Alternative dance

Last updated

Alternative dance (also known as indie dance [4] or underground dance in the United States [5] ) is a musical genre that mixes alternative rock with electronic dance music. Although largely confined to the British Isles, it has gained American and worldwide exposure through acts such as New Order in the 1980s and the Prodigy and in the 1990s.

Contents

Characteristics

AllMusic states that alternative dance mixes the "melodic song structure of alternative and indie rock with electronic beats, synths and/or samples, and club orientation of post-disco dance music". [6] The Sacramento Bee calls it "postmodern–Eurosynth–technopop–New Wave in a blender". [2]

The genre draws heavily on club culture for inspiration while incorporating other styles of music such as electropop, house, and EBM. The performers of alternative dance are closely identified with their music through a signature style, texture, or fusion of specific musical elements. [6] They are usually signed to small record labels. [7]

History

1980s–90s

Many of the alternative dance artists are British, "owing to the greater prominence of the UK's club and rave scenes in underground musical culture". New Order are cited by AllMusic as the genre's first group because of their 1982–83 recordings, which merged post-punk with electro/synth pop in the style of German group Kraftwerk. Alternative dance had a major impact on Britain's late-1980s Madchester scene (adapted from Manchester, New Order's home city) and 1990s trip hop and rave scenes. [6] The Haçienda club in Manchester, founded by New Order and Factory Records, became the hub of the genre in 1980s Britain. [8] Meanwhile, indie-orientated acts such as Saint Etienne, Dubstar, Space and White Town also explored dance beats and rhythms in their music.

The Prodigy, Fatboy Slim and the Chemical Brothers are prominent examples of British artists [9] [10] in the post-Madchester-era, who crossed over from the dance music world to alternative, [11] with most of their releases falling under the big beat music genre in the mid 1990s. [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] Of the three acts, the Prodigy had the first international alternative dance hit when their third studio album The Fat of the Land debuted at number one in 25 countries, including the US, in 1997. [9] Also finding international success in the 1990s was Icelandic musician Björk, a former member of indie band the Sugarcubes, whose solo albums Debut (1993) and Post (1995), incorporated alternative dance elements and featured production from artists like Tricky, Howie B and 808 State's Graham Massey. [18]

In the US, Chicago's Liquid Soul to San Francisco's Dubtribe expanded dance music "beyond its old identity as a singles-driven genre with no identifiable, long-term artists". [5] The American scene rarely received radio airplay and most of the innovative work continued underground or was imported. [7]

2000s–present

As computer technology and music software became more accessible and advanced at the start of the 21st century, bands tended to forgo traditional studio production practices. High quality music was often conceived using little more than a single laptop computer. Such advances led to an increase in the amount of home-produced electronic music, including alternative dance, available via the Internet. [19] According to BBC Radio 1 DJ Annie Mac, part of the strength of the scene in the new millennium was "the sense of community"; she noted, "Websites, blogs and Myspace pages all get people talking about records and checking out each other's recommendations. It's not like the old club scene, where these established DJs dictated what would be big. Word-of-mouth is so important now." [20]

In the early 2000s, the term "electroclash" was used to denote artists such as Fischerspooner and Ladytron who mixed new wave with electronic music. The Electroclash festival was held in New York in 2001 and 2002, with subsequent tours across the US and Europe in 2003 and 2004. [21] In the mid-2000s, the British music magazine NME popularised the term "new rave" ("new wave" and "rave") to describe the music of bands such as Klaxons, whose rock aesthetic includes paraphernalia from the 1990s rave scene such as glowsticks and neon lights. [22]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rave</span> Dance party

A rave is a dance party at a warehouse, club, or other public or private venue, typically featuring performances by DJs playing electronic dance music. The style is most associated with the early 1990s dance music scene when DJs played at illegal events in musical styles dominated by electronic dance music from a wide range of sub-genres, including drum and bass, dubstep, trap, break, happy hardcore, trance, techno, hardcore, house, and alternative dance. Occasionally live musicians have been known to perform at raves, in addition to other types of performance artists such as go-go dancers and fire dancers. The music is amplified with a large, powerful sound reinforcement system, typically with large subwoofers to produce a deep bass sound. The music is often accompanied by laser light shows, projected coloured images, visual effects and fog machines.

Breakbeat is a broad type of electronic music that tends to use drum breaks sampled from early recordings of funk, jazz, and R&B. Breakbeats have been used in styles such as Florida breaks, hip hop, jungle, drum and bass, big beat, breakbeat hardcore, and UK garage styles.

