Disco Pop (part I)

['Buzzed']

It's fairly safe and banal to posit that the electronic dance track is the present and future medium of popular music. Although the term ‘dance music’ packs a complex and variegated genre into a convenient conceptual package, the sounds emerging from this box over the last five-years are becoming exponentially more appealing to mainstream listeners. In this sense, ‘disco-pop’ occupies an artistic middle ground between the esoteric hedonism of club tracks and the ubiquitous synthesizers of a Timbaland production. Hence, the new Disco Pop series at Lyrical Smelter aims to explore this rapidly stabilizing equilibrium.

While dance music often shares a similar 4/4 beat pattern with hip-hop, recent remixes of Shwayze and Tellier underscore the ease with which the genre produces sonorous instrumental hooks, thereby providing the perfect backdrop to pop/rap lyrics. Plus, the orchestral breakdown at 3:40 on the Tellier remix retrospectively gives Mozart a Funktion One sound system to play with.

• Buzzin (Classixx Remix) - Shwayze
• Fingers of Steel (Hypnolove Remix) - Sebastien Tellier

Approaching the mainstream from a different angle, the Golden Filter and Trentemoller consistently demonstrate an incredible ability to remodel fairly mediocre indie tracks into quintessential pool-party disco anthems (see An Hour in the Smelter DeeJay Mix). However, to give full credit to Peter, Bjorn, and John, their official video does feature an awesomely strange Euro dance off at 2:50.

• Lay It Down (the Golden Filter Remix) - Peter Bjorn & John
• No Your Girls (Trentemoller Remix)- Franz Ferdinand

In the final analysis, though, the listener can often be left wondering what a remix or electronic cover adds to the original. Does Night Waves give us anything that Phil didn't already deliver decades ago?

• In the Air Tonight (Phil Collins Cover) - Night Waves
  

Tomorrow, part 2 of the Disco Pop exploration features several new artists whose productions, rather than remixes, stand on the cusp of mainstream recognition.