Electroclash. Please educate.

I don't think La Rock by Vitalic fits this topic much. It's techno.

I was really into the album. Then I went to see her live and I though she'd be a real babe and she's not, she's a moose. So it detracts from the music.

As though a woman in her 30s, who doesn't resemble a photo-model (like 99% of us), means she's not entitled to be overtly sexual. Not sure whether to be annoyed, or enjoy, their displeasure. Fuck the pain away kicks serious ass btw.

Peaches looks fine, it's the music that I don't like. And yes it's impossible to read a feature which doesn't mention her looks (even the positive ones go not-conventionally-attractive) - it's also impossible to read one which doesn't slaver over her presumed bravery in being a woman singing/performing about sex. Assuming this is true, why is this still a big deal in rock/pop?? - it implies a degree of sexual conservatism which the rest of pop culture and society seems to lack.

Ian - I wouldn't presume to tell you how to think, but BUY "AMERICAN GIGOLO" NOW! :) There are plenty of other electroclash threads to read here too. Go to the "Unclassified" threads page and do a word search and you'll find them easily.

Who is 'American Gigolo' by?

And would any electroclash hataz care to kick a bit of reality into the midsts? Actually, I'll check out those old threads for some o'that.

"it's big with londoners. it aint with us mancs. and, i'm saying it's romo all over again."

I'm affronted! How DARE you speak on behalf of all Mancs. Being a big main Manchead I say that Electroclash is rather respected up here with the grunting locals. And then you go on to dismiss Romo?! My good god, Orlando and Sexus might have been the only decent Romoey acts out of a big pile of shit, but two good bands is surely enough for the scene to regarded with a touch of fondness and respect. And they all wore suits. And used brass. And did a song where you can hear loads of hangers-on in the studio, clapping and cheering along like ALL the greats (Dexys, Miracles, umm..). So shush your filthy Manc mouth or I'll meet you in Tiger Lounge and blow smoke in your face and give you a penetrating stare.

And while we're on about Romo, could Mcalmont and Butler be classed as such? They sure as hell looked it. And dressed it. And sounded like it. But am I missing some fundamental reason why they weren't ever seen as such? ramble ramble... 'Yes' and 'You do' were oh so gorgeous, rest of album was bullshit, will they be any good this time round? I should really stick this in a new Romey post..

Is it old man Ned thundering over here with a delightfully wry observation sticking out his back pocket?

The gladioli get in the way, I'm afraid.

I'll always love Orlando for 'Just for a second' and 'Nature's hated'. If anyone can help me get mp3s of their album, b-sides, etc, i'll be supergrateful and owe you a favour of some sort.

Also, if you like Sexus, then keep an ear out for Ex-Rental. "End Of The World" sounds like a cross between My Life Story and Sexus. For some this is a hideous thought. I like them, I didn't use to but I changed my mind. Also Sean co-wrote Just For A Second.

(re: McAlmont + Butler's Romo credentials, McAlmont = Romo, Butler = not Romo)

Um, yes, Electroclash. People say "Fischerspooner only have three good songs etc" this is almost correct but also totally irrelevant. They have one AMAZING song, they don't need anymore - haha, they celebrate this fact by doing Emerge THREE times during their gigs. Most punk band since Daphne And Celeste.

Adult have great songs but it all gets a bit much after more than a few minutes. Same for Miss Kitten.

(Also, if Jamie is allowed to plug his band, his friend's band and his girlfriend's band upthread, then I feel obliged to recommend to plug Riviera. HTML always goes wrong for me. Anyway, go to www.iloveriviera.co.uk if you want to listen to MP3 song clips)

I'm surprised that, as far as I know, there hasn't been a 20 year anniversary electroclash revival yet

Well I guess this is it...

still listen to Miss Kittin's mix cd for Musik Magazine, only once every six months now, but it's definitely not out of rotation.

I'm not sure that rockist hipsters discovering the existence of dance music is something that can really happen on a recurring basis

Peaches has been touring/playing festivals (to coincide with her big album's 20th anniversary)... that may be the extent of it.

just in time to release great-grandfatherfucker

My only thought is that it's because electroclash (or whatever it spawned) only just about went away 6-7 years ago

The sexism in the first few posts feels like it belongs to a different era, thank fuck.

