Dryvetyme Onlyne

Sally Shapiro
My Guilty Pleasure
Paper Bag; 2009

I have waxed rhapsodic before regarding my love for excellent dance music. Even though I’m by no means a dancer, much less someone who frequents any sort of dance floor, that shouldn’t preclude me from enjoying music that makes me shake my groove thing all around the privacy of my own abode. Thankfully, the past five years have seen a dramatic increase in the quality of what my friend Bob terms “white disco.” Some of it (Justice, LCD Soundsystem, Music Go Music, etc.) might come with heavy approval from Pitchfork and other associated hipster-centric tastemakers, but there’s no denying the fact that there’s a great appreciation and desire for the sort of tunes that make even the most jaded critic bop and groove with glee.

All told, the music of Sally Shapiro is seemingly designed with people like me in mind – dance music for wallflowers by a wallflower. This outfit is notoriously reclusive, content to create great songs for people to enjoy in clubs, without ever having to play them live and in person. While there’s substantial weight to the claim that an artist truly cuts his/her teeth by performing live, as long as Sally Shapiro keeps making stellar records like My Guilty Pleasure for me to spin in my bedroom, I will forgive her desire to refrain from touring.

The album stands up as a shining example of what high-end post-ABBA disco-pop could and should sound like as we prepare to enter the second decade of the 21st century. Scandinavian pop goodness is married to slinky French/Italian house beats and then propped up by a copious amount of ‘80s dark synth-pop. From the ominous opening tones of “Swimming Through The Blue Lagoon” (which finds Shapiro taking a few cues from The Knife/Fever Ray) through the glistening tones of the closing track “Miracle,” these songs are powered by a combination of layered synth swells, tasteful keyboard and organ fills, and lightly funky bass lines

On the whole, the strength of My Guilty Pleasure can be found in how Shapiro’s deliciously sultry (but never over-sexed) voice first dances with the melody before heading over to toy with the listener’s affections. She might not yet be quite as ubiquitous as Lykke Li seems to be, in terms of making guest vocalist appearances on all manner of dance and electro cuts, but she should be. Moreover, even though she’s already been given some measure of hipster credibility by Pitchfork, Shapiro stands poised to snatch electro/synth-pop from the hands of Brooklyn outfits like Chairlift, Telepathe, and School Of Seven Bells. Outstanding songs like “Love In July,” “Moonlight Dance,” and “Save Your Love” assist her in staking a claim as a chief progenitor of new-school white disco, and are more than ready for any number of dance parties or remix turntables.

While it’s true that some of these songs can blend together into a bit of sameness (“My Fantasy” and “Let It Show” as principal examples), I find this concern to be more of a testament to her devotion to her chosen genre than to certain songs being bland. Thus, while My Guilty Pleasure is most definitely a bright, upbeat record (as far as darkly poppy dance records go), the tempos, moods, and atmospheres cultivated are best suited to setting the tone for a dazzling night out on the town or on the dance floor. Granted, if Shapiro’s preference for seclusion is any indication, this record would be more than welcome for use as the background music for an intimate party with friends and/or lovers. However you might choose to utilize these great beats, just know that I’m going to be dancing around my living room.