Jason Kottke rounds up a series of YouTube clips of "old styles of dancing set to contemporary music" including this Shufflin' Grandpa doing fast-footed country dancing with a ~~dubstep~~ contemporary electronic soundtrack.

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I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: Copyfight • dance • Funny • mashup • music • video • youtube

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Shaun Watkins

Most definitely not dubstep, still amusing though..
- Duffong
  
  No dubstep detected, but he’s a trendsetter.
  - davidasposted
    
    For the record, I believe the video is riffing off this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melbourne_Shuffle
    - http://profiles.google.com/newreality Paul White
      
      As a Melbourian who used to go out and shuffle I’d say yes, that’s the first thing I thought of when I saw the clip. I showed it to my wife who said ‘He’s doing the shuffle!’
franko

my new goal is to be as spry and freakin’ cool as this guy when i’m his age. seriously — he’s awesome.
hardwarejunkie9

I think we all need to shake this “everything’s dubstep” problem we have.
- http://evilbobdayjob.blogspot.com/ Deidzoeb
  
  But how do we bring ourselves to care enough to distinguish between ever-fracturing subgenres of music we don’t like? Can’t we go back to the 80s when everyone demonstrated they were out of touch by classifying Metallica as “Acid Rock”?
  - IronEdithKidd
    
    I don’t know what 80′s you lived through, but the 80′s I lived through always classified Metallica as “metal”.
    
    Acid Rock gave it a try, but Acid Rock could not kill The Metal.
    - http://evilbobdayjob.blogspot.com/ Deidzoeb
      
      Notice in my post I mentioned that people who were out of touch would classify Metallica as “Acid Rock.” In the 80s I lived through, there would be metal-geeks arguing over the exact classification or sub-classification of Metallica, whether it became “pop metal” or something when they eventually broke through into mainstream (maybe that was in the 90s). See all the other posts debating dubstep vs prog house vs trancey guff. I know that most metal fans probably wouldn’t geek out that much, but I’m sure I could dig out some of my wife’s metal magazines and find articles debating it tediously.
      
      Pedantica! Master of Pedants!
      
      YMMV!
      - Guest
        
        in the 80′s, Metallica WAS metal. Those arguments you describe were the 90s, when it was quite debatable.
    - http://evilbobdayjob.blogspot.com/ Deidzoeb
      
      PS, your handle is absolutely metal.
      - IronEdithKidd
        
        Spaciba. I thank a random visit to the random pirate name generator for this handle, and also the FSM for guiding me there on the highest of holidays, International Talk Like a Pirate Day, lo’ those many years ago. Ramen.
        
        I gristled at the notion that “everyone” was clueless in the 80′s. Blanket assertions suck. (Full disclosure: I don’t even like Metallica.) I really, really don’t want to get into a nuanced discussion on the merits of verious subgenres of metal. As you say, “pedantica”. Yes, yes it is.
    - Guest
      
      The 80′s I lived through gave Jethro Tull the Grammy. Acid rock was GnR.
- Lobster
  
  Yeah, that’s not dubstep. It’s Steampunk.
  - dragonfrog
    
    Nah, I’m not really into Pokemon.
- ZikZak
  
  But everything IS dubstep! Or rather, dubstep is becoming everything. The internet is approaching a Rule 34-type situation: If it exists, there’s a dubstep remix of it.
millie fink

Excellent! NOW I’m ready to start my day.

Love the mismatched socks too.
- Tango Charlie
  
  I think the mismatched socks might be a visual cue to help the viewer differentiate his feet while he’s blowing the club up.
  I could be wrong, he could just be kooky.
BombBlastLightingWaltz

For some reason, mismatched socks man is reminiscent of Sammy Davis Jr. in his autumn years, applying the ‘Old Soft Shoe’.
Aaron H

Style example of dubstep: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4qncWGVcYk
Style example of Progressive House: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXoL2mtk8Kk (jump ahead to ~1:00 for the beat to kick in… and I do somewhat contest the label “Progressive House”, but whatevs. The music in the dancing vid in the OP is LMFAO who self-describe their genre as “party rock”, but it’s a lot closer to Deadmau5′s Prog House than it is *anything* dubstep, mainly because dubstep is a slow breakbeat, not four-on-the-floor)
- http://twitter.com/GeraldEmerald Gerald Emerald
  
