1980s–90s Many of the alternative dance artists are British, "owing to the greater prominence of the UK's club and
rave scenes in
underground musical culture".
New Order are cited by AllMusic as the genre's first group because of their 1982–83 recordings, which merged
post-punk with electro/synth pop in the style of German group
Kraftwerk. Alternative dance had a major impact on Britain's late-1980s
Madchester scene (adapted from
Manchester, New Order's home city) and
1990s trip hop and rave scenes. Meanwhile,
indie-orientated acts such as
Saint Etienne,
Dubstar,
Space and
White Town also explored dance beats and rhythms in their music.
The Prodigy,
Fatboy Slim and
the Chemical Brothers are prominent examples of British artists in the post-Madchester-era, who crossed over from the dance music world to alternative, with most of their releases falling under the
big beat music genre in the mid 1990s. Of the three acts, the Prodigy had the first international alternative dance hit when their third
studio album The Fat of the Land debuted at number one in 25 countries, including the US, in 1997. Also finding international success in the 1990s was Icelandic musician
Björk, a former member of indie band
the Sugarcubes, whose solo albums
Debut (1993) and
Post (1995), incorporated alternative dance elements and featured production from artists like
Tricky,
Howie B and
808 State's
Graham Massey. In the US,
Chicago's
Liquid Soul to
San Francisco's
Dubtribe expanded dance music "beyond its old identity as a
singles-driven genre with no identifiable, long-term artists". The American scene rarely received radio airplay and most of the innovative work continued
underground or was
imported.
2000s–present As computer technology and
music software became more accessible and advanced at the start of the 21st century, bands tended to forgo traditional studio production practices. High quality music was often conceived using little more than a single laptop computer. Such advances led to an increase in the amount of home-produced electronic music, including alternative dance, available via the Internet. According to
BBC Radio 1 DJ Annie Mac, part of the strength of the scene in the new millennium was "the sense of community"; she noted, "Websites,
blogs and
Myspace pages all get people talking about records and checking out each other's recommendations. It's not like the old club scene, where these established DJs dictated what would be big. Word-of-mouth is so important now." In the early 2000s, the term "
electroclash" was used to denote artists such as
Fischerspooner and
Ladytron who mixed new wave with electronic music. The Electroclash festival was held in
New York in 2001 and 2002, with subsequent tours across the US and Europe in 2003 and 2004. In the mid-2000s, the British music magazine
NME popularised the term "
new rave" ("new wave" and "rave") to describe the music of bands such as
Klaxons, whose
rock aesthetic includes paraphernalia from the 1990s rave scene such as glowsticks and neon lights. == See also ==