Dance Dance for your Life: Top10 Music Videos Featuring Dance

Since the release of Pink’s Try [MV], Amy and I had been discussing a list of music videos that featured dancing, but as with anything that has to do with Amy, things have to get complicated, so we worked up some sort of criteria.

First, we are not including any music video that’s a “dance version” of the official release — that has immediately cut down a lot of Korean music videos. In fact, even though Korea has some very tight music videos featuring prominently choreographed dance routines like After School’s Step Up [MV] — which is not essentially a “dance version,” it is in essence shot like a dance version video — you’ll see in a minute why Korean music videos don’t necessarily fit this list. This is also why there’s no Justin Timberlake’s My Love [MV] either.

“Why, God, why??? NOOOO!”

We are also not featuring music videos with just one or two prominent dance sequence — so… sorry, Michael Jackson music videos were cut from this list — shocking, huh? There are also no Britney Spears or Madonna music videos, either. The music videos on this list feature choreographed dancing — without many, if any, cuts in between the dancing — throughout the whole video not necessarily on one set, a criteria that shot down music videos like Finger Eleven’s Paralyzer [MV]. Most importantly: these music videos do not necessarily show the singers doing their own dancing.

Sorry, no prominent group sync dance, either. This also eliminated hoards of boy and girl groups from any country, as well as solo artists whose music videos have the necessary amount of choreography… so you’ll see no Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation [MV], sadly.

The basic criteria is simple, EVERY MUSIC VIDEO starts with 10 points. You add or subtract points depending on how many non-dancing scenes are in the video, the sets, the props, the length of the shots, or if there are group dancing sequences in between. The result was somewhat surprising, after we got the points together, so we hope you enjoy this list.

As a point of reference… even though it’s not a music video, Gene Kelly’s iconic Singin’ in the Rain sequence on the film of the same name scored a perfect score of 20 points.

Ghost Writer

Here. There. Everywhere. Punished soul that usually watches what nobody wants, but sometimes gets lucky.

3 Responses

  1. Camiele says:

    OH MY GOD!!!! In all my backlog editing how did I miss this one?!?!?!?!!!??

    I’m gonna have to say that your Top 3 is pretty much what mine would look like, except I’d want Bjork’s at number 3, with my favourite dancer Janet at number 2. Obviously, “Weapon of Choice” was the ONLY choice (no pun intended…. honest) for number one.

    Perhaps Usher’s “U Remind Me” would also work… he’s only dancing around the chick the whole time… well, there is a mini-dance break. So I guess that would knock it down a bit further.

    This is a hella interesting idea for a “Best Dance” post! I still can’t believe, with all my bitching and moaning about dance, I didn’t actually get around to reading or editing this *sad face is sad*. But MAN I’m glad I finally got the chance to check this out!

    And, you’re right about “Singin’ in the Rain.” Perhaps it should just be on the list because… well… it’s friggin “Singin’ in the Rain!!!”

    • amy says:

      @Camiele, I wonder what U Remind Me would have gotten on the list. We did consider it xD but it got cut down because there’s the whole walking and singing more than actual dancing.

      I blame it on the strange mv setup hahaha.

      • Camiele says:

        @amy, I guess you could think of the walking as part of the dancing… a literal dancing around the woman of interest, metaphorically he’s dancing around being with the girl because she reminds him so much of this girl he once dated.

        The walking would have to be choreographed because it would have to work perfectly in conjunction with the girl’s walking. That is something that’s sort of accepted in the dance world as part of choreography, especially if it fits the movement of the music.

        But, of course, that’s getting a little too deep when you have videos on the list that are more readily conducive to what your point system is… HaHA.

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