The Future Of Dance Music

[Drew]

What is the future of Dance music in the US? Will it continue to dominate the Pop charts, or will it fade into obscurity like Disco did back in the 80's?

[♛ The Manticore ☯]

Dance music today is very different from disco's of the 70's. I never liked 70's disco. I got into dance music in the 80's starting with chicago house & detroit techno as well as latin freestyle, new wave, synthpop, etc.

The beauty of dance music is that its limitless and sounds are always evolving and changing each generation. There's always different types of dance sound by different bands, artists, etc. There were the Human League, The Cure, Berlin sound, the Depeche Mode, New Order, Erasure sound, The Stevie B, George Lamond, Shannon sound, The Paula Abdul, Taylor Dayne sound, The Technotronic, Snap!, Blackbox sound, The Real McCoy, La Bouche, Corona sound, The Ian van Dahl, Lasgo, Darude sound, and so on and so forth.

I will say though that dance music faded away around 2003 and thats when dance music of different sub genres was going through a lot of changes with the sound. Ask anyone of when was the best time of trance music and they'll say around late 90's-early 2000's. Ask anyone when was the best time of eurodance and they'll say around the mid 90's.

The term that I've been hearing recently is "uptempo" music instead of dance music. While its nice to see whats happening now in pop radio, I just hope it doesn't get burned quickly since there are some pop and R&B artist doing dancepop and uptempo sound in which it has the same type of electro house beat patteren. By overdoing the same beat patteren with no innovation is not a good thing in the long run. The more variety of dance sound today, the better just like it was back in the 80's, 90's and early 2000s.

The problem that still exist today is foreign dance song still not getting the recognition and certain ones that are not having an adds date. Look what happened to "Stereo love" by Edward Maya & Vika Jigulina. Didn't have an adds date, was spunned the wrong time (some radio stations spinning too early and some spinning way too late after it peaked in the CHR/POP mediabase chart) and got around by word of mouth. Despite the obstacles, it still manage to do well and became a top 15 U.S. hit. If it had a fair chance like Rihanna, Britney, etc. the song would've been a top 10 mabye top 5.

Right now Afrojack's "Take over control" is getting some recognition thanks to one of Afrojack's production of Pitbull's "Give me everything" which became number one on the Hot 100 as well as number one on pop radio. And I think Alexandra Stan's "Mr. Saxobeat" will follow suit shortly.

[musicfanpete]

Jul 7, 2011 11:20:48 GMT -5 ♛ The Manticore ☯ said:

Dance music today is very different from disco's of the 70's. I never liked 70's disco. I got into dance music in the 80's starting with chicago house & detroit techno as well as latin freestyle, new wave, synthpop, etc.

The beauty of dance music is that its limitless and sounds are always evolving and changing each generation. There's always different types of dance sound by different bands, artists, etc. There were the Human League, The Cure, Berlin sound, the Depeche Mode, New Order, Erasure sound, The Stevie B, George Lamond, Shannon sound, The Paula Abdul, Taylor Dayne sound, The Technotronic, Snap!, Blackbox sound, The Real McCoy, La Bouche, Corona sound, The Ian van Dahl, Lasgo, Darude sound, and so on and so forth.

I will say though that dance music faded away around 2003 and thats when dance music of different sub genres was going through a lot of changes with the sound. Ask anyone of when was the best time of trance music and they'll say around late 90's-early 2000's. Ask anyone when was the best time of eurodance and they'll say around the mid 90's.

The term that I've been hearing recently is "uptempo" music instead of dance music. While its nice to see whats happening now in pop radio, I just hope it doesn't get burned quickly since there are some pop and R&B artist doing dancepop and uptempo sound in which it has the same type of electro house beat patteren. By overdoing the same beat patteren with no innovation is not a good thing in the long run. The more variety of dance sound today, the better just like it was back in the 80's, 90's and early 2000s.

The problem that still exist today is foreign dance song still not getting the recognition and certain ones that are not having an adds date. Look what happened to "Stereo love" by Edward Maya & Vika Jigulina. Didn't have an adds date, was spunned the wrong time (some radio stations spinning too early and some spinning way too late after it peaked in the CHR/POP mediabase chart) and got around by word of mouth. Despite the obstacles, it still manage to do well and became a top 15 U.S. hit. If it had a fair chance like Rihanna, Britney, etc. the song would've been a top 10 mabye top 5.

Right now Afrojack's "Take over control" is getting some recognition thanks to one of Afrojack's production of Pitbull's "Give me everything" which became number one on the Hot 100 as well as number one on pop radio. And I think Alexandra Stan's "Mr. Saxobeat" will follow suit shortly.

Regarding "Stereo Love", it should finish fairly high on the year-end charts as it did hang around quite awhile due to those stations who got on the song late. It's also getting some decent recurrent airplay, especially in the larger markets like Chicago and New York.

[🅳🅸🆂🅲🅾]

I see the Dance-oriented sound fading out for a bit here in terms of the mainstream and then gradually coming back somewhere down the line. A backlash is looming. It's absolutely horrific that there are over half a dozen songs with the same sort of synthy type intro or even overall production getting play on radio almost simultaneously ("Tik Tok", "We R Who We R", "California Gurls", "Dynamite", "The DJ Got Us Falling In Love Again", "Party Rock Anthem", etc.). At times, it's hard to tell when one ended and another started since they are often played one right after the other.

