Change has been boiling under ever since the decade clicked to double zeros. We've wanted more of something, and slowly we've realized what. What you're increasingly witnessing at every club, at every show, with every passing night, is the death of the horrible, awkward, uncomfortable tension of devoted music fans pretending not to enjoy music they have paid to see. Finally, we are shaking off the coma of the stillborn slacker 90s and now there is movement. Arms uncross, faces snap to attention, and clarity hits like religion. We have buried irony and pissed on its grave and for the first time we are realizing what rock music, rock shows are all about.
Fuck, was that a dream? Pavement playing the Showbox in Seattle to throngs of unwashed hippie revivalists acting as if they'd been imprisoned there by a cruel master of ceremonies, their peer and equal Stephen Malkmus? Eddie Vedder iconically scrawling PRO-CHOICE up his left arm like he bore the weight of the entire fucking world and was the only living person with this Great Important Answer to all the world's problems? That the Dismemberment Plan-- among the first to envision this future at which we've now arrived-- called us out to our faces with "Doing the Standing Still" and we actually still just stood there? It's almost impossible to believe in light of music like this, music that finally places as much emphasis on real, true, palpable fun as it does on art.
As brilliant as this music sounds on paper and CD, nothing compares to experiencing it live. I saw it taking shape ("but I was there!") at the beginning of this summer in Chicago: The Rapture unleashing their primal digifunk on Chicago's stuffy Metro. As the band took the stage, two kids behind me absolutely lost their shit. Whatever it was they were doing, they were doing it alone-- at first. I've never seen anything like that: You could see it visibly sweeping the whole room. And these kids didn't have a clue "how to dance," which was part of the brilliance of it: For one, it complemented the overcompensating freaks onstage not knowing how to play, but beyond that, it was the very spirit of punk. The revelation that you didn't need formal training to start a band in 1977 and the realization that you don't need to be Merce Cunningham to dance are one and the same. Fucking nobody knows how to dance at these shows-- in fact, you'd look like a jackass if you did.
This perceived, grand-scheme "Importance" of Echoes, however, is irrelevant: What matters is that it wants you to get off your ass and work it, and that you'll be thrilled to oblige. Its trance-noir opener, "Olio" (here revised from a rougher take on the Mirror LP) sets synthetic programmed 808 beats, handclaps and ride cymbals against vocalist Luke Jenner, whose tortured wails mash Robert and Patti into one solitary Smith. Jenner is almost impressively tuneless, and what's more, it even seems unintentional-- as though he's really trying to hit that high C and settling for a half-step down after 30+ takes. Good thing it works for him stylistically, striking as totally unhinged and wildeyed, as if he can't sit still at a mike with all that rhythm whizzing past him.
"I Need Your Love" sends needling synths and a growling, discordant sax subtly buzzing around Jenner's nervous vocal while a punched-up house beat smacks against a minimalist bassline and sampled guitar. "House of Jealous Lovers"-- the unparalleled champion of 2002's summer anthem sweepstakes-- appears at a slightly more album-friendly length (five instead of almost seven), showcasing bassist Matt Safer's most convincing shrieks over the slapping guitar chords that won the band their first comparisons to Gang of Four.
One of the greatest things about the way this record sounds is how the DFA production team has coated it in their trademark style, pitting a gritty lo-fi aesthetic against the most state-of-the-art equipment the 1980s had to offer-- which is where it differs from the dancefloor stereotype, whose overt glossiness has remained the industry standard for decades. The album's title track is one of the better examples of what I'm talking about: Misleadingly opening like something off The Strokes' first record, it quickly bursts into one of Echoes' hottest tracks, with a sloppy, tumbling bassline, those dirty conga breakdowns, tinny guitar hits (an updated relative to the outmoded orchestra hit), and the deafening, careening carwreck ending, punctuated by Safer repeatedly screeching "WHHAAAAAT!!!!" at the moment of greatest impact. This is anti-gloss, but it mixes as cleanly into any DJ set as it does into indie rock mixtapes.
Virtually every track is a highlight: I feel like I'd be doing a disservice to this record by not giving a more in-depth read on the Duran Duran guitar stabs and 80s cokehead atmosphere of "Sister Savior", the Neptunes-esque beat of "Killing", or any of the three non-dance-oriented tracks ("Open Up Your Heart", the truly beautiful "Love Is All" and the somber, almost Talk Talk-ish closer, "Infatuation") that sound entirely out of place yet somehow manage not to disturb the flow of the album. But then I'd be covering every single track on Echoes, and they can't all be that great, right?
The Rapture are only one of about 10,000 bands ushering in this thing that's gotten labeled "dancepunk," but it's important to note that they were among the first. Echoes was cut and complete over a year ago-- their "House of Jealous Lovers" single was intended as a teaser, but delays too numerous and boring to list deterred its release. As the record was continually pushed back, the cacophonous buzz that surrounded the single faded. People had been so excited: Here were the dance and rock undergrounds finally uniting, indie rock cultivating a new loathing and defiance for tired hipster poses and demanding the chaos of which safety and careerism had stripped it. Yesterday, after having been available on file-trading networks since June, Echoes finally saw official release in the UK (the U.S. is being made to wait until the end of next month), and it's no exaggeration to say it's been met with about 20% of the anticipation it would have, and should have, garnered-- if only it had come out on time.
That's another rant altogether, but it's true that the timing seems all wrong on this release, particularly since we've been inundated with a million Rapture knockoffs who've already released their own sad imitations. Liars' They Threw Us All in a Trench and Out Hud's S.T.R.E.E.T. D.A.D. aside, dancepunk hasn't even offered tangible evidence of actual potential. The fact is, paradigm shifts don't happen overnight, and if the release schedules for the next few months are accurate (!!!, Out Hud, Liars, and Erase Errata all have new albums coming out), the lull in publicity this genre's seeing right now is the calm before the storm.
Meanwhile, people aren't wasting time: over the course of the past few months, I've seen them going nuts at shows you'd expect to see them dancing at in this climate (Out Hud, !!!, Radio 4, Liars, The Postal Service, Rjd2), shows you'd never expect to see them dancing at in this climate (Comets on Fire, Black Dice, Broken Social Scene), and shows by bands that don't deserve to be danced to in any climate (Hint Hint, Dance Disaster Movement). Bands like The Rapture have sent their message: The rock show was not meant to be a collegiate study. We have all stopped caring what snotty academics find acceptable, because now there is real, true, palpable fun, and it is the greatest liberation. You people at shows who don't dance, who don't know a good time, who can't have fun, who sneer and scoff at the supposed inferior-- it's you this music strikes a blow against. We hope you die bored.
