Every few years, dance music has an identity crisis. There's a seemingly constant push and pull between periods of self-seriousness and years driven by a more playful, even ironic attitude. The end of the '90s brought one of the most noticeable pivots. At a time when the scene was characterised by musicianship and minimalism, a motley group of artists kicked down the door with a new sound that mixed brash '80s electro and house with sleazy aesthetics. Electroclash was in-your-face and tongue-in-cheek, thumbing its nose at the culture it came from, while vocalists spat lyrics about glamour, drugs and how they absolutely did not give a fuck. Moving into the mid-'00s, electroclash's attitude and sense of style would lay the groundwork for a more complex movement. And from 2006 to 2011, bloghouse would fully take over.

"Bloghouse was less a type of music and more about how you found it," said Lina Abascal, whose book Never Be Alone Again: How Bloghouse United the Internet and the Dancefloor was published in December 2021. The umbrella term encompassed sounds like Justice's electro hybrids, Uffie's blasé, half-sung-half-rapped electro pop and Crookers' fidget house, while leaving room for a new wave of electronic producers to collaborate with mainstream rappers and rock bands. It also marked a noticeable change in the way club kids dressed and acted: suddenly, people into dance music were posing for photos on blogs like The Cobrasnake in cheap leather jackets, American Apparel skinny jeans and shutter shades.

Bloghouse's defining characteristic was its embrace of the internet's immediacy. Producers collaborated between countries and combined regional sounds, distributing tracks through a dense network of blogs—and aggregators like Hype Machine, which reigned supreme during this era—spread via zShare and MediaFire links. This all went down at a feverish pace, with frivolous luxuries like fidelity or mastering ignored in favour of rapid cultural output.

In just five years, the bloghouse scene significantly impacted the way music was distributed and consumed, and until very recently, its influence had yet to be unpacked. To make some sense of this brief yet intense period of music history, I spoke with Abascal to discuss bloghouse's most memorable tracks and how it continues to influence music and culture today.

Miss Kittin & The Hacker - Frank Sinatra

"Sonically, electroclash is the closest precursor to bloghouse I could identify, both in its campiness and the subject matter and cadence of the lyrics," said Abascal. "I loved Party Monster, and 'Frank Sinatra' was amazingly placed in that movie. The lyrics were all over Myspace, and it was just the perfect mix of '80s nostalgia and a cool, aloof, talk-sing vocal style that bloghouse artists like Uffie and contemporary artists like VTSS are emulating."

Miss Kittin & The Hacker rose to prominence through their releases on DJ Hell's International Deejay Gigolo Records, the label that both defined and dominated electroclash. In particular, Miss Kittin's sharp, tongue-in-cheek vocals were emblematic of the era. Combining the deadpan delivery of electro acts like Dopplereffekt and Cybotron with a very '00s sense of irony and opulence, her lyrics found their way into a host of other scene-defining cuts, like her and The Hacker's "1982" and Felix Da Housecat's "Madame Hollywood."

Justice - Waters of Nazareth

"Waters Of Nazareth," Justice's first single, established the band as a leading voice on the harder end of the bloghouse spectrum. From the opening harsh, revving engines, the track coats French house in heavy distortion, its bitcrushed synths giving the startling effect of ripping your speakers to shreds.

The duo's debut album, Cross, was foundational for a new generation of dance music fans and introduced many to Ed Banger Records. The label, started by former Daft Punk manager Pedro Winter (AKA Busy P), quickly became one of the genre's crucial outlets. Cross "sums up the entire undefinable bloghouse essence," wrote Abascal, who goes on to say that "Waters Of Nazareth" inspired a wave of musicians "who'd realised the single most punk thing you could do in the mid-'00s was make fucked-up club bangers on your laptop."

Justice Vs Simian - Never Be Alone

James Ford and Jas Shaw eventually went on to form the electronic group Simian Mobile Disco, but when they released the original "Never Be Alone," their project Simian was very much an indie band. The track was overshadowed by its remix, a collaboration with then-rising French duo Justice that became one of bloghouse's most recognizable anthems, later re-released as "We Are Your Friends."

Early into the '00s, electroclash's attitude began to infect other corners of dance music. Acts like Ladytron bled into the bloghouse era, and it came full circle when an early version of "Never Be Alone" (which Abascal named her book after) was released on International Deejay Gigolos. "The attitude of not taking it very seriously and just having fun is so present in both," she said.

Thieves Like Us - Drugs in My Body (Designer Drugs Remix)

The indie-rock-song-to-overdriven-club-banger pipeline was proof of how the bloghouse sphere constantly eroded genre and scene barriers. More than ever before, it felt like artists from previously unconnected musical camps were all hanging out.

"I think it was harder to be into everything before the internet," said Abascal. "People were more in their lanes. But this was an era of lightheartedness, genre clashing and image clashing. Before, you could look at someone's outfit and hair and know exactly what they listened to. But I liked the surprise, the idea of being interested in so many different things and going to parties where different things are being played. I find that so much more fun."

This remix encapsulates bloghouse's genre mashing, while playing up the hedonistic tendencies of its crowds. "[The remix] was featured on a Maison Kitsuné mixtape–[all of] which were amazingly curated," said Abascal. "As soon as you saw those cartoon faces on the album cover, you knew you were in for a treat. And this song is perfectly on the nose with its subject matter and an anthem of the times."

Kid Cudi - Day 'N' Nite (Crookers Remix)

The prevalence of remixing made it easier for artists to grow and exchange audiences. "Eventually, it was a strategy used by label marketing people, but it also happened because people were homies on Myspace," Abascal said. She cited "the Kid Cudi and Crookers situation" as a prime example, noting how the remix became more popular than the original.

