Photo of people line dancing

Line Dance Music

Line dance has been a hugely popular form of dance throughout the past four decades and line dance music has followed the craze and reached new heights of popularity.

Traditionally associated with country and western genres of music, line dance originated with folk traditions from a number of countries, including Balkan cultures and European dances, so line dance music was originally folk music.

Since the 1970s, line dance music has incorporated a vast amount of popular music styles, including pop, swing, rock'n'roll, disco, latin and jazz, giving line dance music a wide scope of genres, however line dance music is popularly thought of as American country and western music.

How Line Dance Music Became Popular

The late 1950s saw the first increase in popularity of line dance and line dance music, with the dance known as the “ Madison ” reaching massive heights of fame. A further five or more line dances were created during the 1970s that strong reflected line dance music of country-western genre, including “Walkin' Wazi”, “Cowboy Boogie”, “Tush Push”, “L.A. Hustle” and “NutBush”, bringing the line dance music craze to new heights. The 80s saw a further rise in the popularity of line dance and line dance music, with over a dozen dances being created for country and western songs.

It was during the 1980s that Americana culture reached great heights in popularity and trend, with the 1980 film “Urban Cowboy”, which showed the new genre of line dance music: a genre with blurred lines between country and western music and pop. Urban Cowboy created a craze in American country and western themes, with line dance, line dance music and western-style clothing.

It was one of the primary fashion movements spurring “cowboy” or “western” as a clothing trend and paved way for a number of popular musicians to release line dance music into the popular charts. Amongst these line dance music released was “Boot Scootin' Boogie”, a dance choreographed by Bill Bader in 1990 for the original “Asleep at the Wheel” recording. This resulted in a further 16 line dances with Boot Scootin' Boogie in the title, bring line dance music renewed interest and starting the 1990 renewal of the country and western line dance music trend.

1992 and Billy Ray Cyrus released his “Achy Breaky Heart” recording, which thrust line dance music and the line dance trend into the forefront of public consciousness. 1994 saw further advancements is popularising line dance music, with Max Perry's worldwide hit “Swamp Thang”, a techno creation fusing banjo sounds with computer-made beats.

This began the view that line dance music wasn't purely country and western anymore, but more a variety of influences, however it was at this point that country and western music was so heavily influenced by line dance popularity and the term line dance music that a number of artists argued that line dance was the reason the music deteriorated in quality. Line dance music continued to grow and change with the 1998 song “5,6,7,8” by UK band Steps, which created a trend for line dance music with children.

The market began to saturate and there was nowhere for line dance to really go from this point. Further adaptations to line dance music and the dance itself are keeping devoted followers to the line dance music, however the 21 st Century is not being kind to country and western themes nor line dance music, making a broader market that will see the end of any art taking the mainstream into a frenzy or trend.