BLOG: When Bands ‘treat’ Fans To A Bit Of Dance

Listening to Kasabian ahead of tomorrow’s homecoming show, it’s one track from new album 48:13 that really stands out. One song that, just when you think it’s heading to the fade, becomes a whole other, completely different entity; the band’s most electronic moment – minus Serge’s guitar but just as hypnotic as the dance-flavoured numbers that have littered their decade long career.

At around the 3.30 mark, ‘treat’ tricks the listener to become a fully-fledged dance anthem. Not quite donked on, but something in that style, making the highly-divided Zane Lowe and Rudimental support slot announcements seem much clearer. Borrowing beats and keys from the 90s, it merges house music with Madchester influences to become one of their most impressive offerings to date. (Despite the fact that, potentially, it could have been like fusing Flashdance with MC Hammer shit.)

But of course, they aren’t the first band to switch from indie/rock legends to club lords. New Order are perhaps the most iconic example who, following Ian Curtis’ death and their transition from Joy Division to NO, used a full band set-up to create huge dance anthems. ‘Blue Monday’ rides on Hooky’s low-hung bass with some of Bernard Sumner’s best (least-bad-rhymy) lyrics, but is more likely to be found on a Ministry Of Sound compilation than one featuring fellow early-80s goths.

Headlining Glastonbury alongside Kasabian, Arcade Fire enlisted the help of LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy for their fourth LP, Reflektor. The title track, and lead single, was noteworthy for a number of reasons (DAVID BOWIE ON BACKING VOCALS!) and played out like a French-dischoteque take on ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, but it’s the crescendo that make it a glitter-ball-reflekting number. Again, borrowing simple Madchester keyboard chords, the two minute outro is begging for Bez and his maracas, and begging to be sampled – not that it won’t get the crowd shimmyng at the Pyramid stage.

In a similar style to ‘treat’, Franz Ferdinand’s ‘Lucid Dreams’ seems like any-old shifty (that’s not a typo) Franz Ferdinand number until three and a half minutes in, when the guitars disappear and acidic synth samples take over. Reviewers rightfully claimed that it was a highlight on their often panned third album, and one that sounds even better live (where it can reportedly last for days on end).

On the second single from their sophomore release, White Lies let ‘Holy Ghost’ play out like any of their doom-laden indie anthems before 60 seconds of bigger beats than any of the year’s dance anthems.

While always a more electronic, experimental outfit than Blur, Gorillaz’ Mark E. Smith featuring ‘Glitter Freeze’ provided an almost-solely instrumental, bar Smith’s random ramblings. “You wouldn’t credit or believe this.” Indeed.

Know of a better indie track with a bigger donk on it? Let us know #Gigslutztreats

Dan Bull

Dan Bull

Reviews Editor
London. Likes: Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts, Prince Charles Cinema, Duran Duran Dislikes: Soreen, All-hits setlists, "I liked them before everyone else..."