Dance Music - The Music of our Generation? By Me

[On The Edge of Insanity]

Dance Music – The Music of Our Generation?

Here I am, stood on the top floor of the Beach nightclub in New Quay, shirt soaked from the first round of foam from the cannon below on the dance floor, sipping water whilst watching loads of drunkards clamber to get in line with the cannon for the second round. The music blaring out sounds eerily familiar, in that haven’t I heard this already a couple of times tonight kind of way, the pumping four bass hits per bar causing the people below to jump up and down frantically, only stopping once they get a face full of foam, and have to find some dry part of their clothing to wipe away the foam from their stinging eyes. The picture is reminiscent of this entire week down in the depths of Cornwall, with a group of mates all intent on a week of wastage, suntans, and pulling.

The picture had become clear right from our first night, spent at the Barruccuda nightclub. Enticed in by the promise of all drinks £1, once inside it became clear that New Quay had become a proverbial Mecca for fans of dance music. As I came to realise throughout the week, the only people who come to New Quay are either; a) surfers, or b) dance music fans who couldn’t afford to go to Ibiza, Ayia Napa, or wherever the happening place is this year. Every once in a while you find someone who is both, a chilled out surfer by day, and a hardcore clubber by night, a somewhat Jekyll and Hyde combination of interests. Someone who throughout the day is someone you can quite easily hang out with, suddenly turns into a raving lunatic at night via a combination of alcohol and one of most annoying musical phenomenon’s ever; “dance music”. I’ve put the genre in speech marks for a reason, being that to dance to this music is actually a hell of a lot harder than most would imagine judging by its title.

The basic premise of modern day dance music seems to be even more formulaic than your average rap/rnb collaboration, the following are deemed essential for a successful dance record,

1) the bass must hit four times every bar, on the 1,2,3 and 4.
2) Hi-hats and snares are not required, but if they are to be used must be layered behind one of the four bass hits, no percussion may appear in between the bass hits
3) you must find a female with the most annoying voice possible to sing the hook of a famous seventies or eighties song at least ten times over throughout the song.
4) in order to build suspense your song must have a section before the chorus where it is filtered as if you are listening to the song being played in a passing car, and the bass should not be played during this period. In order to bring it back into the chorus you just need to have a bar with 8 bass hits.
5) and don’t forget that repetition is key, if it doesn’t sound like every other dance record released this year then there is no point releasing it, creativity is very much frowned upon in the dance music community.

Not that I want to shit on an entire genre of music, and I realise that the above points may be a slight generalisation, but listen to any dance music and I guarantee that the above applies to at least 85% of the dance music you will hear in any club.

So what are the plus points for this music, why is it now by far the most played music in clubs throughout England and the rest of Europe? Well on the surface of it, I find it very hard to think of any appealing points in the music. Without any nuances or subtlety to the music, the only “dance” possible is to jump up and down frantically to the music wielding one or two arms (its personal choice on that) into the air in time with the bass hits. The fact that then every single song has this same four bass hits means that you end up doing the same thing for the entire night in the club. There is no ability to show superior music understanding and dance ability in the music because it never changes from one song to the next. As far as being a vehicle for pulling women, this too is a major misconception. They is no possible dance you can do to dance music that involves holding or grinding with a member of the fairer sex, and therefore your only hope is to attract a female with your superior jumping up and down ability (yeah right!), and then get them to the bar and away from the madness of the dance floor for the further pulling opportunity. In a club full of men doing the same dance, it is very hard to stand out and thus pulling was extremely limited throughout the week. In fact, I picked up more women whilst drinking and looking bored on the edges of the dance floors in the various clubs than I did actually on the dance floors themselves.

The only reason I can see for people enjoying dance music is that it takes absolutely no brain in order to dance to it. You could take a mental asylum, get them drunk out of their minds and they would still be able to dance as proficiently to this music as any hardened dance music fan. In that way, dance music appeals to those who have no real musical preference, because all they have to do is get drunk and jump up and down all night, and they won’t stand out from the crowd. Unfortunately I think this says more for the general dumbing down of music as a whole, than it does for the simplicity of dance music. The fact that the most popular music across Europe is one which rarely strays from an obvious formula must say something about the levels of intelligence in the modern day world. It seems people just want a music where they can listen to a song for the first time, and know it in the same way as if they had heard it countless times beforehand, and that for me a least is a sad indictment of the current state of music.

In closing, all I can say is that I’ve discovered three main things from my trip to New Quay; 1) I hate dance music, 2) I’m not going back, and 3) I’m glad I live within close enough proximity of London to experience some proper non dance music clubs. As far as the popularity of dance music, I can’t see it dwindling any time soon, as it appears that our generation has been dumbed down to such levels that the results will be seen for many generations to come, and thus dance music will continue to thrive, probably until someone comes up with an even simpler form of music.

[Elevz]

That was a good read - props on that - and I have to agree with you on most of what you said. I remember being stoned a while ago when I went to a club with dance music... That shit was lame as hell, because you could actually see yourself making silly dancing moves, thinking to yourself "why the hell am I doing this"?

Looking forward to my two weeks in Spain, starting tomorrow. Spain, that's where they never even heard of any music other than dance music.

Fear not, I got a feeling dance music has been dying in a major way ever since the new millennium kicked off. It won't take much longer before the entire genre of music dies down. Then again, every now and then I don't mind listening to some good latin house. I'll be good in Spain, trying to see what I can pull, chilling at the bar or maybe even performing silly dancing moves - whatever.

[white Boy]

i like dancing to michael jackson and james brown.

[I`m Wayne Brady bitch!]

You guys obviously haven`t checked out alot of dance music. You think today`s hip hop is much better than the typical dance music? Shit, hip hop IS the new dance music

[Suffice]

if dance music dies, what will people dance to?

[Diabolical]

Good article but there is actually people who do different stuff than 4/4 bass and chorus sung by a woman bullshit.
Its the same as saying all rap is 50 Cent mumbling then "singing" something lame for the chorus.

I agree about the dancing psrt though its stupid and if you dont do it you look like a boring cunt. When i was in Majorca the best places were the ones that played old songs and ocassionally some dance. There was this club/pub that played the same songs over and over to the point it was funny when it came back on.

[Westcoastin']

just gotta grind faster

[MANBEARPIG.]

2 words

The Faint



check em out

[I`m Wayne Brady bitch!]

Daft Punk
Röyksopp
Basement Jaxx
Mylo
The Chemical brothers

Check theese artists out, I think it will change your whole perception of dance music

[Suffice]

2 words

The Faint



check em out

hell yea, that "Glass Danse" song is fuckin sick

[Don Seer]

I'm going to Newquay friday! I went to Bude last weekend

not going clubbing... and i'm not a surfer... i'm a skateboarder.. haha..
my mission is to buy lots of clothes, drink and eat well while i'm there


i have 2 main groups of friends..

the lot i went to bude with are drug taking dance music lovers.. they were taking pills, doing base and MDMA just while we were doing nothing..

the lot i'm going to newquay with are indie music (babyshambles, coldplay etc) lovers.. and are a lot more sedate..