Hot bands get the club kids moving
"People don't dance no more," Luke Jenner, of the New York City band the Rapture, once sang. His targets were the indie-rock kids in the audience, the ones too absorbed in their bright-pink Chucks to do much more than "stare you down and drink and moan and diss."
These days, Jenner has less to worry about. The Rapture, which roared onto the scene a few years back, has given way to a vanguard of new acts that know their way around a beat, from England's Hot Chip to Girl Talk, the project of Maryland-born remix fiend (and Playgirl model) Gregg Gillis. This year, the most contagious strain of American rock 'n' roll is thick with hacked-up synth samples and punctuated by the clang of an oversize cowbell.
Consider this: late last year, Idolator, a blog frequented mostly by indie-rock fans, circulated a poll to a few hundred critics. 2007 was a big year for relative traditionalists like Austin's Spoon, which produced a sturdy record of guitar-driven rock. But it was LCD Soundsystem, a project headed by DJ and producer James Murphy, that topped Idolator's best-record chart. (The results were the same at Pazz & Jop, a longer-running critic's poll helmed by the Village Voice.)
So what gives? Well, for one, LCD Soundsystem made a ludicrously good record. It's called "Sound of Silver"; Murphy, who is in his late 30s, wrote most of the songs about being relatively old in a relatively young world. More importantly for the rock dudes, those songs are built like anthems, with a distinct verse/chorus/verse punch. "Sound of Silver," in other words, is a dance album that non-dancers can feel comfortable owning.
Ditto for the forthcoming, self-titled debut from
"Blind," the single, has the swooning cadence of a post-punk ballad; it is undercut by a measured, insistent backbeat. "As a child, I knew that the stars could only get brighter," runs one line. "That we would get closer/ Leaving this darkness behind." The dynamic is all pop, it is all rock, it is all dance.
In this way, Hercules & Love Affair has much in common with Simian Mobile Disco, an English outfit that formed after the breakup of Simian (a band remixed often and well by Justice, if you're keeping track at home). James Ford and James Shaw, the duo behind SMD, lean heavily on sampling and an influx of high-frequency sonic shards. But they also have a keen ear for the stopping power of a hook: not a single song on their debut, "Attack Sustain Decay Release," ever disintegrates, like the messiest of club tracks often do.
What, then, to make of Battles, the four-man group from New York? Battles scored big last year with a track called "Atlas," which traffics in eerie instrumental rhythms and distorted vocals; it's a dance tune of sorts, but only a robot would know the steps. The band counts a handful of serious musicians among its ranks, including John Stanier of the metal staple Helmet. Its sound is big and nuanced and almost totally instrumental, which allows genre purists - and generalists - to take what they want from the songs.
Last summer, Dave Konopka, Battles' drummer, told the Globe that "Atlas" was a song for everyone - even "the sorority girl at BC, who caught the video on YouTube."
Everyone - as long as they're moving their feet.
