Slow dance: Why is so much dance music so slow and polite?

Fortunately there have always been those who wanted dance music to hammer at its own frontiers; those who understand that, at its best, it can be stark, minimalist psychedelia, or a thumping assault on the senses, or something ecstasy-fried and cosmically delicious. The best dance music often has a grain of punk intent in its DNA, faceless music uncomfortable intentionally cuddling up to blatant commerce. Sure, it must remove us from our nine-to-five existences but why not in intriguing ways? If only to the tiniest degree, it might even expand our idea of what music can be.

There’s nothing wrong with glossy 125 BPM bop-along fare, of course, any more than there is with the old soul mafia who first hogged the rave limelight. They both have their role. The problem is that, outside trance and EDM, many of the world’s most respected DJs are in thrall to slow ’n’ smooth. It’s a concept, whatever style’s being played, that’s everywhere. Part of the reason is that Ibiza’s such an important hub, a testing ground that draws easy parallel with the rise of dance music culture in equatorially sunny regions of the United States. Thus there’s been a rise in new Balearic feeling, music that’s suited to balmy, tropical locales, swoony and even-tempered.

But most of us do not live in such places. Certainly dance music can be escapism, but let it be relevant to our environment. Britain, for instance, is currently on the rocks, screwed by the greedy few, and surely our dance music needs to reflect that: to be fired with danger and passion as well as escapism. One of the reasons the cultural impact of grime (and its mutations) is so much bigger than the relatively small number of clubs it gets played in is because it does exactly this.

Once upon a time a generation of artists repurposed second-hand equipment to create tracks that sounded utterly alien, that reflected their surroundings but also escaped them. Now the time has come for another evolution, for dance music to be less polite, less interested in cutting a deal. It needs to speed back up, be more imaginative, and regain something of the outsider about it.

So wake the fuck up! And let’s have it.