In my mind there are two cultural moments of dance songs literally about dance that are critically important to millennials. The 1980s, with its Berlin and London club scenes and enduring hold on my generation, had even the goths and punks singing about it. A couple decades later pop artists like Usher and Jennifer Lopez resurrected the theme and took it even further with lyrics locating action on the dance floor in which they were meant to be played. After a period of hipsters rejecting the nightlife and replacing it with weepy indie folk sets under twinkle lights in many a backyard, millennials rediscovered dance in a big way. The new interest is a little ironic and a little sincere, adding up to a catharsis of silliness, joy, and play inside the mysterious adult world we heard in songs growing up.
Welcome Maidenhead, newest heir to the meta-dance legacy, born in Brooklyn just months ago. It’s composed of one seasoned musician, Wyatt Bertz who’s played drums in Lola Kirke’s touring band, and two newcomers, Ashley Coppins and Helen Gallagher, who’d previously found practice at an occasional karaoke night. Their mix of experience allows them to experiment while their shared visions of a glossy past bind it all together; they’ve created a debut EP Hearts on the Floor as polished as it is fun, and a tribute to the dance floor across the eras.
Maidenhead’s sound lands somewhere between Kraftwerk’s dark electronica and Pure Bathing Culture’s ‘90s booze cruise aesthetics. The EP’s five songs are ruled by retro, analogue-style synths which beyond beats and chords provide baroque motifs like the one in “Morning Sky,” and embellishments like the R2-D2 sounds in “Orion.” But there’s still plenty of space for not one but two vocal stars. The melodies here are satisfying, full of hooks, and written for the harmonizations of Gallagher’s smooth resonance and Coppins’ Kate Bush-like soprano. They both get solo moments to show off as well. A particularly delicious refrain in the title track volleys vocal responsibilities between the two and captures the uniqueness of each:
Gallagher: But I keep dancing away
Coppins: You said you made a mistake
Gallagher: I lost my heart on the floor
Coppins: But I can’t give anymore
There’s a surprising mix of melancholic and groovy across these songs. “Hearts on the Floor” pairs a mournful chord progression with a danceable beat. Gallagher sings “Havana” from the perspective of a misty-eyed, sentimental speaker lost in memory—did it end well or badly? We’ll never know. Even “Tango Undercover,” the most upbeat song on the album, is inflected with a New Wave neon moodiness that I find parallels with in Mitski’s last record Laurel Hell. “Morning Sky” is where the EP reaches peak intensity. The stakes of love are highest here and the deepest bass notes yet nod to the ominous “orange sky” Coppins and Gallagher sing of with whispery urgency.
The band playfully keeps up the melodramatic act even in the lyrics. They wink at the serious treatment of love and its problems in ‘80s songs, in the same parodic way we often sing at our pets, with vague terms: “You and I, we’re burning something” (“Morning Sky”). The songs present a conflicted heart that wants to lean in to their love interest but with a feeling of consequences unknown to the listener. This is where the metaphoric potential of dance shines—what is love if not a push-pull dance between two people, and what is a dance between two partners if not a metaphor for romance? When breathed by Coppins, “Do we dare, do we dare?” sounds almost like “Do we dance, do we dance?”
With its creative, postmodern take on the past, Maidenhead is proving itself exciting new blood in a long line of dance floor devotion. Hearts on the Floor is out for release this Thursday, August 25, with an accompanying live performance by Maidenhead at Starr Bar in Bushwick. But these songs transcend the local scene. Sleeker than Brooklyn and more nostalgic than Manhattan, they claim a space somewhere ethereal in between—and that place is your Spotify playlist.
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