| Alternative dance | |
|---|---|
| Stylistic origins | Alternative rock, EDM, indie rock, dance-rock, New Wave, electronic body music |
| Cultural origins | Mid 1980s United Kingdom |
| Typical instruments | Electric guitar – bass – drums – percussion – synthesiser – drum machine – sampler – laptop |
| Subgenres | |
| Madchester, electroclash, New Rave | |
| Fusion genres | |
| Trip hop, rave | |
Alternative dance or indie dance (also referred to as underground dance in the US)[1] is a musical genre that mixes rock subgenres with electronic dance music. Although largely confined to the British Isles, it has gained American and worldwide exposure through acts such as New Order in the 1980s and The Prodigy in the 1990s.
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Allmusic states that alternative dance mixes the "melodic song structure of alternative and indie rock with the electronic beats, synths and/or samples, and club orientation of post-disco dance music".[2] The Sacramento Bee calls it "postmodern–Eurosynth–technopop–new wave in a blender".[3] Cultural historian Piero Scaruffi suggests that electronic body music first witnessed in Belgium, and later in Canada, between 1980 and 1984 laid the foundations for the alternative dance saturation in the 90s.[4]
The genre draws heavily on club culture for inspiration while incorporating other styles of music such as synthpop, acid house, and trip hop. The performers of alternative dance are closely identified with their music through a signature style, texture, or fusion of specific musical elements.[2] They are usually signed to small record labels.[5]
Most alternative dance artists are British, "owing to the greater prominence of the UK's club and rave scenes in underground musical culture". New Order are cited by Allmusic as the genre's first group because of their 1982–83 recordings, which merged post-punk with the synthpop in the style of German collective Kraftwerk. Alternative dance had a major impact on Britain's late-80s Madchester scene (adapted from Manchester, New Order's home city) and 90s trip hop and rave scenes.[2] The Haçienda club in Manchester, founded by New Order and Factory Records, became the hub of the genre in 80s Britain.[6]
The Prodigy and The Chemical Brothers are two prominent examples of the 1990s British scene,[7][8] while in the US, Chicago's Liquid Soul to San Francisco's Dubtribe expanded dance music "beyond its old identity as a singles-driven genre with no identifiable, long-term artists".[1] The American scene rarely received radio airplay and most of the innovative work continued underground or was imported.[5] The Prodigy's third studio album The Fat of the Land was the first international alternative dance hit after debuting at number one in 25 countries, including the US, in 1997.[7]
As computer technology and music software became more accessible and advanced at the start of the 21st century, bands tended to forego traditional studio production practices. High quality music was often conceived using little more than a single laptop computer. Such advances led to an increase in the amount of home-produced electronic music, including alternative dance, available via the Internet.[9] According to BBC Radio 1 DJ Annie Mac, part of the strength of the scene in the new millennium was "the sense of community"; she noted, "Websites, blogs and MySpace pages all get people talking about records and checking out each other's recommendations. It's not like the old club scene, where these established DJs dictated what would be big. Word-of-mouth is so important now."[10]
In the early 2000s, the term "Electroclash" was used to denote artists like Fischerspooner and Ladytron who mixed New Wave with electronic music. The Electroclash festival was held in New York in 2001 and 2002, with subsequent tours across the US and Europe in 2003 and 2004.[11] In the mid-2000s, the British music magazine NME popularised the term "New Rave" ("New Wave" and "Rave") to describe the music of bands like Klaxons, whose rock aesthetic includes paraphernalia from the 90s rave scene like glowsticks and neon lights.[12]
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