50 Fun Facts About Just Dance

Just Dance had sold over 90 million by late 2024, behind only which other Ubisoft series?

Assassin's Creed is the only Ubisoft series to outsell it. The first Just Dance got there despite scoring 49 out of 100 on Metacritic and being doubted inside its own studio.

Which BTS member, once part of an underground dance crew, performs the solo Trivia: Just Dance?

J-Hope recorded it for a 2018 BTS compilation, a decade after winning a national dance competition as a teenager. He co-wrote the track.

Which Lady Gaga debut album was launched in 2008 by its lead single, Just Dance?

The Fame nearly went out without it: she has said she almost left Just Dance off the album, anxious that it was too pop. It became her first US chart-topper.

Which pop star's hits fill The Experience, a Just Dance spin-off released for the Wii in 2010?

Michael Jackson: The Experience arrived with Thriller, Beat It and Billie Jean, though nothing from his Motown years. The Wii version sold 2 million copies in two months.

What does Just Dance call the bonus-scoring steps that replaced remote-shaking in the second game?

Gold Moves usually mark a routine's hardest step or a big pose. Hit one cleanly and the game awards a Yeah rating and extra points; fluff it and you get an X.

Which viral K-pop hit reached Just Dance 4 as a download just weeks after the game's 2012 launch?

Gangnam Style went on sale for the game on November 21, 2012, less than two months after its release. Psy's follow-up single was on the disc of Just Dance 2014.

By her own account, roughly how long did Lady Gaga take to write Just Dance, working while hungover?

Ten minutes was all it took, she says, on her first visit to a Hollywood studio. She later credited the song with saving her life after a dark spell in New York.

Which Swedish pop group got a Just Dance spin-off of its own, You Can Dance, for the Wii in 2011?

ABBA: You Can Dance packed 26 of the group's songs onto one disc. It added a karaoke mode, so two players could sing while two others danced.

Which camera sensor let players dance empty-handed when Just Dance 3 moved beyond the Wii in 2011?

Kinect tracked the whole body on Xbox 360, while PlayStation 3 owners danced holding a Move wand. Just Dance 2022 was the last known game to support the sensor.

Which song from Disney's Frozen is in Just Dance 2015, with a sing-along version added later?

Let It Go appears in a cover version credited simply to Disney's Frozen. The sing-along routine followed as a download in January 2015.

Which party game series contained the dancing minigame that was expanded into the first Just Dance?

Raving Rabbids: TV Party had a pose-matching dance minigame that proved popular in demonstrations. Ubisoft rebuilt the idea as a stand-alone game without the Nunchuk.

Which Jungkook solo opens the 2018 BTS compilation album, one track before Trivia: Just Dance?

Euphoria starts the record, though its video appeared four months before the song itself was released. It was later heard in the first-season finale of the HBO drama that shares its name.

Which follow-up to Just Dance gave Lady Gaga a second straight US number one in 2009?

Poker Face topped the Hot 100 in April 2009, making her the first new artist since Christina Aguilera to send her first two charting singles to the top.

What name is given to the small scrolling silhouettes that preview each upcoming move in Just Dance?

Pictograms scroll along the bottom of the screen just ahead of each step. One early reviewer complained that they sometimes contradicted the dancer above them.

What does the mobile spin-off Just Dance Now use as its controller in place of a console remote?

A smartphone held in the hand stands in for the Wii Remote while the routine plays on any web-connected screen. There is no limit on how many players can join.

What does Just Dance call the costumed on-screen dancers whose routines players mirror?

Coaches is the series' own word for them. Guest stars have filled the role too: Todrick Hall dances to his own song in Just Dance 2022.

Which singer took the guest verse on Lady Gaga's Just Dance after a label dispute sidelined Akon?

Colby O'Donis was a labelmate on Akon's KonLive imprint and stepped in when Universal blocked Akon from being featured. Akon's backing vocals stayed on the record.

Which 2018 BTS compilation album, the finale of its series, contains the solo Trivia: Just Dance?

Love Yourself: Answer debuted at number one in the United States and in 2019 became the first Korean album to spend a full year on the Billboard 200.

Which disco group's Rasputin, from Just Dance 2, came back for the series' tenth anniversary?

Boney M. supplied the 1978 hit picked to represent Just Dance 2 when Just Dance 2020 gathered one routine from each earlier game. That edition was also the series' last on the Wii.

What brightly coloured accessory have Just Dance's on-screen dancers worn since the second game?

Gloves in a bold colour arrived with Just Dance 2. The same sequel added Duet routines and the Just Sweat workout mode.

Which Belgian comic characters got a 2011 Dance Party spin-off from the Just Dance Kids line?

The Smurfs Dance Party put players beside Papa Smurf, Smurfette and even Gargamel on the Wii, with a story mode that followed that year's film.

Lady Gaga's Just Dance lost the Grammy for Best Dance Recording to a live track by which act?

Daft Punk won with a live version of Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger from their Alive 2007 album. The nomination was still her first at the Grammys.

Which company, rather than Ubisoft, published the first three Japan-only Just Dance games with their J-pop songs?

Nintendo published and edited all three, starting in 2011 with a release that mixed 16 J-pop songs with an unlockable routine set to Super Mario Bros. music.

BTS's solo track Trivia: Just Dance, a funky hip-hop number, uses dancing as a metaphor for what?

Romance is the theme, with dancing standing in for the feeling of falling for someone. Its performer co-wrote the track with the producer Hiss Noise.

World Dance Floor, added in Just Dance 2014, was the series' first mode of which kind?

