Electro Swing in the Musical Melting Pot: ‘the Dirty Side of the Street’ by Caravan Palace

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Electro Swing is the fusion of Swing Music from the 1920s-1930s with modern House and EDM music. It first appeared in the mid-nineties when artists such as Doop and Mini Luxury began to experiment with the early swing dance styles as so to make them more established for the modern day clubs. The genre began with house music infused with swing influences, but as the genre evolved many artists such as Parov Stelar and Caravan Palace began harnessing the Idea of electro swing to create complete albums and creating a new sound all together that was uniquely heavier on the swing style, this sound established Electro Swing as an official genre. Caravan Palace was unique in their interpretation of the genre, heavily influenced by French artists such as Django Reinhardt, Vitalic, and Daft Punk, Whom all have very distinctly different styles, they have successfully created an infusion of both classic swing style and electronic house music. Throughout their songs the classic French-swing sound of Django is highly evident as well as the electronic influences of Daft Punk and Vitalic. ‘The Dirty Side of the Street’ is a competent example of Caravan Palace’s work as it highlights the best features of the band as well as showing a balanced combination of the swing and electronic styles, unlike some of their other songs such as ‘Star Scat’ or ‘Ended With the Night’ which often feature predominantly Electronic or Swing sounds. ‘The Dirty Side of the Street’ is an accurate and even combination of both electro house and swing styles. The distinct swing style of Caravan Palace is complimented by the instrumentation used in ‘The Dirty Side of the Street’. The song opens with a drumbeat played with brushes, typical of 1930’s swing dance which remains for the rest of the song, keeping the dance feel throughout the piece at a fast vivace pace. Underlying this typical swing beat is a

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