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Electroclash


Electroclash describes a style of fashion, music, and attitude that fuses new wave, punk, & electronic dance music with somewhat campy and absurdist post-industrial detachment - alongside vampy and/or campy sexuality. The movement combines the 1980s electro new wave sound (using synthesizers, drum machines, etc) with visuals from the post-1970s Westwood & Warhol fashion/art scenes, with a decidedly mid-70s, Kraftwerk-ian German influence. Electroclash mainly developed in the late 1990s in New York City and Detroit but came to prominence in 2000 - 2002 through Larry Tee's roving, primarily gay Mutants club nights, and later Berliniamsburg nights at Club Luxx in Williamsburg, Brooklyn - and his Electroclash™ Festival (which Tee used to trademark the word "electroclash"). Tee's early electroclash parties were defined by tranny MCs, cocaine, a crowd dressed in revealing 80's-inspired outfits, and Tee's collection of obscure new wave and disco remix records. The name derives from the early 80's electropop bands who provide the majority of the musical influence. Lyrics are generally tongue-in-cheek and punk inspired, and often more given to attitude and pose than poetics or theme; while the vocal delivery is typically atonal to the point of caricature. An bleakly ironic, but indulgently hyper-sexual post-feminist/post-9/11 stance is often evident in the themes of many Electroclash outfits. The genre is generally not a musical style as much as a kitsch-ily cold distanced stance - infected by exhibitionist sexuality and a winking fetish-isation of wealth, indulgence, consumption, and glamour culture - directly reflecting back to the trend's roots in gay club culture. Style is definitely the victor over substance, as a point of pride. Arguably, the movement has more in common with 'Paris Is Burning' style personal projection and dress-up than it has with any element of a musical genre. Essentially the trend of Electroclash, as fashion and pose, is its own driving force - the stylistic affectation is more important than anything going on in the actual music. The "band" Fischerspooner is an example of this philosophy in action - featuring indulgent, elaborately staged 80's homage live shows with over-the-top backdrops, dramatic interludes, and costuming - rendering the music itself almost an afterthought to the production and image-making of the project. As of late 2004-2005, a Southern California scene had adopted the Electroclash moniker. Led by rock bands such as a kiss could be deadly, the SoCal dance / punk scene incorporated more guitar and live drums, while still remaining very synth heavy. The result was more of a straight homage to 80's style new-wave. Accordingly, the lyrical subjects and themes were often taken more seriously and were considerably darker than those of the original East Coast creation. In subsequent years, other scenes in other towns spawned more of these loosely affiliated "serious" Electroclash offshoots, and served to further dilute the original tongue-in-cheek flavor of the genre. By the mid-2000's, electroclash had become a popular synonym for "80s retro dance music."The genre has since gone on to be associated more strongly with international rather than U.S. scenes; dominant now in Berlin, Barcelona, and Mexico City rather than New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.

Representative artists and ensembles