Hi-NRG ("high energy")^[2] is a style of uptempo disco or electronic dance music that originated in the United States and United Kingdom during the late 1970s. The genre is characterized by such elements as a four-on-the-floor rhythm and reverberated vocals.^{[citation needed]}

Hi-NRG and electro-funk have influenced the evolution of house music since the late 1980s.^[2]

Terminology[link]

In 1977, Donna Summer was interviewed about her single "I Feel Love", which was a mostly electronic, relatively high-tempo disco song without a strong funk component. In the interview, she said "this song became a hit because it has a high-energy vibe".^[3] Following that interview, the description "high-energy" was increasingly applied to high-tempo disco music, especially songs dominated by electronic timbres.^{[citation needed]} The tempo threshold for high-energy disco was around 130 to 140 BPM. In the 1980s, the term "high-energy" was stylized as "Hi-NRG". Eurobeat, dance-pop, and freestyle artists like Shannon, Stock Aitken Waterman, Taylor Dayne, Freeez or Michael Sembello were also labeled as "Hi-NRG" when sold in the United States.^[4]

In the 1980s "Hi-NRG" referred not just to any high-tempo disco/dance music, but to a specific genre, only somewhat disco-like. Hi-NRG is, however, typified by an energetic, staccato, sequenced synthesizer sound of octave basslines or/and where the bass often takes the place of the hi-hat, alternating a more resonant note with a dampened note to signify the tempo of the record.^[5][6] There is also often heavy use of the clap sound found on drum machines.

Ian Levine, one of Hi-NRG's pioneering DJs & producers in the UK, defines Hi-NRG as "melodic, straightforward dance music that's not too funky."^[7] Music journalist Simon Reynolds adds "The nonfunkiness was crucial. Slamming rather than swinging, Hi-NRG's white European feel was accentuated by butt-bumping bass twangs at the end of each bar."^[7]

History[link]

	You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real) (sample) noicon Short sample of "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)", Hi-NRG song, originally released in 1978 by Sylvester.
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High-tempo disco music dates back to the mid-1970s. Early examples include several British disco songs by Biddu and Tina Charles in 1976.^[8][9] From 1979 to 1987, unlabeled high-tempo disco music was especially popular among LGBT communities in American coastal cities such as New York and San Francisco^{[citation needed]}. In particular, DJ/producer Patrick Cowley helped popularize this kind of music at the The EndUp club in San Francisco. The genre knew moderate mainstream popularity in Europe, despite being the icon of British and American LGBT communities around 1983-85, while opposing both eurodisco and electro on the dance scene. Examples of hi-energy disco acts include Claudja Barry, Miquel Brown, Amanda Lear, France Joli, Sylvester, Divine, and The Weather Girls.

During the same period, a form of Hi-NRG (EDM) became popular in Canada and UK. The most popular groups of this style are Trans-X and Lime. The genre is closely related to space disco. Bands include Koto, Laserdance and Cerrone. Hi-NRG sound also influenced techno and house music.^[2]

	Blue Monday (sample) noicon Short sample of "Blue Monday", electropop song featuring "Hi-NRG" bassline octaves, originally released in 1983 and in 1988 (remix) by New Order.
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

Commercial success[link]

In 1983 in the UK, music magazine Record Mirror began publishing a weekly Hi-NRG Chart. Hi-NRG entered the mainstream with hits in the UK and US pop and dance charts, such as Hazell Dean's "Searchin' (I Gotta Find a Man)" and Evelyn Thomas's "High Energy".^[10][11] In the mid-1980s, Hi-NRG producers in the dance and pop charts included Ian Levine and trio Stock Aitken Waterman, both of whom worked with many different artists. Stock Aitken Waterman had two of the most successful Hi-NRG singles ever with their productions of Dead or Alive's "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" (UK #1 & US #11 in 1985) and Bananarama's "Venus" (US #1 & UK #8 in 1986).^[12] They also brought the genre full circle, in a sense, by writing and producing Donna Summer's 1989 UK and US hit "This Time I Know It's For Real" (UK #3 and US #7).

