I can’t say that I’m a committed curmudgeon, railing against every newfangled fad or trend that takes hold of the culture.
But I do admittedly have my moments.
Perhaps it sounds petty:
But I absolutely loathe Walk the Moon’s 2015 hit single Shut Up and Dance.
Now, I’m not against new music, or popular music, or new popular music. For the record, I’ve loved recent singles by:
- Lil Nas X
- BTS
- The Weeknd
- Beyonce,
- etc.
And I’m not against shameless retro stylings. I loved Gotye’s Somebody That I Used to Know, Daft Punk’s Get Lucky, and Bruno Mars’ 24K Magic.
And here’s the really weird thing: I’m not even against brain-meltingly repetitive songs. One of my very favorite songs ever is Surfin Bird by The Trashmen. Do I think that Lil Jon and Eiffel 65 have a certain kind of minimal genius?
So what is it about this song that triggers such a deep, visceral dislike from me?
Well, let’s investigate.
The song starts with a pretty chiming guitar rhythm, reminiscent of The Edge’s playing in U2’s Where the Streets Have No Name. A nice enough star-
-Okay, next!
Literally three seconds in, singer Nick Petricca starts singing an introductory version of the chorus. No time like the present, I guess. Let’s dive in:
Keeping true to the woman’s rather assertive request, we turn from the chorus after 16 seconds and dance on to some narrative details in the first verse:
Dismissing more intriguingly literal interpretations, I think this is just the writer’s complicated way of saying that they were “slaves to the rhythm,” helpless captives to their larger destiny of dancing, love, and/or gettin it on. Quite a fatalistic take for a night at the disco!
– Oop: Here comes the bridge:
[Cue chorus about shutting up and dancing, with the band in full effect]
Then another verse…
another bridge…
…another SHUT UP AND DANCE, a guitar solo, a slightly extended bridge, back to that intro guitar rhythm for a few secs, one more mellow take on the chorus, then SHUT UP AND DANCE again, then fade out on a minor variation of SHUT UP AND DANCE WITH ME. Aaaaand, we’re done.
Wait, what just happened?
The song is indeed repetitive, consisting of just a few different parts. But more importantly, it feels super rushed.
It just cannot wait to get to the next part. No matter what the part is.
Or, more accurately, it can’t wait to pull your attention to the next part. As the lyrics say: “Don’t look back, just keep your eyes on me!” Hey, it least it’s thematically consistent.
But is it…good?
The song’s general sound sort of recalls an older dance pop track, The Hooters’ immortal And We Danced, which is a favorite from my childhood.
And We Danced is a simple enough pop song, with a few sections and plenty of repetition.
But from the intro onward, those Hooters knew how to build tension for proper release. There’s a whole lot of drama in that track, thanks to the thought put into how the parts work together to contribute to a whole, a coherent flow of emotion.
With Shut Up and Dance, it’s just a procession of interruptions from one part to the next, eliciting a dizzying stupor in the listener that does not relent, or even change.
And that brings me to…
For me, this song perfectly embodies the restless, shifting, attention-grabbing, ever-distracting, and incoherent nature of our current media culture.
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Of course, all entertainment is a distraction of sorts, to the extent that the song, movie, or whatever you’re consuming pulls you away from the events and considerations of real life. That’s fine, in moderation.
But this song pushes things even further: it is a composite of micro-distractions all competing against one another for your attention in the moment.
Just like the worst of our online rabbit holes.
Most entertainment at least provides some discrete periods of escape, some respite from the chaos of the day. This barrage of interruptions offers no such thing. It offers more of the high-voltage incoherence that saturates our time spent staring into our smart phones. This is stimulation with no escape.
“But,” you might be saying, “there is a clear escape, one that you could have taken this whole time:
“Simply don’t listen to the song.”
In other words, Shut Up and Consume Whatever It Is You Like!
And I do that, by and large. I do.
But still, I thought it might be worthwhile to sit with this song that I hate, and to think about it some more.
Partially because the song’s whole premise, its not-so-hidden ethos, is about passively consuming and moving on.
I want less of that in my life, not more.
So no, Walk the Moon—and no, fictional insistent woman—I will NOT shut up and dance!
Okay, I’ll shut up now.
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As someone who likes “Shut Up and Dance,” I now have some things to mull over. (Always a good thing.) Thanks! I do have to say I prefer “Aquaman” from that album as it’s not only underplayed but understated — a decaf version of Walk the Moon as compared with the fully caffeinated SUAD.
I just listened to “Aquaman.” It’s nice, and it’s a normal song! I like the key change toward the end; I’m not a musician, but it seems like an unconventional transition.
Listened to “Shut Up and Dance” for the first time, by choice. It always reminds me of Hard-Fi’s “Hard to Beat”. I can listen to the latter on repeat for thirty-minutes straight. If you tell people it’s “Walk the Moon”, maybe they’ll like it.
