If lightning strikes me (or I fall into nuclear waste) and gives me the musical talent I've always wanted but never possessed; I would make sad songs. For a number of reasons, I am not a normal functioning member of society. Perhaps no-one is. Perhaps society itself is only a construct that people only pretend to be part of, or perhaps as human contact becomes fleeting due to a combination of bureaucracy and technology then we're losing our normality.
Whatever the reason; I can only observe, never engage. I write because I cannot live. Either I'm seeing the world as it truly is or through a unique and completely false perspective. So obviously you won't find me frequenting bars and clubs. In fact I've only been to the club once. It sucked. The music sucked, I couldn't hold a conversation with anyone because everything was too loud, the drinks were expensive, and I had to go by myself because the rest of my flatmates pulled out. Safe to say I left by myself also.
The songs about finding love in the club are lies. The only way to communicate in a club is via hip-thrusts and gyrating. The worst thing about this is that I want to like clubbing. I want to dance the night away surrounded by people I like. But I can't, so it's back to my room to play sad songs....that I could still dance to because I'm a kickass dancer and no-one can tell me otherwise.
'Sad' is perhaps the wrong word. 'Melancholic' might be better. These are songs that defy the established meta of dance songs: that they're supposed to make you feel happy whilst forgetting about everything and dancing. 'Just Dance' by Lady Gaga (still her best work) is in many respects the perfect dance song. It concerns a drunken wild night going horribly wrong, but Gaga is just so caught in euphoria of dance that she's carrying on regardless.
'Just Dance' is also worth mentioning because if you just took it by theme and lyrics, it could easily be a very dark song. It's about being a slave to dance; being so filled with substances and sheer energy that you're forced to carry on partying even though it's seriously degenerating. It's the sort of night that at best ends waking up in a car park stairwell and at worst missing a kidney. The only reason why it's happy is that the music behind Gaga (RedOne really needs more credit) remains upbeat. I know that she's caught up in euphoria because the orchestration evokes such an emotion without her needing to express it through the lyrics. In any other song, "Gonna be OK" would sound so hollow, but the tempo says otherwise. Everything is all good...at least whilst this song still plays.
These songs I'm about to discuss aren't euphoric. You're supposed to dance to these with tears in your eyes, and by 'dance' I mean: "rock back and forth in rhythm whilst chugging vodka."
'Computer Love' - Kraftwerk
If I had to pick a favourite from the list, I would hesitantly say this one. It is the sad dance song that all other sad dance songs aspire to be.
Kraftwerk composed music about technology, which makes sense considering they were one of the first acts to switch entirely to electronic synthesizers and thus wouldn't exist without microchips. Their UK TV début wasn't on 'Top Of The Pops': it was on 'Tomorrow's World.' Yet it's always fascinated me how their music simultaneously celebrates and condemns technology. 'Neon Lights' is beautiful, 'Pocket Calculator' is fun, yet 'Trans Europe Express' scares me, and 'The Robots' is a robot apocalypse. 'Computer World' is one of my favourite albums mostly because it begins in a light-hearted manner where technology is fun and gradually spirals into an Orwellian future where technology rules our lives. The final track is 'It's More Fun To Compute,' and during the track that phrase is bellowed by a robotic voice behind a disturbing, high-pitched hook. It's an order, not an observation.
'Computer Love' comes just before the 'dystopia' section of the album and just after the light section begins to darken. It's a punch to the heart because it's Kraftwerk's most intimate song. There are hardly any lyrics, and what words exist are vague. Yet the mood and tone this track creates paints a picture of isolation driven by technology. It's likely that the computer itself isn't the cause for loneliness, but the computer is the only comfort....yet it gives no comfort. Ultimately sinking your life into technology will create a vicious cycle as a computers are cold, emotionless. Try sinking your life into books instead.
It helps that Kraftwerk were perfect producers. No song of theirs has too little or too much, and the sound remains so controlled. Their work is so choreographed that it seems composed by computer programmes, but you know every note was carefully planned. Here, the layering of synth over synth, the build-up from restrained empathy to driving melancholy, the gradual change in tempo, the feeling of emptiness this evokes; it's the greatest song about the internet ever made...and the internet hadn't even been invented at the time this was released.
