Music

The Recording Academy’s approach to dance/electronic music has long been a mixed bag, with the Grammys attempting to cram the genre’s often extremely different sounds and styles into its pair of dance/electronic categories for best recording and album.  

Now the Recording Academy has taken a major step forward in its approach to the expansive genre with its addition of best pop dance recording. On Tuesday (June 13), the academy announced this new category, along with other new categories for best African music performance and best alternative jazz album.  

“This is the biggest victory for dance music at the Grammys in almost 20 years, since the addition of the dance album category in 2005,” says Matt Colon, the former Chairman of the dance/electronic screening committee at the Recording Academy, and also the president of YMU Music and Steve Aoki’s longtime manager.

Indeed for the dance world, this is a big deal. While the collision of house, EDM, IDM, indie electronic and other dance subgenres have made for strange nominee bedfellows over the years, nowhere has the Grammys’ dance/electronic culture war been so acute as with pop dance (or “dance pop,” as the genre is more commonly referred to), the style that rides the line between the two genres with big melodies, center-of-attention vocals and traditional pop structures. In 2005, for example, Britney Spears’ “Toxic” competed with The Chemical Brothers’ “Get Yourself High” for best dance/electronic recording. Spears won. 

With the addition of the best pop dance category for 2024, the Grammys are essentially creating a new home for pop-centric dance music at the awards. In doing so, the academy is providing an official space for these kinds of artists while preserving its other two dance/electronic genres for artists and recordings from the more traditional dance/electronic world.

“It was much needed,” says Colon, “because there should be a place for commercial artists who are doing dance songs and dance artists who are making more commercial-leaning music… I think everybody recognizes there’s a difference between what The Chainsmokers or Zedd or Steve [Aoki] or Calvin Harris do, versus what SBTRKT or Mura Masa do.”

“In the same way that rock has many different categories, there is the same need for electronic — as it is a diverse overarching umbrella with many distinct genres,” adds TOKiMONSTA, who was nominated for best/dance electronic album in 2019.

Better representing the size and diversity of the dance world has been a mission for voting members of the dance music community for 25 years, since the genre was incorporated into the awards in 1998 with the addition of best dance/electronic recording. The issue has become particularly resonant in recent years, as house, techno, IDM and other “underground” genres have become greater mainstream forces.  

“Genres like house and techno adhere to specific traits that can almost at times be anti-pop,” says TOKiMONSTA’s manager Lewis Kunstler. “I believe dance artists felt being included with pop electronic songs [made] it difficult for people to regard their music to the degree their music deserves.”

The creation of nominee fields that accurately reflect what’s going on in dance has been a particular challenge following the 2021 removal of the Grammys’ nominations review committees. These committees employed a panel of experts (rather than popular vote) to ensure nominations in the two dance/electronic categories accurately reflected the sprawling global scene. General sentiment is that the dance/electronic nominations haven’t been as accurate as possible since their removal.  

(To wit, these committees were put in place in the dance/electronic fields in 2013 as a protective mechanism following that year’s infamous nomination for Al Walser, a little-known Los Angeles DJ who was nominated for best dance/electronic recording alongside heavy hitters Swedish House Mafia, Skrillex, Calvin Harris and Avicii.)

The nominations review committee is different from the dance/electronic screening committee, which employs a panel of dance-world experts to review submissions to the two dance categories that may be better suited elsewhere. This committee has, historically, been vexed by dance pop music.

“It was always a struggle with pop artists that leaned dance,” Colon says. “A song had a four on the floor beat, so it was submitted to dance, even though it was just a traditional pop song with all the hallmarks of a pop song… That kind of stuff tended to be shot down [by the screening committee] because the moment those get in, they win by popularity vote. You saw that with Beyoncé last year: Not that she didn’t create a dance album, but the moment there’s a name like that [they tend to win due to name recognition] — because the dance categories are voted on by the entire voting academy.”

While pop royalty like Madonna, Spears, Janet Jacket and Kylie Minogue have all been nominated in the dance/electronic categories, the genres became more explicitly dance/electronic-oriented following the EDM boom of the early 2010s — although the pop structures inherent to EDM presented their own challenges.

“Suddenly you had traditional dance artists creating pop-dance songs and sometimes creating straight-up pop songs, then submitting those to the category and getting offended or upset — sometimes justifiably so — when they didn’t get [approved for] the category,” says Colon. “That has been the largest focus of the screening committee, deciding what is dance and what isn’t, when you have an artist like Steve Aoki or a Tiësto or whomever making a song that straddles the line between dance and pop. It’s been a huge, huge battle internally, and oftentimes it goes either way. The committee tries to stay consistent, but it’s tough.”

It’s notable that the dance pop addition follows the 65th Annual Grammy Awards this past February, as 2023 marked an acutely conflicted year for dance/electronic music at the awards. Many in the dance world celebrated the fact that the genre’s best album award was presented on the live telecast for the first time ever, giving nominees including ODESZA, Diplo, RÜFÜS DÜ SOL and Bonobo a celebrated moment in primetime.  

But more controversial was the likely reason behind this telecast inclusion — Beyoncé, who was nominated for (and won), both dance/electronic awards for her house-oriented album Renaissance and its ’90s house revival lead single, “Break My Soul.” Beyoncé’s inclusion in these genres was the subject of sharp debate amongst members of the dance music community, some of whom felt Renaissance was more pop than dance.

A similarly spicy conversation happened regarding the David Guetta/Bebe Rexha track “I’m Good (Blue),” which this year was nominated in the best dance/electronic recording category despite many voters feeling the song — which samples Eiffel 65’s 1998 pop smash “Blue” — is overtly pop. 

Per the academy, the new pop dance category recognizes “tracks and singles that feature up-tempo, danceable music that follows a pop arrangement. Eligible pop dance recordings also feature strong rhythmic beats and significant electronic-based instruments with an emphasis on the vocal performance, melody and hooks.”  

Thus, the pop dance recording category eases conflict by creating space for dance tracks forged with the pop melodies and structures — which have always been an element of dance/electronic music, and which remain a dominant force in dance in the post-EDM era. (The addition is also a win in that it earns dance/electronic a generally greater presence at the Grammys, via the addition of five more nominees.) Colon predicts pop dance nominees that include “pop artists doing what at least passes as credible dance songs, and dance artists creating the heavily pop leaning songs.”

Importantly, this new category is also a recording rather than performance award, meaning that the track’s producers, engineers and mixers – people at the heart of the dance world — will be honored, along with whichever pop or pop dance star might also make the track. 

For a genre that often gets less exposure at the Grammys than juggernauts like hip-hop, Latin, pop and rock, the best pop dance addition is a landmark victory in ensuring the sprawling, global electronic scene is better represented at the awards. Whether one is making dance pop radio bangers or underground drum ‘n’ bass, it’s a development all varieties of electronic artists can get behind.