August 13, 2010
It’s been a while since we’ve done a Friday Fave Five Fer…in fact, we’ve only done this one…but, with the tangibly fleeting feeling of summer in the air, and the inevitability that fall is going to roll in from the west any moment, we wanted to post our five current favorite dace songs. Because what’s better than a summer dance party? …what? A fall dance party? Hm. Pumpkin pie and dancing. That’s a pretty valid point. Well, silently contradictory reader, regardless of when you employ these fine tunes, enjoy.
Who does dance music better than the brits? No one. That’s who. This is actually the song that inspired the whole post. It’s really hard to walk down the street and not look like a total dance-walk nerd listening to this. We don’t know a ton about these guys, but they sound like Electronic combined with really awesome, high-energy Underworld, so we’re down.
Kele • Everything You Wanted (RAC Remix)
Honestly, we’re not super-impressed with what we’ve heard so far from Bloc Party frontman Kele’s solo album, The Boxer (he knows about that little band, The National, right?), but the guys at RAC can make anything awesome. Like, I bet if I made farty noises with my armpit, they would be able to turn it into a arty dance hit. Hmmm…. Anyway, check this track out. They’ve managed to strip it down and build it up better than before.
Again, not a *huge* fan of The Like themselves—it’s not their Wilson-Phillips-like formation story, I’m just not super-into the straight retro doo-wop sound. But this remix again builds off the strong points like the interesting rhythms of the vocal lines and the basic musical structure to make it better than what it was. Plus it’s done over by some dude from Richmond, VA. Represent!
I feel like we’ve talked about this guy one million times (here’s the GIGANTIC interview we did with him way back in February—it’s long because it was our first phone interview and we didn’t know WHAT we were doing), but, in case you missed it the first 999,999 times, this guy is really talented and nice to boot. This track’s from a free mash-up mixtape he released earlier this year, which you can find on the right side of his site. It’s a mash-up of Madonna’s “Get Into the Groove” and Kate Bush’s “Cloudbusting.”
This isn’t even slightly new, unlike the rest of these, but not having this song on a favorite dance songs list, for me, would be like having a hot fudge sunday without the hot fudge. …ew. I don’t think I’ve actually written ‘hot fudge.’ It’s weirdly disturbing when you dwell on it…. UNLIKE THIS SONG, which I am unashamed to say is, in all sincerity, one of my favorites ever. So there.