Crossdressing to Backbeats: The Status of the Electroclash Producer and the Politics of Electronic Music

Abstract

Addressing the international emergence of electroclash at the turn of the millenium, this article investigates the distinct character of the genre and its related production practices, both in and out of the studio. Electroclash combines the extended pulsing sections of techno, house and other dance musics with the trashier energy of rock and new wave. The genre signals an attempt to reinvigorate dance music with a sense of sexuality, personality and irony. Electroclash also emphasizes, rather than hides, the European, trashy elements of electronic dance music. The coming together of rock and electro is examined vis-à-vis the ongoing changing sociality of music production/ distribution and the changing role of the producer. Numerous women, whether as solo producers, or in the context of collaborative groups, significantly contributed to shaping the aesthetics and production practices of electroclash, an anomaly in the history of popular music and electronic music, where the role of the producer has typically been associated with men. These changes are discussed in relation to the way electroclash producers Peaches, Le Tigre, Chicks on Speed, and Miss Kittin and the Hacker often used a hybrid approach to production that involves the integration of new(er) technologies, such as laptops containing various audio production softwares with older, inexpensive keyboards, microphones, samplers and drum machines to achieve the ironic backbeat laden hybrid electro-rock sound.

DJ Mini and Montreal’s Vulgar Dance Music

“…Staying relevant and maintaining a connection vis-à-vis these quickly changing cycles and international dance music culture as a whole requires a local party night like Overdose to constantly shift its stylistic focus by incorporating related emerging sounds that are gaining popularity elsewhere. Towards the mid-2000s, electroclash was shortened to electro and the vulgar stylizations were replaced by a more pronounced techno-oriented and instrumental sensibility (Madden 2012).…”

“…Some of the more vulgar aspects of electronic dance music include the presence of lush orchestral adornments (most commonly connected to late 1970s disco and Eurodisco), the incorporation of female vocal tracks and the mixing of various rock music stylizations. Though the inclusion of female vocal tracks and rock music stylizations are heavily tied to the aesthetics of electroclash (Madden 2012), all of the aforementioned vulgar elements of electronic music are tightly connected with Montreal's dance music history. As Straw emphasizes, ever since disco's real or imagined "collapse into vulgarity" and pluralism in the late 1970s, "broad currents within Western dance music have been shaped by the impulse to install rationality and militancy as protective walls" against the possibility of this type of demise; adding: " [T]his has most noticeably been the case within that dance music culture which flirts regularly with rock music " (1993: 171).…”

The Irony and the Ecstasy: The Queer Ageing of Pet Shop Boys and LCD Soundsystem in Electronic Dance Music

“…Jenkins 2015; Shryock 2015), electronic music and electroclash (e.g. Biddle 2004;Luvaas 2006;Madden 2011) and indie rock (e.g. Atchison 2011).…”