Fluxblog 504 best dance music 2024!!
Plus songs by Ela Minus, Mura Masa/Yeule, Elysian Fields, and Piri & Tommy
This issue’s playlist is CLUB CLASSICS: BEST DANCE TRACKS 2024, an updated and expanded version of a playlist I published over the summer full of bops and bangers from this year. This is now six hours of up-tempo fun for the dance floor, the gym, or whatever else you have in mind.
Please note that if you followed the Spotify version of CLUB CLASSICS from the summer, you’re already following this iteration. However, if you followed it on Apple or YouTube, you’ll need to follow the new versions below.
[Spotify | Apple Music | YouTube]
Hell Is Hereditary
Ela Minus “Upwards”
“Upwards” is a pop song in the way the songs on Björk’s Post and Homogenic are pop songs – bold, catchy, and propulsive, but rendered with an eccentric palette and general indifference to how things are “supposed” to sound. It’s like the opposite of sugaring a bitter pill, but not the same as self-sabotage. The twists and turns and peculiar tones are essential to how Ela Minus delivers her most enticing hooks, and the harsh, angular stylishness of the production elevates a song that could be a more straightforward dance track. It’s not a pop song in goth/industrial drag, it’s a goth/industrial song with very angsty lyrics that happens to have strong bop tendencies.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
Mura Masa featuring Yeule “We Are Making Out”
It’s exciting to hear new electroclash songs that are just as good or better than the stuff that came out in the early 2000s. “We Are Making Out” is abrasive and raunchy on the surface, but upon closer inspection it’s all sentimental sweetness. This is literally a song about making out on the London Underground on the way to their snogging partner’s place. It’s about conveying the excitement of fresh lust, and the mystery of what comes next, though it isn’t that mysterious. The fourth verse is where Yeule really cranks up the sweetness by giving this scene a little context. How did they end up making out on the Underground? “Because you drew a picture of my heart on a guitar / accidentally said, ‘I love you.'”
Buy it from Bandcamp.
Shadow of Shadows Spare the Dawn
Elysian Fields “I Can Give You That”
“I can give you that, I can give you that…please take it,” Jennifer Charles sings in the chorus of this song, sounding sultry and sad but a little serene, like a middle point on a spectrum of vocal affect between her contemporary Hope Sandoval and Lana Del Rey. And what is that? Judging by the verses, in which she zooms out and gets broadly philosophical about intimacy and zooms in on the granular details of a sensual existence, “that” is pretty much everything. The good, the bad, the boring, and the unexpected. All the rewards and perils of true vulnerability and risk. “I Can Give You That” is romantic but also noticeably weary, coming from the perspective of someone who seems to have already experienced all the best and the worst and is willing to roll the dice all over again.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
Do You Have The Key To This Club?
Piri & Tommy “99%”
“99%” is pretty straightforward – a dance pop song about loving crowded basement dance parties. The title refers to how densely packed the room ought to be, though it’s also played as innuendo. (“It’s a tight fit, but we like it.”) The beat is brisk, and Piri’s topline is a variation on her best musical trick – a strong, ultra-sticky melody that resisters as casual and low-key. This works perfectly well at face value, but I like how the lyrics scan as nostalgia for the recent past and a recipe for a perfect Piri & Tommy night out. It’s the past, it’s the present, it’s the future, it’s the Dr. Manhattan of dance pop tunes.
Buy it from Amazon.
LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE
I saw Anna Fox Rochinski and Paint play a low-key bill at a recently opened venue called Cassette in Ridgewood. I’m a big fan of Rochinski’s debut album Cherry, which came out in 2021, and had been meaning to see her play for a while. Her set was very good, and included an immediately appealing song from her forthcoming second record and a lovely cover of Broadcast’s “Tears in the Typing Pool.”
I saw Mariah Carey’s Christmas show at Barclays Center last night. I’ve loved Mariah since I was 10 but had never seen her perform, and while I would’ve preferred a full greatest hits show, it was just amazing to witness her voice in person. It was kinda similar to my experience of seeing Neil Young earlier this year – hearing her hit the whistle register on “Emotions” very similar to feeling his guitar tone in person. In both cases, a sound that many have tried to emulate but is impossible to replicate. The show was a lot looser than I would have expected, but in a charming way. For example, while her band played “Always Be My Baby” near the end of the show, she just roamed around the front rows letting fans take pictures with her while she complained about the unforgiving overhead lighting.
LINKS LINKS LINKS LINKS
• David Browne at Rolling Stone wrote about how the aftermath of Glenn Miller’s death 80 years ago set the stage for the phenomenon of “legacy” bands.
• Sound Exploder got Sabrina Carpenter on the show to talk about how she wrote “Please Please Please.” As usual, she’s very charming and funny.