Electronica is both a broad group of electronic-based music styles intended for listening rather than strictly for dancing and a music scene that came to prominence in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the term is mostly used to refer to electronic music generally.

Indie rock is a subgenre of rock music that originated in the United Kingdom, United States and New Zealand in the early to mid-1980s. Although the term was originally used to describe rock music released through independent record labels, by the 1990s it became more widely associated with the music such bands produced.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Electroclash</span> Music genre

Electroclash is a genre of popular music that fuses 1980s electro, new wave and synth-pop with 1990s techno, retro-style electropop and electronic dance music. It emerged in the late 1990s and was pioneered by and associated with acts such as I-F, DJ Hell, Miss Kittin and The Hacker, and Fischerspooner.

Alternative rock is a category of rock music that evolved from the independent music underground of the 1970s. Alternative rock acts achieved mainstream success in the 1990s with the likes of the grunge subgenre in the United States, and the Britpop and shoegaze subgenres in the United Kingdom and Ireland. During this period, many record labels were looking for "alternatives", as many corporate rock, hard rock, and glam metal acts from the 1980s were beginning to grow stale throughout the music industry. The emergence of Generation X as a cultural force in the 1990s also contributed greatly to the rise of alternative rock.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Madchester</span> Musical and cultural scene in late-20th-century Manchester

Madchester was a musical and cultural scene that developed in the English city of Manchester in the late 1980s, closely associated with the indie dance scene. Indie dance saw its artists merging indie rock with elements of acid house, psychedelia, and 1960s pop.

Popular music of the United Kingdom in the 1980s built on the post-punk and new wave movements, incorporating different sources of inspiration from subgenres and what is now classed as world music in the shape of Jamaican and Indian music. It also explored the consequences of new technology and social change in the electronic music of synthpop. In the early years of the decade, while subgenres like heavy metal music continued to develop separately, there was a considerable crossover between rock and more commercial popular music, with a large number of more "serious" bands, like The Police and UB40, enjoying considerable single chart success.

Dance-punk is a post-punk subgenre that emerged in the late 1970s, and is closely associated with the disco, post-disco and new wave movements. The genre is characterized by mixing the energy of punk rock with the danceable rhythms of funk and disco. It was most prominent in the New York City punk movement.

Baggy is a British alternative dance genre popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and generally associated with the Northern UK's Madchester scene. The style saw alternative rock bands draw influence from psychedelia as well as dance music.

Candy Flip were an English electronic music duo from Stoke-on-Trent, who were associated with the indie dance music scene in the early 1990s. They are best remembered for their cover version of the Beatles song "Strawberry Fields Forever", which was a No. 3 hit on the UK Singles Chart in 1990.

Popular music of the United Kingdom in the 1990s continued to develop and diversify. While the singles charts were dominated by boy bands and girl groups, British soul and Indian-based music also enjoyed their greatest level of mainstream success to date, and the rise of World music helped revitalise the popularity of folk music. Electronic rock bands like The Prodigy and Chemical Brothers began to achieve a high profile. Alternative rock reached the mainstream, emerging from the Madchester scene to produce dream pop, shoegazing, post rock and indie pop, which led to the commercial success of Britpop bands like Blur and Oasis; followed by a stream of post-Britpop bands like Radiohead and The Verve.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Psychedelic music</span> Range of popular music styles and genres

Psychedelic music is a wide range of popular music styles and genres influenced by 1960s psychedelia, a subculture of people who used psychedelic drugs such as DMT, LSD, mescaline, and psilocybin mushrooms, to experience synesthesia and altered states of consciousness. Psychedelic music may also aim to enhance the experience of using these drugs and has been found to have a significant influence on psychedelic therapy.

New rave is a genre of music described by The Guardian as "an in-yer-face, DIY disco riposte to the sensitive indie rock touted by bands like Bloc Party." It is most commonly applied to a British-based music scene between 2005 and late 2008 of fast-paced electronica-influenced indie music that celebrated the late 1980s Madchester and rave scenes through the use of neon colours and using the term 'raving' to refer to going nightclubbing.

