{
  "slug": "balearic",
  "name": "Balearic",
  "aliases": [
    "balearic beat",
    "ibiza",
    "amnesia sound",
    "sunset"
  ],
  "description": "Not a sound so much as a permission: Alfredo Fiorito's sets at Amnesia in Ibiza put Italo, indie, dub, soft rock and African records in one night, and the British DJs who visited in 1987 took the idea home and started acid house with it.",
  "origin": {
    "place": "Ibiza, Spain",
    "year": 1987
  },
  "lineage": [
    {
      "genre": "disco",
      "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/disco/",
      "inherited": "The DJ's authority over an evening, and the twelve-inch as its unit. What Alfredo did was a Paradise Garage idea relocated to an open-air club with no obligation to a single genre."
    },
    {
      "genre": "italo-disco",
      "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/italo-disco/",
      "inherited": "The records themselves. Half of what filled those sets was Italian — cheap, melodic, synthetic and unfashionable everywhere else, which is precisely why Ibiza could claim it."
    }
  ],
  "bpm": {
    "min": 95,
    "max": 125
  },
  "updated": "2026-08-31",
  "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/balearic/",
  "trackCount": 7,
  "curatedBy": [],
  "playlists": {},
  "tracks": [
    {
      "rank": 1,
      "trackKey": "elkin-and-nelson--jibaro",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/elkin-and-nelson--jibaro/",
      "title": "Jibaro",
      "artist": "Elkin & Nelson",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/elkin-and-nelson/",
      "year": 1974,
      "label": null,
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Colombian brothers recording in Spain, rediscovered by Alfredo a decade later, and remixed for the London crowd in 1988. The definitive Balearic record precisely because nothing about it was meant for a club.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Elkin%20%26%20Nelson%20Jibaro",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=r9oh7nK7tkY",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 2,
      "trackKey": "joe-smooth--promised-land",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/joe-smooth--promised-land/",
      "title": "Promised Land",
      "artist": "Joe Smooth",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/joe-smooth/",
      "year": 1987,
      "label": "DJ International",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Chicago house as gospel, and the record that closed Ibiza nights and then Shoom nights. Utopian in a way house rarely permits itself.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Joe%20Smooth%20Promised%20Land",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=BJyD_TPeJAI",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 3,
      "trackKey": "sueno-latino--sueno-latino",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/sueno-latino--sueno-latino/",
      "title": "Sueño Latino",
      "artist": "Sueño Latino",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/sueno-latino/",
      "year": 1989,
      "label": "DFC",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Manuel Göttsching looped, birdsong added, nine minutes long, Italian. If one record explains what the island's DJs were doing, it is this one.",
      "alsoOn": [
        {
          "kind": "genre",
          "slug": "italo-disco",
          "name": "Italo Disco",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/italo-disco/"
        },
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "the-desk-the-hundred",
          "name": "The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/selection/the-desk-the-hundred/"
        }
      ],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Sue%C3%B1o%20Latino%20Sue%C3%B1o%20Latino",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=XuMCw_6DKPM",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 4,
      "trackKey": "woodentops--why-why-why",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/woodentops--why-why-why/",
      "title": "Why Why Why",
      "artist": "Woodentops",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/woodentops/",
      "year": 1988,
      "label": null,
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "An English indie band who found themselves adopted by a dance scene they knew nothing about. Balearic's willingness to take a guitar record on its merits, exactly as it stood.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Woodentops%20Why%20Why%20Why",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=d1bYfZUePYo",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 5,
      "trackKey": "nightmares-on-wax--sueno",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/nightmares-on-wax--sueno/",
      "title": "Sueño",
      "artist": "Nightmares on Wax",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/nightmares-on-wax/",
      "year": 1999,
      "label": "Warp",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "The style outliving the island — downtempo, warm, and built for the end of the night rather than the middle of it.",
      "alsoOn": [
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "twice-over",
          "name": "Twice Over",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/theme/twice-over/"
        },
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "warp",
          "name": "Warp",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/theme/warp/"
        }
      ],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Nightmares%20on%20Wax%20Sue%C3%B1o",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/search?q=Nightmares%20on%20Wax%20Sue%C3%B1o",
          "exact": false
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 6,
      "trackKey": "cosmic-baby--loops-of-infinity",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/cosmic-baby--loops-of-infinity/",
      "title": "Loops of Infinity",
      "artist": "Cosmic Baby",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/cosmic-baby/",
      "year": 1993,
      "label": null,
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "German, and the point where Balearic and trance briefly meet. Included because the category has always been defined by what a DJ can get away with.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Cosmic%20Baby%20Loops%20of%20Infinity",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=vyolu2eIN6Y",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 7,
      "trackKey": "nino-nardini--tirami-su",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/nino-nardini--tirami-su/",
      "title": "Tirami Su",
      "artist": "Nino Nardini",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/nino-nardini/",
      "year": 1976,
      "label": null,
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Library music, made to be sold to television by the yard, and rescued wholesale by the island's diggers. Nothing better illustrates the scene's indifference to provenance.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Nino%20Nardini%20Tirami%20Su",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/search?q=Nino%20Nardini%20Tirami%20Su",
          "exact": false
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}