American music magazine Dance Music Report published Hi-NRG charts and related industry news in the mid to late 1980s as the genre reached its peak.^[13] By 1990, however, house music and eurodance have superseded Hi-NRG in popularity in many danceclubs. Despite this, Hi-NRG music is still being produced and played in various forms, including many remixed versions of mainstream pop hits, some with re-recorded vocals. Later in the 1990s, Nu-NRG music, a fusion of Hi-NRG and trance, was born.^[14]

Artists[link]

See also[link]

• House music
  • Garage house
• Europop
• Rave music
• Acid house
• Italodisco
• Eurodisco
• Disco house

References[link]

External links[link]

• Dance Music Report's Hi-NRG Top 200 of the 1980s
• Hazell Dean interview on Hi-NRG, Record Mirror, August 1984

v t e Disco Subculture Nightclub • Roller disco • Hustle Subgenres Cosmic Disco • Disco polo • Disco-punk • Euro disco • Italo disco • Manila Sound • Nu-disco • Space disco Derivations Hi-NRG • Post-disco • House • Garage • Hip-hop • New Wave List of disco artists (A-E - F-K - L-R - S-Z) • Four-on-the-floor • Orchestration • Mix • Category

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Evelyn Thomas (born Ellen Lucille Thomas, August 1953) is an American singer from Chicago, Illinois, best known for the dance hits "High Energy", "Masquerade", "Standing At The Crossroads", "Reflections", and "WeakSpot".

Thomas has an entertainment incorporated company, called Eljopan Entertainment Incorporated.^[1]

Music career[link]

Although best known worldwide for her 1980s Hi-NRG club hits, Thomas recorded and performed in disco, jazz, and gospel music styles for a decade before her successful stint in the 1980s. Discovered by British producer Ian Levine, who was in the US in 1975 scouting for gospel and soul singers he could promote in the UK, the two recorded several tracks which resulted in a contract with 20th Century Records.^[2] Evelyn Thomas scored a chart hit with her first single, reaching the UK Top 30 in 1976 with the single "Weak Spot," co-written by Levine and Paul David Wilson . A follow-up single, "Doomsday", entered the UK charts twice but each time floundered in the lower reaches, and sticky contract issues complicated her newfound success^{[citation needed]}, though Levine and Thomas would continue their association for quite some time. She signed to US label Casablanca Records for her first album release I Wanna Make It On My Own, released 1978. With Casablanca doing little to promote the LP, she switched to AVI Records for the double A-side 12" single "Have a Little Faith in Me" / "No Time to Turn Around" which prompted the label to release it as an LP, backed with Rick Gianatos' extended remixes of her 1976 tracks "My Head's in the Stars" and "Love's Not Just an Illusion". For a follow-up, Evelyn Thomas re-recorded three tracks from an aborted project by Levine's group Moonstone, "Love in the First Degree", "Summer on the Beach" and "Sleaze" (originally entitled "Out of the Ball Game") but with the disco backlash in the US, the tracks were left unreleased, and Levine and Thomas' careers stalled as the 1980s began.^{[citation needed]}

High-NRG[link]

Although disco music had been declared "dead" in the US in a backlash in 1979, several songs which continued and advanced the exuberant surge of uptempo dance music managed to scale the US pop charts in the intervening years, notably Blondie's "Call Me" in 1980, Laura Branigan's "Gloria" in 1982, and Irene Cara's "Flashdance (What A Feeling)" in 1983. Unwilling to use the term "disco", the phrase "high energy" had come into usage, probably^{[citation needed]} begun in England in the early 1980s. By 1984 Ian Levine had re-established himself as a producer and asked Evelyn Thomas to come to London to record a new track "High Energy". Just few weeks after it was released, it zoomed up the charts all over Europe - peaking at No. 1 in Germany and No. 5 in the UK, selling a total of 7,000,000 copies^{[citation needed]} worldwide. In the US it hit No. 1 on the Hot Dance Club Play chart, selling 250,000 copies^{[citation needed]}. The song was her only Billboard Hot 100 entry, peaking at #85, although three additional songs hit the Billboard dance chart. However, Thomas never got paid for the song, although Ian Levine did.^[1]

By 1984, the phrase had become embraced as a term by DJs across Europe and in the States, particularly in gay clubs where DJs who preferred to play records that surpassed a certain BPM (Beats Per Minute) threshold found many mainstream hits lagging in tempo. Evolving around that time to the abbreviated "Hi-Energy," the term soon became further shortened to "Hi-NRG", and was still widely in use more than two decades later to describe a certain genre of uptempo dance music.

Later career[link]

The follow-up single "Masquerade" was taken from her third album High Energy, released the same year. While it received heavy rotation in European clubs, it failed to break into the UK Top 40. In the US the song was a top-twenty Dance hit. The following year, "Heartless" became her only single other than "High Energy" to chart outside of the Club/Dance charts in the United States. "Heartless" peaked at #84 on the Black Singles chart (later renamed the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks chart) in 1985.

