Dance radio

Dance radio is a format that consists of current and recent dance and electronic music.

While the format is popular in Europe and Asia, it has yet to make an impact in North America, although there are several top 40 and rhythmic radio stations which include current dance product in their playlists. As of June 2014, there were six stations (four full-time and three part-time) on FM in various US markets. Dance radio is also present on secondary HD radio streams, satellite, cable and Internet. In much of Europe there are national and local dance stations and it is a popular pirate radio format.

It's a valid observation to note that American commercial radio's definition of dance music has almost always been marginal, consisting primarily of mainstream music and artists who are firstly pop and urban acts.

History

Most of dance radio's origins can be traced to the early days of disco in the late 1970s, when stations like WKTU and KIIS-FM made the format a staple on the airwaves. But by the end of the decade, the format began to experience a backlash when sentiments over the music began to force several stations to move on to other genres, with most of them moving to what would become urban contemporary, led by such stations as WAMO-FM/Pittsburgh, WLUM/Milwaukee and WHRK/Memphis. These stations kept the dance sound alive while at the same time mixed it in with the R&B, hip hop, and pop songs of the 1980s. At the same time, another former disco outlet, WXKS-FM/Boston, became very successful in taking the urban-dance sound into a top 40 format.

Radio edit

In music, a radio edit is a modification, typically truncated, to make a song more suitable for airplay, whether it be adjusted for length, profanity, subject matter, instrumentation, or form. Radio edits may also be used for commercial single versions, which may be denoted as the 7" version. However, not all "radio edit" tracks are played on radio.

Editing for time

Radio edits often shorten a long song in order to make it more commercially viable for radio stations. The normal length for songs played on the radio is 3 to 4 minutes. Occasionally, the song will simply fade out earlier, common on tracks with long instrumental endings. For instance, the radio edit of 'Heroes' by David Bowie fades in shortly before the beginning of the third verse and fades out shortly before the vocal vamping at the end of the song. Another example is B.o.B's song, "Nothin' On You" featuring Bruno Mars, whose radio edit skips the first 5 seconds & starts with the 6th second in which Bruno Mars starts singing the first chorus. The second half of the first chorus is sometimes skipped, along with the last 24 seconds which is the normal fade-out part in which B.o.B says, "Yeah, and that's just how we do it/And I'ma let this ride/B.o.B and Bruno Mars", and the radio edit ends with the fourth and last chorus with an earlier fade-out. A 3rd example would be the song, "The Man" by Aloe Blacc, in which the radio edit skips the "I'm the man/Go ahead & tell everybody/What I'm saying ya all" part & the first 10 seconds. Also, the 3rd chorus of the song is shortened. However, many radio edits will also edit out verses, bridges, and interludes, such as the original single edit of "Piano Man" by Billy Joel which substitutes the end of the third verse for the ending of the second verse. Another example for this case is Justin Timberlake's "Mirrors", where the radio edit cuts the entire "You are the love of my life" part.

Dance

Dance is a performance art form consisting of purposefully selected sequences of human movement. This movement has aesthetic and symbolic value, and is acknowledged as dance by performers and observers within a particular culture. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoire of movements, or by its historical period or place of origin.

An important distinction is to be drawn between the contexts of theatrical and participatory dance, although these two categories are not always completely separate; both may have special functions, whether social, ceremonial, competitive, erotic, martial, or sacred/liturgical. Others disciplines of human movement are sometimes said to have a dance-like quality, including martial arts, gymnastics, figure skating, synchronized swimming and many other forms of athletics.

Performance and participation

Theatrical dance, also called performance or concert dance, is intended primarily as a spectacle, usually a performance upon a stage by virtuoso dancers. It often tells a story, perhaps using mime, costume and scenery, or else it may simply interpret the musical accompaniment, which is often specially composed. Examples are western ballet and modern dance, Classical Indian dance and Chinese and Japanese song and dance dramas. Most classical forms are centred upon dance alone, but performance dance may also appear in opera and other forms of musical theatre.

Radio

Radio is the use of radio waves is to carry information, such as sound, by systematically modulating some property of electromagnetic energy waves transmitted through space, such as their amplitude, frequency, phase, or pulse width. When radio waves strike an electrical conductor, the oscillating fields induce an alternating current in the conductor. The information in the waves can be extracted and transformed back into its original form.

Radio systems need a transmitter to modulate (change) some property of the energy produced to impress a signal on it, for example using amplitude modulation or angle modulation (which can be frequency modulation or phase modulation). Radio systems also need an antenna to convert electric currents into radio waves, and vice versa. An antenna can be used for both transmitting and receiving. The electrical resonance of tuned circuits in radios allow individual stations to be selected. The electromagnetic wave is intercepted by a tuned receiving antenna. A radio receiver receives its input from an antenna and converts it into a form usable for the consumer, such as sound, pictures, digital data, measurement values, navigational positions, etc. Radio frequencies occupy the range from a 3 kHz to 300 GHz, although commercially important uses of radio use only a small part of this spectrum.

Blake

Blake is a surname or a given name which originated from Old English. Its derivation is uncertain; it could come from "blac", a nickname for someone who had dark hair or skin, or from "blaac", a nickname for someone with pale hair or skin. Another theory is that it is a corruption of "Ap Lake", meaning "Son of Lake".

Blake was the name of one of the 14 Tribes of Galway in Ireland. These Blakes were descendants of Richard Caddell, alias Blake, who was involved in the Norman invasion of Ireland in 1169. As such a long present foreign name it became known as de Bláca in Irish.

The origins of the name Blake are also considered to be Old Norse, first appearing in Yorkshire, England, possibly derived from the word Blaker, referring to a village and a former municipality of Akershus county, Norway (east of Oslo).

Blake often refers to the British poet, painter and printmaker William Blake (1757–1827) or to the contemporary figurative artist Blake.

Males with given name Blake