German electronic music is a broad musical genre encompassing specific styles such as Electroclash, trance, krautrock and schranz. It is widely considered to have emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s, becoming increasingly popular in subsequent decades. Originally minimalistic style of electronic music developed into psychedelic and prog rock aspects, techno and electronic dance music. Notable artists include Kraftwerk, Can, Tangerine Dream and Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft. German electronic music contributed to a global transition of electronic music from underground art to an international phenomenon, with festivals such as Love Parade, Winterworld and MayDay gaining prominence alongside raves and clubs.

"Indie music" is a shorthand form of "independent music" that loosely describes music that is produced without the assistance of major commercial record labels or their subsidiaries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Electronics in rock music</span> Use of electronic instruments in rock music

The use of electronic music technology in rock music coincided with the practical availability of electronic musical instruments and the genre's emergence as a distinct style. Rock music has been highly dependent on technological developments, particularly the invention and refinement of the synthesizer, the development of the MIDI digital format and computer technology.

Big beat is an electronic music genre that usually uses heavy breakbeats and synthesizer-generated loops and patterns – common to acid house/techno. The term has been used by the British music industry to describe music by artists such as The Prodigy, the Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim, the Crystal Method, Propellerheads, Basement Jaxx and Groove Armada.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Alternative Dance". AllMusic.
  2. 1 2 "Hot To Trot: A Guide Attitude Included To Sacramento's Alternative Dance Scene". The Sacramento Bee . 12 October 1990. p. TK14.
  3. ↑ "How New Order's 'Blue Monday' Changed Music Forever". NME . 30 July 2018.
  4. ↑ SPIN , Vol. 6, No. 9 (Dec. 1990), p. 92: "U.K. Indie Dance".
  5. 1 2 Kot, Greg (25 July 1996). "Picking Up The Beat: Underground Dance Music Steps Into The Spotlight With Chicago Summit" (Tempo). Chicago Tribune . p. 1. Retrieved January 1, 2014.
  6. 1 2 3 "Alternative Dance: Genre". Allmusic. Archived from the original on 22 April 2006. Retrieved 10 April 2016.
  7. 1 2 Talbot, Mary (14 December 1995). "Mixed Tapes A Sticky Matter Depending On The Spin, Deejays Plying Their Trademarks Are Either Artists Or Pirates". Daily News . Retrieved 27 October 2009.
  8. ↑ Shepherd, John (2003). Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World: Media, Industry and Society . Continuum International Publishing Group. p.  423. ISBN   0-8264-6321-5.
  9. 1 2 Harrington, Richard (24 August 1997). "A Spark in Electronica? The Alternative Dance Genre Isn't Saving the Music Industry—Yet". The Washington Post . p. G5.
  10. ↑ "The Chemical Brothers: Full Biography". MTV. Archived from the original on 27 October 2009. Retrieved 27 October 2009.
  11. ↑ "In Defense of Big Beat, the Annoying 90s Music Genre That Snobs Love to Hate". 14 October 2016.
  12. ↑ "Big Beat Music Genre Overview | AllMusic". AllMusic.
  13. ↑ Myers, Michele (19 August 2011). "The Big Beat Revolution: 11 Essential Songs". NPR.org.
  14. ↑ "The Prodigy: from big beat to bass and beyond". LONDON HAPPENING. 7 November 2018.
  15. ↑ Power, Ed (June 23, 2020). "Chemical Brothers and the big beat revolution". Irish Examiner.
  16. ↑ "The 10 best big beat tracks released pre-'98 – Mixmag".
  17. ↑ "The 10 Best Big Beat Singles | Treble". February 28, 2013.
  18. ↑ Blyweiss, Adam; Bossenger, Alex; Grotepas, Nicole; Speranza, Greg; Terich, Jeff (5 June 2014). "10 Essential Iceland albums". Treble. Treble Media. Retrieved 27 March 2016.
  19. ↑ Colonna, C. M.; Kearns, P. M.; Anderson, J. E. "Electronically produced music and its economic effects on the performing musician and music industry". Journal of Cultural Economics. CABI.
  20. ↑ Muggs, Joe (7 September 2006). "Mix and mash with Mac the magpie" . The Daily Telegraph . Archived from the original on 2022-01-12. Retrieved 6 April 2010.
  21. ↑ Quinion, Michael. "Electroclash". World Wide Words. Archived from the original on 7 April 2010. Retrieved 6 April 2010.
  22. ↑ Green, Thomas H (8 February 2007). "The Klaxons, the day-Glo kings of the new rave" . The Daily Telegraph . Archived from the original on 2022-01-12. Retrieved 6 April 2010.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.