Even more than "We Are Your Friends," Crookers' "Day 'N' Nite" flip showed how bloghouse remixes could garner mainstream attention without the engineering or promotional budget of a major label.

"One of the members of Crookers explained that they found the song on Myspace and messaged Kid Cudi directly asking for the stems. [Cudi] told them they had to talk to his label, then they realised the label was Fool's Gold, which was way more in [Crookers'] wheelhouse than they expected. So they made the remix, just for fun, and it spiralled into this huge thing. But he also told me he thinks that the version that's out is still unmastered."

The Count & Sinden - Beeper feat. Kid Sister

All of this cross-pollination meant track credits could become dense and confusing. On "Beeper," Abascal said the song was "a great example of how bloghouse is much more about a distribution method than a singular sound. This song was considered speed garage (there's a Sunship vocal edit from the original UK release) in the initial blog posts. It features a Pharrell vocal sample and original vocals by Kid Sister, a rapper from Chicago, over a beat by two British producers in their debut track. There's a lot happening at once. It's silly. It's addictive. It's made for dancing, and it's the product of the newfound communication and access brought to everyone by the internet."

Between Never Be Alone Again's more historical chapters, Abascal includes shorter, more conceptual parts, including a section on "bloghouse horoscopes." In the chapter, she assigns her own sign, Libra, to "Beeper," citing Libras' sociable nature, urging them to forget about juggling plans with their multitude of friend groups. Given how many different scenes the track itself pulls from at once, I'd say it's a fit.

MSTRKRFT - Heartbreaker feat. John Legend

It didn't take long for bloghouse's rapid-fire collaborative spirit to capture the mainstream, to the point where even household names like John Legend were starting to jump on board. "I absolutely love this song and saw it performed live with John's vocals at Coachella in 2009," said Abascal. "MSTRKRFT was making such fun tracks with vocalists around this time—including "Bounce" with NORE. But I feel like this one is less known."

While "Bounce" may have made a bigger splash in the bloghouse scene, "Heartbreaker" foreshadowed the early '10s trend of massive pop-EDM crossovers, snagging a remix from Laidback Luke.

Cassius - I <3 U SO

Speaking of EDM trends: if you went to an EDM festival in the US in the '10s, you probably heard "I <3 U SO." Its chorus is massive, built for epic breakdowns on festival stages. "This song and the video are iconic," Abascal said. "It has this perfect call and response that the DJ can use to encourage the crowd to shout back."

While the video immediately ties it to both the style trends and technical capabilities of the era (big shout out to the in-video advertisement reading "DOWNLOAD NOW FOR FREE THE CASSIUS - I <3 U SO IPHONE APPLICATION"), the track would travel far beyond the genre's community.

"In amazing bloghouse fashion—and to drive home my point about Kanye West being a contributor to bloghouse—it was sampled on Watch The Throne's "Why I Love You" in 2011, the year I argue is the last of bloghouse's five year micro-era," said Abascal.

Uffie - ADD SUV feat. Pharrell

Bloghouse didn't need pop co-signs to survive. The genre gave rise to more than a few of its own stars, including its reigning queen, Uffie, whose influence is undeniable. Her vocals on tracks like Justice's "TThhEe PPaARRtTYY" remain some of bloghouse's most memorable performances, and she's continued to pop up on club anthems—like her new track with The Blessed Madonna—ever since.

But—and this is important—Uffie could also be annoying. Abascal agreed. "Look, I'm not coming from a place of being a hater. But it's bratty. It's the kind of style that then goes on to be Ke$ha but also sounds a lot like Miss Kittin. It's blasé, and it's not something that your parents are gonna like."

That was kind of the point. Uffie was an icon of a culture built around trashy party pictures taken on digital cameras, where people unabashedly posted their drunkest, sweatiest, messiest moments at the club. The distinction is more important now, as Gen Z mines the bloghouse era for aesthetic inspiration and refers to it as "indie sleaze."

"It has a lot to do with the grimy, 'I don't care,' un-manicured element of it, which is so different from the filtered, a lot of makeup, stylised Kardashian Instagram era," Abascal said. "People are over that. Now, there are a lot of photos of people looking like shit at the club—that kind of gross free-for-all."

VTSS - Make You Scream

It's hard to judge the staying power of anything coming from the TikTok sphere, or whether the indie sleaze trend is hinting at a full-blown bloghouse revival or not. But it's worth noting when artists you actually believe in—not the ones who focus on writing sounds for social media—start to play with these genres' tropes in new ways.

"VTSS's new songs remind me of the electrocash era, and I think that was intentional," said Abascal. "But the production quality is way higher than anything from that period."

Having spent a chunk of the past decade becoming one of hard techno's leading DJs, the Polish selector is now pivoting into vocal-driven pop, half-singing, half-rapping over industrial- and electroclash-inspired beats. It's not totally Miss Kittin or Uffie, but the references are clear. To drive home an earlier point, one of VTSS's new tracks is even titled "Incredibly Annoying."

Whatever tracks like "Make You Scream" mean for the future, the fact they exist is a nod of approval from a new generation towards this undeniably ridiculous period in music history. It might have been cool after all, or maybe it was never supposed to be. These lines from Never Be Alone Again sum it up best.

"Whether or not any of this music was ever remotely cool, it never really mattered," wrote Abascal. "It was a time for curiosity, connection and destruction. For dancing all night to the stupidest remixes ever, blurring the lines between good and bad taste, until the distinction became totally meaningless."