Mutating out of trance and electroclash in the 00s, the subgenre soon topped the charts – and thanks to Charli xcx, Saltburn and more, it’s back for another round of alcopops
Picture the scene: you’re on a sticky dancefloor, VK Apple in hand, and a metallic bassline is blaring through the speakers. People in the club are wearing heels and, inexplicably, officewear. It’s the mid to late 00s and electro-house is crashing its way through nightclubs and into the mainstream: Wiley’s Wearing My Rolex, Fedde Le Grand’s Put Your Hands Up for Detroit and Bodyrox’s Yeah Yeah all reached the UK Top 3 in this period.
When Charli xcx released Von Dutch, the lead single from her 2024-defining album Brat, the similarities to Yeah Yeah were such that some listeners assumed it had been sampled (her team have since clarified that the resemblance is a homage). You can hear the genre in other Brat tracks like Guess and Sympathy Is a Knife – plus a swathe of other pop this summer – as the stabbing synths recall a gloriously trashy, silly era of dance music crossing over into pop.
