My Dance, Your Dance

I absolutely adore Happy. She's a gypsy wonder marvel of goddess love and light. Truly. In fact, D named her Happy, and it stuck. She throws a party like no one else, always great food, and some of my favorite people and often interesting new ones. Parties like the ones when I was growing up, where all ages are there, merging and separating, eating, laughing.

She'd tell you we have musical differences. About this there is much hilarity. Her idea of party music is my idea of a bath with candles. If she's feeling wild, it's probably Southern rock. She said there might be dancing for New Year's. I dared to hope.

I don't usually bother with discussing music. I don't know if I'm a snob or not. I think I'm fairly open-minded, but I think everyone feels that way. I have another favorite friend who likes a wide cross-section of music, he certainly does. There is a thread through it all, though, that is just a little off for me. I don't know how to put it. It's commonly recognized as good music, but there's usually an 80s white funk or Southern rock flavor that just doesn't do it for me. That's as close as I can get.

I fear the flavor thing may be true of me as well. My mother says most of the music I like has something of an off kilter washing machine sound. I'm thinking she's referring to urban and world beats and some syncopation. I'll admit I'm not gonzo for um-pa, which she seems to like.

So we all have our open-while-closed ideas and ideals. Music and microbrew have become what religion and politics used to be for polite society and discussion. No longer comme il faut. Alas.

Therefore I turn to you denizens of the internet, not so much for validation, though that would be nice, but for a pulse-taking. It will, at best, involve Pandora (mine is here). Or, more simply, commentary, preferably with YouTube vids or Podcasts.

The question is, what is your range? And if you had to call the underlying thread something, what would that be?

Poor Happy. How can I explain when I hear there might be dancing I think of certain musical qualities? I'll give you some examples.

The Glitch Mob
The show is viewable right now at Pandora's video page, but is likely to change.(The embed link isn't working.)

Or this wicked, old school techno Massey remix of Bjork,




Or, perhaps more mildly, some Erykah Badu,



How about more mainstream Alicia Keys? (ooh, I love this song!, but they disabled the embed.)

Fun with bhangra?




I know it's crazy to think I'll hear anything like any of this anywhere but in my own living room. At least I have that to satisfy my urban club cravings.

This is just touches on possibilities. What would you play at a dance party? Do show and tell.