Chill-out music

'''Chill-out''' (shortened as '''chill'''; also typeset as '''chillout''' or '''chill out''') is a loosely defined form of popular music characterized by slow tempos and relaxed moods.<ref name="Slate"/><ref name="dmm">{{cite book |title=Dance Music Manual: Tools, Toys, and Techniques |last=Snoman |first=Rick |year=2013 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=978-1136115745 |pages=88, 340–342 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=c_mm_hkmp_YC |access-date=17 May 2014}}</ref> The definition of "chill-out music" has evolved throughout the decades, and generally refers to anything that might be identified as a modern type of easy listening.

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. Ambient house became widely popular over the next decade before it declined due to market saturation.

==Origins and definition== {{listen |filename=Wickethewok_-_Deepecho.ogg |pos=left|title="Deepecho" (2008) |description=A free chill-out track produced by a Wikipedia editor. It runs at 95 BPM and is in the key of C minor.}}

There is no exact definition of chill-out music.<ref name="Slate"/>{{sfn|Snoman|2013|p=331}} The term, which has evolved throughout the decades, generally refers to anything that might be identified as a modern type of easy listening. Some of the genres associated with "chill" include downtempo, classical, dance, jazz, hip-hop, world, pop, lounge, and ambient.<ref name="Slate">{{cite web|last1=Rosen|first1=Jody|title=The Musical Genre That Will Save the World|url=http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/music_box/2005/06/the_musical_genre_that_will_save_the_world.html|website=Slate|date=June 7, 2005|author-link=Jody Rosen}}</ref> Chill-out typically has slow rhythms, sampling, a "trance-like nature", "drop-out beats", and a mixture of electronic instruments with acoustic instruments. 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."{{sfn|Snoman|2013|p=331}}

[[File:The Orb in performance (Walt Disney Concert Hall, 19-03-2006).jpg|thumb|The Orb performing in 2006]] The term originated from an area called "The White Room" at the Heaven nightclub in London in 1989.<ref name="Reynolds2012">{{cite book|last=Reynolds|first=Simon|author-link=Simon Reynolds|title=Energy Flash: A Journey Through Rave Music and Dance Culture|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=o5wGKnxoTAwC&pg=PA167|year=2012|publisher=Soft Skull Press|isbn=978-1-59376-477-7|page=167}}{{Dead link|date=September 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> Its DJs were Jimmy Cauty and Alex Paterson, later of the Orb.<ref name="PartridgeMoberg2017">{{cite book|last1=Partridge|first1=Christopher|last2=Moberg|first2=Marcus|title=The Bloomsbury Handbook of Religion and Popular Music|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HygPDgAAQBAJ&pg=PT429|year=2017|publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing|isbn=978-1-4742-3734-5|page=429}}</ref> They created ambient mixes from sources such as Brian Eno, Pink Floyd, Eagles (band), Mike Oldfield, 10cc, and War. The room's purpose was to allow dancers a chance to "chill out" from the more emphatic and fast-tempo music played usually in the discos. This also coincided with the short-lived fad of ambient house, also known as "New Age house". Cauty's KLF subsequently released an album called ''Chill Out'' (February 1990), featuring uncredited contributions from Paterson.<ref name="Reynolds2012"/> In addition, during the early 1990s, the Beach Boys' ''Smiley Smile'' (1967) was reputed as one of the best "chill-out" albums to listen to during an LSD comedown.<ref>{{cite book|last=Kent|first=Nick|author-link=Nick Kent|chapter=The Last Beach Movie Revisited: The Life of Brian Wilson|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bPMO0CtuBAsC|title=The Dark Stuff: Selected Writings on Rock Music|year=2009|publisher=Da Capo Press|isbn=978-0-7867-3074-2|page=44}}</ref>

Ambient house declined after the mid-1990s due to market saturation.{{sfn|Snoman|2013|p=330}} 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. They called their product "chill-out music", and it sparked a revived interest in ambient house from the public and record labels.{{sfn|Snoman|2013|p=330}} 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.<ref name="Slate"/> Consequently, the popular understanding of "chill-out music" shifted away from "ambient" into its own distinct genre.{{sfn|Snoman|2013|p=330}} Music critics to that point were generally dismissive of the music.<ref name="Slate"/>

==Streaming== Streaming became the dominant source of music industry revenue in 2016.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Rosenblatt |first1=Bill |title=In Music's New Era, Streaming Rules, But Human Factors Endure |url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/billrosenblatt/2018/04/08/in-the-new-era-for-music-streaming-rules-but-human-factors-endure/#2054714b5472 |website=Forbes |access-date=September 17, 2018 |date=April 8, 2018}}</ref> During that decade, Spotify engendered a trend that became known among the industry as "lean back listening", which refers to a listener who "thinks less about the artist or album they are seeking out, and instead connects with emotions, moods, and activities". As of 2017, the front page of the service's "browse" screen included many algorithmically-selected playlists with names such as "Chilled Folk", "Chill Hits", "Evening Chill", "Chilled R&B", "Indie Chillout", and "Chill Tracks".<ref name="pelly"/> In 2014, the service reported that throughout the year "Chill Out" playlists had trended much higher than the national average on campuses across Colorado, where marijuana had been legalized in January of that year.<ref>{{cite news|work=Spotify|title=Year in Music 2014|url=https://www.spotify-yearinmusic.com/us/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141218113458/https://www.spotify-yearinmusic.com/us/|archive-date=2014-12-18}}</ref> 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".<ref name="pelly">{{cite web |last1=Pelly |first1=Liz |title=The Problem with Muzak |url=https://thebaffler.com/salvos/the-problem-with-muzak-pelly |website=The Baffler |date=2017}}</ref>

