Wednesday, March 10, 2010

The Sixties were NOT a great time for dance music

I was amused to see somebody declare that 60s music was great for dancing. She said that this is what her father steadfastly declared to be true.

Personally, I don't understand how ANYBODY with any knowledge of 60s music could make that claim. I like the following response that somebody posted. It has been edited slightly for content.

Oh, there's certainly some [good dance music from the 60s], but IMO a lot of the most popular music wasn't. You could still dance to it, but I wouldn't say that it was really MEANT for dancing.

The Beatles were the #1 band of the 60s, for example, and their music was mostly for listening pleasure. That's why Don McLean cryptically referred to them as the sergeants who played a marching tune. In fact, I'd say that their most danceable tune was "Twist and Shout," and it was a cover song. (At this recent dance, they played a lot of Beatles songs. You could shake it around to these songs, but IMO they weren't very good for "real" dancing.)

IMO, the most danceable music from that era came from the early 60s and still had a lot of 50s influence ("Runaround Sue" and "The Twist," for example).