A brief history of dance music

Hip-hop is both a music and a culture

While the word is often used to describe the popular genre, it’s historically been used to describe the culture that sprang up around the music in 1970s New York, including breakdancing and graffiti.

Some critics argue bebop and free jazz led to jazz's decline in popularity

Although jazz was once a popular art form, it has largely been confined to the margins of pop culture, with many of the genre's current bestselling albums from previous decades. Some critics argue that this is because the music betrayed its position as dance music and focused instead on musical proficiency.

Dolly Parton danced with disco in the late 1970s

As disco grew more popular, more artists experimented with the genre, including through remixes. One of them was Dolly Parton, who released the “Dance With Dolly” EP in 1978, which remixed two tracks from her “Heartbreaker” album to make them more explicitly aimed at the dancefloor.

Daft Punk's 2006 set helped mainstream electronic dance music

Daft Punk's 2006 Coachella set wasn't just a performance—it was a turning point for electronic music. Their futuristic pyramid, dazzling visuals, and seamless live mixing captivated a packed crowd and pushed EDM into the mainstream.

The history of music explained in 8 minutes

Traditional music history focuses on composers and sees music as an object. Historian Michael Spitzer focuses on music's role in everyday activity and sees it not as an object, but an activity. This brief history illuminates the fundamental role music plays in human culture, and sounds a hopeful not for music in the internet age.

Rock 'n' roll's history in 60 seconds

In the late 1940s, rock 'n' roll emerged from a mix of blues, country, gospel, and jazz. It gained traction through radio, rebellious icons, and evolving sound. This overview traces the genre’s roots, rise, and lasting influence—from early pioneers to the British Invasion and beyond.

Grandmaster Flash’s ‘The Message’ set the template for hip-hop composition

This 1982 single is one of the most recognizable beats in hip-hop history, thanks to some inspiration from popular disco and new wave records. The song’s bigger contribution, though, is that it pushed lyrics front and center, turning the rapper from a party-rocking master of ceremonies into a truth-telling MC.

A century of Billboard issues documenting the evolution of popular music.

‘Moshing,’ an aggressive style of dancing, was initially called 'mashing'

The style, which involves audience members thrashing their bodies into one another, evolved from “pogoing,” a style popular in England where listeners jumped up and down in place. The term “moshing,” sometimes called “slam dancing” in California, is believed to come from HR, the lead singer of Bad Brains.

Hear 50 years of iconic hip-hop samples, the genre's foundational looped tracks

Explore a map of the Harlem Renaissance's nightclubs

Many of the Harlem Renaissance's greatest performances happened after hours, in one of the neighborhood's many nightclubs. This 1932 map, illustrated by Elmer Simms Campbell, highlights key hotspots, with insider tips on when to arrive, who to see, and how to fit in.

How musical guests disappeared from late night TV

The late-night landscape has changed dramatically in the past five years, with the most visible difference being a severe lack of music. This writer set out to learn why that is—and what it means for audiences and artists alike.

A creator economy timeline

Long before anyone memorized a TikTok dance, the creator economy began with regular people blogging about their personal lives. Eventually, it snowballed into the creator economy we know today. The Washington Post created an interactive timeline to help visualize how the creator economy got from point A to point B.

Zurich's Cabaret Voltaire was the epicenter of early performance art

In early 20th-century Zurich, one nightclub was the epicenter of avant-garde art and performance: Cabaret Voltaire. Night after night, crowds of artists, writers, philosophers, and others would gather to watch—or participate in—wild, unrehearsed performances that could include anything from sound poems to traditional folk dance. The atmosphere at Club Voltaire was the ideal breeding ground for outside art movements, and it is thought to be the birthplace of Dada, a precursor to performance art.

Watch a video of Henry Ford giving square dancing lessons

In the 1920s, Henry Ford did his best to promote square dancing—particularly dances that he learned in his childhood—by teaching lessons twice a week. He believed square dancing was the "correct" way of dancing and was fiercely opposed to jazz music, which was rising in popularity at the time.

Edgier burlesque shows helped define the form

Stand-up came into its own at burlesque shows, thanks to audiences who sought humor that reflected the hectic, urban settings where they lived. According to historian Joseph Boskin, “The tempo of the comedy, like the movement of city streets, was swift and jolting and possessed highly recognizable parameters.”

Nine different studies exploring animals' relationship to music

Researchers have conducted multiple studies attempting to answer a certain question: do animals like human music? Across species, they observed different results and no clear pattern. Primates appear to prefer silence, and cockatoos appear to dance to funky beats.

Exploring Oskar Schlemmer's 'Triadic Ballet,' a Bauhaus-inspired performance piece

The "symphonic dance of threeness" brought together Bauhaus' varied artistic interests and offered a fable in which collectivism wins. This history and timeline of the work details its origins as well as its near-destruction at the hands of the Nazis, who considered it profane.

Irish music became popular in the US during the 19th century

The influx of Irish immigrants in the mid-1800s, driven by starvation and abysmal employment opportunities, led to a significant Irish-American culture, especially in urban hubs such as New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, and San Francisco.

Listen to the evolution of 'Ground Theme'

Koji Kondo's "Ground Theme" is perhaps the most recognizable piece of music in all video games. As the Mario franchise expanded, the song remained, albeit with different arrangements and in different styles. You can browse every version of the song below. It's a fascinating decades-long evolution of a classic composition.