In 1990 Kraftwerk remixed this and - surprise - it wasn't as good. 'The Mix' managed to breathe life into some of Kraftwerk's more dated works, but part of the appeal behind the group is how dated they sound. It's what the 70's imagined music to look like, and thus Kraftwerk can be compared to a window into an alternate dimension.
Coldplay still deserves time in prison for sampling this...
'Stranger in Moscow' - Michael Jackson
OK, so this may seem too slow tempo to be a dance song, but just look at MJ go:
This is a forgotten masterpiece from Michael Jackson's discography. No-one really mentions anything he made post-'BAD' and for good reason. It comes from the deeply flawed 'HIStory' album, released in 1995 - two years after Jackson's first arrest when Michael was desperately trying to re-establish himself as a musical god whilst taking a swipe at everyone who thought he was guilty. It was such an insecure album that it came packaged with a 'Greatest Hits' compilation and it's lead single was a duet with his sister, Janet, that was promoted with the most expensive music video ever made.
I always like to wonder what would've happened if, at the end of the 2005 trial Jackson was found guilty of paedophilia. Everyone's thrown out their Garry Glitter, Ian Watkins, and Rolf Harris collections; but, then again, none of them made 'Thriller.' Could I ever listen to 'Billie Jean' again without feeling nauseated? If the court didn't find him innocent, then this song would probably be Jackon's most ruined work since 'Stranger in Moscow' laments his "swift and sudden fall from grace." If he deserved to be isolated from society and left alone in a cold world against him, then this song would be awful.
But even then, juxtaposed to this is a beat-box track interlaid with violins and guitar riffs which remains disturbingly catchy. So it makes sense that Michael would be tossing some of his best robotics at this. During the hauntingly beautiful bridge sections, Jackson absorbs himself in a bubble. He dances to forget the verses, where a backing track disjointedly coos "Armageddon of the brain."
And you don't have to be one of the most famous celebrities in the world accused of sex-crime to get this song. You just need to have felt alienated, lonely, and oppressed. I dance all the time to a version of this song that cuts out the verses and just has the instrumental bridges. It only lasts a minute, but I always play it when I'm in one of those moods when I'm both feeling depressed and I want to practice my robotics.
'Dancing On My Own' - Robyn
So back when this song first came out, I was in college. A classmate of mine pointed me to the music video to 'Call Your Girlfriend' by Robyn because it features Robyn herself doing a hilariously awful dance. I of course laughed at this, but after watching the video again I realised I really liked the music and actually the bad dancing made sense because Robyn was expressing a combination of desperation and sugar-high happiness - which is what made 'Just Dance' so great. With a new-found respect of this artist, I decided to check out her other single and OH MY GOD.
This is a song about going to the club to find love yet not getting it because this is the real world. Your crush is over there pressing his betraying lips against some faceless ragdoll he doesn't deserve and nothing you can do in the world will change this. You hope it'll end in tears and he'll come crawling back, but he probably won't. He never really loved you. You're alone tonight, just like you're gonna be for the rest of your repugnant life.
*chugs more vodka*
This is such a perfect song, so danceable, yet such a punch in the gut. Screw all the cover versions that strip the production back to a slow, piano ballad. The whole message of the song is that Robyn entered this club alone and will leave this club alone. But she's still going to dance, and like MJ she's dancing to forget. This is a track that goes out to everyone who's having to make do with themselves tonight - and if you haven't ever been in this position then I hate you.
I'm so glad this has started to be recognised as one of the best pop songs in years, but it's still not regarded as an all-time great even though it completely is. OK, it's never going to be played in clubs anytime soon...although it might be a good way to make everyone rush to the bar to buy vodka.
'Celestica' - Crystal Castles
Oooh, look at me getting all cool and underground by discussing a group you've probably never heard of.
I think the best way to describe Crystal Castles would be: 'If Paramore was only two people, were less conventional, going through a goth phase, and didn't use instruments.' I know that sounds like 'If Paramore weren't Paramore' but I always get serious Haley Williams vibes from singer Alice Glass, partly because you look at her and she screams star.
