Evacuate the Dancefloor

“Everybody in the club
Evacuate the dancefloor
Oh, oh, I'm infected by the sound
Everybody in the club
Stop, this beat is killing me
Hey, Dr. DJ lets burn the place down to the ground”

Evacuate the Dancefloor – Cascada

From a casual head incline per drum beat to all out flailing arms and legs, music makes us jump, dance and shake, or whatever more personal move you may have to the rhythm. I love a good dance, whether it’s in my room alone before dinner or with a bunch of girlfriends at the club.

I like Evacuate the Dancefloor because it talks about dance music being this infection which comes over you and takes you somewhere else – some people can handle it and some people just want to burn the place to the ground, it’s so intense. Okay, maybe that’s a song exaggeration, but you get the idea.

When it comes to dance music I find it hard to define exactly what kind of music is considered dance appropriate. There are your standard R&B tracks which pump around clubs for a few months; I’m thinking Usher, Pitbull, Rihanna etc. Then there’s the pop music – from Lady Gaga to Katy Perry to, dare I say it, S Club Seven and Backstreet Boys.  Yes, those 1990’s pop songs are pretty sweet to get your grove on to. Then there’s the umpteen remixes of all those songs which I just mentioned which make you dance but also make you go – DJ WHY YOU RUIN MY SONG? (I secretly hate club remixes, but for the purpose of this blog I will give them a mention).

With R&B and pop tracks the standard dance songs, where does that leave my favourite genre – the rock songs? They don’t scream dance, but I’ve been to so many parties where a rock song has come on and the people have started dancing along like it’s the latest Katy Perry hit. In my personal party dance song viewing, Jet’s Are You Gonna Be My Girl and Bon Jovi’s Livin’ on a Prayer are high priorities on the playlist and they have no cheesy bubblegum pop or “let’s make love in this club” line in them. Hell, even Smells Like Teen Spirit and Bohemian Rhapsody make good dance songs. Though, I suppose any song with a sweet beat can make you move. Let’s take Pearl Jam – while you probably won’t be busting out your best moves for Last Kiss, you could probably find a way to dance to Better Man. In fact, I challenge you to pull out Eddie Vedder at your next house party and see if Better Man can make a few people move.

So this just leaves one question: what is a dance song? A trance remix with no lyrics? Or simply a song which one dances to?