The history of the Met Gala

Learn how the famed Met Gala went from a small fundraising dinner to a star-studded event that brings in millions of dollars in donations every year. The gala has always centered on fashion. It’s a fundraiser for the Costume Institute dreamed up by one of the founders of New York Fashion Week. Over the years, that relationship has grown even closer and more creative.

LSD fueled a countercultural movement before evolving into a potential therapeutic

As the use of recreational psychedelics became common, authorities were quick to claim LSD had lasting adverse effects, criminalizing the drug and halting scientific study for decades. Over time, LSD's reputation shifted from a potential source of enlightenment to a dangerous drug that could dim a person's future, and back to a possible therapeutic compound.

How winemaking has changed throughout history

Winemaking is an ancient practice, and researchers continue to find evidence that this ritual came even earlier than previously estimated. This article outlines five key turning points in wine’s history, from the fermentation of fruit by our primate ancestors to today’s increasingly popular “New World” wine. Discover the fascinating scientific and cultural factors that led to wine’s changes in flavor and increased symbolic importance.

'Saturday Night Fever,' the 1977 film that introduced disco to the mainstream, was based on a fabricated magazine story.

How hearing protection became cool

In recent years, the WHO shared research findings that over 1 billion teens and young people face risks of hearing loss due to unsafe listening practices. While earplugs used to hold a reputation for being uncool, this article explores how awareness has led to more people fashioning different types of hearing protection. Explore the growing trend of earplugs at raves, concerts, and other loud events.

How new research sheds light on why we dream

The theory of where dreams originate began shifting from ancient mystical explanations to modern scientific ones at the beginning of the 20th century. Now, scientists have the ability to track electrical activity in the brain, solidifying some of the field's softer science into observable data and giving rise to sleep labs.

Bowling was long male-dominated, but women pushed for change through the sport

The sport was often played on lawns attached to breweries and became a leisure activity for folks in taverns—mostly men, in the 1800s. But the game's highly communal nature attracted a more diverse set of participants who pushed for social change.

Prince was trained in classical ballet during high school

He began taking dance classes with the Minnesota Dance Theatre when he was in high school, something dance critic Caroline Palmer noted could be seen in his stage performances. "For so many dancers, they may start in one dance form and morph into whatever their art requires," she said. "You see that in Prince—ballet in the core, and then he added."

70 years ago today, city officials in Santa Cruz, California, banned rock 'n' roll to protect its youth from corruption after witnessing a 'provocative' concert the night before.

The word 'jazz' evolved from 'jasm,' 19th-century American slang for 'energy'

One disco producer saw 'Star Wars' four times on its opening weekend and was so inspired that he recorded the album 'Star Wars and Other Intergalactic Funk,' which produced a chart-topping single.

Watch a 1934 short film starring jazz legend Cab Calloway, a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance's music scene

Scientists can determine Earth's past climate conditions by analyzing air trapped in microscopic bubbles within ice cores—columns of compressed snow layers that build up over hundreds of thousands of years.

A 2019 Facebook event called on attendees to "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us," resulting in countless memes, the creation of a music festival, and eventually the arrests of those who did try to approach the area.

American dance legend Martha Graham, sometimes called 'the Picasso of dance,' refused to perform at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and conceived the piece 'Chronicle' in response to the experience.

Explore an interactive map built from more than 100,000 survey responses on where people find joy in their lives

The story of Dollree Mapp, whose legal challenge over her 1957 conviction for possessing "obscene material" led to a major strengthening of the Fourth Amendment

Researchers believe the brain consolidates memories, processes emotions, and plans for the future during dream states

Graffiti dates back to at least ancient Pompeii, where citizens scrawled messages to one another on public walls

English mathematician Ada Lovelace wrote the first computer algorithm a century before computers existed and hypothesized that computing devices would one day be able to compose music—foreseeing the generative AI systems of today.

Before the current East Wing ballroom project, only two White House renovations in the past 100 years cost more than $10M.

Jimmy Carter signed a 1978 bill that legalized home brewing, a move credited with kick-starting the craft beer industry.

While the first exchange-traded fund (a 'basket' of different assets that can be bought and sold on a stock exchange) in the US only launched in 1993, the global ETF market has grown to more than $10T in the short time since.

Firework or sparkler burns, even if they cover a relatively small area of skin, can significantly affect our range of motion.

Memecoins are a type of cryptocurrency—a form of digital currency with a wide variety of uses—created around popular 'memes,' or viral internet jokes.

When a Paris department store hesitated to sell Estée Lauder's perfume, she 'accidentally' broke a bottle, causing the smell to spread throughout the store and shoppers to start asking to buy the scent.

The US Constitution is widely regarded as the longest-standing written national constitution still in force—see how it has influenced rights worldwide.

Fast-casual restaurant Chili's is experiencing a resurgence, with its parent company recently reporting a nearly 32% increase in sales, thanks to passionate Gen Z fans on TikTok.

Fish populations in the Great Barrier Reef have increased after installing waterproof speakers on the ocean floor that played recordings of sounds from healthy coral reefs.

See the evolution of Ebola vaccine and treatment development.