"What's Wrong With New York" Review
“What’s Wrong With New York?”
The Dare, 2024
Pitchfork hates fun. I say this as an avid reader and self-proclaimed “hipster” who generally enjoys the inaccessible and pretentious, because their review of “What’s Wrong With New York?” (The Dare, 2024), scored only 6.2 out of 10. Now, this isn’t to say “What’s Wrong With New York?” is the perfect album. To tell the truth, I wouldn’t even say it’s “great” - I would say it’s fun. I would say it’s so much fun that I’ve been playing it pretty much nonstop since I saw them live at Webster Hall on September 5th. The Dare, with his Gucci suit, Korg synthesizers, and thundering bass, is going to save New York from Wall Street bros and sexlessness. He is going to bring debauchery back in full force.
The Dare, or Harrison Patrick Smith, as he’s known to true fans (the most obnoxious girls you know), broke onto the music scene with the song “Girls,” which blew up on TikTok. Since then, he’s become a punching bag for music critics tired of electroclash party-goers and Dimes Square scenesters. Pitchfork’s less-than-kind review of “The Sex EP” (The Dare, 2023) exemplifies this perfectly, with critic Sophie Kemp, who scored the EP a 5.8, calling the work “silly” and a poor impression of LCD Soundsystem. However, for the past year or so he’s been cozying up with Charlie XCX and The Cobrasnake’s apprentice Matt Weinberger , building his status as herald of the “indie sleaze revival.”
What gives me the authority to judge this album, you might ask. Here’s a short list of things that I believe qualify me to assess the “indie sleaze revival:”
I own multiple items of clothing from American Apparel, including the red disco shorts.
When I attended a concert of The Dare’s at Webster Hall, a photographer from The Cut took a picture of me smoking a Marlboro Red on a BlackBerry.
I had sex with a couple who did coke with Vincent Gallo on a Hoboken rooftop.
I attend Bard College.
As for the album itself, its comparisons to LCD Soundsystem aren’t wrong. With 10 tracks, it’s sort of as if James Murphy had the uncontrollable desire to fuck anything that walks. It’s reminiscent of the musicians of the book/film “Meet Me in the Bathroom” (Goodman, 2017/Lovelace, Southern, 2022) fame. It’s grimy, cool, and of course, sleazy. “Girls” and “Good Time,” from his aforementioned E.P., made their way onto the album, as did “Perfume,” which Smith released as a single a few months before “What’s Wrong With New York?.” Yes, a few of the tracks are forgettable, such as “Open Up,” “You Can Never Go Home,” and his supposed love ballad “Elevation.” In this song, Smith poetically wails “But there's no escaping, no escaping, no escaping love / And I feel like taking, feel like taking, feel like taking drugs,” but I wouldn’t say the disappointment of a few tracks takes away from the fun of the other songs.
“Girls,” a tune about, you guessed it, girls, is not only a little slimy, it’s funny. It purposefully has misogynistic overtones (there’s nothing subtle about The Dare) and crass lyrics which are meant to shock. To be clear, these girls he sings about (“the girls who do drugs, girls with cigarettes in the back of the club”) are not purely hypothetical. Women seem to really dig The Dare. When I saw him live, at the first show of his first tour, the crowd was about 80% women, aged 18 to 30, all screaming “We love you, Harrison!” After the show, I witnessed many of them, all gorgeous, try and “shoot their shot” with him. I don’t know how well it went for them; I was preoccupied with my aforementioned cigarette.
“All Night” and “I Destroyed Disco” are by far the best tracks on the album, with the latter cleverly paying homage to Calvin Harris’s dance album “I Created Disco” (2007). “All Night” is catchy without being overly cliche, like something MGMT might write if their lyrics were a little more obvious. “I Destroyed Disco” is more Simian Mobile Disco or Justice, possessing an unrelenting energy, droning bass, and the perfect tempo for the dancefloor (130 bpm). Freaking out to this song is not just encouraged, it’s compulsory. When I heard it live for the first time, I turned to a stranger, and exclaimed, “Electroclash is so back.”
Maybe “What’s Wrong With New York?” isn’t good enough for the synth nerds at Pitchfork or the New Rave purists who won’t listen to anything not produced by DFA, but it’s good enough for me; and guess what, it’s probably good enough for your girlfriend.