It's a shame this isn't the top comment, because it's a lot more interesting than Ishkur's smartassery and all the across-the-pond sniping. There used to be a

It's a shame this isn't the top comment, because it's a lot more interesting than Ishkur's smartassery and all the across-the-pond sniping. There used to be a great website called Deep House Page which archived loads of Hot Mix 5 mixes, and you could really hear just how diverse that early era of post-disco dance music was, before it even got pigeonholed into "house" or "techno" and the myriad of subgenres that came since. Sadly the page has disappeared, and I'm not sure where to find the mixes now. Meanwhile, in parallel, people in other countries were experimenting with synthesizers and unconventional composition too. I remember finding mixtapes of an obscure Australian band called Hugo Klang (https://hugoklang.bandcamp.com/ https://hugoklang.bandcamp.com/) who were doing techno-y stuff with the 303 a few years before Phuture put together their seminal tune. Without a doubt the big names that everyone remembers as the progenitors were hugely influential. Already in the 90s people were writing articles that started out exactly like this one, so we're already a full generation into the myth. But it's still interesting to go digging and find all the other stuff that surely played a part in influencing all the other people whose stories never got written up.