I want you to take a minute and think back to every middle schooler’s favorite time: The Friday night dance. These are the times where regardless of who your friends were, everyone was out there in the gym or caf going as hard as they could. If the dance started at 7, you can guarantee that by 7:45, sweat would be dripping off everyone. Then everyone would go outside and get some pizza, only to go back in and go hard again until moms and dads came to take us home. I don’t think that anyone didn’t enjoy the dances.

The real purpose of this article is to address the most important part of any good dance: the music. We are going to take a look at the top 5 songs I can remember and talk about why they were the best.

5. Nelly- "Hot In Herre"

So you are just getting to the dance. Your button up in still straight, your hair isn’t crazy, and everyone is just standing around. You go find your friends and start talking to everyone and then you hear “Hot in… So hot in here…”. Everyone immediately drops there conversation and runs to the dance floor. As soon as that beat drops, arms start flying and people start going bananas. The few that are good dancers start getting it, and the ones who can’t act like they can. It is one of the best dance starting songs there is.

4. UNK- "2 Step"

This song was so popular because everyone could do the dance. Everyone would get out on the floor, in lines of course because that is how you do with songs that have actual dances, just kind of free style until the organized part, then do the dance together during the chorus. This was a good one because even if you didn’t know what to do, you could just watch someone and pick it up quickly. If you were really good, sometimes you could throw in your own style and then the party really started.

3. Aerosmith- "I don't Want To Miss a Thing"

Now I know that this song isn’t exactly from that era, but it always found its way into the regular musical rotation. I think it was so popular because we could kind of consider it a slow song, and if you remember middle school dances, the chaperones were like hunters looking for PDA. Because of that, slow songs were like winning the lottery. We might get 2 per dance, and you best believe they were taken advantage of. Being 13 and 14, they were the few chances you had to be all flirty with your boyfriend or girlfriend at that time. This song definitely was a good one for that, especially if you could kind of remember the lyrics.

2. Flo Rida- "Low"

If you say that you didn’t get it to this song in middle school, then I will call you a liar. Everyone just kind of made up their own dance to it, but they all worked. The best part was when it repeated low like 8 times and everyone ended up laying on the floor. Everyone would rap the bridge and chorus then when the verses came up, we would all just kind of make up words and then simultaneously yell “ Apple Bottom Jeans!” when the chorus came back around. It was one of the best songs of that time.

1. Soulja Boy- "Crank That (Soulja Boy)"

I think we can all agree that this was the biggest song of that time. The day before the dance, you would go online to find videos of how to do the dance. You learned every move and practiced it until you would rival Soulja himself. The dance would roll around and you waited for the 2 times this song was played. Everyone knew the song so well that eventually we would throw in our own style. We would line up with boys on one side and girls on the other. You had a few seconds to get ready and then you hear “ahhhhhhhhhhhhh” so you knew it was time to get it. This is one of those songs that literally everyone knew and learned the dance to. If you danced to nothing else, you made sure to break a sweat when this one hit wonder’s spectacular song came on.

C.Long