What does the US have against Dance music?

[gagzus 27,859]

Hey so random question for our US peeps on here, but the question is because our Lord and saviour JADE is having her moment with Angel of My Dreams being used by Victoria’s Secret, but I’ve noticed a LOT of the comments I’ve seen about it are how people wish the whole song was like the slower more ballad style intro/outro, instead of the dance-y rest of the song.

And it got me thinking; why does the US seem to hate Dance music so much nowadays? 

It took Gaga nearly a year to make her dance music hit in the US, and now her biggest hits (bar RoM) are only Adult Contemporary ballads she makes. Plus from what I’ve seen the US loves Country, Hip-Hop and sometimes Pop-Rock, alongside Adult Contemporary.

Even ARTPOP gets flack for having “missed the EDM trend” when outside the US in places here in Europe, EDM has never really left and has been thriving since 90s. For example like clockwork House and Dance hits come out here in the UK every summer and chart high, The Cure even did really well here in the UK.

So yeah, why do we think the US seems to hate Dance music? Is it because it’s associated with queerness and blackness? Since Dance, Disco and House are all predominantly from Black Queer communities.

I’ve even noticed some members on here have a hatred for Dance, Disco and House music, and loathe when Gaga does it. And for the most part they seem to be US based fans.

Edited Wednesday at 10:09 PM by gagzus

[bxr 3,874]

Puritanical patriarchy has no rhythm … so dancing is a natural-born sin, and four on the floor flair is institutional treason 

 

ETA: To your point though, dance music has deep roots in marginalized communities, and again, to your point, it’s a bedrock of liberation for the native and indigenous cultures imperialist colonizers often aimed to suppress … but that’s just a one-off take on the first blush blink 

There are some really brilliant works that delve into the cultural histories of that entire plane of creative expression and cultural identity (if any of this makes any sense how I’m paraphrasing )

Edited Wednesday at 10:15 PM by bxr

[NewEnglandWitch 351]

We don’t have anything against it? There are dozens of massive edm festivals and of course the clubs too. Dance music is very much engrained in US culture irl. Online it’s likely pretentious haters or trolls. Most of us will have clear opinions on what dance music we do or don’t like though. It’s only getting more popular here. 

[Ayesha Erotica 2,020]

Well, in pseudo-liberal California, alcohol isn't served after 2 AM and you have to be minimum 21 to get into clubs,  whereas in continental Europe, 16-year-olds can drink beer in clubs and 18-year-olds can party until 6 AM with tequila, I think that creates more demand for dance music as a whole in Europe. And you know which demographics is crucial for the charts

Edited Wednesday at 10:20 PM by Ayesha Erotica

[gagzus 27,859]

2 minutes ago, Ayesha Erotica said:

Well, in pseudo-liberal California, alcohol isn't served after 2 AM and you have to be minimum 21 to get into clubs,  whereas in continental Europe, 16-year-olds can drink beer in clubs and 18-year-olds can party until 6 AM with tequila, I think that creates more demand for dance music as a whole in Europe.

It’s wild to me that some places in the US stop serving drinks at 2am which is when a good night out REALLY kicks in. American party culture seems damn boring. Maybe also I’m from a notorious party city in the UK

 

[gagzus 27,859]

9 minutes ago, NewEnglandWitch said:

We don’t have anything against it? There are dozens of massive edm festivals and of course the clubs too. Dance music is very much engrained in US culture irl. Online it’s likely pretentious haters or trolls. Most of us will have clear opinions on what dance music we do or don’t like though. It’s only getting more popular here. 

I don’t mean like as a whole, since obviously you guys have things like EDC. But I meant more in terms of Pop music/charts. Because I think the last Dance songs I heard about doing well in the US were No Broke Boys, I’m Good and Rain on Me.

[Ayesha Erotica 2,020]

9 minutes ago, gagzus said:

It’s wild to me that some places in the US stop serving drinks at 2am which is when a good night out REALLY kicks in. American party culture seems damn boring. Maybe also I’m from a notorious party city in the UK

 

I totally agree.

