‘Dance Yrself Clean’: the track that changed the course of the 2010s
The 2010s were a wild time for music and the state of the world. Oasis had just broken up, indie sleaze was on its last legs, and no one knew in which direction alternative music would head. What seemed like a halt in the indie boom, combined with a recent global recession, spawned a feeling of a collective identity crisis. A remedy was needed, and LCD Soundsystem provided the perfect antidote.
‘Dance Yrself Clean’ is the opening track of the New York band’s third studio album, This Is Happening. Its lyrical tone is tiresome and one of ignored candidness. Murphy pretty half-arsedly proclaims that his present company is “talking like a jerk, except you are an actual jerk”, expressing the ultimate disillusionment in his surroundings. This is to be expected when coming out of the back end of a global recession, fed up with dwindling expectations of positive change.
This unbothered attitude sparks something in Murphy that the listener can feel shifting in the three-minute build-up. The gradual addition of synth lines and increased percussion creates a bolder foundation for Murphy to start gaining confidence in combating his disillusionment. “Present company excluded in the night / present company included in the fight” shows he’s ready to take matters into his own hands, regardless of whether those around him know it’s happening.
Not caring about anything, barely even your own thoughts, is an angle that Parquet Courts, Viagra Boys, and Idles have since adopted. The metaphorical “aaagh“ of an irritable philosophy somewhere between apathy and action resounds in the post-punk music of the modern age. But nowhere did it sound off louder in the 2010s than with the peevishly perturbed ‘Dance Yrself Clean’.
The newfound readiness to take on his world serves as the catalyst for the explosive synth drop that we all know and tremble over. The release is something that induces dancing, unsurprisingly. In fact, it taps into the philosophy that defines the band’s own singular protest—what LCD Soundsystem achieves is conveying the healing properties that dancing can have on the mind and body.
In coming out of a recession, audiences could either start to go out again and have a good time, or others were still making do with dancing at home. Either way, the song creates a world in which the only thing that exists is forgetting the world and just moving your body, even if you look terrible doing it. The song carries the good times of the indie boom forward with sardonic wit in the shaken-up shadow of today’s financial shitshow.
Angular synths, shouting, and cutting percussion grace that unforgettable drop for an unruly blend that created an established dance-punk electronica that felt out of place at the time. The awkwardness of where to place LCD Soundsystem is what is so entrancing and what actually lent legitimacy to electronic sounds in indie music. In fact, acts like Jockstrap are still using similar techniques today.
The effect of ‘Dance Yrself Clean’ has gone far beyond the 2010s—we’re halfway through the 2020s, and it continues to be an anthem of catharsis today. It was recently used in a custom remix for Zoë Kravitz’s Blink Twice and has had stints going viral on TikTok. Make of that what you will. What this suggests is the song’s sentiment is strong enough to evoke a sense of nostalgia in listeners 15 years after its release. Even as time moves forward, the sociological content it addresses is still relevant.
The 2010s have faded, but we survived it because of the strength ‘Dance Yrself Clean’ helped us find and how it pushed the post-punk movement.
