SIMON REYNOLDS DISCUSSES CURRENT DANCE MUSIC IN TODAY'S NY TIMES

To sum up my feelings about this article, though...I'd rather just listen to "Weak Become Heroes."

the phrase "dance music" would not exist to Americans if it wasn´t for house/techno etc. it´s not even an American term, so less of the co-opting it for ludicrous argument please.

huh?!

that´s why this silly tacking on of hiphop onto the name is so stupid, the entire thing came from electronic music, house or techno or whatever. people did not simply say ´dance music´ beforehand. dance music is a specific genre name. it does not have exclusive privilege in terms of being a style of record people dance to.

in other news, rock music is not all that rocks. many people who make country are from the city. NOT ALL VACUUM CLEANERS ARE HOOVERS.

no he's not, but he's claiming european origins for the phrase "dance music" in reference to house and techno, which is kinda silly. before house and techno got to europe, did the people in the states who played it and listened to it not think of it as dance music or even call it that? i doubt it.

there was no such genre as dance music until dance music.

This whole argument of specific terminology is extremely silly, actually.

We've already gone over the scores of reasons that hip-hop is America's own version of European dance music in this thread - it was pushed to rock audiences, it was not a grassroots movement, and because, yes, Americans were getting their dance groove fix from hip-hop and pop music.

bullshit:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dance_music

includes "Some paragraphs that got lost but give some context and nuance"

I agree with donut bitch, on one matter, the whole argument is silly. I can´t understand why Americans act so ridiculously about a genre name which so obviously means electronic music.
once again.

And America`s own version of ´dance music´ may well be hiphop, but then clearly hiphop is not ´dance music´, in the last 20 years this phrase simply is house and techno etc. Once again I have to stress the fact that you can dance to two types of music is not a strong enough characteristic to lump them in together.

you simply can´t argue that since hiphop is America´s equivalent of dance music then no article about dance music should exclude hiphop. it´s like determined ignorance, ´dance music does not exist here, because hiphop is actually dance music´.

The culture is not the same, the people making it are not the same, the ideas are not the same, the consumption is not the same. They´re completely fucking different and there´s no sense in criticising people for writing about why that scene did not work in America.

Simon is a dance writer, heaven forbid Americans read about another culture.

This is just an irrational pet peeve of mine, so never mind me.

hiphop comes from disco which is dance music! dance music isn't a genre, it's a few of 'em all put together. it doesn't mean anything or even describe anything on its own.

And yeah, Skinny Puppy did put out a new album. In fact, there's that video... with the breakdancing goths. (I'm not joking.)

xpost - mbm had quite an influence on idm as well, as i recall.

Yeah, that is a shame. Even with stuff like Thomas P. Heckmann (striking similarities to Nitzer Ebb) and Ritchie Hawtin's Nitzer Ebb sampling on "Decks, EFX, and 909" sitting RIGHT THERE.

but ronan, one of the big (if not *the* biggest) reasons that electronic music hasn't grown its U.S. audience in the past eight years is because hip-hop did, and it did so using some of the same sounds and textures as electronic music. It also has loads of other advantages over electronic dance music: it's homegrown, sonically it was sprouting in 97 whereas dance's culture of progression was sort of grinding to a halt, its club nights here aren't as likely to be age-restricted to 21+, to white suburban teens it may have the 'outlaw' factor mentioned by SR that is now absent from electronic dance music, it doesn't foresake the things that Americans already expect from pop music and pop stars, etc.

If one were to write an article like this - why is dance music not as popular in the U.S. now as it was in 97? - the longheld setbacks are still in place (geography, rural/urban divide, homophobia, discophobia, xenophobia, the labels' relucatance to spend money on dance music after overspending in the disco years, slower absorption of music trends here v., say, london, media bias, lack of names and faces to promote, etc.) and potentially not as central to the piece, but I think the biggest new reason is the emergence of hip-hop and its usurption of U.S. pop charts in part via electronic production + the emergence of nu-metal on modern rock radio with some of the same. the culture of dance music as you're referring to it was never mainstream in the U.S. as a whole, and the sounds of dance music are, to many American kids, made redundant by rock and rap artists who, in addition to up-to-the-minute sonics, also provide your typical pop thrills. It would be a bit shocking to not mention this. (That said, SR does mention it, so...I don't see why everyone is going around and around about it)

PLUR, dude, is a thread-killer.

Which seems to be the norm at the goth/industrial (=1995 trance with scary vocals on top) clubs these days.