DANCE AND POP
Acts like Skrillex and Black Eyed Peas aren’t between two worlds – they’ve created a new one
ARE INSEPARABLE IN THE MUSIC OF ACTS LIKE SKRILLEX.
Iblame will.i.am. Okay, the Black Eyed Peas rapper-producer may not be single-handedly responsible, but he is a key player in the conspiracy. Another likely suspect: David Guetta. The globetrotting DJ is a repeat offender, with little chance of rehabilitation. And don’t get me started on Lady Gaga.
Dig deeper and you’ll find a nefarious network of accomplices, aiders and abettors who all have their hands dirty, debasing pop music with the sinful sounds of dance.
On Sunday, the movement’s rebel leader Skrillex, DJ pal Diplo and Montreal buzz gal Grimes touch down at Jean Drapeau Park – the latest stop on a cross-Canada tour proving that not only is electronic music back with a vengeance, it has infiltrated the mainstream.
It’s become so bad, you can’t pick up a Justin Bieber, Nicki Minaj or Katy Perry album without being confronted by a batch of tracks bearing the repetitive thump, siren synths and AutoTuned vocal robotics that used to be relegated to Crescent St. clubs on a Saturday night. How did it come to this? Let’s start with Donna Summer. The late Queen of Disco changed the pop world with her shocking, moan-filled hit single Love to Love You Baby in 1975, co-written with British producer Pete Bellotte and Italian disco don Giorgio Moroder.
Cue the rise of disco through the late ’70s, and the emergence of house music in the early ’80s. New York DJ John “Jellybean” Benitez remixed songs for his rising popstar girlfriend Madonna’s selftitled 1983 debut, and produced her hit Holiday. (Fast-forward 22 years and Madonna would enlist the talents of another DJ, Britain’s Stuart Price, for her charttopping 2005 comeback album Confessions on a Dance Floor.)
The late ’80s brought the rap/ house hybrid hip-house; the early ’90s gave us rave culture, MC Hammer and C+C Music Factory. By the mid-’90s, electronic music was expanding in all directions with sub-genres including acid jazz, trip-hop, trance, big beat, 2step and drum-and-bass.
Massive Attack was as cool as it got until French duo Daft Punk brought disco to the future on their 1997 debut, while fellow Skrillex precursors Fatboy Slim and the Chemical Brothers made block-rocking beats the foundation of party-pop anthems that moved crowds worldwide. Even emerging rock heroes Radiohead couldn’t resist the pull of the OK Computer age.
So we’ve been here before. But this latest manifestation of dancepop hybridization has distinctive traits all its own. Even at the height of the ’90s electronica explosion, there were dividing lines; as popular as it got, it remained alternative.
Pop acts like Britney Spears dabbled in dance and R&B; producers like Timbaland pushed the boundaries of pop with cuttingedge beats; but real dance versions of pop hits were relegated to remixes. North American pop acts, it seemed, weren’t ready to go all the way in their flirtation with dance music. Through the first half of the ’00s, replaced by the resurgence of rock ’n’ roll, DJ culture seemed to be on its way out. Now it has barged back in.
So what part did will.i.am play in all this? Black Eyed Peas was a respectable underground rap act until it brought blond bombshell Fergie on board for its 2003 album Elephunk. Mass appeal ensued, and leading the charge was will.i.am’s shameless wateringdown of the group’s sound to appeal to the lowest common denominator.
This included incorporating elements of European dance music as the band ripped pages from the Daft Punk rule book on the albums The E.N.D. (2009) and The Beginning (2010). It was crass, often downright silly, but it worked.
The band’s gratingly infectious I Gotta Feeling may be the song that has most contributed to the current tidal wave of dance-pop hysteria. Produced by superstar French club DJ Guetta, it marked a merging of worlds from which the pop charts have yet to recover.
Guetta’s own albums feature guest vocals by everyone from will.i.am to Snoop Dogg, Akon, Estelle, Kelly Rowland, Kid Cudi, Minaj and Flo Rida, all transformed into interchangeable cheerleaders for his relentlessly festive world party.
Lady Gaga is no angel herself. Her 2008 debut, The Fame, swiped trashy Euro-dance sounds with impunity as she forged an artfully lowbrow aesthetic designed to move your hips and free your mind. Just Dance was the telling title of her breakout single.
Skrillex brought rock-star bombast to the table with his explosively funky, cut-and-paste breakbeat barrage. Subtlety has no place in the 24-year-old former punk rock singer’s riotous smorgasbord of techno, electro, rave and hip hop.
Hip hop grounds the pasty L.A. producer’s pummelling sound. While tagged with the genre descriptive of British dub-techno hybrid dubstep, his music owes moretoattention-span-challenged mash-up DJ Girl Talk, who never met a bass-bumping southern rap track he didn’t like. Toss in a few of those rave sirens and you’re off to the races.
Skrillex has done production work for Korn and remixes for Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars, but his influence goes beyond his actual collaborations, as all kinds of pop artists and producers borrow his trademark style.
“I don’t even try to make dubstep,” he told the Guardian last year. “It’s just another tempo and rhythm that I work in because it makes people go wild.”
His pal Diplo also likes to induce dance-floor mayhem. Starting out as an ambient beatsmith on his 2004 Big Dada/Ninja Tune debut, Florida, the Philadelphia DJ rose to fame as a producer on thengirlfriend M.I.A.’s game-changing 2005 album Arular, a landmark fusion of electro, rap, dancehall reggae and cheeky pop.
M.I.A. was recruited by Madonna to add edge to her Super Bowl performance this year, alongside Minaj and Twitter-generation dance-pop duo LMFAO.
Diplo, meanwhile, has become a poster boy of new-school cool. When not jet-setting from one party to the next and being the hipster-baiting face of BlackBerry ads, he is courted by a who’s who of pop artists seeking a hint of his street-vibe magic.
Recent production exploits include work on Beyoncé’s M.I.A.esque 2011 single Run the World (Girls); tracks for Usher; remixes for Kanye West; a song (Thought of You) on Bieber’s new album, Believe; and an upcoming reggae album with Snoop Dogg.
Where it’s all going is anybody’s guess, but pop music is more dance-crazed than ever before. A glance at iTunes’s top 10 singles this week revealed club-tinged tracks by will.i.am, Guetta, Rihanna and rappers Flo Rida and Pitbull.
Granted, many of these are standard pop ditties with streamlined dance beats underneath. But while you’d have to strain to find the innovation in such songs, their electronic influences open the door for a new generation of music fans to discover what else is around.
If that leads them to Jean Drapeau Park on Sunday, then all is not for naught. Once there, they may become fans of Grimes, a.k.a. Montrealer Claire Boucher, the critically acclaimed electro singer-producer whose esoteric Visions was long-listed for this year’s Polaris Music Prize for best Canadian album.
Just don’t let will.i.am anywhere near her.