Dance Craze USA: 40 Original Dance Hits (2-CD)

by Various Artists

For the majority of the twentieth century, the spread of popular music, was used by most of America as the prime vehicle for social interaction. It was a time when teens looked on and aspired to join the dance world, but until the fifties they had been cast as followers: copying adult dances and moving on to adult music choices. In October 1952 a TV show called Bandstand debuted on WFIL in Philadelphia and though much of the music was staid, the key element of the show's success was that the studio was packed with young people, and viewers thoroughly enjoyed watching them dance. The studio audience consisted of teenagers between 14 and 18, representing the key pop record buying demographic The early dances on the show were based on the Jitterbug and the Bop. The Bunny Hop was popular as a conga-line dance, and the Stroll was akin to a line-dance. The Hop and The Slop, along with The Chicken and The Monkey, became popular at the cusp of the fifties and sixties as freestyle variations of the Bop. The sixties really rolled out.