I was okay with the Dance influences in mainstream artists' music as I am a big fan of the genre and it should have some sort of representation in the U.S. as it has in the rest of the world, but I really wished that actual Dance acts of good quality like Robyn, Kylie Minogue, Nadia Ali, September, Sam Sparro, Kaskade, Bob Sinclar, etc. would have gotten more acceptance on Pop. There's the handful of crossovers every year, but more often than not, those acts never ever have another mainstream hit in the U.S. again (look at D.H.T., Dirty Vegas, DJ Sammy & Yanou, ATC, Alice Deejay, iiO, Sonique, Eiffel 65, Gigi D'Agostino, etc.).

I do realize that part of the problem in with breaking some Dance artists here is that many of the acts are on smaller labels that have limited finances and cannot afford the promotion that the major labels can. Very few of the big labels even give a chance to Dance acts nowadays, especially with the U.S. financial/economical outlook being so uncertain. They are looking to go with more 'safe' artist signings because they don't want to lose money. Going as far back as 25 to 30 years back, the Arista label used to sign Dance artists--okay, not a lot of them, but enough of them. They had Taylor Dayne, Exposé, Alison Limerick, Shawn Christopher, SNAP!, Ace Of Base, Qkumba Zoo, No Mercy, Real McCoy, Gigi D'Agostino, to name a few. Of Taylor Dayne, Exposé, and Ace Of Base are the bigger success stories of the ones I mentioned. None of them are signed to a major label in the U.S. now. I also acknowledge that this was during a different time that may never come again. I do not consider Britney, Lady Gaga, and Rihanna to be Dance acts on major labels right now because I seem them changing their sound eventually if and when the reception towards the ubiquitous Dance sound is less positive.

And in a post-"disco sucks" U.S., there will always be that resistance to Dance music becoming truly accepted alongside other genres such as Pop, R&B, Rock, Rap, Hip Hop, Alternative, etc. Dance music has almost always been widely represented outside the U.S., particularly in Europe. It isn't seen as some foreign genre.

[musicfanpete]

Aug 21, 2011 16:00:41 GMT -5 🅳🅸🆂🅲🅾 said:

I see the Dance-oriented sound fading out for a bit here in terms of the mainstream and then gradually coming back somewhere down the line. A backlash is looming. It's absolutely horrific that there are over half a dozen songs with the same sort of synthy type intro or even overall production getting play on radio almost simultaneously ("Tik Tok", "We R Who We R", "California Gurls", "Dynamite", "The DJ Got Us Falling In Love Again", "Party Rock Anthem", etc.). At times, it's hard to tell when one ended and another started since they are often played one right after the other.

I was okay with the Dance influences in mainstream artists' music as I am a big fan of the genre and it should have some sort of representation in the U.S. as it has in the rest of the world, but I really wished that actual Dance acts of good quality like Robyn, Kylie Minogue, Nadia Ali, September, Sam Sparro, Kaskade, Bob Sinclar, etc. would have gotten more acceptance on Pop. There's the handful of crossovers every year, but more often than not, those acts never ever have another mainstream hit in the U.S. again (look at D.H.T., Dirty Vegas, DJ Sammy & Yanou, ATC, Alice Deejay, iiO, Sonique, Eiffel 65, Gigi D'Agostino, etc.).

I do realize that part of the problem in with breaking some Dance artists here is that many of the acts are on smaller labels that have limited finances and cannot afford the promotion that the major labels can. Very few of the big labels even give a chance to Dance acts nowadays, especially with the U.S. financial/economical outlook being so uncertain. They are looking to go with more 'safe' artist signings because they don't want to lose money. Going as far back as 25 to 30 years back, the Arista label used to sign Dance artists--okay, not a lot of them, but enough of them. They had Taylor Dayne, Exposé, Alison Limerick, Shawn Christopher, SNAP!, Ace Of Base, Qkumba Zoo, No Mercy, Real McCoy, Gigi D'Agostino, to name a few. Of Taylor Dayne, Exposé, and Ace Of Base are the bigger success stories of the ones I mentioned. None of them are signed to a major label in the U.S. now. I also acknowledge that this was during a different time that may never come again. I do not consider Britney, Lady Gaga, and Rihanna to be Dance acts on major labels right now because I seem them changing their sound eventually if and when the reception towards the ubiquitous Dance sound is less positive.

And in a post-"disco sucks" U.S., there will always be that resistance to Dance music becoming truly accepted alongside other genres such as Pop, R&B, Rock, Rap, Hip Hop, Alternative, etc. Dance music has almost always been widely represented outside the U.S., particularly in Europe. It isn't seen as some foreign genre.

I think the dance sound will stay for awhile, but like you said Disco Cowboy, if it's overexposed that will kill it off for awhile, as has been done to many other genres of music over the course of contemporary music history. Hopefully there is such a thing as balance that will allow certain types of music at least an outlet for the occasional hit from whatever genre of music is "out" at the moment. Maybe the Hot AC format has turned into that outlet with it's more traditional sounding CHR like balance as of late.