Glass is no longer in the band, which is a shame because together they hit a sweet spot with their second album that I think they could've pushed on with to break into the mainstream. It turns out that Ethan Kath is a strong producer and knows how structure and layer a powerful, atmospheric piece. Even the harsher songs on the album drip in mood. But by far the highlight is 'Celestica,' which was by far Crystal Castles most elegant song.
Ignore the music video that looks like a piece of Media Studies coursework, this song is refined enough to sit alongside all the others on the list. It's a career-best in terms of it's scope and smoothness. It's a melancholic piece that's not afraid to push outwards into a dance track. Crystal Castles are all about pumping heavy beats for a festival crowd to go wild for, and this is no exception.
Except this song is based on the infamous rumour concerning Celestica: the Canadian factory. Speculation goes that a worker there committed suicide by jumping into a vat of molten plastic...which was then still used to make products.
...Jesus.
Nihilism definitely comes into the song. In fact the lyrics sound like those present in a really bad Marilyn Manson song in that you want to draw a smiley face on something and stare at it for a few moments. But the juxtaposition between the deeply dark lyrics and the sweeping music is as haunting as it is wonderful. This is a deliciously dark song...that you can dance to.
'Lights' - Ellie Goulding
I'm indifferent to Ellie Goulding. She's one of those pop artists who are OK. Doesn't make bad music, doesn't make brilliant music. Except this...
It doesn't sound that sad, does it. The chorus is too driving, the vocals too high key, the atmosphere a mystical neon. Yet I thought about it, and...well, can you imagine dancing to this with other people?
I've heard a lot of people saying this song is about aliens, and it probably is. "They're calling me home" and "voices playing within my head" evokes images of UFO's - aided by the beepy synth hook that sounds similar to the notes from Close Encounter of the Third Kind. But I think of aliens in the metaphorical sense: as an unknown entity pulling you away from society. Ellie is being removed from everyone, pulled into a pitch black world filled only with dancing lights.
But unlike Robyn, she's not dancing despite this...she's dancing because of it. The lights only shine when she's alone, so she's going to dance by herself in this illuminated void. And that's both enticing and horrific. This is a pleasure only she can enjoy, never sharing with others. It's her safe space, but I've always found something pathetic about safe spaces. I try to close my eyes and find a place in my mind away from everything, yet what always strikes me is how I can only feel happy if I imagine a fictional world. There is always a need for escapism, but I never like going to my happy place because it makes me fear I'm retreating too far into my own head. And 'Lights' is a very dark happy place that no-one should spend too long in.
Maybe you don't find this sad at all. Maybe you dance all the time to this whilst trying to flirt with someone who can't hear you. Me? Despite Ellie singing about being called home, this smacks too close to home for me.
'Instant Crush' - Daft Punk
You're too good for this world, Daft Punk. Perhaps the reason why I respect Kraftwerk so much is because we wouldn't have Daft Punk without them. In fact; we wouldn't have any of these songs without them. Pop and Rock would've probably survived without The Beatles, but I just don't see how music could've ended up as it currently stands without Kraftwerk.
I wasn't actually that turned on by 'Random Access Memories.' I'm so glad people are beginning to acknowledge that disco, like all genres, had it's high as well as low points; yet 'RAM' was just too chilled for my taste. And, as Daft Punk made some of their most wordy and traditional pop songs, their strange grasp of English shows. Kraftwerk used this to their advantage, making their music seem alien, but I could just never embrace 'Get Lucky.' The production was undeniably outstanding, but the lyrics just felt underwhelming.
'Instant Crush,' on the other hand, I took to immediately.
This is great for the same reason that all the other songs on this list are great. The production is tight and smooth, though it's also the least electronic of the bunch. The lyrics speak sadness behind a sweeping music score. Daft Punk's awkward lyrics return, but it doesn't matter because they're said with such speed and through such a thick vocoder that the vocals themselves becomes music. It's just another instrument crooning behind the rest of the crooning instruments.
I can't think of much to say. All of these songs deserve your time, and really prove that dance music is capable of the depth and complexity you see in other genres. Most importantly, they're capable of breaking your heart whilst still making you get up offa that thang.
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