Tiny Sunglasses, Laser Boobs And Dodgy Lyrics: All Aboard The Eurodance Revival
Yes, ’90s and ’00s nostalgia is so hot right now. From spaghetti straps to teeny tiny sunglasses, Y2K influence is everywhere – including in music. Clubland tracks are being sampled left right and centre, and even Eurodance, the most divisive of genres, is back. Between David Guetta and Bebe Rexha’s song I’m Good (Blue) interpolating Eiffel 65’s Blue (Da Ba Dee) and, of course, Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice’s Barbie World – a take on Aqua’s Barbie Girl for the soundtrack to Greta Gerwig’s hit film, the genre is re-entering the public consciousness. Could a revival be on its way?
Mixing pop, techno and rap, Eurodance (along with Europop and Eurodisco) was one of the dominant sounds of the ’90s on the continent. Hits included Rhythm Is A Dancer by German group Snap!, Freed From Desire by Italian singer Gala Rizzatto, and any of the cheesy bops by the Dutch Vengaboys. Nobody could accuse Eurodance, with its lyrics full of slightly incorrect English and heavy innuendos, of subtlety. In every aspect, this was the most ’90s of all ’90s music.
But in 2023, the internet caught Eurodance fever once again. For that, you can thank (or blame, depending on how you look at it) comedian Kyle Gordon and his pulsing parody song Planet Of The Bass. Performing under the alias DJ Crazy Times and accompanied by his musical partner Biljana Electronica (played by Audrey Trullinger), the New York-based comic perfectly captured the sound and aesthetic of the genre, from his dodgy European accent and wraparound shades to so-wrong-they’re-right lyrics, such as: ‘Life, it never die / Women are my favourite guy.’
Gordon’s video went viral on TikTok, and a full-length track with a slick, high-production-value video was soon released – with a debut album coming next year. For the comic, who created the character of DJ Crazy Times while performing with his college a cappella group a decade ago, Eurodance intrigued because it was expansive, yet little known across the pond. “This whole pop universe was happening in Europe… and for the most part, Americans were ignorant about it,” he says.
But when the Planet Of The Bass video first dropped, Gordon wasn’t the only person whose phone blew up. Fans were quick to point out the similarities between the fictional pair DJ Crazy Times and Biljana Electronica and Sugar Bones and Janet Planet, the duo fronting Australian pop group Confidence Man. Both pairs riffed on the stereotypical Eurodance duo of “the female singer and the gruff, hypermasculine Swedish guy doing an impression of an American rapper”, as Gordon puts it. As soon as Planet Of The Bass went viral, fans started tagging singer Janet in the video. “Everyone was like, ‘This is Con Man’ and I was like, ‘Oh my God, it is!’” she tells me.
Hailing from Brisbane, Confidence Man have embraced Eurodance like their native country, which joined Eurovision in 2015. The group rocked the British festival circuit this summer, drawing crowds in with their deadpan brand of camp. Dressed in black and dancing in unison, they brought Eurodance energy by way of Berghain. The references weren’t intentional, Janet says, but the more fans pointed out the similarities, the more she saw them. She now declares herself “pro-Eurodance”.
Contemporary takes on Eurodance may come with 14 layers of irony, but there’s also a recognition that the genre was always in on the joke. The music has always been both self-serious and knowingly campy – that’s how fans can both declare Planet Of The Bass a work of comic genius and, unironically, the song of the summer.
Ironic or not, it’s the escapist ‘extra’-ness that makes Eurodance fitting for 2023. “A lot of music these days is really meant to be from the heart. You’re kind of frowned upon if you’re writing stuff that’s fun,” Janet says. “I feel like everyone’s sitting around with guitars and wearing tight jeans. I was like, no. Laser boobs.” In turbulent times, we could all benefit from such light-hearted fun – with or without laser boobs.
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Isobel Lewis is a culture journalist based in London, who writes for publications including The Independent, The Guardian and The Atlantic
