You don’t see artists embrace the “dance” tagline very often anymore but 4 of the hottest up and coming bands are not only embracing it they are referring to themselves as “dance” or “dance/rock”. They are in no particular order:
THE KILLERS
22,000 albums sold this week. They refer to themselves as “dance/rock” in every interview – and talk about bringing dance back to the forefront – think of themselves as the Duran Duran of 2004. “Somebody Told Me” is crossing over now from Modern Rock and there goal is to get people to dance rather than elbow one another at their concerts.
POSTAL SERVICE
No.1 forever on the Electronica Album chart – their debut album has now sold an incredible 319,000 copies and it is still selling 6,500 units a week despite no radio hit – that’s HUGE!
SCISSOR SISTERS
Avoided the 2nd week album sales decline most artists see and sold another 12,000 units this week – two week total is now at 24,000 units. Big, big supporters of dance music having recorded dance and remixed everyone from Blondie to the Pet Shop Boys. Now working w/ Kylie Minogue on her upcoming “Greatest Hits”.
FRANZ FERDINAND
The biggest of the dance/rock acts. Their album is now at 400,000 sold and still selling 25,000 a week. Referred to as Dance/Rock by everyone w/ single “Take Me Out” now crossing to Top 40. Love remixes – Daft Punk among others have remixed 1st single…
Potentially we have the beginning of the same movement (actually more than the beginning) that brought us New Order, Depeche Mode, Pet Shop Boys, Erasure, etc in the 80’s. If Modern Rock continues to embrace “dance friendly” music – we may see dance hit the mainstream much sooner than expected.
Other up and coming acts like Keane and Muse are also incorporating these styles…pretty exciting!
