What gets stored as a “swap”
A song swap in BootStepper is a link between a specific dance and a specific song: “this alternative track works for this choreography.” Suggestions and playlist usage both feed the same underlying data, so the site can show which alternative songs are popular for a dance and, on a song's page, which dances are often played with that track instead of the default music. That is different from the primary dance–song link on a step sheet, which is still the canonical “written to this recording” relationship.
On the dance page: Commonly swapped songs
Open any dance, then scroll to Commonly swapped songs. The section lists alternative tracks with enough community support to show up, ordered by how often that pairing has been suggested or recorded. Each row is a full song card so you can preview or open the track like anywhere else in BootStepper.
If you know a track that works well and is not listed, use Suggest Song Swap on the dance page: search the song, submit, and the suggestion feeds the same aggregate data. Multiple people can suggest the same pairing; the system avoids spam from repeated clicks in a short window while still allowing the community to reinforce a popular option.
On the song page: Dances that use this track as a swap
The mirror view lives on the song: Dances swapped to use this song shows choreographies where DJs or instructors have chosen this recording as the alternative when running a playlist. It is the easiest way to answer “we are playing this track—which dances is it a known substitute for?”
Collections, imports, and live sessions
When you edit a collection entry that contains a dance, you can set a song override (the per-entry “song swap” for that playlist). BootStepper can surface Commonly swapped songs in the entry editor as quick-pick suggestions with counts, so you do not have to search from scratch. Setting that override not only changes what the list displays—it also registers the dance–song pair for the community, alongside manual suggestions.
In live sessions, the swap is visible to the room so the “now playing” experience matches the floor. If you import a playlist from another BootStepper collection, the import summary can list entries as the same dance with a different song; you can choose whether to treat those as duplicates to skip, depending on whether you want every variant or a single row per dance.
Identify and other tools
The Identify Song tool uses the same “swapped to this song” data: after a match, you may see dances written to the identified track and dances that the community often plays with that track as an alternative. For a fuller walkthrough of the song-first workflow, see Identify a Song and Find the Dance.
API and integrations
BootStepper’s public API exposes song swap data for a dance, so other sites and tools can show popular alternatives in their own UIs. The same concepts—aggregated dance–song pairs—power those endpoints as on the main site. If you are building an integration, start from the public API documentation for dance song swaps.
Practical tips
- Suggest swaps you have actually used on a floor or in class—those are the most useful signals.
- Check the dance page before adding a long list of theoretical alternatives; reinforcing an existing popular swap often helps more than a one-off obscure track.
- Use collection overrides when your night’s music genuinely differs from the default song, so your shared list and live audience stay aligned with what they hear.