If You Like [X] Then You'll Like [Y]: Indie Sleaze
Ready or not, electroclash has been back for a while, and I've got the fever to tell. Inside, my (podcast) deep dive on Yeah Yeah Yeahs, plus a playlist of the sleaziest revivalists of the genre.
A version of this post was published on July 15, 2024. It has been updated with a new introduction and additional highlights have been added from the playlist. The corresponding playlist itself has been refreshed with 12 new songs. Spotify links have been replaced with Bandcamp wherever possible.
I don’t know when I became an authority1 on indie sleaze, but I’m absolutely thrilled about it.
Last month, I had the immense pleasure of joining the hosts of music podcast This One Goes to 11 to wax nostalgic about one of my favorite albums, Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Fever to Tell. I’ll let them describe the results:
Those other music podcasts out there? They don't love you like we love you. And we were happy to make time for our new friend - and this week's guest - Gabbie from New Bands for Old Heads. She brought us back to the dawn of Urban Outfitters profiting off of the art-rock indie-sleaze movement of the early 2000s with 2003's debut album from Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever to Tell. We talk about where this album sits in the evolution of rock music, what has made Karen O such an icon, and what's going on with all that gatekeeping in the world of music criticism. We also talk about Philadelphia with the kind of specificity that definitely won't make people who have never been there feel left out. Give this one a listen - you just might be sweating in the winter.
Spending an hour buzzing about my college days and my unending love for Karen O. reminded me how much time and love and effort I had put into finding bands that were working on recreating the sound that we’re now calling indie sleaze.
But when I went to go dig up this playlist to reshare it with you, I had a funny realization — I had never mentioned Yeah Yeah Yeahs as an inspiration for any of the new artists I pulled in.
This wasn’t purposeful, not like with my exclusion of, say, the Strokes (if I’ve ever been gatekeepy about anything, it’s this — what an incredible band, but they just don’t make sense to me as indie sleaze).
I’m embarrassed to say it’s entirely because I haven’t actually been able to find a modern analogue for the early Yeah Yeah Yeahs sound. Even Yeah Yeah Yeahs themselves don’t sound like that anymore.
Whether they belong in this retroactively-named genre in the first place is up for debate. The playlist I’ve pulled together for you below, as you’ll see, is essentially modern electroclash, which Yeah Yeah Yeahs were not.
But they do belong in this discussion. And either way, the playlist rips, if I do say so myself.
Who’s the modern equivalent of “Date With the Night”-era Yeah Yeah Yeahs?
Original post — more or less — reproduced below.
Indie Sleaze and its New Wave
When I first heard the term “indie sleaze” applied to music, I knew exactly what it meant. Dancing in sweaty basements, drinking PBR, and listening to very, very specific bands: The Rapture, CSS, Death From Above 1979, LCD Soundsystem, Uffie. The nostalgia for this era hits me harder than any other, so making a playlist of new musicians inspired by its sound was not an assignment I took lightly.
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The music on this playlist won’t sound much like second wave post-punk (Interpol, Arctic Monkeys) or riot grrrl (Le Tigre, Gossip), all of which gets lumped under the same indie sleaze umbrella. “Stuff we danced to at basement shows in the 2000s” is a perfectly legitimate definition, but I can’t help but feel that we should be leaning harder into the sleaze portion of the term.
So instead of indie rock, this playlist leans heavily into electroclash. It’s (mostly) newer, younger artists making you feel awfully old by taking inspiration from the mid-2000s, American Apparel, bloghouse era of anxious, slutty, two-guys-and-their-synths indie pop. It’s based on a period so recent you didn’t think it could have made a full spin on the trend cycle just yet. But here we are. And it’s time to get sweaty.
First, a few standouts. Then, the goods.
The Preview
1. Baba Ali
For (former?) fans of: film noir, those Robert Palmer videos where all the ladies in red lipstick sway around a little bit in the background
Sounds kinda like: LCD Soundsystem, Nick Cave, Suicide
2. Model/Actriz
For (former?) fans of: running the garbage disposal, riding the MTA
Sounds kinda like: The Faint, Lightning Bolt
3. The Dare
For (former?) fans of: Sparks, Razrs, The Hipster Handbook, Patrick Bateman
Sounds EXACTLY like: LCD Soundsystem, The Rapture
4. Dream Wife
For (former?) fans of: Y2K cyberpunk movies, wraparound sunglasses, metallic leather, Garbage
Sounds kinda like: Republica
5. Sløtface
For (former?) fans of: vector art, pop-punk gone synth
Sounds kinda like: Metric, the Ting Tings
6. Font
For (former?) fans of: adderall-fueled study sessions, David Byrne and David Lynch
Sounds kinda like: Death from Above 1979, The Faint
7. Pom Pom Squad
For (former?) fans of: calling the club the “clrrrb” and actually going to it
Sounds kinda like: Lady Gaga, Little Boots
The Playlist
Also on Apple, Amazon, Tidal, and YouTube.
Bonus!
For a little more indie sleaze revival discussion, I pitted The Dare against Master Peace over on TikTok…
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…which ruffled a very small amount of feathers (mostly mine) about the difference between indie sleaze and landfill indie:
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Oh, hush, let me have this.
Saw Model/Actriz live - it was menacing and sweaty, so totally awesome.
My favorite Electroclash record was The Fitness's "Call Me for Together". In classic fashion, the band recorded one perfect LP then disappeared entirely.