Chill-out music

The term "chill-out music" – originally conflated with "ambient house" – came from an area called "The White Room" at the Heaven nightclub in London in 1989.

There, DJs played ambient mixes from sources such as Brian Eno and Pink Floyd to allow dancers a place to "chill out" from the faster-paced music of the main dance floor.

In the early 2000s, DJs in Ibiza's Café Del Mar began creating ambient house mixes that drew on jazz, classical, Hispanic, and New Age sources.

In the "Ambient/Chill Out" chapter of Rick Snoman's 2013 book Dance Music Manual, he writes, "it could be said that as long as the tempo remains below 120 BPM and it employs a laid-back groove, it could be classed as chill out.

[7] In the early 2000s, DJs in Ibiza's Café Del Mar began creating ambient house mixes that drew on jazz, classical, Hispanic, and New Age sources.

[7] The popularity of chill-out subsequently expanded to dedicated satellite radio channels, outdoor festivals, and the release of thousands of compilation albums offering ambient sounds and "muffled" beats.

[10] In an editorial piece for The Baffler titled "The Problem with Muzak", writer Liz Pelly criticized the "chill" playlists as "the purest distillation of [Spotify's] ambition to turn all music into emotional wallpaper".

"[13] Chillwave became one of the first genres to acquire an identity online,[14] although the term did not gain mainstream currency until early 2010, when it was the subject of serious, analytical articles by The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.