== Associated terms ==

=== Chillwave === In 2009, a genre called "chillwave" was invented by the satirical blog Hipster Runoff for music that could already be described with existing labels such as dream pop.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://pitchfork.com/features/article/2010s-chillwave-best-coast-washed-out-neon-indian/|title=How Chillwave's Brief Moment in the Sun Cast a Long Shadow Over the 2010s|first=Larry|last=Fitzmaurice|website=Pitchfork|date=14 October 2019}}</ref><ref name="Schilling2015">{{cite web|last1=Schilling|first1=Dave|title=That Was a Thing: The Brief History of the Totally Made-Up Chillwave Music Genre|url=http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/that-was-a-thing-the-brief-history-of-the-totally-made-up-chillwave-music-genre/|date=April 8, 2015}}</ref> The pseudonymous author, known as "Carles", later explained that he was only "[throwing] a bunch of pretty silly names on a blog post and saw which one stuck."<ref name="Cheshire2011">{{cite web|last1=Cheshire|first1=Tom|title=Invent a new genre: Hipster Runoff's Carles explains 'chillwave'|url=https://www.wired.co.uk/article/invent-a-new-genre|website=The Wired|date=March 30, 2011}}</ref> Chillwave became one of the first genres to acquire an identity online,<ref>{{cite web|last1=Scherer|first1=James|title=Great artists steal: An interview with Neon Indian's Alan Palomo|url=http://smilepolitely.com/music/great_artists_steal_an_interview_with_neon_indians_alan_palomo/|website=Smile Politely|date=October 26, 2016}}</ref> 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''.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.vulture.com/2011/07/vultures_a_brief_history_of_ch.html|title=Vulture's Brief History of Chillwave|first=Bryan|last=Hood|website=Vulture|date=14 July 2011 }}</ref> In 2011, Carles said it was "ridiculous that any sort of press took it seriously" and that although the bands he spoke to "get annoyed" by the tag, "they understand that it's been a good thing. What about iTunes making it an official genre? It's now theoretically a marketable indie sound."<ref name="Cheshire2011" />

===Lofi hip hop{{anchor|Lo-fi hip hop}}=== {{Main article|Lofi hip-hop}}

In 2013, YouTube began allowing its users to host live streams, which resulted in a host of 24-hour "radio stations" dedicated to microgenres such as vaporwave,<ref name="DD18">{{cite web |last1=Alemoru |first1=Kemi |title=Inside YouTube's calming 'Lofi Hip Hop Radio to Relax/Study to' community |url=http://www.dazeddigital.com/music/article/40366/1/youtube-lo-fi-hip-hop-study-relax-24-7-livestream-scene |website=Dazed Digital |date=June 14, 2018}}</ref> a derivation of chillwave.<ref name="realgenre">{{cite web|last1=Coleman|first1=Jonny|date=May 1, 2015|title=Quiz: Is This A Real Genre|url=http://pitchfork.com/thepitch/756-quiz-is-this-a-real-genre/|website=Pitchfork}}</ref> Music streaming platform Spotify added to the popular "lo-fi beats" wave by generating "Spotified genres", including "Chill Hits", "Bedroom Pop" playlists, and promoting numerous "chill pop" artists.<ref name="Werner" /> In 2017, a form of downtempo music tagged as "chillhop" or "lo-fi hip hop" became popular among YouTube music streamers. By 2018, several of these channels had attracted millions of followers<ref name="Vice">{{cite web | url = https://www.vice.com/en/article/how-lofi-hip-hop-radio-to-relaxstudy-to-became-a-youtube-phenomenon/ | title = How 'Lofi Hip Hop Radio to Relax/Study to' Became a YouTube Phenomenon | last = Winkie | first = Luke | date = July 13, 2018 | website = Vice | access-date = September 13, 2018}}</ref> and Spotify's "Chill Hits" playlist had 5.4 million listeners.<ref name="Werner">{{Cite journal|last=Werner|first=Ann|date=2020-01-02|title=Organizing music, organizing gender: algorithmic culture and Spotify recommendations|journal=Popular Communication|volume=18|issue=1|pages=78–90|doi=10.1080/15405702.2020.1715980|issn=1540-5702|doi-access=free}}</ref>

== See also == {{div col|colwidth=30em}} * {{Annotated link |Balearic beat}} * ''Chillout Sessions'' * {{Annotated link |Criticism of Spotify}} * {{Annotated link |Groovera}} * {{Annotated link |Illbient}} * {{Annotated link |Mood music}} * {{Annotated link |Space music}} * {{Annotated link |Sirius XM Chill}} * {{Annotated link |Yacht rock}} * {{Annotated link |Smooth jazz}} * {{Annotated link |Soft rock}} * ''The White Room'' * {{Annotated link |Trip hop}} {{div col end}}

== References == {{Reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chill-Out Music}} Category:Chill-out music Category:20th-century music genres Category:21st-century music genres Category:Electronica Category:Easy listening music