Dance Mania

Chicago label, founded by Jesse Saunders in 1985. Started off as Dance Mania Records before later (in 1988) changing name to just Dance Mania and later still to Dance Mania Inc. Jesse conveyed Dance Mania in 1986 to Raymond Barney when he left for Los Angeles.

The label became known for raw, percussive tracks from the very beginning. Early hits included Lil’ Louis “Video Clash”, “How I Feel”, “War Games”, “7 Ways” by Hercules, and perhaps the most known classic, “Housenation” by The Housemaster Boyz in 1986. Ray’s own company, Barney’s Records, distributed many of the early Chi-labels, like G Strings, Chicago Underground, Warehouse Records (2), etc.

In the period of 1992-1993 Dance Mania began to release records from new the breed of Chicago artists, namely from the likes of: DJ Funk, Paul Johnson, Eric Martin, Traxmen, Parris Mitchell, DJ Deeon, DJ Milton and more. Label returned to it’s roots, to the dirty side of disco that was always very popular in Chicago. In few years it released around 200 records, making the matrix number rise close to “DM300”.