As fashions change in music, so does the vocabulary. There are no groups any more, only bands. Even boy bands call themselves bands, although they don’t play any instruments. Come to think of it, are there boy bands any more? Take That look like newly retired footballers. When I started this column a thousand years ago, I wanted it called ‘pop’ music rather than the then-standard ‘rock’: a prescient move, it turns out, as ‘rock’ now sounds hopelessly sweaty and arthritic. In dance music the terms change so quickly that you haven’t even found out what they mean before they have gone, which at least saves you the bother of finding them out in the first place. One thing I do know, though: no one uses the word ‘chillout’ any more. No one. Which probably means it’s due for a revival.
There does need to be a term, though, for music with dance origins that is made to be listened to. I speak as someone who dances rarely and badly. Encouraged by my beloved to dance whenever possible, ostensibly to prove that I am not the classically uptight Englishman she knows me to be, I have now been ordered by my children never to dance in their presence, which suits me just fine. They’re no fools, the next generation.
Like everybody else, though, I listen to an awful lot of music that was originally created to be danced to. Swing, rock’n’ roll, Motown, Rolling Stones, Mud’s ‘Tiger Feet’, disco, punk…you could listen to them, you could dance to them, you could listen to them while dancing to them. Only in the past 20 years has dance music left the listener far behind. Much of it bypasses the ears completely, and heads straight for the internal organs.
So what of bands like Air and Röyksopp and the sadly missed Lemon Jelly, and even old floorfillers like Underworld, who have more ideas than that, and nowhere else to put them other than their music? Röyksopp’s first album, Melody A.M. (2001), had all the range of texture and dynamics you’d expect from a Pink Floyd album, although subsequent releases have suggested that this may have been a fluke. Lemon Jelly had pop instincts but dance-floor intentions: every track went on far too long, which wore me down after a while. Underworld’s 2007 album, Oblivion With Bells, is a wonderfully rich piece of work, less dominated by big beats than past records, but bursting with musical ideas and tunes that repay multiple listens. Both Karl Hyde and Rick Smith are over 50 now, so they probably don’t get out much. But the kings of this unnamable subgenre are Air, whose Love 2 (Revolvair/Virgin) I recently bought outrageously cheaply on Amazon. It had been out for six months, so you could call it deferment of gratification, but stinginess probably had more to do with it.
Like many bands, Air — Jean-Benoît Dunckel and Nicolas Godin — have struggled to live up to early success. Moon Safari (1998), with its old-fashioned synth sounds and the clean melodic lines pop radio prefers, gave them several hits (‘Sexy Boy’, ‘Kelly Watch the Stars’) and incredible reviews. Subsequent albums have been stylistically bolder and far more varied, with all interest in daytime airplay abandoned and listeners drawn in for the long haul. 10,000 Hz Legend (2001) was as mischievous with sound as an early 10cc album, and disappointed almost everyone, except for contrarians like me who loved all the prog ideas and references. Talkie Walkie (2004) is, I think, their best album so far, a marvellous distillation of pure sound and great tunes, made for expensive hi-fi and headphones late at night. We should probably include the album Dunckel and Godin wrote and produced for Charlotte Gainsbourg, 5:55 (2006), which saw a further refinement, with synthesisers replaced by piano and acoustic guitar. Pocket Symphony (2007) was more of the same, and suggested a terrifying prospect, that the ideas were running out.
Love 2, happily, shows otherwise. With its electric guitars and cheesy old Moogs, it might be a slightly desperate attempt to please fans of Moon Safari, but it’s also much richer than that. It manages to sound both new and fresh, and old and familiar, and of a piece with their other albums. It’s delicious to hear this excellent duo building up a body of work than can stand comparison with anybody’s. But what you’d call it, other than pop music, is anyone’s guess.
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