California Gurls and Boyz wish to be somewhere else after 2am 

A crazy state where Elon Musk is allowed to send rockets into space, but alcohol is prohibited after 2 am. Very liberal and not liberal at the same time, tbh

 

[Purrrrrr 18,733]

i was with you until you mentioned ARTPOP 

ARTPOP didn't miss the trend it just sounded like EDM from about 1.5 years before it was released  

Edited Wednesday at 10:43 PM by Purrrrrr

[Duella Dvil 13,007]

Racism, transphobia, femmephobia, and homophobia all play a part.

Look up the end of the disco revolution.

Edited Wednesday at 10:59 PM by Duella Dvil
Clarification

[Bronco 29,668]

Honestly, party culture is just different between America & Europe. 

Like others have already said, Americans drink later, get into bars and clubs later etc etc. The way they consume music is different as a result. 

Where as in Europe, we're drinking in the park at 13 (and lets face it not longer after experimenting with drugs), we're sneaking into clubs underage. And our underage is under 18, not under 21 lol. 
Like I remember being 14 and knowing a girl called MKaty because she did so much MKat. And then in sixth form (16/17) I remember all of us discussing who we were borrowing IDs from to sneak out on Saturday night. 

The Americans I know were just starting to try and sneak booze at like 16/17. 
I'd done Class A drugs by then and had debated stopping drinking because it'd got boring. 

There's a reason we like dance music more outside of America. 
We're ****ing smackheads.

 

[gagzus 27,859]

34 minutes ago, Purrrrrr said:

i was with you until you mentioned ARTPOP 

ARTPOP didn't miss the trend it just sounded like EDM from about 1.5 years before it was released  

I don’t think it missed the trend (considering EDM still was big in pop for a while after worldwide) but the fanbase constantly says it’s “dated” upon arrival when id argue it sounded nothing like anything in the radio at the time. EDM didnt take off on US radio properly until about summer 2012 anyway, when the rise of the music break and DJs flooding the airwaves happened.

Edited Wednesday at 11:17 PM by gagzus

[gagzus 27,859]

30 minutes ago, Duella Dvil said:

Racism, transphobia, femmephobia, and homophobia all play a part.

Look up the end of the disco revolution.

I think I heard vaguely about this didnt loads of metal heads burns and destroy disco records? 

[Duella Dvil 13,007]

1 minute ago, gagzus said:

I think I heard vaguely about this didnt loads of metal heads burns and destroy disco records? 

Yeah, it also permeated throughout pop and monoculture. Very disappointing

[gagzus 27,859]

1 minute ago, Duella Dvil said:

Yeah, it also permeated throughout pop and monoculture. Very disappointing

it’s so odd to me that people back then who never listened to the music, never went to studio 54 and never worked with the same producers of the time; were so “hipster” about it they literally destroyed fun music.

I’ve seen some of the negative opinions of Disco even on this very site, but id argue Disco is evergreen because if anything has a four-on-the-floor beat (which thanks to Gaga in 2008, most electronically created pop music does now) it is technically a Disco song.

[gagzus 27,859]

19 minutes ago, Bronco said:

Honestly, party culture is just different between America & Europe. 

Like others have already said, Americans drink later, get into bars and clubs later etc etc. The way they consume music is different as a result. 

Where as in Europe, we're drinking in the park at 13 (and lets face it not longer after experimenting with drugs), we're sneaking into clubs underage. And our underage is under 18, not under 21 lol. 
Like I remember being 14 and knowing a girl called MKaty because she did so much MKat. And then in sixth form (16/17) I remember all of us discussing who we were borrowing IDs from to sneak out on Saturday night. 

The Americans I know were just starting to try and sneak booze at like 16/17. 
I'd done Class A drugs by then and had debated stopping drinking because it'd got boring. 

There's a reason we like dance music more outside of America. 
We're ****ing smackheads.

 

Very true, I mean I’m from probably one of the most notorious party cities in the UK (Newcastle) so I guess it’s in my blood. Even 90s Clubland is still widely popular amongst Millenials in the UK as a whole.

I hope someday we have a surge of europop and euro dance in the charts again. Because sadly American pop culture controls TikTok trends, which in turn controls the music that charts worldwide sadly. Especially now that digital downloads arent as big anymore.

I mean streaming has already ruined the concept of a pop era, and equal competition for Christmas number one. Remember back in the day when artists would release albums in November/December to boost sales as Christmas presents in the mid-late 2000s? Fun times.

I still remember when Bad Romance was ALMOST Christmas #1 in the UK