Capital Cities’ “Safe and Sound”, oh, wait; it’s nine-years old. That’s not contemporary, but it’s mainstream. I just discovered Megan Thee Stallion’s “Freak Nasty”. That’s a fun song.
Oh wow, yeah, this one bears a strong resemblance to CC’s “Safe and Sound” (I totally forgot that that track existed, by the way). The top melodies have some identical portions (especially the bridge in “SUaD”: “bound to be together”).
Just listened to Hard-Fi’s “Hard to Beat,” and to me that sounds more like the retro-indie rock bands of the early oughts, like The Killers, The Strokes, Franz Ferdinand–with maybe a specific nod to the classic “Clash City Rockers.”
I like the song fine, but its production hurts my ears. It’s over-compressed, over-loud, and over-produced. There’s no dynamic range, there are no quiet parts. It’s all in your face all the time. It’s everything wrong with pop music production over the past 20 years.
Yeah, agreed. The song’s hyperactive attention-deficit kind of makes me think of The Pixies, but they really understood dynamic range. Not to mention, they weren’t afraid to infuse their cut-and-paste sugar rushes with angst and absurdity. Much more self-aware, those Pixies!
I’m trying to think of who could cover “Shut Up And Dance” with better dynamics and nuance. Pixies are a good choice, also The Doves, but I almost think Bruce Springsteen would knock it out of the park, especially if he segued into it from “Dancing In The Dark.”
I would pay money to hear what Clinic would do with it. Not that they’re masters of nuance or anything, but they would probably screw it up in interesting ways:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEgEHz_e0rI
Got excited for a sec. Hey, a Bedrock Vice fan. Thrashing Doves rebranded after two albums that didn’t exactly set the world on fire. They released Affinity under the moniker The Doves, to even worse album sales, and called it a day.
My daughter reintroduced me to pop music, and SUAD was one of the first…and I thought it was great.
Cappie, thanks for the reminder about Hard-Fi! I was a big fan of their singles.
I have to say, though…not that masses know music better than critics, but the Hooters barely hit the Top 20 with “And We Danced”, while Walk the Moon had themselves a worldwide hit.
P.S. Growing up in the Philly area when the Hooters were making their name known was an experience. Their first LP Amore was incredible; better than anything they did after.
Yeah, I don’t know why “And We Danced” didn’t fare better. My biased answer is that the competition was so much stiffer back then (as Ozmoe recently highlighted, 1985 was an absolutely killer year for radio pop).
But I also imagine that, despite being crowded out by other tunes upon release, “And We Danced” gained love and airplay over the years, at least on 80’s stations.
Around this time, I was really high on The Kaiser Chiefs, Sea Power, and the much-maligned Editors. For me, it was rock’s last gasp. Do you know the song “Remember Me”? Favorite song of the aughts.
Hadn’t really sat down and listened to this song before but it feels like would be a big hit at high school dances where the kids rush the floor, shout the chorus, dance a little, shout the chorus again then retreat to their group of friends.
Oh, I imagine it is. And the video scenario demonstrates the band was well aware of this potential when they released it.
Phylum – Thank for helping me put into words why I f’in hate Shut Up and Dance. It’s one of the few songs of the past 20 years that is the equivalent of someone scraping a fork against the bottom of a crappy tin can. For 4 minutes. Nonstop. And I only ever hear the song in 5 second spurts these days before changing the channel, that’s still too annoying. 🙃
I get they’re trying to be funny, I get the whole forget everything and just dance vibe. But it’s like Beloved Music Critic Breihan throwing a tantrum over One Week – it tries way too hard to the point where it makes me annoyed to no end.
Lol, on both counts, you said it, not me! 😉
I remember when I first found out the band that sang Shut Up and Dance was called Walk The Moon. It was a few minutes ago reading the start of Phylum’s piece. Sure, I’m familiar with the song. Its been ubiquitous here as well since it came out but as memorable as the song is the band have remained completely anonymous. The very best sort of one hit wonder, their only UK hit but one that is so all encompassing while no one has any idea who the people behind it are, what they look like or gives a damn about anything else they ever did.
I’ve never sought it out to listen to, I’ve never needed to as for much of the last 7 years its been playing on a radio station somewhere. For the same reasons you don’t like it is what makes it for me. The relentless momentum constantly shifting to the next hook or repeating the previous hook is irresistible. Its a weaponised earworm of a song. I can see why it drives some people crazy but personally its one hell of a rush.
Hey, we all have our particular preferences.
I also happen to dislike Fun’s “We Are Young” for somewhat similar reasons. Though that one doesn’t move through its parts so quickly, both of them sound a little too eager to move on–“We are Young” just cannot wait to get to its big chorus–to really grab me. It’s like I can hear their impatience and boredom. But, it’s all in the ear of the beholder.