This just came out a few months ago and is excellent - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsxaHF8YoO4

Bring on the revival! Especially the live aspects

I feel like electroclash never really lived up to its promise... you had these Larry Tee events, bands like W.I.T. who weren't actually very good.. and you had some really excellent stuff, a lot of which is documented here. But there was this feeling I had in New York at the time that somehow rock and electro were combining, that acts like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Fischerspooner and Felix Thee Housecat and The Knife and Chicks on Speed and The Rapture were going to swirl up a new kind of music, and I guess they sort of did, for awhile, but.. well I don't know what I'm bemoaning exactly. A lack of institutions? Some sort of structure or movement that carried forward?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VNffcygxAQ

Here's a favourite deep cut of mine, a Ross Orton from Add (N) To X one-off

^ I never got an actual audio version of that song but I've DJ'd the Youtube rip many, many, many times

Mmm yeah… it did sort of feel like “here is the next configuration”, and I saw a bunch of young bands that were something like an Iggy glam front person and two Korgs. It filtered into other scenes, early Glass Candy, Lost Sounds. But it hit the shredder of the blog era where everything is a rabbit hole and nothing is a new wave.

^ aka the best time in pop history

I don’t disagree! But very different from the expectations of the previous century.

the Fischerspooner remix of Kylie’s “come into my world” is one of my very favorite tracks of the 00s

for some reason i don’t think of Peaches as electroclash at all, even though she would seem to tick all the boxes.

she headlined this electroclash “showcase” thing I saw in late 2002, openers were chicks on speed, WIT, and Larry Tee was there doing something

for some reason i don’t think of Peaches as electroclash at all, even though she would seem to tick all the boxes.

― Tracer Hand, Friday, May 26, 2023 5:45 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think of her as electroclash more than the other acts you mentioned

The kids are revisiting “indie sleaze” which has slight overlap w electroclash but also includes things as late as like 2010.

Electroclash is kind of like wax trax to lcd soundsystem a nine inch nails or something. Kids totally know the latter almost to the exclusion of the former

Nine inch nails is actually probably even worse in how it soaks up the stolen valor

there was this feeling I had in New York at the time that somehow rock and electro were combining

hot take: the mega success of daft punk, lcd soundsystem, hot chip, etc is proof electroclash and not house music won the day in america

hot take #2: electroclash was abt seeing and being scene and acting sleazy “in da club”. house music is abt staring into strobe lights, dancing with your head in a bassbin, smoke machines, a basement a red light and a feeling

between social media, party photographers, and “festival culture”, electroclash was already fated to win

hot take #3: the world is ruined, young ppl suck and need to get the fuck off my lawn, where’s the remote, i’ve fallen and i can’t get up

punishers and coworkers must die

https://www.dukeupress.edu/raving

I started listening to special interest recently and they're everything I ever wanted and never quite got from this stuff

lol...so not electroclash basically

hot take: the mega success of daft punk, lcd soundsystem, hot chip, etc is proof electroclash and not house music won the day in america

I know I’ve heard Stardust in heavy rotation on some mainstream American radio stations, Daft Punk probably was too — but it was the house D.P. not the electroclash (if there even was any?)

I saw Hot Chip and LCD Soundsystem put on some great shows in America but I missed the part where they were in heavy mainstream rotation at all. Granted I basically stopped listening to stations that might play them but am I wrong?

The thing is, Janet Jackson had hits over house beats in the early 90s. C&C Music Factory surely charged higher back in the day than LCD Soundsystem ever did ffs. House has been a normal part of America pop for a long time. Electroclash never was.

*C&C Music Factory surely charted higher

Don’t make me stan for C&C Music Factory again. They invented garage!

Muphry’s Law

random but I like this historic nabisco post (hopefully he doesnt mind me highlighting, 20 years later, an earnest post enthusing about electroclash, but I really like the post)

Article Response: Stylus on Electroclash

Definitely a good point about the genre being well suited to compilations because of the diversity of ideas. For me it was mainly associated with blogs tho, at the time it hit that hipster clout sweet spot they were all chasing after.

Maybe my definition of electroclash is a bit wider than most, but it felt like this, the Two Lone Swordsmen album 'Tiny Reminders' and the 2ManyDjs mix were all instrumental in setting some sort of electro-flavoured agenda for the years to come and arguably defining much of the sound of the 2000s.

So while electroclash as a minigenre was short lived and faddy, I don't think things like LCD Soundsystem, mid-2000s electro-house, hell even something like La Roux's 'In For The Kill' would have been as big as they were without that little electroclash match doing a bit of trickle-up

Can't believe Simian Mobile Disco Hustler was 2007? First of all I can still hear it in my mind and it conjures great hatred, but also blows my mind someone made that record that late into that scene.