  “mainly because dubstep is a slow breakbeat, not four-on-the-floor”
  I can only think of a few dubstep artists that employ breakbeats, Rob Smith and Cluekid spring to mind. On the other hand there are plenty of 4×4 dubstep tunes too: LD, Benga, Skream, 2562, Hyetal, etc have done many 4 to the floor tracks…
  
  That definition of prog house you linked to is way-off. Prog is wishy washy trancey guff that thinks it’s deeper than it is – think Wyndam Hill with ungroovey beats, the crap in the video is fidget or electro house. Either way it’s shit! Great video though…
- malonine
  
  So dubstep is basically electronic music slowed down enough so white frat boys can “dance” to it?
http://evilbobdayjob.blogspot.com/ Deidzoeb

Good, I’m not the only one getting too old to identify or care about new genres and subgenres of music. Electronica? Techno? Dubstep? Acid House? Y’all get off Kraftwerk’s lawn!
- Happler
  
  Ahh, I see that you still listen to Classic Rock…
  - dculberson
    
    You mean oldies! [not that there's anything wrong with that .. I love Kraftwerk!]
10xor01

Think I just found next year’s Halloween costume!
GuyInMilwaukee

My first thought was that this looks like Santa Claus the day after Christmas with a new trim and ready to party in some warm climes.
http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby

I don’t know what it is about these vids, but they get me every time. I love ‘em; and this one’s a gooden (autocorrect: ‘goo den’ – I like that.).

They just tick all the right boxes in my brain.
http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby

AAAH, the guy that comes in with the suede jacket! Honestly BoingBoing, sometimes you just make my day.

edit: It is of course a brown shirt, not a suede jacket. It’s been a long day.
http://artdonovan.typepad.com Art

Excellent dancing! Perfect match with sound track. Thanks!
ryedha

That’s not really an old-timey dance, that’s the dance LMFAO do in the video. Still awesome.
- dragonfrog
  
  LMFAO may well wear funny clothes and dance this way in their video, but that doesn’t mean they were the first to do it. Not by a century or more.
lknope

I think that dancing style is traditional Appalachian mountain clog dancing. Jesco White made it famous with his own unique blend of clog and tap dancing. Here’s an example of the original:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcqSkA6WRSQ&feature=related
25lim

From the perspective of a veteran square dance caller I say this video is…. awesome.
Robert Sanchez

I want to know this dance!!!
bcsizemo

The oldschool schooling the newschool…

Now when we get a video of grandma doing some tecktonik that will complete the circle of life.
bcsizemo

contemporary electronic soundtrack…that’s more top 40 pop (or electro pop)
http://evilbobdayjob.blogspot.com/ Deidzoeb

I see lots of comments here debating how to classify the music, not nearly enough comments debating what to call that style of dance Granpa exhibits.

Acid Skip? Rivertrance? PROG CLOG.
rikomatic

I will steal of that guy’s moves. Hopefully I will be as cool as him when I’m his age. But I doubt it.
Felton / Moderator

I can only dance like that when I’m wearing my Techno-Trousers.
- http://profiles.google.com/tim.m.holt Tim Holt
  
  Ex NASA?
http://profiles.google.com/tim.m.holt Tim Holt

This really shows off the universal nature of some dance moves.
phlavor

When I started getting into the club scene in college, I mused about my friends and I one day being pierced, hair dyed raving grandparents. Now, twenty years later, I still hit the clubs and don’t feel out of place. So this video is from the future.
http://www.xradiograph.com/ OtherMichael

I am remixing a dubstep track different from the one you are listening to now. I am remixing the remix of the dubstep remix and I am going to remix it back into the dubstep remix again and again until the resonant frequencies of dubstep reinforce themselves so that any semblance of my original remix, with perhaps the exception of rhythm, is destroyed. What you will hear, then, are the natural resonant frequencies of dubstep articulated by dubstep. I regard this activity not so much as a demonstration of a physical fact, but more as a way to smooth out any irregularities dubstep might have.
- http://profiles.google.com/tim.m.holt Tim Holt
  
  Yo Dog, we heard you liked dubstep so we put some dubstep in your dubstep so you can dubstep while you dubstep.
http://celesteagnes.blogspot.com/ Sekino

That made my day!

