This is a fabulous thread. I agree with everone except MH - as usual
MJ does not simply date from the 1980s. It wasn't born whole on a particular day. It evolved from a previous dance due to a change in the environment and that dance evolved from another, right back to the original dance that was an African tribal dance - and before that, who knows? The environment was the music. And it will probably be the music that kills MJ - but it will take a long time.
Consider the example of Rock & Roll. In the 1950s music and the dance fitted together nicely. People loved the Rock & Roll scene, they loved the music, they did the dance, met their husbands and wives, etc. During the '60s music changed and by the '70s you couldn't do Rock & Roll to any of the music being released. The result of this was that young people did not learn the Rock & Roll dance.
But, there a still people out there going to Rock & Roll dances and enjoying the same music. Rock & Roll as a dance has not died - yet! It is a bit of a fossil though. It lives on with an ageing population who will eventually be too old and infirm to dance
Let's consider Modern Jive in this context. We get young people coming along. But would they come if all the music was 70s disco and there was no modern chart music? I don't think so - although this is an assumption.
What could happen if the music that was being released changed so much that you couldn't do MJ to it - let's say it all became a Rock and Roll beat. My guess is that we'd all still go dancing MJ to the same old music but we'd get far less young people coming along. MJ would be the dance of our generation and it would die with us - to be reborn in a different guise when the musical environment changed again.
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