Electro Trash and Indie Sleaze - Brat Summer and the Return of Y2K
Being old enough that when I look back on my childhood my memories appear to me as 8mm film, once I might assume I would have acquired a certain amount of wisdom throughout my journey, but unlike joint pain and the inclination to start sentences with “I’m not racist, but…”, apparently wisdom isn’t a guaranteed side effect of aging. I suppose there are a few nuggets of insight that have crept in over the years, like avoiding the temptation after the club to follow a group of people who promise an afterparty but end up only delivering on eight guys in an apartment doing cocaine. Perhaps the only other insight I can offer is that you shouldn’t throw away your old clothes because they’ll eventually come back in style.
This also holds true with music, which is continuously recycled in waves. This was certainly the case in the early 2000s, where the trash music scene offered a fresh interpretation of the eighties. Once that trend faded, it was the nineties turn to be reinterpreted, with the classic house being rediscovered by a generation of producers who were too young to experience the birth of rave firsthand, and who found the analog production style a welcome departure from the digital aesthetic common since laptops became a new generation’s primary musical instrument.
No less predictable than the setting sun, the dial seems to have now turned again, where the aughts are being rediscovered and repurposed by generation z, an inevitable evolution by all accounts accelerated with the notion of a brat summer, codified in its influence on albums like Charlie xcx Brat, and with DJ sets by The Dare. Suddenly this provocative and carefree music from the past seemed well suited to score our present.
This selection is in two parts based on the rationale that dance music of that decade does to some extent split into chapters with the early years being still mostly the product of gen x artists, as evident in a nostalgia for the eighties electro scene and with late seventies punk still lingering in the ether. By the second half of the decade, millennials were coming of age bringing with them influences of the indie scene that became prevalent at the time, and we found ourselves immersed in a subtle transition from Electro Trash to Indie Sleaze.
Track List
Fischerspooner - Emerge (Naughty’s Zugabe)
LCD Soundsystem - Give It Up
Felix Da Housecat - What Does It Feel Like?
Le Tigre - Hot Topic
Peaches - Lovertits
Playgroup - Number One
Scissor Sisters - Comfortably Numb
Louie Austen - Amore
Markus Nikolai - Bushes (Norman Cook Remix)
Royksopp feat. Erlend Oye - Remind Me
Damien - Fresh People
Sean Cosa - Spaceship
Crossover - Phostographt (Tiga’s Revenge)
Plastique De Reve - Rodeo Mecanique
Janis Jay - Fly Too High (2manydjs Mix)
Gramme - Telephone Me
Electric Six - Danger! High Voltage
Debbie Harry - Rush Rush
Zongamin - Tunnel Music
Metro Area - Read My Mind (Special Dub)
Kylie Minogue - Slow
Random Factor - Broken Mirror (Acid Jesus Mix)
Linda Lamb - Hot Room (Tiga Remix)
Jurgen Paape - So Weit Wie Noch Nie
Robey - Bored and Beautiful
Chicks on Speed - We Don’t Play Guitar
The Kills - Pull a U
The Rapture - Killing
The Strokes - New York City Cops
Neonwerk - La Invasion
Fischerspooner - Horizon
Matthew Herbert - The Audience
Schneider TM & Kpt. Michi.gan - The Light 3000
Girls on Top - I Wanna Dance With Numbers
Track List
The Knife - You Make Me Like Charity
MIA - Fire, Fire (Diplo’s Mix)
Simian Moble Disco - Hustler (Joakim Remix)
!!! - Me and Giuliani Down By the Schoolyard
Foals - Olympic Airways (Supermayer Remix)
LCD Soundsystem - Time to Get Away
The Rapture - Whoo! Alright! Yeah… Uh Huh
Of Montreal - Gronlandic Edit
Pacific! - Break Your Social System
Matthew Dear - Pom Pom
Fujiya & Miyagi - Collarbone
Annie - Chewing Gum
Escort - All Through the Night
Chromeo - Needy Girl
The Postal Service - We Will Become Silhouettes
Vince - Superworld
Freiland - Frei/ Hot Love (Justus Kohncke Remix)
International Pony - Bubble in the Bottle
Erlend Oye feat. Morgan Geist - Ghost Trains
Artful Dodger - Woman Trouble (Remix)
Cousin Cole Mashup - Disco Makes You Lose Control
Missy Elliot vs Can - Pass that Can
The Go! Team - Power is On
The Streets - Fit But You Know It
The xx - VCR
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Over and Over Again (Lost and Found)
