Mapping the Multifarious: the Genrification of Dance Music Club Cultures

Abstract

Whilst the term ‘dance music’ can refer to any musical form that is used to dance to, in late twentieth-century western musical discourse it has taken on a specific significance. The term denotes a number of synthesised musical styles that can be grouped together by shared characteristics, including a preference for cyclical repetition rather than linear narrative, a concentration on timbre and bass line rather than melody and harmony, and the use of vocals (if any) as part of the rhythmic syntax of the piece. However, dance music sub-styles conform to these characteristics to a greater or lesser degree: some include more vocals or heavier bass sounds; some are polyrhythmic or include more instrumentation, minimalism, repetition or cyclicity. Although, as Hesmondhalgh (2001) also notes, most forms of popular music have some sort of relation to dancing, a consistent factor that links sub-genres of dance music is that they are devised, produced and consumed with the dance floor in mind. Thus, in order to gain a greater understanding of the genre of ‘dance music’ a reader is encouraged to look further than the stylistic characteristics of the genre to the dance cultures that produce and consume them.

Dance cultures are fluid, multifarious formations, which will always exceed any attempt to map them.

(Gilbert and Pearson, 1999, p. vii)