What's the worst track in these lists? We can do best afterwards.

As much as We Are Your Friends is deeply annoying and was ubiquitous, I think Pop The Glock?

Lol at the inclusion of M.I.A.'s "Galang". I remember people at the time saying "oh so this is the 'grime' everyone keeps talking about" but I have no recollection of anyone ever suggesting she was associated with electroclash.

why don't you tell Claude? speaking to humans about it is less than pointless.

We Are Your Friends was 2006 fwiw
German Bold Italic is very much NOT 2005 how dare you Claude imply Kylie was not first with the problematic Geisha cosplay

oops meant Hustler not WAYF...2005-2007 is all one big year tho don't try and tell me otherwise

worst song that I know by name on that comp is CSS but I’m sure the clap your hands say yeah song is worse.

I thought Goose was some 10s jam band?

kinda hate to remind y'all of this one, but...

fannypack, "cameltoe"

No.

God I hated CSS

I like simian mobile disco. They were def bloghouse era not electroclash era tho

Exactly, lol, tho to each their own.

I really thought electroclash was The Faint or something from that era.

“Italians Do It Better x INDIE SLEAZE is bringing the electroclash chaos to Austin”

sonically, I’d say the early/peak IDIB sound was a bit of a retreat from the brashness of Ed banger etc shit in the indie dance world, more soft focus, more compressed frequency range

I feel like dance music contracted a lot in the early 00s with clubs closing etc and all that dance is dead stuff, which was a silly media thing but clearly it stopped being a presence in the charts or whatever. This had a slightly counter effect of everyone huddling together to watch DJs who were playing prob the widest range of shit ever, and a lot of past and present and future all thrown together.

Then once everyone was back in, and I always think fast broadband and stuff was a huge factor of spreading all the good stuff, it's prob settled back into the genre boundaries of old, maybe not entirely like the past but like to some extent, and obviously deep house becoming the dominant thing for years and years sort of reflects that.

"INDIE SLEAZE" seems a really bad idea for a scene name. Makes me think of a couple of bands entirely unrelated to anyone mentioned above.

I like the name because it sounds like something naive kids who didn’t live through it would come up with while trying to describe a gestalt which is exactly what it is

yeah “indie sleaze” is trying to describe a broader scene / timeframe than one specific music genre — a bunch of years’ phases of clothing style, parties that mixed ec-era dance music with live music, plus bands and bloghouse that spun off of them. five years looks coherent looking back 23 years in a way that felt like many distinct 2-year things when living through them.

"indie sleaze" is basically what was gleaned from cobrasnake photos

Generally I thought it was "a big 80s revival"; in certain respects it was better than the actual 80s, and in other respects it was worse

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/six-sex-ultra/

Argentina's Six Sex melds reggaeton, dembow, electroclash and some nsfw language

No responses yet about this album on this thread or on the Rolling Afro-Latin thread. Oh well.

it's on my "to listen" list, don't worry :-)

She’s really fun. Haven’t heard the new album yet but really liked 4 NoviosS, etc.

Electroclash’s greatest triumph was, to my mind, not any particular band or album or song but rather the creation of the “open format” club night: the DJs revelled in a lack-of-any-particular-genre-consideration and happily play Joan Jett into Le Tigre into The Gossip into “Losing My Edge” into Human League into Sex Pistols and then a band would play (Shychild, Erase Errata, one time Vazaleen in Toronto got ESG up)

Also there were lots of bands doing the electroclash “thing” prior to it becoming a Larry Tee/Vice Magazine phenomenon— adult. in particular, but also Stereo Total and Add N to X and maybe Ladytron and maybe Trans Am

What I liked about electroclash at the time was that there were more women and gays in that scene than any other, also it was all possible because rent wasn’t yet an affront, playing music wasn’t just for rich kids

booming post from fgti

Yeah. For a long time I've felt that one of the defining traits of the 2000s, or at least the early 2000s, was the scrubbing of musical tribalism and an embrace of more broadly eclectic styles. The whole phenomenon of "mash-ups" and bootlegs spurred that on, and it's why I nurse a pet theory that Moby's "Play" was the last album of the 90s and the first album of the 2000s was 2ManyDJs' "Welcome To Radio Soulwax Pt.2". Electroclash happened concurrently with all of that, as well as the whole DFA post-punk revival thing which harked back to the spirit of LES 1978-1982, the Mudd Club, CBGBs, punks and experimental artists and breakdancers and neo-jazzists and disco fans and hip-hop heads ostensibly stepping around similar spaces.

