Dance Music

A few decades ago, guessing the type of music a person liked was a simple game. Teen-agers swore allegiance to the Top 40, while their parents preferred the big bands; farmers loved country music, and big-city sophisticates sought the sounds of jazz.Giving someone an album for the holidays was simpler then.Now, anything goes. In some households, it's mom who follows the Top 40, while the kids tune in to classic rock; there are brokers whose BMWs cruise to a country beat, and farmers who groove on Guns N' Roses.

As thousands of late-night revelers partied to thumping electronic dance music in the graffiti-marked remains of an old fort in Baltimore last month, some overdosed on drugs or became overwhelmed by the heat, according to a report by the city fire marshal. While the overnight Starscape festival at Fort Armistead Park stretched into the early-morning hours, emergency medical crews from the city and Baltimore and Anne Arundel counties struggled to keep up with calls for help from the venue, responding to the park "continuously" for 12 hours, the report says.

Even though he's one of the biggest recording stars theAmerican rave scene has produced, Moby is somewhat disenchanted with dance music -- so much so that he hesitates to call himself a dance-music artist."

Before America embraced Skrillex, Swedish House Mafia and David Guetta, there was Norman Cook, aka Fatboy Slim, the 48-year-old British DJ and producer who won over fans with quirky music videos (who could forget Christopher Walken prancing around an empty hotel in 2001's "Weapon of Choice"?) and big-beat dance music. More than 15 years after his first album, "Better Living Through Chemistry," Cook still attacks the road like a rookie proving his worth. Last year, he performed at more concerts than ever before.

"Diva's the name, or at least that's what they call me," purrs Ultra Nate on the title tune from her new album, "One Woman's Insanity." "Categorize, stereotype and symbolize me as -- Diva. Some call me Susie, others call me Vixen. I guess it really just depends on what time of day it is." 'Cause I can play the role, you know."Can she ever. In the four years since "It's Over Now" lifted her out of Baltimore's dance music underground, Ultra Nate -- that's Nah-tay, by the way, with an accent on the "e" -- has become a major star on the club circuit."

King Britt Presents Sylk 130When the Funk Hits the Fan (Ovum/Ruffhouse/Columbia 67906)Pop fans often think of dance music as being simplistic and shallow, a style more concerned with getting a groove going than with telling a story or engaging the listener's emotions. That's understandable, too, given the number of love-you/miss-you dance songs that end up in the Top 40.Hit singles, though, are just the tip of the iceberg. Dance music these days isn't just funk and disco; it covers an enormous amount of musical ground, from acid jazz and ambient to trip-hop and techno.

The difference is striking. In the Netherlands this past April, trance DJ Armin van Buuren spun for an exhausting nine hours in front of a sea of more than 15,000 fans. Sunday, he's a headliner in the Virgin Mobile Festival's 3,000-person-capacity Dance Tent. His slot is only two hours. The shorter set and smaller crowd reflect the drastic differences between club music fans in Europe and here in the United States. Overseas, big name DJs like van Buuren regularly draw thousands to festivals in countries across Europe.

How else could Ultra Nate interpret it but as a sign she had arrived? The smoky-voiced singer was browsing in the Gallery at Harborplace just days ago when out of the blue she heard her own voice and the words to her hit dance single, "It's Over Now," drifting out of The Gap.Purveyors of the one-pocket T were playing her song."

It's 2 in the afternoon, and Andy Bell of Erasure is just waking up. The British singer loudly clears his throat over the phone. He's not sure where his hotel is. "Nashville?" he says. "No, no. Las Vegas. I'm in Las Vegas." Bell and his musical partner, producer Vince Clarke, were in the entertainment capital of the world last week for the first date of the True Colors tour, which stops Sunday at Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia. Created by '80s pop star Cyndi Lauper, the national 15-city tour, featuring the veteran British dance-pop duo, Debbie Harry, Rufus Wainwright and others, benefits the Human Rights Campaign and other organizations that support the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community.

As thousands of late-night revelers partied to thumping electronic dance music in the graffiti-marked remains of an old fort in Baltimore last month, some overdosed on drugs or became overwhelmed by the heat, according to a report by the city fire marshal. While the overnight Starscape festival at Fort Armistead Park stretched into the early-morning hours, emergency medical crews from the city and Baltimore and Anne Arundel counties struggled to keep up with calls for help from the venue, responding to the park "continuously" for 12 hours, the report says.

