Electroclash: New York City Compilation
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“Electroclash” is the name New York scenesters have given to their stagey spin on electro–a fusion of hip-hop and funk created in New York in the early 80s with the aid of the Roland TR-808 drum synthesizer. Most date the genre back to Afrika Bambaataa’s 1982 single “Planet Rock,” which he made with producer Arthur Baker and keyboardist John Robie, reportedly after being blown away by Kraftwerk’s Trans-Europe Express; key variations came courtesy of Mantronix, Melle Mel, Cybotron, the Jonzun Crew, and the Micronawts, among others. Non-hip-hop acts have adapted it for their own poppy purposes over the years, but in the 90s electro was ultimately robbed of its identity by techno, which gave the space jams a mechanical, cold-blooded texture, and Miami bass, which traded rinky-dink charm for big boom.
In the past couple years the form has undergone a major resuscitation. Lone artists are plugging away all over the place, but talent has pooled in Detroit (the artists associated with Adult.’s Ersatz Audio label), Berlin (where Canadian transplants Peaches and Gonzales star on the Kitty-Yo roster), and New York, where this time around the music’s hooks and poses are rooted more in punk than in hip-hop. The New Yorkers’ particularly nihilistic approach might appear to be a commentary on modern Manhattan, where musical grit and ingenuity have declined as the borough’s collective comfort level has risen. Hipster lifestyle magazines like Sleaze Nation, the Face, Vice, and Paper have branded electroclash a “movement,” printing hyperbole like “a cripplingly great new phenomenon that made New York City the center of the universe once again.” But it’s less a movement than an in-joke.
The message was that there is no message: “Hypermediocrity / You don’t need to emerge from nothing,” Spooner sings in “Emerge,” the duo’s recent European club hit, but it was difficult to discern, given the quality of the stage show, whether he was celebrating or disparaging the sappy and the superficial. If, say, he’s mocking the vapid wastoids who market cool to other vapid wastoids, then why does he make it look so fun to be a vapid wastoid?