Saying electroclash opened the door for other genres to be played is like saying hockey opened the door for more people to play tennis.

It really isn't like saying that at all.

The summer of Ibiza 1988 would like a word

(in terms of eclecticism, not acceptance of gays and woman)

i was there when boomers explained woodstock to me in 1995

It really isn't like saying that at all.

Thanks for such an insightful comment.

It's just not a good analogy? AS described a touch earlier, electroclash nights had pretty eclectic selections of music that often didn't seem to be the case at a lot of club nights. It wasn't just hockey being played. The analogy just doesn't make much sense. Maybe more like if the popularity of a particular sprinter made more people watch the summer olympics, therefore opening up all the other sports in the olympics to a new audience.

Or like if the popularity triathlon got more runners into swimming, or led to more combination events.

Electroclash was really specific. The fact some people (later) played it with other genres was part of a wider trend happening more broadly. And lots of those DJs playing rock and dance music together were not interested in Electroclash.

Electroclash itself had its own labels, djs and compilations and it was not part of some other musical movement at the start, but a very specific dance music genre.

Lots of stuff came afterwards that involved more specific collaboration or remixing of rock bands etc but this was all after electroclash was over.

Saying electroclash opened the door for other genres to be played is like saying hockey opened the door for more people to play tennis.

― LocalGarda, Tuesday, 30 June 2026 14:34 (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I'm struggling to see where anyone's saying that though. Are you referring to fgti's or my post?

I know what you mean LG but in New York it quickly became a term to describe the sorts of parties that would play stuff by eg Ladytron, Fischerspooner, The Hacker etc - and these parties would have live sets from like Radio 4, The Rapture, the Juan Maclean etc. - and the DJs would often play stripped down, mean rock and disco of the past, so that the parties themselves had a lens that conferred a kind of reverse-engineered electroclash status to groups like ESG, Bush Tetras, even indie disco staples like The Passenger. Which I thought was delightful!

I really hated that Girl Talk album. Optimo were pretty much the only folks with the swag and taste to go all eclectic and shit

Shameless plug, but I did an electroclash ep of my radio show a few weeks back and talked about this question of definitions at the top. To me, it was a context that pulled together music from several relatively disparate scenes in an incredibly exciting way. I think the canon of great electroclash records is very small, but it was a deep well of discovery.
If that floats your boat, you can have a listen here! https://mostlylisten.ing/2026/04/27/episode-electroclash-th-april.html

Just chiming in to say I stand by my assertion that electroclash midwifed the open-format party concept, DJs would agree with me (and in fact asserted the same, this isn't my own original thought), and I reject LocalGarda's hockey/tennis analog

"Is Chicks on Speed Electroclash" is the name of my new single

Arguing the toss over how wide a specific music genre is tends to be pointless. You can either say that electroclash is strictly a small bunch of artists releasing music in a short frame of time or argue it's defined by a wider net of adjacent music that ultimately connects to that smaller pool via spirit and signifiers. It really is YMMV

I prefer thinking of Electroclash as quite a narrow specific sound and aesthetic but obviously a lot of DJs and producers incorporated it into whatever else they were doing at the time.

the whole electroclash era whether the skinny definiation of dj hells mates, or the wider groove of genre bouncing parties/mixtapes,
it matters not.
it was a truly glorious period.
and i still ride hard for all of that chaos.

definiation : definition

tell us about the ratpure gramps

ha.
i wish i could.
at the time i was deep into the chaos of early doors parenting ..
i was a jealous fan of the chaos from afar.

Electroclash or pseudo-clash I also loved that while time of music. Late 90s music and pop culture taken in as a rough mass triggers a bummed out feeling in my brain. Electroclash (et al) coincided with the early days of ILM and it felt like a big big boost, something that felt like a flip of the script that I could relate to. There's a good case to say it laid the foundations for a lot of music for several years to come, from Bodyrox to LCD Soundsystem to that Le Roux remix to Haim - there's electroclash DNA in all of those to some extent

While - whole

scene sounds cool. in ny terms, what cross pollination is as cool as blondie having a song with rap vocals go to Billboard US #1 for two weeks. In 1981.

this is an unfunny joek post but meant in good nature, ppl