Pop dance is the style of dancing to popular music. It incorporates elements of hip-hop, ballet, and other contemporary styles. This type of dance is characterized by its energetic moves and rapid transitions. It is based on commercial intent, rather than artistic or cultural purpose. Because of this, it can feel soulless and uninspiring.
This new category will ensure that dance/electronic musicians get more recognition at the Grammys than they would if they were grouped with juggernaut genres like hip-hop, rock, and Latin. It also gives the Recording Academy more flexibility in recognizing its sprawling and global electronic scene, with its countless subgenres, from radio pop to underground drum ‘n’ bass.
The addition of the best pop dance recording is an important step forward in ensuring that the wide variety of dance/electronic music on the chart gets the recognition it deserves. However, it’s also important to note that the best pop dance award isn’t a performance category. It’s a recording one, which will allow the producer and mixers of a track to be honored. This makes it very different from the best dance/electronica album, which has always been a performance award.
Popping is a style of street dance that uses rapid tensing and relaxing of the muscles to create an illusion of movement. It was invented in the 1970s by a Fresno and Long Beach-based group called Electric Boogaloos, which mixed popping techniques with boogaloo. It’s often performed to funk music, but it can be done to other genres as well. It is also sometimes mixed with other funk dance styles, such as robot and waving, to add variation to performances and battles.
