Is crossover music taking the country out of C&W dancing

[pygmalion]

It's funny. C&W music is about as popular as it's ever been in American society, thanks to the Shania Twain's of the world -- you know, the folks who get played on pop radio and go to the top of the billboard charts. A lot of their music doesn't look, feel or sound particulary "country." It's just by a country artist, so it gets the country label for free.

So here's a question. If you can't tell a particular Dixie Chicks tune from pop or even rock music, what happens to the dances people do? Are they still doing country dancing, or are they selling out and doing whatever their rock-loving friends would do? And, while we're at it, is C&W nightclub freestyle really any different from nightclub freestyle anywhere else? :roll: :wink:

[Spitfire]

I don't go out ot C&W clubs, but I think the dances are still C&W with progressive 2 Step still being the most common. Is there freestyle dance in C&W now?

The music itself has become more and more progressive in the last twenty years or so to where it sometimes seems indistiquishable from mainsteam pop. I'm guessing that this is due to a younger generation of C&W stars who were influenced by rock and roll.

[jon]

I think of contemporary "country" as a particular genre of pop music characterized by specific instruments, vocal stylings, thematic matter, and so on. Likewise C&W dancing has been very heavily influenced by crossover from WCS and ballroom in the last couple of decades. In addition to importing technique and styling and instructors from other forms, it's also imported entire dances like cha-cha, rumba, and nightclub two-step.