At the 2:17 mark of Britney Spears' 2011 hit single "Hold It Against Me," dubstep entered the mainstream. It had been bubbling around pop's surface before Spears put her glossy touch on it, but this was Top 40's most blatant — and effective — use of the increasingly popular electronic dance music sub-genre. As Spears' vocals cut out, the track builds to a climactic "breakdown," signified by dubstep's trademark bass wobble. It's deep enough to crush your chest, and it's a huge part of what makes the genre so appealing: A song builds and builds until the rug is suddenly ripped from under it, only to re-form.

In the past 12 months, some especially high-energy creators have relocated from other metropolises and set up shop within city limits. While a scrappy inventiveness isn't new here — far from it — it could be that the city is reaching a critical mass of innovative thinkers in the arts. Baltimore may be on the verge of a growth spurt that will establish it once and for all as an arts center. It may be about to become a laboratory for experiments that blur the lines between theater, music and dance and the rest of life.

The week before Thanksgiving is always light on the nightlife and entertainment fronts. And while that's true again this year, there are a bunch of Thanksgiving Eve special events planned. And, on the Saturday following the holiday, there's Fall Massive , an indoor electronic and dance music festival at RFK Stadium in Washington. Among the performers? Moby, Armand Van Helden, Diplo and other dance music marquee names. Promoters have billed it as Washington's answer to Starscape.

The mouse ears. The neon-colored T-shirts with the mouse silhouettes. The girls in hyper-small costumes sucking lollipops. Dancers banging their heads with their arms in the air making out like it was a rave. This was all happening mid-day, during Porter Robinson's set in the dance forest. Consider it a preview of the madness the closing Deadmau5 set Saturday night will be. It wasn't just the crowd though that gave a hint of things to come. Robinson, a 19-year-old wunderkind DJ from North Carolina, played like a junior Deadmau5, a mini-mau5, if you will.

Let's first get this out of the way: I'm no dance-music expert. My appreciation is genuine but would be considered cursory by DFA-heads: I've seen an A-Trak set, love LCD Soundsystem and know how to hit a dance floor without making a complete fool out of myself. (Friends might question that last tidbit.) But when I saw the IDentity Festival , a celebration of forward-thinking electronic music, was today at Jiffy Lube Live, I had to blog about it. The Skullcandy main stage has the Grade A headliners: Kaskade, Afrojack and Disco Biscuits to name a few, but I'm more intrigued by the Rockstar Dim Mak Stage.

One performance on "American Idol" can make anyone ubiquitous. Soon after Katharine McPhee sang KT Tunstall's single "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree" on the show in 2006, even soccer moms knew the words to the "woo hoo" song. You might have also heard her song "Suddenly I See" played over promos for "The Amazing Race" or opening the movie "The Devil Wears Prada," behind a montage of pretty girls and Anne Hathaway getting ready for work. In fact, even her label, Virgin Records, was getting tired of seeing her face, Tunstall says jokingly.

Dance music -- hip-hop, house and their variants -- may have taken over the Top-40 and seems to control a sizable chunk of the cassette and CD market. But the music has a long way to go if it ever hopes to dominate the concert business the way rock and roll currently does.At least, that was the impression left by the Club MTV Tour, which played to a mostly empty Baltimore Arena last night.Given the caliber of the performers, you'd think the hall would have been more than merely one-third full.

Viewers who are still up past the late, late show -- glaze-eyed, prone, the only sign of life the twitching of the index finger on the remote -- may happen on something strange during their nocturnal channel surfing.Amid the half-hour commercials for kitchen items and exercise whatzits, celebrity psychics and turbo dieters, suddenly there's a bunch of young folks just dancing.The pulse of the music is strong, the camera angles strained; there's even a familiar face: former MTV jock John Norris.

Judging by Pascal Center for Performing Arts' increasing audience, the secret must be out about Anne Arundel Community College's many entertainment bargains. A range of professional-caliber entertainment was presented at bargain prices in recent weeks. 'Total Recall' On Dec. 4 and 5, the AACC Dance Company offered "Total Recall," which showcased the choreography of company members and director Lynda Fitzgerald - who established the company 20 years ago and serves as its coordinator and director.