These Wedding Line Dance Songs Could Be Huge EDM Singles

As much as you may presume this article is a joke, in fact I'm being quite serious...

Though potentially plagued by a lawsuit, the success of Robin Thicke, Pharrell Williams, and T.I.'s collaboration "Blurred Lines" should have far reaching effects into the world of electronic dance music. The success of the "song of the summer" was that it engaged in a rare, apparently new concept that we'll call "emotional sampling." Of course - especially in the world of EDM - sampling is fairly commonplace, as loops of familiar sounds create a feel that takes a track to a specific vibe. However, emotional sampling involves sampling not sounds, but the feeling within songs that - like "Blurred Lines" as compared to Marvin Gaye's "Got To Give It Up" - appropriates the desire of someone to do a a two-step while smiling a certain smile and having a very precise kind of good time. With Avicii's "Wake Me Up" slowly attempting to continue this current dance era's progression to having s number one Billboard smash, it's entirely possible that EDM producers are looking everywhere besides an obvious place that most Americans find their most basic urge to dance: wedding line dances.

For the average music fanatic, the desire to dance is not something that involves hearing Kaskade, Diplo, or Flosstradamus at peak-hour on a Friday night. Rather, it involves putting on a suit or nice dress and knowing that after you watch someone accept the vows of marriage, that a wedding DJ is building up to playing three or four songs that he's absolutely and positively certain will fill the dance floor. As hackneyed and corny as line dances are, there is a certain emotional connection - that if located and re-produced correctly - can take the following five songs and make them into the songs that could easily put dance music on top of the charts.

Label: Mango

Year: 1989

Foremost, the "Electric Slide" is by Marcia Griffiths, who spent most of her career prior to teaching us a groove that's "here, there and everywhere" was a member of the "I-Threes," aka Bob Markey's background vocalists. It's certainly stunning that Mad Decent's Major Lazer concept group has released two albums and an EP - and with Diplo's ties with Island Records (who released the "Electric Boogie" as a single) executive Chris Blackwell - and haven't touched what is arguably the pop-crossover holy grail of reggae-to-dance music. Some kind of twerk/bounce riddim that is emotionally inspired by (but does not directly sample) the line dance of line dances could be MAJOR.

Label: Reprise Records

Year: 2008

I'll still never forget the first time I heard Salt-N-Pepa and EU's 1988 collaboration "Shake Your Thing." There was something in the go-go meets rap combination that really worked there in a manner updated from every Trouble Funk sample used in rap music's early era. Of course, Atlanta rapper V.I.C.'s Mr. Collipark (of Ying Yang Twins production fame)-produced "Wobble" has the 2008-era popular black college drumline sound as an influence, but drums are drums, and when applied correctly speak as clear as a bell. With Wale feeling a particular way about trap-similar "bounce beat" go-go on both "Bait" and "Clappers," there's definitely a space for a song like "Wobble" to find spiritual life at the top of the charts.

Label: Cochise Production

Year: 1999

Given that the original "Booty Call" samples "Boogie Shoes" by KC and the Sunshine Band, here's a place where a rare case of "double sampling" could take place. There's something about the percussive break and horn sample from "Boogie Shoes" and as well something in the inflection of DJ Cochise's voice on the track that makes this one really stand out. If someone were to really try to replicate both of those emotional connections, there could be something to this one really being the gateway to a guaranteed hit.

Label: Universal

Year: 2000

So we here at Do Androids Dance may have intimated once or twice that moombahton is not dead, but rather it's still very much alive. Given the mainstream's affliction with rap-based EDM, I can't imagine that it's far from outside the realm of possibility that a song that approaches the "Cha Cha Slide" breakdown where everyone sort-of-kind-of does something that looks like the cha-cha that could easily have potential for Americans that presume that all Latin-themed dance crazes are all the same. Thus, the potential for a viral, group dancing hit single with a dembow riddim is entirely possible.

Label: Atlantic

Year: 2007

Dance songs that literally tell you how to dance always work. As well, southerners with flair and falsettos have worked since the 1950s and Little Richard. The keys that makes this song ideal for EDM crossover are the bounce and swing in the track that, well, lets you dip when Cupid tells you to dip. Somewhere in the creation of that space is where the magic is that can elevate that song to another level.