Monday Musings: Dance Music Then vs. Dance Music Now

Hello, everyone! Today we're looking at the evolution of dance music. Where has it been, where is it now, and where is it going?

First off, what exactly is dance music? Well, that's a good question. You might think that dance music is mostly subsets of other genres that make you especially wanna dance. And you'd be somewhat right, son! Or daughter, I don't really know who's reading this.

To look at this history of dance music, let's first go back to the early 20th century, where ballroom dancing was all the rage.

During said time, dance music mostly consisted of the waltz and other music specifically fitted to certain dances. It's around when jazz became popular that popular dances began to move away from carefully choreographed partners and more independent moving. Those crazy bastards are the reason we're not still waltzing at prom.

So as we continued to dance in this way, we continued to spawn new music crazes, such as jazz and swing. And we danced, danced, danced through the rock n' roll of the 50's, the funky soul of the 60's, and of course, 70's disco.

Yeah, people did say that, but before the backlash, disco was responsible for bringing back dance music in a big way. Dance clubs were renamed "discos" during the time; that's how big it was. After disco was phased out in the early 1980s, a post-disco era came about that introduced electronic music as the new norm for dance music. Throughout the 80's up until now, that has been the predominant source of dance music. There are still the odd genres that make their way into the mix, like reggaeton and new jack swing in the 90's, but all types of electronic music has been the norm.

So now that we know where dance music has been and where it is now, where is it going? Straight to the crapper, maybe? No, I jest. But what are the trends in this decade, as far as dance music is concerned? Well, judging by the trends on the dance charts, it looks like EDM isn't going anywhere soon. But If TURN DOWN FOR WHAT is any indication, we may be seeing a surge of trap music coming our way. Keep those ears open, and keep on dancin'.