Dance Music: talented vocals, quality production...so why isn't it on the air?

Originally posted by TheLoony


Not trying to derail or start an argument but I have no desire to listen to anything electronica/dance. I am a musician and I need to have real musicians playing, not just some tracks thrown together that were created by someone else or a computer. To me, it's not music.

*sigh*

The reason people feel like that about electronica is because all they get to hear are the un-creative and poorly copy/pasted, sample-based electronica.

Originally posted by Anti-Tyrant


You mean like how that fool made a remix of that daft punk track harder, better, faster, stronger?.

Yes, I mean JUST like that fool who gives electronica a bad name.

You see, daft punk is somewhat creative and tries to explore new styles and sounds.

Then some idiot "remixer" patches together crap like this and the radios go for it.

I'm sorry, I'm going to have to go with the vast majority of replies here and say that dance music takes very little talent to produce. It's nothing but repetetive computer-generated sounds with over synthed vocals being repeated over the top. And those rock songs you hear being re-mixed as dance tracks are just quality listening being taken and hacked to bits and placed along side button pushing and copy-and-paste "art".

Although. I'll most definately admit that a lot of "rock" is like that too. Bar chords repeated over and over (though they are more difficult to do in time and while singing than generating a beat on a computer) and vocals that do go through the synthesizer. Mest are a good example of this, as are Tom DeLonges vocals when he sings live in Angels and Airwaves.

But in reality I just can't insult Tom DeLonge. He is my hero

But honestly, I can't see how anyone/thing can take credit for dance music other than the computers and programs that create it.

It may just be my *personal* preference, but give me that loud, raw electric guitar and untouched vocals with awesome lyrics any time of the day, coupled with a great drummer and bassist.

I'm listening to Blink 182 as I type this, though their awesome talent is questionable, aside from Travis Barker, who is a mind-meltingly awesome drummer.

[edit on 3-5-2008 by Toy_soldier]

Originally posted by Toy_soldier
1) It's nothing but repetetive computer-generated sounds with over synthed vocals being repeated over the top.

2) And those rock songs you hear being re-mixed as dance tracks are just quality listening being taken and hacked to bits and placed along side button pushing and copy-and-paste "art".

1) You can get more bps in varying frequencies than anything else ever created, and you say it's nothing more than computer-generated sounds with over synthed vocals being repeated over the top?

That's like saying that Rambo is nothing but a testosterone-fuelled blood-bath.

2) Oh come on, are you really that surprised?

reply to post by Anti-Tyrant


I'm more than willing to accept that this is only my personal taste in music. In my opinion, trying to get someone to accept and like music that they just aren't into is like getting someone to change their religeon, they're just not gonna get it.

I honestly don't see how anyone can put a cd full of dance music on and sit there and enjoy it, but people who CAN do that, may not be able to see how I can put a blink or offspring or jimmy eat world or 28 days or the white stripes cd on and enjoy it.

As for why it's not played on the air: It's because the majority of the public don't like it. It won't make nearly as much money as the music they have in the charts. The radio stations and record companies will do whatever they have to to make some money and clearly it's not in the dance industry.

But I stress that this is only my opinion! I'm not in the music industry nor do I work for a radio station, so I'm just callin it how I sees it.

Originally posted by Anti-Tyrant

Originally posted by Toy_soldier
That's like saying that Rambo is nothing but a testosterone-fuelled blood-bath.

Also, I forgot to add:

How else would you describe Rambo?

[edit on 3-5-2008 by Toy_soldier]

reply to post by Toy_soldier


Well you could say that for Rambo 4 was a sociological viewpoint on the psychology of individuals who are all about "pitying the weak" and "Protecting the poor" turn out to be utterly useless when it actually matters, and that individuals who possess questionable ethics are infact far more psychologically suited to warfare than those whom hold the pretense of being morally superior.

Or you could just go with testosterone-filled bloodbath, it's up to you really.

P.S: I understand Offspring, i take it you've listened to other bands of that nature, Such as NOFX or perhaps (stressing it) early Less than Jake?

*Realises the topic has been derailed*

Sorry folks.

great posts...

well here's the deal. If, let's say we could snap our fingers *one two three* and all of the sudden have hundreds of clear channel and I dunno, the other half dozen or so major corporate conglomorates that own "our" airwaves now and handle all the programming...lets just imagine that more than 1,000 stations are pumping this format everywhere 24/7 (just like has been done with hip hop force fed like an Arkansas chicken --no offense Arkansas, just a joke) I garantee you people will buy it...hell they do now...

And go out to any of these great big house/techno/electronica dance clubs and it's wall to wall people, a 20 minute line for the bathrooms and so tell all of them that it's crap!

