Socaldance – all about dancing!

Dance-pop is a subgenre of popular music that emerged in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It tends to be fast-paced music meant for nightclubs with the intention of being danceable, but also suitable for modern hit radio. Developed from a combination of dance and pop music with influences from disco, post-disco, and synth-pop, it is generally characterized by strong rhythms with simple, uncomplicated song structures, which are generally more similar to pop music than the freer dance genre, with an emphasis on melodies and catchy melodies. The genre generally tends to be producer driven, despite some notable exceptions.

Dance-pop is known for being highly eclectic, borrowing influences from other genres that vary in producers, performers, and periods. These include modern R&B, house, trance, techno, electropop, new jack swing, funk, and pop rock.

Dance-pop is a popular mainstream style of music, and numerous artists and bands perform in this genre. Notable artists include Cher, Madonna, Britney Spears, Kylie Minogue, Christina Aguilera, Spice Girls, Paula Abdul, Backstreet Boys, Michael Jackson, NSYNC, Jennifer Lopez, Janet Jackson, Rihanna, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez, Ariana Grande and others.

History

1980s

Madonna has been credited with popularizing dance-pop music since her debut in the early 1980s.

As the term “disco” began to go out of fashion in the late 1970s and early 1980s, other terms such as “post-disco,” “club,” “dance-pop” or “dance-pop” music began to be used to describe disco music. These genres were essentially a more modern version of the disco music known as post-disco, which tended to be more experimental, electronic, and driven by producers/DJs, often using sequencers and synthesizers.

Dance-pop music emerged in the early 1980s as a combination of dance and pop music, or post-disco, which was paced and simple, clubby, producer-driven and catchy. Dance-pop was more dynamic and danceable than regular pop, but also more structured and less loose than dance music, usually combining the easy structure and catchy melodies of pop music with the strong rhythm and dynamics of dance. Dance-pop music was usually created, composed, and produced by record producers, who then hired singers to perform the songs.

In the early 1980s disco was anathema to mainstream pop music. According to renowned Allmusic critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Madonna played a huge role in popularizing dance music as mainstream, using her charisma, sass and sex appeal. Erlewine argued that Madonna “launched dance-pop” and set the standard for the genre for the next two decades. As the primary songwriter on her self-titled debut album and co-producer on her third LP, Madonna insisted on being involved in all creative aspects of her work, which was very unusual for a dance-pop vocalist at the time. The staff of Vice magazine stated that her debut album “drew a blueprint for the future of dance-pop.”

In the 1980s, dance-pop was closely related to other accelerated electronic genres such as Hi-NRG. Notable producers of the 1980s included Stock, Aitken and Waterman, who created Hi-NRG/dance-pop for artists such as Kylie Minogue, Dead or Alive and Bananarama. During the decade, dance-pop borrowed influences from funk (like Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston), new-jack swing (like Janet Jackson and Paula Abdul) and contemporary R&B.

Other famous 1980s dance-pop artists and bands included the Pet Shop Boys, Mel and Kim, Samantha Fox, Debbie Gibson, and Tiffany.

1990s

By the 1990s, dance-pop had become a major genre of popular music. The 1990s saw the emergence of several dance-pop groups and performers such as the Spice Girls, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Jessica Simpson, the Backstreet Boys and ‘NSYNC. In the early 1990s, dance-pop borrowed influences from house music (e.g. Right Said Fred “I’m Too Sexy,” Taylor Dayne “Soul Dancing,” and Madonna’s songs “Vogue,” “Rescue Me” and “Deeper and Deeper”) as well as contemporary R&B and new-jack swing (e.g. Shanice “I Love Your Smile”).

By the late 1990s, electronic influence was evident in dance pop music; Madonna’s critically acclaimed and commercially successful album Ray of Light (1998) incorporated techno, trance and other forms of electronic dance music, bringing electronics into the mainstream of dance pop music. In addition, in 1998, Cher released a dance-pop song called “Believe,” which utilized the technological innovation of the time, Auto-Tune. An audio processor and form of pitch-changing software, Auto-Tune was commonly used as a way to correct pitch and to create special effects. Since the late 1990s, the use of Auto-Tune processing has been a common feature of dance-pop music.

By the end of 1999, Celine Dion also released a mid-tempo dance-pop song “That’s the Way It Is”. Also during this period, some British bands associated with Britpop and alternative pop music experimented with dance-pop as a form – examples include Catatonia’s single “Karaoke Queen”, Bis’ top-40 hit “Eurodisco”, Kenickie’s latest single “Stay in the Sun” and Orlando band Romo’s debut single “Just For A Second”. Another Britpop group, Theaudience, was led by Sophie Ellis Bextor, who went on to a successful solo career mostly in dance pop.

2000s

Kylie Minogue, a popular and successful dance-pop musician from the late-1980s until the early-2010s

At the beginning of the 2000s, dance-pop music was still prominent, and highly electronic in style, influenced by genres such as trance, house, techno and electro. Nonetheless, as R&B and hip hop became extremely popular from the early part of the decade onwards, dance-pop was often influenced by urban music. Dance-pop stars from the 1980s and 1990s such as Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Madonna, Janet Jackson and Kylie Minogue continued to achieve success at the beginning of the decade. Whilst much dance-pop at the time was R&B-influenced, many records started to return to their disco roots; Kylie Minogue’s albums such as Light Years (2000) and Fever (2001) contained influences of disco music, or a new 21st-century version of the genre known as nu-disco; hit singles such as “Spinning Around” (2000) and “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” (2001) also contained disco traces. In Madonna’s case, her album Music (2000) contained elements of Euro disco, especially the successful eponymous lead single.

Nevertheless, it was not until the mid-to-latter part of the decade when dance-pop music returned greatly to its disco roots; this can be seen with Madonna’s album Confessions on a Dance Floor (2005), which borrowed strong influences from the genre, especially from 1970s artists and bands such as ABBA, Giorgio Moroder, the Bee Gees and Donna Summer. Britney Spears’ album Blackout (2007) contained influences of Euro disco.

Britney Spears is among the main faces of the 2000s and 2010s dance-pop music.

The mid-to-late 2000s saw the arrival of several new dance-pop artists, including Rihanna, Kesha, Katy Perry and Lady Gaga. This period in time also saw dance-pop’s return to its more electronic roots aside from its disco ones, with strong influences of synthpop and electropop. Lady Gaga is frequently considered one of the pioneers of this evolution, notably with her singles “Just Dance” and “Poker Face” which were heavily influenced by synthpop and electropop. Rihanna’s singles in the dance-pop genre, including “Don’t Stop the Music” and “Disturbia”, contained electronic influences, the former of which has elements of house music, the latter electropop. Kesha’s debut single, “Tik Tok”, was also highly electronic in style and employed a video game beat. Katy Perry’s “Hot N Cold” (2008), “California Gurls” (2010), and “Firework” (2010), which were major commercial hits, also showcased influences of electropop and house music.

2010s

The 2010s, similarly to the late 2000s, saw strong electronic influences present within dance-pop and also strong emphasis on bass-heavy drum beats. Artists such as Britney Spears, Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, Madonna, Kesha, Christina Aguilera, Usher and Rihanna remained very popular, while newer recording artists such as Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber, Rita Ora, and Dua Lipa joined the dance-pop charts within the decade.

American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift’s albums Red (2012), 1989 (2014) and Reputation (2017) contain more of a pop-influenced sound, which features production by dance-pop record producers Max Martin and Shellback. Ariana Grande’s single “Problem” featuring Iggy Azalea was a big hit in 2014 and reached combined sales and track-equivalent streams of 9 million units worldwide the following year.