Dance
Also known as Dance music, Club dance
A useful umbrella tag, but not a tightly bounded genre. The strongest documented backbone is disco-era club music and its descendants, so the entry is best framed as a broad dance-music category rather than a single historical style.
Origins and context
The documented early history of modern dance-oriented pop is tied to 1970s disco and club DJ culture in New York, where records were selected and extended for dancing before the sound spread into house, techno, and later mainstream pop contexts.
The sound
Characteristics
- Steady beat
- Bass drum pulse
- Syncopated bass
- Repetitive grooves
- Synthesizers
- Drum machines
- Extended mixes
History
As a record-store and media label, “dance” doesn’t point to one neat origin story so much as a lineage of club music that gathered force in the 1970s disco era. Disco’s New York club culture, DJ-led mixing, and the rise of extended-play singles helped establish the modern idea of music made for the floor, and later waves of house and techno pushed that logic into electronic production and global club culture. By the late 20th century, the word “dance” was being used broadly around those scenes, then even more loosely in pop and chart contexts as electronic and club-influenced records crossed into the mainstream.
Notable artists
- DSDonna Summer
- CCHIC
Essential listening
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
Explore connected genres
Sources and further reading
- Disco
- Music in the United States — Disco
- Spotify
CHIC’s 'Good Times' and Donna Summer’s catalog are documented as major disco-era recordings and artist touchstones.
- Apple Music
Donna Summer’s Apple Music artist page identifies her as the 'Queen of Disco' and places her breakthrough in the burgeoning disco scene.