Someone requested “Battle Flag” by Lo Fidelity Allstars at Underground last night, which is not a request I normally hear. In fact, I didn’t even think I had the song on my laptop, but, lo and behold, there it was. If you aren’t familiar with the song, it has a big hip-hop beat and getting out of it is a little tricky unless you want to stay at 100 beats per minute (in other words, slow by my personal standards), which I didn’t. So I started scrolling through Rekordbox and came across this Fcukers song, “Shake It Up,” that I hadn’t thought of playing before last night. It worked. Might play it again sometime.
Next week at Club Underground is The Strokes Reality Awaits listening party. Want to listen to the new album with us? Arrive early. Both floors of the Grand Star will be open and tickets are available now on Dice and Eventbrite.
Last night’s set list is below. “Secret track IYKYK” is exactly that. If you were there, you can try to figure out what it is. Otherwise, it’s a secret. Songs from the past year or so link to other mentions on the blog.
After the algorithm decided that I wanted to see little more than Madonna clips for virtually an entire weekend, I lost some of the enthusiasm for Confessions II. It was overkill and I resent feeling like I’m being manipulated by my fucking phone. On Friday morning, though, I gave the whole album a listen. Then I bought it and listened a second time and a third. I think I’m on the fourth listen as I start to write this. It’s good. Really good, but maybe not in the way the album’s title to leads you to believe.
Confessions II is a real sequel to Confessions on a Dance Floor. It’s not a rehash of the 2005 hit album, but rather a continuation of the work that Madonna and Stuart Price began some twenty-odd years ago. So, it’s an album of club music that’s about the club and about life. It’s incredibly smart and thoughtfully made, the opposite of the slop that overwhelms us on the daily. That might be part of the point. (Speaking of slop, ignore all the hype clips and watch the full video of Madonna’s tour of her London home in Vogue Italia. It’s worth 10 minutes of your time.)
Back to Confessions II. It’s a heavily referential album, both to Madonna’s back catalogue and to other dance music artists. It’s also an album-as-a-memoir, with Madonna delving into stories from her early years in New York, her romances and her relationship with eldest daughter, Lourdes Leon. The music history and personal history come together on “Danceteria,” which is the song that I played at Club Underground last night. It’s an important song because all the song’s musical references, as well as the names she drops throughout the song, are foundational to what we know as alternative and club culture now. This is the album’s, “Listen to Mother” moment.
I’ll probably have more to say about Confessions II in time, but, my first impression is that this is an incredibly strong Madonna album, easily up there with Confessions on a Dance Floor, Ray of Light and Music in the hierarchy of Madonna albums. Get it. Listen to all one hour and four minutes of it. No skips.
And now onto last night’s set list from Club Underground. New-ish songs (released in 2025/26) are in bold and link back to previous mentions here on Beatique.
I’ve been trying out songs from Wor$t Girl in America since the new album from Slayyyter came out a handful of weeks ago. So far, the songs have done pretty well, but last night, “I’m Actually Kinda Famous” kinda popped on the dance floor. TBH, it was a song that I had been thinking about playing since the album came out, but I wasn’t sure if I could make it work. But, hey, you gotta take some chances in life and your DJ sets.
Anyhow, last night I was DJing at Club Underground. (I know I said I wasn’t DJing this weekend. Surprise!) It was somewhere after midnight. Sextile “S Is For” (also on this month’s mix) was playing and people were getting really into it, especially a group near the DJ booth. I mixed in Yeah Yeah Yeahs “Heads Will Roll,” the A-Trak remix, and that group by me screamed and danced even harder. I thought, okay, if they’re down with Sextile *and* Yeah Yeah Yeahs remixed by A-Trak, they’re my people and probably already into Slayyyter. So, I slowed down “Heads Will Roll” a pinch, sped up “I’m Actually Kinda Famous” a lot and mixed them thinking, this is either going to suck or it’s going to slayyy. I guess the latter happened because the group I had been eyeing was now all over the dance floor and other group at the back of the dance floor started jumping up and down and screaming for the song.
Anyhow, kids, the moral of the day is to go with your gut and make it work. Here’s the set list from last night. Songs from the past year or so are in bold and link back to other other mentions on this here blog.
Come Closer, the debut album from Tomora, was released on Friday and I’m already way into it. Tomora is Tom Rowlands from the Chemical Brothers and Norwegian singer Aurora and, if you’re into either/both of those artists, you have to hear it. Come Closer pulls a lot of different elements from across the club music spectrum and, in the process, becomes something so strange and cool and completely different from what’s been dominating dance music for the past five or so years. I went with “Somewhere Else,” the second single from the album, last night at Underground and it did pretty well for a first spin. There were more people on the dance floor when the song neared its end than when it began, so it will probably stick around in my sets. That ‘do do do” Aurora sings is such an earworm of the classic rave “It’s a Fine Day” variety. I love it.
Last night was Darkwave night at Underground, but I’ve been meaning to play something off Fcukers’ album, Ö, for a minute and I figured that “if you want to party, come over to my house” was electroclash-y enough to work with the crowd. Basically, if they were into Green Velvet— and they were— then they would get Fcukers. The song went over really well, which is a bit unsurprising given how much the resale price are for tickets to the duo at The Fonda. The whole album is killer. I’m impressed at how Fcukers basically fit the arc of a raging party into an album that’s less than a half-hour.
The set list for last night is below. Songs from 2025 and 2026 link back to other references on the blog. Thanks for dancing!
I’ve had Cerrone’s new version of “Supernature,” with Christine and the Queens on vocals, on my laptop since it came out last summer, but I’ve only played it out once before tonight. IDK why as it’s a really good, fresh version of a disco classic. Anyhow, I played it for the second time tonight because it was Halloween and Underground was packed and it seemed like the best opportunity to give it another spin. It did really well.
Anyhow, I’m writing this at three in the morning because, even though I’m exhausted, I can’t get to sleep yet. Halloween was a vibe, even if I was too lazy to get together a costume and grabbed my husband’s old mask and army jacket and went as a human fly. The mask lasted about an hour before I started sweating and came to the realization that I do actually need to wear my glasses. None of that matters. What matters was that the crowd was good and there are more people dancing to “Highway Man” from The New Eves and Confidence Man’s collab with Jade, “Gossip,” is a legit dance floor hit now. Set list is below. All 2025 releases are in bold and link back to previous posts where they appear.
Cerrone and Christine and the Queens collaborated on new EP, Catching Feelings (Photo: Thomas Spault)
“Supernature” is the signature Cerrone song. A synth-fueled, sci-fi epic with Lene Lovich-penned lyrics inspired by The Island of Dr. Moreau, it was both of-the-moment and ahead-of-the-curve in 1978, a disco hit that foretold the sound and the vibe of the new wave 1980s. In the decades that followed, it’s become one of those songs that DJs love, right up there with “You Make Me Feel” and “I Feel Love” when it comes to seminal dance club tracks. Now, Cerrone is bringing the banger back, this time with help from Christine and the Queens and Purple Disco Machine, as “Supernature MMXXV.”
