History: BMI and Dance Music

Dance and music have gone together practically since the beginning of time. Paintings found in Spanish and French caves illustrating dancing figures attending rituals have been dated as far back as 30,000 B.C.

Of course, today’s dance music has more to do with bpm (beats per minute) than with B.C. Modern dance music’s roots can be traced to the 1970s, when such groundbreaking funk-rock outfits as Parliament-Funkadelic and Sly and the Family Stone gave way to the era of disco. This form - typified by a straightahead, unchanging beat and, often, embellished by fluid basslines and string sections (both real and synthesized) - first gained popularity in black nightclubs of the early to mid-1970s, crossing over to the gay scene before ultimately exploding into mainstream success via Saturday Night Fever. That 1977 film featured such popular hits by BMI writers Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb - better known as the Bee Gees - as “Stayin’ Alive,” “You Should Be Dancing,” “Night Fever” and, for Yvonne Elliman, “If I Can’t Have You.”

Another important BMI songwriting team of the disco era was H.W. Casey and Richard Finch of KC & The Sunshine Band. Via such hits as “That’s The Way I Like It,” “I’m Your Boogie Man” and “Shake Your Booty,” the Miami-based, multi-cultural outfit was instrumental in helping disco find a mainstream audience.

One of the most influential purveyors of disco was BMI writer-producer Nile Rodgers, who penned such classics as “We Are Family” for Sister Sledge, “Upside Down” for Diana Ross and, for his own group Chic, “Good Times” and “Le Freak.” Rodgers’ work has been regularly sampled by dance acts since, and he remains an in-demand songwriter and producer.

Also gaining influence at around this time was Giorgio Moroder, whose brand of Eurodisco, utilizing thick slabs of synthesizers and a steady, pulsing beat, was popularized by “I Feel Love” and “Love to Love You Baby” by Donna Summer and the 1978 soundtrack to Midnight Express.

By the early 1980s, however, disco had fallen out of fashion in the face of guitar-rock oriented genres like punk and new wave, though some of the more dance-oriented practitioners of the latter - such as Duran Duran and Eurythmics - were clearly building on disco’s foundations. Indeed, those acts’ embrace of synthesizers and other electronics were in themselves laying the groundwork for today’s electronica and techno sub-genres.

One of the seminal works in this area was 1982’s “Planet Rock,” constructed by BMI writer-deejay-performer Afrika Bambaataa over a sample of “Trans-Europe Express,” a track by German electronic pioneers Kraftwerk. This fusion of dance, rock and hip-hop still towers today over much modern dance music, as does the work of BMI’s Jesse Saunders, who fused such seemingly disparate elements as classic rock, jazz, gospel and r&b to originate an amalgam that came to be known as House music, first popularized in Chicago.

Meanwhile, in the late 1980s BMI writers Kevin Saunderson and Juan Atkins helped pioneer what came to be known as techno music in Detroit and Chicago. This driving blend of fast-paced beats with electronics has come to be a generic brand name all its own, often characterized by otherworldly keyboard parts and distorted vocals, frequently repeating the same key phrases.

The boundaries of dance music continue to mutate and evolve, staying well ahead of efforts to categorize such sub-genres as trance, ambient and two-step garage. The relatively recent rise of rave culture, first started in Europe but now popular in the U.S. as well (wherein several hundred people descend on a club or other pre-selected spot to indulge in hours-long dance sessions) has only served to intensify interest. As a result, several key BMI writer-producers continue to draw from their predecessors to create their own global success stories.

Perhaps the most notable of these is BMI artist Moby, whose 1999 album Play remains a constant seller in many of the world’s markets, and which has had every single track licensed for commercial or film use. It is worth noting that Moby was among the Class of 1997, the year when many in the music industry predicted that an explosion in electronic music, or ‘electronica,’ would be the next big thing. While that revolution never materialized, the fact remains that electronic music born from the imaginations of such Class of ‘97 acts as Moby, Fatboy Slim, the Chemical Brothers and Basement Jaxx - all still thriving - continues to influence the direction of dance music today.

Other dance-oriented BMI writers and artists have also been making their marks. BT has scored video games (Die Hard Trilogy 2: Viva Las Vegas) and Hollywood soundtracks (Gone in 60 Seconds and the remake of Rollerball, in which he also makes an on-screen appearance) as well as continued to deejay at clubs and raves around the world. The French duo Daft Punk, featuring an earlier, more laidback electronic sound, is currently reaping critical and commercial hosannas for its second album, Discovery.

Another French artist, Mirwais, was instrumental in creating Madonna’s current Music album, co-writing the number one worldwide title track. He also released his own critically acclaimed album, Production, last year.

Todd Terry, who reinvented post-punk folk duo Everything But The Girl as a dance outfit, is also a successful deejay-writer-producer in his own right. The Vengaboys, who received the prestigious Dance Music Award from BMI in 2000, has achieved numerous international top twenty chartings for their single “Boom Boom Boom Boom” and longplayers The Party Album and The Platinum Album.

Other notable BMI dance creators include Armand van Helden, Faithless, Alice Deejay, Romanthony, Lenny Fontana, Robbie Rivera and Jamiroquai. Many of these acts began creative life as deejays, honing their skills in small clubs and building loyal followings which then can lead to 12-inch singles and, possibly, full-length albums. A few club smashes and/or an underground following are prerequisites for credibility among the dance crowd, which then can lead to steady work not only as deejays but also as producers, remixers and artists.

Today nearly every major urban center has a thriving dance music scene of its own: Ibiza, Berlin, London, Amsterdam, Miami, New York, Puente del Estes, Tokyo, Singapore and Cape Town are just a few of the more currently noteworthy ones. In addition, compilation albums and soundtrack work for video games, ads, film and television help to spread the word about some of the most singularly adventurous artists working in music - of any style - today.

BMI continues to support and organize club events and panel discussions at such important industry functions as the Winter Music Conference in Miami, the Billboard Dance Summit in New York and the Amsterdam Dance Event.

BMI represents more than 400,000 songwriters, composers, and publishers with more than 6.5 million works.

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