Pitbull vs. Lady Gaga, Who Is The Greatest Pop Dance Act Of All Time?

There’s been a lot of discussion around the rising trend of dance music topping the charts, from emerging acts blowing up utilising the sound to now, the undisputed biggest artists in the world making house records. 

2021 saw the rise of the great PinkPantheress, whose DIY sound moulded together the genres of jungle, DnB and garage. She became an undisputed viral sensation and universally adored artist with singles Pain, Just For Me and Break it off all featuring considerably across the internet.

Drake has hopped on the dance wave, releasing an undisputed house album Honestly Nevermind. It saw him heavily enter the world of dance music. The track list features a range of Ibiza club inspired beats that mould, interestingly, with his arguably uninspiring vocal deliveries. As he ponders on failed love, Drake taps into the realms of jersey club and piano house using a dance floor as his medium to reflect on his relationships to this point in his life. 

Beyonce’s has also just revealed the first single for her forthcoming seventh record, Renaissance. The track, Break My Soul features previous collaborator Big Freedia and is a classic and arguably generic mid tempo house track which closely resembles the Stonebridge remix of Robin S’ Show Me Love, one of the most influential dance tracks in history.

With these two massive releases and the emergence of dance music on the charts, it's no doubt that dance music is having its pop resurgence following a near decade of silence as the pop world moved to more hip-hop inspired sounds. This isn’t the first time however that dance music has been at the forefront of pop culture, with the late 2000s and 2010s being a hotbed for pop-dance music.

The era between 2009-2013 was one dominated by upbeat dance pop that was heavily inspired by commercial, big room EDM. In this era, pop was not deep and meaningful, it was jam packed with elation and hedonism. While it was more than annoying at the time, it's easy to look back on that era with rose tinted glasses. 

The era brought us some of the most famous dance pop songs of all time. The Black Eyed Peas released their incredible THE E.N.D, which featured hit singles Rock That Body, Meet Me Halfway, I Gotta Feeling, Imma Be and Boom Boom Pow. Usher released his classic album Raymond v Raymond, which included the great OMG featuring will.i.am, as well as DJ Got Us Fallin’ In Love. 

Flo Rida dropped two classic albums including one and only Wild Ones that was jam packed with pop hits. Think Whistle, Wild Ones featuring Sia, Good Feeling and I Cry. In 2020 he graced fans with Only One Flo, whose singles were Club Can’t Handle Me with David Guetta and Who Dat Girl feat. Akon. Then there was Rokstarr by Taio Cruz which had hit after hit. Dynamite and Break Your Heart are sitting on 700 million and 300 million streams respectively and dominated the charts in 2010. 

This is all before we talk about the super producers that dominated that period. In 2012 David Guetta changed the course of popular music releasing Nothing But The Beat, which featured the now over 1 billion stream Titanium with Sia, Play Hard with Ne-Yo & Akon, as well as Where Them Girls At with Nicki Minaj and Flo Rida and Sweat with Snoop Dogg. How could we forget Calvin Harris’ 18 Months, which included Bounce with Kelis, Feel So Close, We Found Love, We’ll Be Coming Back, Sweet Nothing, I Need Your Love and Drinking From The Bottle. To close the golden trio of producers in this era, we need to talk about 2013’s True by Avicii. You couldn’t go anywhere without hearing Wake Me Up, Hey Brother or Addicted To You. He also released Levels in 2011, and Silhouettes in 2012. 

There’s two names we’ve left out however that are the two undisputed GOAT’s of the 2009-2013 era of pop dance music. The first being the one and only Pitbull. Pitbull entered the scene with ferocity and swagger, with his tongue in cheek brand of rap meets dance music acting as the perfect concoction for radio and universal success during this era. It was hit after hit for Pitbull, with none of his singles hitting the mark. Pitbull will forever be the king of the school disco. 

In 2009 he broke onto the scene with I Know You Want Me, and the classic Hotel Room Service, which featured on his Pitbull Starring In Rebelution record. It was the first time he saw widespread commercial success and his golden run would last another 5 years. 2 years on from that album came the one and only Planet Pit. Until writing this, I had no idea that so many hits from my childhood came from this singular album. Give Me Everything with Ne-Yo, Afrojack and Nayer still has one of the most hilarious opening stanzas of all time. On the album’s tracklist its followed by Rain Over Me featuring Marc Anthony, and Hey Baby with T-Pain. Scrolling a bit further down, International Love, with Chris Brown hits just as hard to this day.

3 years later he delivered Global Warming, (how topical and tapped in from the King), with singles Feel This Moment with Christina Aguilera, Don’t Stop The Party with TJR and the intolerable, Ke$ha collaboration Timber, which still haunts wooden school hall floorboards to this day. Pitbull’s domination unfortunately ended at the impeccable Globalization, where hit Time Of Our Lives with Ne-Yo was on constant rotation absolutely everywhere. Fireball with John Ryan has also stood the test of time, making for the perfect day-time television advertisement song. 

While many would make the argument for Pitbull being the GOAT of that era, there’s one other name that truly took the world by storm and is still relevant to this day. She’s one of the most influential artists of our generation, inspiring an entire culture of youth to be themselves in the face of absolutely anything, as well as pioneering contemporary music forever. That name is Lady Gaga. 

In 2009 she began to change pop music forever, releasing The Fame Monster which has arguably the most hits ever on a single album. Bad Romance, Alejandro and Telephone with Beyonce inspired many of the aforementioned acts to enter the world of pop EDM. Their tenacity, deeply electronic beats are still revolutionary to this day, with sonic textures that are still present with some of the biggest acs in the world. On the second side off the double CD featured some of the biggest hits after the millennium, including Just Dance with Colby O’Donis, Paparazzi and of course, Poker Face. 

Then followed one of the most powerful and revolutionary pop records in the world, Born This Way. From its titular single to Judas, You And I and The Edge Of Glory, rarely had such a euphoric and experimental record reached the pop highs of this one. All while embracing a brash, dance-pop sound. 

ARTPOP in 2013 followed, which many argue is one of the greatest albums of all time, whose tracklist was closed out by the euphoric synth driven Applause, the track that truly soundtracked and put a full stop on one of the greatest eras of pop music one driven by EDM.