Love the authoritative hand motion at 0:27 “You. DANCE.”
Jack Daniel

Now I want to see today’s kids edited to polka.
- obeyken
  
  you mean like this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zA2vPX-CWSE
  - Jack Daniel
    
    YES!!! Thank you sir.
  - dahlia
    
    AHAHAHA!!! oh god, that made my day…
  - V
    
    can’t…stop…watching…and…laughing…
http://symbioid.livejournal.com/ Dave

It was better when it was Boys Noize – Jeffer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WX4ccnj41lk

Also I just saw these EBM/Industrial Dancers remixed to Nyan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gw-f22Bul4c
- IronEdithKidd
  
  “Puttin’ on my gloves” is the new “sprinkler”?
MollyMaguire

This is so illustrative of the theory I have that practitioners of bluegrass rarely smile to indicate that they are having a good time. They might break out in clogging, they might clap, they might turn to each other while picking and raise their eyebrows, but, no, they do not smile – very often.
http://twitter.com/dr_ultimately Iain Marcks

i fucking LOVE this.
tw1515tw

How about flash clog dancing?(starts at 1’45″) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtESUuA2gTc
impboy

For those pondering “What’s in a name?” when glossing over tons of ill-defined EDM genre titles, keep in mind that the “dub” in dubstep refers to a previously underheard musical tradition producers in Jamaica grinded on for years. Not all of those people in that tradition are happy with the association with KoRN, brostep or cheesy electro-house. As Ras Mesinai tweeted recently, “Dubstep has now done to the word Dub what Israel has done to the Star of David.” Make of it what you will.
Deb

Speaking of Grampa!!! Have you heard the song by Charlie Allen? It’s called “Grandpa’s Recipe.” Check it out at http://www.charlieallenmusic.com/index.htm
Will

What I’d LOVE to see is this fellow actually dancing to this music followed by a few young hip-hop dancers doing their thing to his music.

Talk about bridging the age gap!!

How cool would THAT be X-)
Will

What I’d LOVE to see is this fellow actually dancing to this music followed by a few young hip-hop dancers doing their thing to his music.

Talk about bridging the age gap!!

How cool would THAT be X-)
bbfan

I feel compelled to add this video as an example of a great combination of dirty drum n bass and church goers possessed by the holy spirit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&hl=en-GB&v=ohmhZVjaqQo
Mister44

Looks more like traditional tap, or soft shoe. Still nice – what ever keeps you young. Dance while you can. Which I’d learned more before my leg went to shit :0/
http://www.mikezed.com mzed

It’s a little dated now, but Ishkur’s Guide should help with some of these electronic music genres:
http://techno.org/electronic-music-guide/
V

violinists can shuffle too….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2APZN9FJNY
B A

That’s the beauty of music and dance. It’s so easy to mix and match them willy nilly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkbweCV1_GY
obeyken
I just loved that German industrial dance with dutch polka music mashup you linked, thanks for that, really made me smile.
Bryan Walls

Is the video from the Athens, Alabama Fiddle contest?
gedsudski

Commence ta jigglin !!
http://www.bronsonharrington.com/ Bronson

ROFL, go grandpa! This made my day.
sean

How about that whippersnapper jumping in, hogging the spotlight and wavin his arms all fancy-like and bobbin up n down like a excitable prairie dog?
sean

Wheeee doggy! He’s got a move on Jed Clampett, thats fer sure.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/superbug Maryn McKenna

Appalachian clog, no question. With maybe a little buck mixed in. (Also, fantastic.)
hbgvfcdxsz hbgvfcdxsz

Grandpa is doing the Melbourne Shuffle (wiki it)
Also this clips is awesome

Shufflin' grandpa -- country dance meets electronic music

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