Combining fashion-savvy, beautifully timed choreography and pure athleticism, the best dancing musicians are those who weave their style and image with the music they create. One who didn’t make the cut, but is still an excellent example is Chubby Checker, who smiled, sang melodious songs and danced more or less in one spot. But every song he sang was a new doo-wop dance craze. The Twist, The Fly and The Pony epitomized Checker’s conservative era in which sock hops and milkshakes at the diner were all the rage.
Other notable omissions include rock gods Little Richard, Chuck Berry and AC/DC’s Angus Young, whose backwards duck-walk while head-banging and playing his guitar is a remarkable feat to see. Without further ado, we give you 10 men who dance like musicians and walk like Egyptians.
Number 1
Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson’s greatest creative gift was his ability to craft fully conceived characters that fueled songs lyrics, its beat and the choreography he would execute. Take “Smooth Criminal,” for example: The gangster Michael Jackson plays is never fully revealed. His face remains concealed below a bent-brimmed fedora, the criminal is designed to hide, to be mysterious, to lurk in the dark as a lingering threat. In Michael Jackson’s hands, this opened a playbook of choreographic possibilities that were designed to toy with and trick his viewer’s perception.
But if all you want is dance skills, all we can say is “It don’t matter if you’re black or white…”
Number 2
James Brown
The Grandaddy of R&B, the Godfather of Soul, James Brown could slide on his flat-soled shoes like nobody’s business. And he could move his feet as quickly as the frantically accelerating beat demanded. To put it another way: Brown’s feet always dictated (or reflected) the speed and beat of his music. And with this convergence of musical and dancing genius, James Brown set a mind-boggling song-and-dance standard.
While reimaging music by splicing together elements of funk, disco, soul, and gospel, Brown also invented a treasure trove of dance moves, developing the fodder for disco staples like The Bugaloo, The Funky Chicken, The Mashed Potato, The Camel Walk, and The Robot. So if you think you can dance because you’ve nailed Timberlake’s moves, try mastering The Bugaloo!
Number 3
Elvis
When Elvis adopted R&B and brought his hip-shaking, pelvis-thrusting vulgarity to white audiences, the church lost the plot. But Elvis brought showmanship to the stage and pushed the pulpit into the background.
In many ways, Chuck Berry and Little Richard rode Elvis’ coattails into stardom because rock needed someone white to pop America’s cherry. And Elvis was a good fit. He had style, he had grace, he had swagger, and he had a lip curl only Billy Idol has managed to duplicate. By today’s standards, of course, Elvis dances like a choir boy, but his grunting good looks had the schoolgirls drooling back in the day.
Number 4
Chris Brown
Chris Brown is only 17 years old, but he recently starred in Stomp the Yard, and he’s also the “it” boy of today’s mainstream dance world. In the R&B world, he’s bumped Usher from his comfortable seat on top, partly because his recent performance at the 2007 Grammy’s was off the wall. With choreography that has the potential to match stuff like “Thriller” and “Bad,” and skills as sick as James Brown, it remains to be seen whether his musical story lines can fuel his dance to even greater heights. Right now, Brown can put on a more diverse dancing exhibition than Usher, but he’s going to need some meatier ideas than singing about how many female options he has at the club to be as musically revolutionary as the next three dancers.
Number 5
Mick Jagger
Physically, there is little doubt that Mick Jagger has the largest mouth in the history of rock and roll. So big, in fact, that he’s still singing even as his geriatric fans begin kicking the proverbial bucket. In their prime, however, The Rolling Stones were the kingpins of the rock world, and Mick was a dancing machine. He would strut, pout, pose, and shuffle, theatrically performing each song like a mime, gesticulating wildly with his arms and hands.
Number 6
Usher
Usher’s got a pretty slick staccato, he does a good robot and the choreography is generally flawless. He can spin, strut and dip and roll his shoulders, but we’ll never understand why he dances in running shoes since black dress shoes and their slick soles sure helped Michael Jackson and James Brown glide effortlessly across a stage.
Number 7
Jay Kay, aka Jamiroquai
Jay Kay is the funk-soul-disco brother. In some ways, Jamiroquai’s front man has effectively filtered the blended sound that is acid jazz with his Stevie Wonder style falsetto. But Jamiroquai is also about chilling out, dancing and collecting outrageous hats. Having capitalized on the mind-melting rave culture of the ’90s, there is a lyrical lightness to Jamiroquai’s music that made its mark through dance-heavy videos such as “Virtual Reality” and the disco lights and dance steps of “Little L.”
Number 8
Justin Timberlake
If Justin Timberlake doesn’t represent the white suburban American hip-hop generation, we don’t know who does. Maybe Eminem is the more notorious icon, but Justin Timberlake is a modern pop star with hip-hop moves to boot. He also happens to be an MTV melting pot of dance moves. Paying homage to predecessors like Jamiroquai, Michael Jackson and John Travolta, Timberlake is a premier student of trends, and he has managed to blend musical styles with slickly executed moves to stage compelling videos while crafting high-octane live shows.
Number 9
Axl Rose
Axl Rose’s “snake dance” was a truly unique move. It was basically a bow-legged shuffle that worked in rhythm with the stand-up mic he would rock left to right like a pendulum. It was a perfect shuffle for the swaying half-ballads that took Guns N’ Roses to the top of the pop charts. The Axl Dance satisfied the real test of a killer dance move, which is its affinity to the music it decorates.
When, on the other hand, it was time for destruction and Axl unleashed the high-pitched scream that carved him his place as a rock god, he shifted gears and took a page from Mick Jagger’s book, marching and stomping and performing his way across the stage. Sporting black leather pants and the three-inch bandanna fold in a style he glorified along with John McEnroe, Axl Rose had the volatile attitude necessary to make “Welcome to the Jungle” seem like an alarming chant of impending doom.
Number 10
MC Hammer
Before we get to The Hammer Dance, let’s take a moment to relive The Hammer Pants. As fashion goes, it doesn’t get much worse than tight-ankle workout pants with billowing cotton around the hips and a crotch that hangs to the knees, and looks remarkably like a diaper.
Despite being a pop rapper with a piss-poor fashion sense, The Hammer Dance is one heck of a spectacle. Technically, it is a poor-man’s break-dance. Instead of breaking though, Hammer does The Running Man — arms pumping like a track star as the feet slide backwards to simulate a running motion — before flailing his limbs into power spins that kick the dangling diaper into flabby motion.
Once an Oakland A’s batboy, now a preacher with delusions of a comeback, MC Hammer may still have a bag of tricks, but he’ll have to dig deep to find an audience that isn’t driven by ironic laughter at his efforts.
