Eurodance

The tradition & historical record

Eurodance (sometimes referred to as Euro-NRG) is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in the late 1980s in Western Europe. It combines many elements of rap, techno and Eurodisco. This genre of music is heavily influenced by the use of rich vocals, sometimes with rapped verses. This, combined with cutting-edge synthesizers, strong bass rhythm and melodic hooks, establishes the core foundation of Eurodance music. ¹

Eurodance songs are typically created by independent groups of European producers, accompanied by hired singers and rappers who serve as frontmen for these groups. These frontmen are often English-speaking performers of color from the United States and United Kingdom. Eurodance fuses late-1980s hip hop music and electronic dance music. Among dance music styles, Eurodance takes particular influence from disco, Hi-NRG and techno. Eurodance combines these elements in a way meant for chart appeal, with producers utilizing pop-inspired melodies and structure and focusing more on creating popular singles rather than albums. The music of Eurodance is characterized by combining dance beats with vocal hooks, which often serve as the melody. Similar to pop music, Eurodance songs are arranged in verse-chorus structures, with the verses often performed by male rappers and the chorus often performed by female singers. Instrumentation is driven by melodic synthesizers and simple and syncopated bass lines forming the harmony. Drum machines are set to a four-to-the-floor beat between 120 and 150 beats per minute, with a bass drum on each beat and a quiet snare on the second and fourth beats. Musicologist Nico Thom describes the lyrics as "characteristically hedonistic", being simplistic and often revolving around romance and partying. He also describes the production as heavily condensed, which he says leads to a "compact, superficial listening experience". ¹

During its initial inception, the Eurodance genre was referred to as dancefloor or dance music. Compilation albums started using the Eurodance term after the genre's peak popularity in the mid-1990s, with one of the first being Interhit Records' DMA Dance Vol. 1: Eurodance (1995). The term Eurodance uses the prefix Euro-, a commonly used prefix within popular music among European and American journalists and the international music industry denoting the genre's European origins. Eurodance shares the prefix with Eurodisco, Eurobeat, and Europop, although the terms have different connotations among different writers. The term Eurodance refers to a specific genre of electronic dance music that originated from Europe in the late-1980s and 1990s. Both Eurodance and Eurodisco shared similar cultural contexts and used electronic production, but Eurodisco predates Eurodance by two decades. Both Eurodance and Europop use superficial and catchy songwriting, but Eurodance is exclusively dance music, unlike Europop. ¹

Eurodance music originated in the late 1980s in central Europe, especially in Germany, where rave parties were becoming popular. By 1987, a German party scene was started, based on the well established Chicago house sound and Belgian new beat. The following year saw acid house making a significant impact on popular consciousness in Germany and central Europe as it had in England. In 1989, German DJs Westbam and Dr. Motte established the Ufo Club, an illegal party venue, and co-founded the Love Parade. The parade first occurred in July 1989, when 150 people took to the streets in Berlin. It was conceived as a political demonstration for peace and international understanding through love and music. On 9 November 1989, the Berlin Wall fell; free underground techno parties mushroomed in East Berlin, and a rave scene comparable to that in the UK was established. East German DJ Paul van Dyk has remarked that the techno-based rave scene was a major force in re-establishing social connections between East and West Germany during the unification period. In the same year, German producers Michael Münzing and Luca Anzilotti (under the pseudonyms Benito Benites and John "Virgo" Garrett III) formed the Snap! project in Frankfurt. Snap! songs combined imported hip hop and soul vocals adding rhythm by using computer technology and mixing electronic sounds, bass and drums, mainly house music. By doing so a new genre was born: Eurodance. ¹

Snap!'s first single, "The Power", released in 1990, reached number one in the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, and it helped to raise awareness of the genre within Europe. In the following years, other Eurodance acts formed in Frankfurt, including Jam and Spoon, Intermission and Culture Beat. After the breakthrough single "Rhythm is a Dancer" by Snap! in 1992, new groups started to appear all over Europe, mainly in Belgium, the Netherlands and Italy. From 1992 until the genre's decline in popularity after 1995, the sound became increasingly NRG-oriented, leading to songs raising in beats per minute up to 150. Some of the genre's defining songs in this period, dubbed as the "golden era" of Eurodance, are "It's My Life" by Dr. Alban in 1992, "No Limit" by Belgian-Dutch group 2 Unlimited in 1993, "What Is Love" by Haddaway in the same year, "Cotton Eye Joe" by Rednex in 1994, "Another Night" by Real McCoy and "Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)" by Scatman John in the same year. By 1995, Eurodance dominated European charts with 5 singles in the top 10 of the singles charts. Despite its success, many observers within the music industry said that the Eurodance sound had to change or die, and Eurodance producers and singers started to follow different paths and different sounds, such as happy hardcore and house music, but not all the groups followed this trend immediately. ¹

From the early to mid-1990s, Eurodance was popular in Europe; the style received extensive airplay on radio stations and television shows, resulting in many singles appearing in the charts. Technotronic from Belgium had hits with "Pump Up the Jam" and "Get Up" (featuring Ya Kid K). By 1996, the popularity of this genre had started to decline. From then, the classic Eurodance sound gradually morphed into progressive house. By 1997 and towards the end of the millennium house and trance music increased popularity over Eurodance in Europe's commercial, chart-oriented dance records. In the early 2000s, the mainstream music industry in Europe moved away from Eurodance in favour of other styles of dance music such as nu-disco, electro house, dance-pop and R&B. ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Eurodance”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

Eurodance is music genre, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²

The source record links this tradition to 9 external registers, which can be verified through the citation. ²