Though she would not return to the US pop or R&B charts, US dancefloors continued to move to the fast beat of Evelyn Thomas. With a cover of the Supremes' 1967 hit "Reflections", updated in her Hi-NRG style, Thomas peaked at #18 on the Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart in 1986, the same year in which Kim Wilde had a similarly styled hit with the Supremes' "You Keep Me Hangin' On". A second Thomas release that summer fared even better on those charts, as "How Many Hearts" narrowly missed the top 10. The two songs would later appear on Thomas' fourth album release, Standing at the Crossroads, in 1987. In late 1987, the single "No Win Situation" shot to #1 on the now defunct UK Hi-NRG chart. After the singles "Only Once in a Lifetime" (1988) and "This Is Madness" (1989), both on Levine's Nightmare Records label, Thomas withdrew from the music business.^{[citation needed]}

In spring 1997, Redemption featuring Evelyn Thomas had a minor US club hit with the track "Tell The World".

Comeback in the 2000s[link]

A new remix of her largest hit was released in 2004 as "High Energy 2004" and became a worldwide gay club hit.^{[citation needed]} The remix was released on Dance Street/ZYX Records out of Germany in early 2005. The remix secured moderate radio and club play Stateside. This song was then ripped off by Daz Sampson in 2005 who tried to get it released in the UK before the Germans could release their remix.^{[citation needed]}

In May 2008, Evelyn Thomas took part in the major RTL Disco Tour, performing in 15 cities throughout France. While in Europe, Thomas completed several new recordings in different countries with the aim of making a comeback. She has teamed up with Ian Levine for the first time in 20 years, recording the tracks "Pounding the Pavement", "One in a Million" and "I Can't Give You the World". She has recorded four tracks, "Stick to the Plan", "Missing the Target", "Infidelity" and the ballad "Why Must the Sunrise" for a diva album called The Plan for Night Dance Records, produced by Scandinavian songwriter Soren Jensen in collaboration with Clive Scott, formerly of Jigsaw. Thomas has also teamed up with French team Evolusound for a single release, "Prove It", written and produced by Frank Savannah and remixed by Laurent Schark.

In 2009, Thomas released a duet with Carol Jiani, "Are You Man Enough", produced by the Australian team of Peter Wilson and Chris Richards aka T1 Productions.^{[citation needed]}

Discography[link]

Albums[link]

• I Wanna Make It On My Own (Casablanca Records NBLP 7107, 1978)
  1. "I Wanna Make It on My Own"
  2. "It's the Magic of Your Touch"
  3. "Look No Further"
  4. "Thanks for Being There"
  5. "Back to Reality"
• Have a Little Faith in Me (AVI Records AVI-6069, 1979)
  1. "Have a Little Faith in Me"
  2. "No Time to Turn Around"
  3. "My Head's in the Stars"
  4. "Love's Not Just an Illusion"
• High Energy (Record Shack SOHOLP-4, 1984)
  1. "Masquerade"
  2. "Heartless"
  3. "Running Wild in the Night"
  4. "High Energy"
  5. "Second Best"
  6. "Chalk It Up to Experience"
  7. "Shy Guy"
• Standing at the Crossroads (Record Shack SOHOLP-10, 1986)
  1. "Standing at the Crossroads"
  2. "How Many Hearts"
  3. "Cold Shoulder"
  4. "Sorry Wrong Number"
  5. "Reflections (Suite)"
  6. "Number One Lover"
  7. "Tightrope"
  8. "Reflections"

Compilations[link]

• The Best of Evelyn Thomas Hot Productions 1991
• High Energy: The Best of Evelyn Thomas Hallmark 2000

Singles[link]

• "Weak Spot" (20th Century, 1976)
• "Doomsday" (20th Century, 1976)
• "Love's Not Just an Illusion" (20th Century, 1976)
• "My Head's in the Stars" (20th Century, 1977)
• "Thanks for Being There" (Casablanca UK, 1978)
• "Have A Little Faith In Me" / "No Time to Turn Around"(AVI, 1979)
• "High Energy" (#1 US Dance, #5 UK) (Record Shack, 1984)
• "Masquerade" (Record Shack, 1984)
• "Heartless" (Record Shack, 1984)
• "Sorry Wrong Number" (Record Shack, 1985)
• "Reflections" (Record Shack, 1985)
• "How Many Hearts" (Record Shack, 1986)
• "Cold Shoulder" (Record Shack, 1986)
• "Tightrope" (Nightmare, 1987)
• "Standing at the Crossroads" (Nightmare, 1987)
• "No Win Situation" (Nightmare, 1987)
• "High Voltage" (Paris International, 1987)
• "Only Once in a Lifetime" (Nightmare, 1988)
• "This Is Madness" (Nightmare, 1989)
• "Move Your Body" (1993)
• "Tell the World" (1997)
• "High Energy 2004" (2004)
• "Stick to the Plan" (Night Dance Records, 2008)
• "Prove It"
• "Are You Man Enough" (duet with Carol Jiani)

See also[link]

• List of artists who reached number one on the US Dance chart

References[link]

External links[link]

• Bio and discography on Rateyourmusic