Online multiplayer arrived with it: players everywhere danced to the same song at once, compared scores as they went and sometimes voted on the next track.

Lady Gaga's Just Dance took five months on the Hot 100 to reach the top, making it what kind of hit?

A sleeper hit is one that succeeds slowly. Just Dance entered the chart at number 76 in August 2008 and needed 22 weeks to reach the summit the following January.

Which rank, awarded at 12,000 points, did Just Dance 2018 add above the Superstar rank?

Megastar sits one step above Superstar, which had arrived a year earlier at 11,000 points. The same game added a Super rating between Good and Perfect.

In 2022 the BTS member behind Trivia: Just Dance headlined the main stage of which US festival?

Lollapalooza made him the first South Korean artist to headline a main stage at a major US music festival. He closed its final day two weeks after his debut album came out.

Which classic puzzle game's theme tune is a routine on the Just Dance 2015 track list?

Tetris lent its theme, the Russian folk song Korobeiniki, which the game credits to an act called Dancing Bros.

Which Moroccan-Swedish producer co-wrote and produced Lady Gaga's Just Dance at a Hollywood studio?

RedOne wrote it with her and Akon in January 2008. He went on to co-write and co-produce much of her debut album and its reissue.

Which cloud gaming service received Just Dance 2020 on the very day the service launched?

Stadia opened on November 19, 2019, with the game in its line-up, and later got the 2021 and 2022 editions. A port of the 2023 Edition was scrapped when Google closed the service.

The lightning-bolt sticker Lady Gaga wears in the Just Dance video is a tribute to which rock star?

David Bowie wore a painted lightning bolt on the cover of his 1973 album Aladdin Sane. She has named him as one of her musical idols.

Just Dance Unlimited, introduced with Just Dance 2016, offered older games' songs through what?

A subscription service replaced one-off song purchases, streaming a back catalogue that had passed 700 tracks by the end of Just Dance 2022.

The performer of BTS's Trivia: Just Dance grew up dancing in which South Korean city?

Gwangju is where he took dance classes for six years, from fourth grade until he signed with Big Hit Entertainment in his first year of high school.

In 2019, Screen Gems bought the rights to adapt the Just Dance games into what?

A movie was the plan, to be produced by Ubisoft's film arm with Will Gluck's Olive Bridge Entertainment. Several writers have since worked on the script.

NPD ranked Just Dance 3 the second best-selling game of 2011, behind which shooter sequel?

Modern Warfare 3 was the only game to outsell it in NPD's US figures for the year. Ubisoft's sales chief said the brand had grown far beyond any other dance franchise.

Which instrument, worn on a strap, did Lady Gaga play during Just Dance at the Super Bowl LI halftime show?

A keytar, a keyboard worn on a strap like a guitar, is her usual prop for the song. At the 2017 show one of her dancers held the microphone while she played.

Just Dance VR launched in 2024 exclusively for the Quest headsets of which company?

Meta ended up with the exclusive after an earlier deal fell through: the game had been announced for the Pico 4, whose sales disappointed.

Which rapper joined the performer of BTS's Trivia: Just Dance on the 2023 single On the Street?

J. Cole shared the track, which made his partner the first BTS member to reach the UK top 40 as a soloist. It entered that chart at number 37 and reached number 60 on the US Hot 100.

Which Katy Perry hit joined oldies by Elvis Presley and The Beach Boys in the first Just Dance?

Hot n Cold was one of the few recent chart hits among the 33 songs on the disc. Its routine was later picked to represent the first game in the 2020 edition's All Stars mode.

Which sales record does Guinness credit to Just Dance 3, with more than 9.92 million copies sold?

Best-selling third-party Wii game is the title Guinness gave it in 2014, meaning only the console maker's own releases sold more copies on the system.

In the Just Dance Machine mode of Just Dance 2017, whose ship do players recharge by dancing?

Aliens are the stars of its story: two of them run their battery flat while dancing aboard, so they head to Earth and abduct human dancers to top it up.

Which Level-5 franchise got its own Japan-only Just Dance special version on the Wii U in 2015?

Yo-kai Watch Dance: Just Dance Special Version has players copy routines by the series' spirit characters, set to songs from its games and anime.

Just Dance 2023 Edition was the first in the series built on which widely licensed game engine?

Unity replaced UbiArt Framework, the in-house Ubisoft engine that had powered every main game since Just Dance 2014.

By one member's account, Lady Gaga's Just Dance began as a demo that which girl group turned down?

Pussycat Dolls management passed on the demo, Kimberly Wyatt said in 2017, so Lady Gaga kept the song and recorded it herself.

At which 2008 pageant in Vietnam did Lady Gaga perform Just Dance during the swimsuit round?

Miss Universe gave the newcomer a global stage that July, a month before the single even entered the Hot 100.

Who directed Lady Gaga's Just Dance video, years before Beyoncé's Formation and Queen & Slim?

Melina Matsoukas shot the house-party clip in 2008, early in her career. She later won Grammys for two of her music videos.

The Chinese character in BTS's Trivia: Just Dance title marks which stage of a four-part story?

Introduction is the meaning of 起, the first step in the East Asian structure known in Japan as kishōtenketsu. The two other Trivia solos carry the second and third characters.

Which playground ride names the last of the three Trivia solos on BTS's 2018 compilation album?

Seesaw was written and co-produced by its performer with Slow Rabbit. It closes the Trivia set on the 2018 compilation, nine tracks after Just Dance.

In which city is the Ubisoft studio that built the first Just Dance with a team of about 20?

Paris is home to the studio, where some of the team's own colleagues doubted the idea would work. The game was pitched just six months before its release.