A New UK Alternative Dance Craze
In the UK, following the punk/new wave explosion of the late 70s, many new subgenres emerged. New Order, OMD, and Human League all incorporated synthesizers leading to a new style of dance music. Meanwhile, artists such as Orange Juice and The Smiths developed a new sound that repackaged the Byrds jangly guitars into something new and unique.
By the mid-late 80s, a handful of bands in the Manchester scene had built a new scene around a psychedelic sound that merged the dance rhythms of a band like New Order with an MDMA-distorted version jangle pop. Performing regularly at The Haçienda nightclub (a staple in the rising rave culture scene co-owned by New Order), The Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, James, and The Charlatans were the core of the Madchester sound/scene. The aesthetic of baggy clothing that many of the bands wore led to subgenre being called “Baggy” as the sound became hip and started to spread beyond the Manchester scene, inspiring new bands like Blur and Soup Dragons.
Around the same time, a handful of bands throughout the UK were developing a different style of dance rock that drew more heavily from electronica. Pop Will Eat Itself, EMF, Ned’s Atomic Dustbin, and Jesus Jones are just a few of the more successful bands to emerge out of the short-lived Grebo movement. Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine would be my personal favorite.
At the same time, the remarkable Primal Scream was consistently shapeshifting, finding their own unique psychedelic dance sound on 1991’s Screamadelica.
By the mid 90s, Brit pop more or less ruled the UK, with Blur, James, and The Charlatans all acting as bridges between the movements.