"D.A.N.C.E." / Justice / The Cross

Justice is a French electronia (do people still use that term?) duo from France, I guess you might say they are the younger, cooler brother of Daft Punk in that sense.

I sort of bought this CD on a whim looking for something new and out of my normal sphere of music, and this seemed to fit the bill. Usually at the end of the year I like to buy all of the "Best of 200_" editions of the music magazines and check out what they like. If you read a few of those, you will see the same CDs pop up over and over. Every now and again I'll take the chance on a CD that gets great reviews and buy it out of the blue. It's how I discovered Arcade Fire, Fountains of Wayne, and Rilo Kiley, among others.

"The Cross" was one of those CDs that got great press at the end of 2007. I'm not a huge fan of dance music, but the reviews sounded interesting enough that I though I'd give it a shot. One I saw the badass cover, I was sold.


The music's pretty sweet - almost a rock feel to it instead of a Pet Shop Boys kind of deal. The guys weave quite a pastiche of different sounds into some new and wholly original creation, not unlike The Chemical Brothers did in the mid 90's or Public Enemy's Bomb Squad did back in the 80's.

Their music has lots of commerical potential as well, and Cadillac jumped on them first. Justice's "Genesis" appears in this ad:

(By the way, who expected Cadillac to be that hip? I mean, Justice in one ad, and freakin' Lieutenant Cedric Daniels from "The Wire" in another? Damn!)

As to this song in particular, I think I read somewhere that's it's written about Michael Jackson. Here are the lyrics, as it were, which I've written before, is entirely NOT the point with this type of music:
Do the D.A.N.C.E
1234, fight!
Stick to the B.E.A.T
Get ready to ignite
You were such a P.Y.T
Catching all the lights
Just easy as A.B.C
That's how we make it right

It does sound like a bit of advice to The King of Pop - "You were such a P.Y.T, now you've lost your way. Just stick to funky dance music (The 'B.E.A.T') to find your way back - it's as easy as 'A.B.C'". There's also "The way you move is a mystery" in the verses of the song, which, if you remember the moonwalk, should explain itself.Pretty clever, and I guess the acronymic title of the song is a shout-out to those former hits.

I like how the beginning of the song gives the impression of someone dialing through looking for a radio station. You can barely hear the song at first, until the dialer hits the right frequency at :17. The sing-songy way they have the chorus does make it sound like a kids' playground song, stressing the "easy" part of the advice. The trademarks of Justice are in full effect here in this song: the bubbling, busy, electic bass sound, and the string flourishes. That's really about the entirety of the musical accompaniment, until the "breakdown" at 2:42. Let's check the lyrics there again and you can see the Michael Jackson references:

Under the spotlights
Neither black nor white
It doesn't matter
Do the Dance (do the dance)

As strong as you might
Working day and night
Whatever happens
Do the DANCE (do the dance)

Hmmm..."Neither black nor white, Working day and night?" not hard to see.

A very interesting song indeed. A good tribute to a fallen idol and a funky ass dance tune, too. And, as you might expect from French artistes, a cool video too:

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=48585a8d07b0b9e0d2db6fb9a8902bda