Is dance music dead? (Discuss.)

[Johnny Vodka]

Was reading review of new Chemical Brothers album on The Guardian website and the writer points out the failure of recent dance records by previously big acts (Prodigy, Fatboy Slim). Is he talking a load of balls, or is he right? Seems to me there's still plenty of decent dance/electronic music out there, some mainstream, some not so... Maybe we're all supposedly listening to Snow Patrol? :thinking:

[KRW]

Are dance fans more likely to download and burn copies of albums and stick them on their ipod things? I dunno....

[Johnny Vodka]

Hmm, maybe just a journo making a wild claim - give it a year and the guitar will be dead (for a bit). Depends also what they mean by dead - people are certainly still making it & (I assume) still going to clubs. Maybe he's talking about sales and focusing solely on albums by those big acts. When you think about it, most rock acts started 10-15 years ago will also be flagging.

[LouBarlow]

I wouldn't really call acts like those mentioned 'dance acts' anyway tbh - they share more in common with rock artists.

'Proper' dance music has always, and will always, remain underground imho...

[Mr Majestik]

There never was a generation of bands after the Chemical Brothers/Underworld/Orbital ect to take the music forward for some reason. Although the green shoots are begining to sprout again with the likes of Mylo and LCD Soundsystem.

Dance culture itself has been rung dry by the likes of Ministry of sound churning out all those crap compilation CD's and selling naff tunes off the back of having some fit birds in the video.

It'll come back round again when the kids get fed up with Keane. (Please God.)

[Johnny Vodka]

Although the green shoots are begining to sprout again with the likes of Mylo and LCD Soundsystem.



That's what I thought + Miss Kittin + Adam Freeland.

[Wezzy]

No way!
There's lots of great dance music about, in fact I think it's gone back to being classy again. Certainly in the clubs I go to (which, by the way, are doing a roaring trade) I'm always pestering DJs about tunes & coming away with half a dozen new records to seek out (& it's not the drugs!).
I'm more excited about the dance music scene than I have been in ages & I grew up with disco.
Hate labels but I believe most of the records I like fall under "funky house".
Currently buzzing about Axwell "Feel the Vibe", Ethan "In my Heart", Soul Avengers "Enjoy yourself" & that Defected "Drama" track - wow what a tune!
Quietly, there were a few really big dance successes last year: Shapeshifters (a real back-to-basics dance tune), Stonebridge & Eric Prydz (love it or hate it, it was popular).
Labels like Defected, Azuli, & Subliminal just pump out quality tune after tune & Positiva & Data are on a roll at the moment. Hed Kandi seem to have perfected the art of putting out quality dance compilations (forget the MoS Clubber's Guide & Annual - they're tired) & are making money doing it!
Loving the emergence of Mylo, he's making the dance remix of a rock track exciting again, as is Jacques Le Cont.
Those that think it's dead either aren't looking hard enough or are misguided in their definition of dance music, I think.

[Barney_Tabasco]

It has gone back underground though hasn't it. It had a good run though - i cannot remember any other genre of music having such a long mainstream run as dance/club culture.

[Winner]

I agree. Mainstream dance has become very predictible and is dying a slow death. However, underground dance is beginning to thrive again with some really good stuff apprearing and a lot of DJs breaking out of the set genre's. In the past Trance DJs only played trance, Breaks DJs only played breaks and House DJs only played house. Now you'll find all three genre's becoming fluid and lots of the newer up and coming DJs just simply playing good dance music no matter what the genre.

Also with the 90s clubbers having now grown up there's been an explosion in lounge style clubs and a real growth in classic house music. Just look at the success of Hed Kandi and Stonebridge for the proof.

Just because the mainstream's become boring and predictible and the old favourites struggling to cut it any more doesnt mean dance is dead!

[Disappearer]

There's plenty of great stuff out there but usually you have to search for it yourself. Most of the "big name" acts of the last ten years seems to have run out of ideas and since they are the ones who get noticed, when they go crap dance music is declared dead. It's still alive and well.

[splobber]

It's been pretty much dead since the late nineties. '94 to '97 was the best time for it.

[DM]

Anyone that thinks dance music is dead is old. ;)

[CraigKORE]

The underground dance music scene has really picked up in the last 4 years or so. Most mainstream clubbers wouldn't have a clue about what it is though as you can't pick it up from somewhere like Virgin or HMV with a stupid 'Ibiza Vol 194' package.

Not sure I agre with Splobs dates thuough, I would go back a further and say from about 91' onwards - depends on what kind of dance you are/were into though, breaks, dnb, hardcore, techno, gabber, trance ect...

[CraigKORE]

'Proper' dance music has always, and will always, remain underground imho...

Spot on..

[Peter UK]

It wasn't by Alexis Petridis was it? Would take the views of a bitter ex-Mixmag journo with a huge mountain of salt....

Actually, got a link? If it is then I'd be interested to read yet another proclamation of death-by-dance.

[RPG]

"Dance" is dead.

Long live Electronica :D Lets face it, Electronica is the only decent dance genre out there at the moment and one of few dance genres producing anything decent IMO.

[Johnny Vodka]

"Dance" is dead.

Long live Electronica :D Lets face it, Electronica is the only decent dance genre out there at the moment and one of few dance genres producing anything decent IMO.

But isn't 'electronica' just a bigger genre which *includes* dance (invented by the Americans)? Means they don't have to figure out whether something is breaks, trance, house, chill-out or rock/dance. :D Anyway, there's some excellent dance/ electronica in my CD Times box at the moment - very fine mixes on the new Miss Kittin and Annie singles for starters. :D

[ohood]

The choons that appear to merge into one and all seem to be the same tempo and have the same drum beats to make cross-fading easier for the 'DJs' who play them are the form of music that that the article is referring to as dance music. Declaring all dance music dead like this is jumping the gun a little, as it is a massive genre with many sub-genres which were all invented to catagorise stuff that didn't fit in a box anyways. You could declare pop music and rock music dead with that logic. It's all a circle, it'll all come around again. The good stuff will always last.