowed the world to rediscover a BPM below 122...These days in clubland, rap, house and soul freely rub shoulders with continental beats, alternative grooves, and a whole welter of diverse sounds constructed from an even more diverse set of influences.
An effective blanket ban on house/uptempo music in a club is silly, short-sighted, and narrow minded, and it won't take long for people to see it as such...What the 'Balearic concept' has taught us is that it doesn't matter what genre the track falls into, as long as the beat 'n' groove move the feet and what's on top of 'em is pleasing to the ear.Balearic beat records vary between house or Italo house and deep house influenced sounds and a slower R&B-influenced (under 119bpm) beat consisting of bass drum, snare and hi-hats (often produced with a Roland TR-909 drum machine) programmed in certain laid-back, swing-beat patterns; plus soul, Latin, African, funk and dub affectations; and production techniques borrowed from other styles of dance music that were popular at the time.
Today, due to stylistic segregation in electronic dance music, few promoters and DJs dare to stretch the spectrum of styles that far in fear of losing identity and clients.