Despite their best efforts to create social cache with their glitzy, star-studded awards show, the Recording Academy has never been the pinnacle of cool. Yet recent efforts to diversify its voting membership to lean away from a notoriously older, white male perspective have positively impacted nominations in recent years, including acknowledging popular artists earlier in their careers, ala Billie Eilish, Chappell Roan and Olivia Rodrigo. Unsurprisingly, the dance categories (still) tend to lean into pop and EDM, but more underground and innovative acts like Aphex Twin, Four Tet, Jayda G, Marshall Jefferson, Jon Hopkins, Sophie, and Apparat have earned nominations. Yet, across genres, name recognition is often king at the GRAMMYs.

Choosing five top dance tracks across subgenres and scenes will certainly leave many out, but the addition of the Best Dance Pop Recording GRAMMY in 2024 offers a home for poppier dance hits, like PinkPatheress this year, and has carved out a bit more space for powerhouse electronic producers in Best Dance/Electronic Recording. 

In 1998 – a full decade-and-a-half after foundational electronic genres house and techno were born in Chicago and Detroit, respectively – the GRAMMYs acknowledged dance music with two new categories while perpetuating the myth that it’s European-bred. While white-washing of dance music is an industry-wide issue, not just a GRAMMYs problem, KAYTRANADA becoming the first Black artist to win Best Dance/Electronic Album in 2021 demonstrates how slow-moving the Academy has been in acknowledging dance music's Black roots. Two years later, Beyoncé became the first Black woman to win the award, and the fourth woman – Madonna was the first woman in 2007 with her classic Stuart Price-produced Confessions on a Dance Floor.

The nominees this year are solid, but don't quite provide evidence that the Academy knows what's moving dance floors.

Best Dance/Electronic Album

FKA twigs' cathartic, rave-inspired EUSEXUA, PinkPantheress' flirty, UK garage-inflected 20-minute romp Fancy That, Skrillex's frantic dubstep whiplash F— U SKRILLEX YOU THINK UR ANDY WARHOL BUT UR NOT!! <3, Fred again..'s dreamy third album Ten Days, and RÜFÜS DU SOL's deep, moody journey Inhale / Exhale are all, deservedly so, in the running for Best Dance/Electronic Album. (The latter two albums were released in 2024. The GRAMMYs' August release eligibility cut-off will always throw off their ability to capture the year in music.)

These nominees are on the poppier end of the spectrum, but do highlight the ways dance has been bubbling up in pop from Renaissance, Brat and now with FKA twigs. The avant-pop auteur fully embraced her rave era last year, channeling dance floor ecstasy on stage and releasing a wonderfully strange afterparty bonus album, EUSEXUA Afterglow. There are liberal helpings of '90s trance and '00s electronica on EUSEXUA, inspired by twigs' impactful time at Prague raves, with glitchy production from Koreless, who receives his first nomination as the transcendent project’s core producer. It's one of the best dance albums – and albums, period, of 2025.

24-year-old British singer/songwriter PinkPantheress has playfully updated '90s UK rave sounds including garage, two-step and drum & bass for the TikTok era, pairing skittering, infectious basslines with catchy dance-pop songwriting on famously under-three-minute bops. Fancy That sees the young, refreshing artist find her groove and point to her staying power. (As does its ambitious, eclectic remix album featuring edits from Nia Archives, KAYTRANADA, Mochakk and others, which bring her music more into DJ land). Her first-time GRAMMY nominations (she's also up for Best New Artist and Best Dance Pop Recording) are well-deserved.

Given Fred again..'s mainstream visibility, unceasing release schedule, and prior work penning big-name pop hits, it feels likely that he'll be nominated in the dance categories again.. and again. A polarizing figure in electronic music discourse, he has made waves in dance with an undeniable knack and enthusiasm for collaboration and catchy basslines that sample many subgenres. On ten days he's made an album that sounds and flows like one, with plenty of bops that stand on their own as uplifting dance pop tracks, from "adore u" with Obongjayar, "places to be" with Anderson .Paak and CHIKA and "glow" with Four Tet, Duskus, Joy Anonymous and Skrillex.

Skrillex is back and has brought dubstep with him from the rave grave. On his unhinged, buzzy surprise fourth album on OWSLA and Atlantic, he announces his death on the first track before diving into a break-neck, charmingly chaotic mix of genres, tempos and incredibly short tracks. It’s the sonic equivalent of shot-gunning a Four Loko in neon American Apparel.