Oh, and then wait until that bar closes and watch the people come ouside, then the next night go wait out front of your local hip-hop gansta rap bar and watch how those folks behave when the bar closes, then come back on here and tell me what music style attracts (I want in the worst way to say "causes") the crowd that wants to fight....

dance music is held down and back while hip hop gets huge boooko bucks thrown at it....one music style attracts happy people who don't fight and shoot and rais hell, and the other format brings the entire police squad out and sometimes in full riot gear.

I think that scratches at the surface of the conspiracy.

BTW: you don't have to give up your guitar, your rock, your jazz, your classical, your anything just to enjoy a little dance...go ahead turn it on, sneak a little Ralph Falcon, Cascada, or Paul Van Dyk...hell why not Fashionista from Jimmy James while your at it...we won't tell!

I love house music it is part of my daily life, I dont listen to anything else.
It has a good following here in the UK.
However, most of our standard radio stations play loads of the same old mainstream pop, hip hop and brit pop (new genre that I made up!)
20 odd years ago the only way to listen to house music was on pirate radios as some early stuff was even banned in the mainstream.
With the birth of this wonderful web for the past years these radio stations are now available online...heres 2 of my fav's atm
pointblank.fm...
www.unknownfm.net...

reply to post by skyshow


I actually agree with you. I haven't lived in a city with dance/trance/techno station in many years. The last place I lived - Dallas - has a pretty decent station! This is the music I listen to mostly....but thank God for music on the Internet. There is some AMAZING talent out there...but there is also a lot of CRAP
This genre still seems to be in the shadows of the music industry...at least here in the States. Seems rap has taken over...that sucks

[edit on 3-5-2008 by greeneyedleo]

[edit on 3-5-2008 by greeneyedleo]

reply to post by Anti-Tyrant

p.s; let me guess, they stopped playing it on air because they realised that their dealers would like it very much if they made dance music go underground, where drug dealers are known to frequent.

Im sorry, but you can find drugs at ANY concert.
I have gone clubbing and done raves in various countries...and I have never even touched drugs...but have seen it prevalent at ALL genres!!

The music is not about drugs. Have you ever been to a rock concert? LMAO or how about a Jimmy Buffet concert

The lack of it on the air has nothing to do with the drugs.

[edit on 3-5-2008 by greeneyedleo]

reply to post by Toy_soldier

I honestly don't see how anyone can put a cd full of dance music on and sit there and enjoy it, but people who CAN do that, may not be able to see how I can put a blink or offspring or jimmy eat world or 28 days or the white stripes cd on and enjoy it.

Well, obviously people like different things.
I listen to dance/techno/trance.....then later listen to linkin park or red hot chili peppers and offspring too. all depends on the mood and environment

Originally posted by Toy_soldier
I'm sorry, I'm going to have to go with the vast majority of replies here and say that dance music takes very little talent to produce. It's nothing but repetetive computer-generated sounds with over synthed vocals being repeated over the top. And those rock songs you hear being re-mixed as dance tracks are just quality listening being taken and hacked to bits and placed along side button pushing and copy-and-paste "art".

Although. I'll most definately admit that a lot of "rock" is like that too. Bar chords repeated over and over (though they are more difficult to do in time and while singing than generating a beat on a computer) and vocals that do go through the synthesizer. Mest are a good example of this, as are Tom DeLonges vocals when he sings live in Angels and Airwaves.

But in reality I just can't insult Tom DeLonge. He is my hero

But honestly, I can't see how anyone/thing can take credit for dance music other than the computers and programs that create it.

It may just be my *personal* preference, but give me that loud, raw electric guitar and untouched vocals with awesome lyrics any time of the day, coupled with a great drummer and bassist.

[edit on 3-5-2008 by Toy_soldier]

No .your wrong it can take a lot more talent to make a good trance/dance/house song. Although you aren't physically playing music there are literally infinite sounds that can be recorded and tuned for the perfect song. It requires a lot of thinking and timing.

Trance and house is all I listen too. complex or not its the best music.

Classical music is way more complex then rock will ever be but how many young people actually listen to it? complexity does not matter.

It also depends on where you are from dance/trance/house are popular in urbanized areas im from the New York New Jersey Connecticut tri-state area so i guess thats why.


[edit on 3-5-2008 by evolutionz]

Flat out the main reason that they do not play "dance" music on the radio, is that it does not sell. Why does it not sell? There are no "beautiful" people making it, there are no "hardcore" controversial personalities. There is nothing but the music itself that can be sold. Quite frankly mainstream radio and record labels are not interested in the music unless it has a personality that can be sold with it.

Radio stations play whatever gets an audience. So if enough people liked dance music it would get a station. So blame the music's lack of audience.

