Dance

Dance, short for dance music or electronic dance music (EDM), is – as the name implies – a pop music subgenre especially suitable and/or created to be danced to. It is mostly a producer-driven genre, i.e. producers make all the music and singers are casted especially for the project (and the marketing concept). Sometimes, vocalists are just hired for the studio work while the faces of the projects are dancers lip- syncing, a prominent example being German duo Milli Vanilli (produced by Frank Farian).

Dance has its roots in the electro pop genre. In 1969, German-American composer Gershon Kingsley created the influential instrumental song »Pop Corn« as part of his album »Music to Moog By«, using the Moog modular synthesizer. in 1972, Hot Butter’s cover version »Popcorn« became the first electro pop hit. Other influential electro pop artists are Kraftwerk and their albums »Autobahn« (1974), »Radio- Aktivität« (1975) and »Trans Europa Express« (1976) or their mega hit »The Model« (1978) as well as Jean-Michel Jarre and his 1976 album »Oxygène«.