Best Dance/Electronic Recording

Skrillex and Fred again.. are present in the dance track category too, alongside KAYTRANADA, Disclosure and even Tame Impala, who flexed his dance chops on Deadbeat. Ahead of the latter's divorced-dad-energy album, Kevin Parker expertly meshed his skill set – off-kilter pop catchiness, languid psych rock and memorable electronic basslines – on absolute heater "End Of Summer." The driving seven-minute earworm announced a new era for the multi-hyphenate artist, one where he can make his mark on pop, alt-rock and electronic music – including with surprise DJ sets in NYC and beyond. This is his second nomination in the dance recording category; he won last year alongside Justice for their excellent "Neverender.”

"End Of Summer" is the longest track among the five nominees; the others clock-in closer to the three-ish minute pop standard. KAYTRANADA's excellent "SPACE INVADER" is the only instrumental track among the nominees from his most recent (instrumental) project AIN'T NO WAY DAMN WAY! The kick-heavy beat suggests endless forward motion, while the vocal suggests escapism: "Gotta get away sometimes," via an echoing, sped-up sample of Latrelle's Neptunes-produced, Kelis-featuring 2002 R&B deep cut "My Life."

"NO CAP" and "Victory Lap" are the hype mode party tracks on the list. On the former, Anderson .Paak's confident, swaggy vocals feel so at home on Disclosure's squiggly bass-forward groove, it's surprising this is their first work together. The bop – which .Paak called the "ideal dance floor banger you don't have to think about" – is currently the Lawrence brothers' fourth most downloaded track on Beatport.

"Victory Lap" featuring grime legend Skepta and New Jersey rap upstart PlaqueBoyMax, marks a transition for Fred again.. into heavier, bass-bangin' beats and more rap collabs, on his five-track EP with Skepta and his brand-new USB album, both of which host the heater. Indeed, it is a "Victory Lap," being his top track on Beatport and earning him another GRAMMY nod from a track not on his nominated album.

The penultimate track of Skrillex's wild 34-track, 46-minute album wraps it up with a bow while celebrating his dubstep and screamo roots in a two-minute inspirational bop on "Voltage." "You gotta believe in the voltage that lives inside of us, so let's buckle up and break our walls down," a pitched-up Sonny Moore sings on the track co-written with ska artist John Feldmann.

Notably absent from the nominees is modern UK garage purveyor Sammy Virji, who’s had a huge year leading the charge reviving the bassy genre while collaborating with Skepta, Fred again.., Chris Lake and others – but perhaps is still too “underground” for the Academy. 

Virji was the top-selling UKG artist on Beatport, and we named “Cops & Robbers” with Skepta one of our Top 50 tunes of 2025. The swaggy track, alongside his groovy tech house heater “925” with Chris Lake and RoRo and “I Guess We’re Not The Same” all landed in the UKG Top 10 (and were in the GRAMMYs eligibility window); we can imagine them getting GRAMMY voters grooving. Both Virji’s debut album Same Day Cleaning and his party-starting collab with Fred again.. and Reggie, “Talk of the Town,” are eligible for the 2027 GRAMMYs, so there’s time to right these wrongs.

Best Remixed Recording

The best remix category is always fun with a loveable touch of chaos, and allows for some more underground producers and sounds to break through. It’s a good year for the category, bringing big energy on three pop remixes and two solid edits of dance classics. There’s Gesaffelstein's dark, deep and perfectly strange edit of Lady Gaga's massive "Abracadabra" (he worked on several Mayhem tracks, including “Killah” “Garden of Eden;” this remix is the weirdness I wished those tracks stepped into). 

KAYTRANADA broke through back in 2012 with his deeply groovy, infectious bootleg Janet Jackson remix, so it's rather full-circle he receives his first remix nomination for his minimalist, sultry edit of Mariah Carey's 2025 GRAMMY-nominated R&B bop “Don’t Forget About Us.”

Chicago house OG Ron Trent is a first-time GRAMMY nominee this year with his upbeat, orchestral house "refix" of iconic UK soulful dance group Soul II Soul's 1990 deep house slow jam "A Dream’s A Dream." I’m rooting for this groovy remix and house legend to take home the trophy, but given the inescapability of Netflix’s K-Pop Demon Hunters and the name recognition of David Guetta, it feels probable that his remix of “Golden” will keep going up up up.

Remixing, sampling, interpolating or covering a hit often begets more hits, and British tech house king Chris Lake brought fresh energy and frantic urgency to The Chemical Brothers 2005 GRAMMY-winning classic "Galvanize" featuring Q-Tip, so he also has a good shot. Long live the wild card of GRAMMYs Best Remixed Recording nominations; lets pray they never nix this category.

With so many sub-genres and scenes, and the endless number of dance tracks (and remixes) released every week, it feels impossible to pick the best dance track (narrowing it down to 50 is somewhat easier, as we do for our annual writer-curated, banger-filled Top 50 list). And while the Recording Academy isn't the institution we’d count on to decide it, it's still exciting to see the artists that made us dance get their flowers while they’re still active.