A local rock station here in Gainesville had switched to a great alt/indie rock selection, which was so much better than the standard rock format. You never knew what obscure thing they'd play. But, no one listened so they had to switch back to a "new rock" format. They only had a 15,000 person listenership as compared to 100,000 of the mainstream rock station. A dance format would fail so much harder.

reply to post by skyshow


If you want proper dance music do a search for Northern soul on youtube there`s plenty of examples on there, some of the best dance tracks you will ever hear .. If you have never heard of it here is a very short explanation about its origins.. In 1967 England a club in Manchester started playing Obscure black american dance records that the U.S.A had overlooked ..which quickly became popular and grew into a large underground dance music scene which still continues today , it got the name because it was mostly only a North of England thing .. here`s a quick link ... www.youtube.com...
while your there do a search for Northern soul .. it will open you up to a new world of music ...

Ackers....

Well, the op certainly seems to have highlighted most peoples downright ignorance of modern dance music. Speaking as someone who likes both rock and dance, it amazes me that posters are attacking dance music by citing formulaic rock bands! (piss poor zeppelin copyists the white stripes) or "toy punk" (offspring and blink 182!)
Over here in the uk the underground dance music scene is healthy, vibrant and constantly changing and pushing the bounaries. The problem is, is that its only the "safe" formulaic crap that gets played on the major stations ( AND YES I'M INCLUDING KISS FM IN THIS CATEGORY ALTHOUGH THEY DO HAVE 1 OR 2 "SPECIALIST" LATE NIGHT SHOWS THAT ARE WORTH A LISTEN!). So this is what most people think is dance but its not-its pop dance music.
The "real" artists producing quality stuff tend to be on small independant labels or even set up their own labels to get their stuff released as the major dance labels want stuff they can make videos for, market and promote on tv-the real djs make music for the people in the clubs and for critical acclaim and the underground scene is healthy enough that they make money from album sales. And its all done with little or no publicity/marketing so they don't have to sell out to make money.
For a site that is supposed to deny ignorance, there certainly seems to be a lot of it posted on this thread! Why not make an informed descision and actually listen to some non commercial stuff before you lump it all in the same rubbish bin?
For those intereseted in doing so, may i recommend;
Any of the radio 1 "essential mixes" from- 2 many djs, adam freeland, plump djs, soul of man, tiga and the freestylers. These are 1-2 hour continuous mixes available FREE from the official site for those in the uk or through the usual internet sites for those elsewhere.
To return to the op-the reason good dance doesn't get a look in on the radio is 'cause they are commercial stations that get their revenue from commercials and sponsors and safe sells! Don't think its a conspiracy,personally, its all about the dollars and the underground stuff is meant to be played loud, in a continuous mix-no good for commercials.

I have my personal feelings regarding dance music.

Personally I know that there is really good dance music out there, but by and large most dance music doesn't have much resonance with the average person because the music is emotionally shallow and doesn't dig very deep into the human emotional side of things.

The same trite almost meaningless words repeated over and over the same lame beat that has no A section or B section or bridge or any other musical arranging format that works well with the human experience.

THe problem with that repetitive type of arrangement is that it doesn't develop any sense of motion. the song goes nowhere. THat is why most people can flip through a whole dance albums tracks spending only 1 minute on each track before they hit the next track. they've heard what the song sounds like. it's not going to change on to the next.

Music that does that has a very low replay rate. meaning that most people after hearing the song once don't have the urge to hear it again. it's not catchy, has no emotional hooks to keep the listener intrigued and therefor makes for bad commercial success on the radio waves.

Now hip hop as trite as it's lyrics may be (generally) at least talk about something that people can sorta relate to. So it has more emotional appeal than dance music.

Dance music has it's purposes. It's great for workout music. not much else. Racing a car maybe. Good for film scoring when the action hero has to do something really intense.

Now as to saying that dance music should be more popular because there is indeed a few good songwriters making dance music it's still not nearly enough to have it be a commercial success. It's like making an argument that philip glass and his whole minimalist music style should be popular on the airwaves because there are a few listenable songs here and there.



[edit on 3-5-2008 by BASSPLYR]

Originally posted by CoNsPiRaCy PhReAk
Dance music is boring and is all computerized and because its computerized it is all mathimatically produced because you have to get the correct BPM and everything has to be perfect otherwise it will go out of time further into the song,also it doesn't take alot of talent to crate a dance track! I am a singer / songwriter and i made a dance track within 10mins all sounding perfect with vocals!. Where as Rock! there has to be talent in order to make good music and be sucessfull! Which is why there are hardly any dance tracks being played! Because anyone can do it!

There are programs like Guitar Pro 5 that let you easily write whatever
kind of music that you like, if you still can't play it by yourself or whatever.

The audio quality is not that good but it's more to be used to have a sort
preview of the song, I guess, more that a "final product".

Probably for dance music it's used something similar but more
professional.