Dance Music has been around since the late 1980s when drum synthesizers emerged in nightclubs to provide beats for the already existing disco-pop melodies. 80s Dance Music was an offset of Pop Music, characterized by repetitive drum patterns, keyboard synths, and vocoder vocals. However, 90s Dance Music became its own genre, developing over the next 20 years to create countless subgenres; each popular in their own right. The 90s Dance Music movement was greatly aided by the emergence of raves, both legal and illegal. Nowadays, Rave Dance music, or the music of the original Acid House ravers, is synonymous with Old School Dance Music.
Although Dance Music originally emerged in America, it has now expanded its sub-genres to all different corners of the world. For example, while Techno Dance Music may be most popular in Germany, Trance Dance Music has its modern-day hub in Holland. These days, Dance Music is moving full circle back into Pop Music from which it began back in the 80s. Thanks to producers like David Guetta and Fedde le Grand, Dance Music has now entered the charts, popularizing raves and making them accessible to everyone rather than just the exclusive circle that began raves and helped propel Dance Music to its current status in the first place.
A Dance Music performance is known as a Dance Music Mix, which is generally a one or two hour set in which a dj plays different Dance Music Songs at the same tempo in succession. A Dance Music DJ’s skills are determined by the different sound effects they can create in a live setting; both when one track is playing and when two Dance Music Songs are playing. The way the DJ interchanges between the two tracks determines his prowess.
