Each Measure Feature: Flamingo Dogs

FEATURE

“The youth are starting to change,” sang MGMT in ’07 with a sly wink, ushering in a wave of synth-infused electro-pop created by restless young artists eager to break tradition. Flamingo Dogs now steps into this wave with their new single SAVE ME THE NIGHT, venturing away from the alternative rap stylings for which they had become known.

The album artwork for M83’s era-defining 2011 album, Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming, features a little boy sitting on his bed in an oversized fuzzy onesie, holding a monster mask. A decade later, the 10th-anniversary reissue shows the same boy—now ten years older—sitting on the same bed, wearing the same costume, holding the same mask, hinting at a sort of arrested development, indicating that perhaps the synth-laden electro-pop movement had run its course.

And yet, with SAVE ME THE NIGHT, Flamingo Dogs inserts itself into the fold, dressed in life-sized flamingo and dog costumes, basking in the radiant light of their electro-pop forebears. The song glistens with enticing vocal modulation and pulsating synth, while its music video follows the costumed characters as they traverse a ruinous cityscape on their way to its outskirts, searching for something the humdrum of the city simply can’t provide.

In the song’s first Pre-Chorus we find the duo yearning for salvation, singing “Save me tonight / Will you tell me I’m alright?” As the song continues, so does Flamingo Dogs’ yearning to be found in the midst of something great. “If I could die / right by your side / let’s take our souls and multiply,” they sing in Verse One. The proposition to pass through death and let their souls mingle with others is touching, and perhaps gives meaning to the duo’s decision to pivot from hip-hop to electro-pop–a subgenre that became synonymous with a rejection of strict social norms in favor of freedom of expression. Even the duo’s name and the symbolism captured in the song’s video of the pair coming together in life-sized flamingo and dog costumes supports this idea of radical embrace.

It strikes me, listening to SAVE ME THE NIGHT, that the times have significantly changed since the new wave of electro-pop began circa ‘07. The youthful liberation heralded by the movement’s forebears has been normalized, and in SAVE ME THE NIGHT and its accompanying video, I see the same penchant for transportive aesthetic consistency possessed by MGMT and M83. The movement is ready for new life, and, as a fan of savvy, wistfully satirical pop music, I ask Flamingo Dogs—a group with the talent and charisma to revitalize the movement—where will you push the youth next?

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