3 Rock Songs From the 2000s Guaranteed To Make You Get up and Dance

Rock and roll has a long history with dance music. Danceable beats gave early rock tunes their rhythm, while Chubby Checker’s “The Twist” gets its name from a popular dance in the late 1950s. Everyone from David Bowie (“Fame”, “Let’s Dance”) to The Rolling Stones (“Miss You”) recorded iconic tracks, supported by funk and disco grooves. I admit I’m sprinting past a much more complex history, but from the acid house scene in Manchester in the late 1980s to global rave culture in the 1990s, dance and rock music remain intricately linked.

Videos by American Songwriter

Fast-forward to the 2000s, and once again, underground dance culture crept into the mainstream—partly because a new generation of bands blended post-punk, new wave, and disco. So let’s highlight three of the most danceable rock songs from the 2000s.

“Daft Punk Is Playing At My House” by LCD Soundsystem

In 2005, I was a guest DJ at Hiro Ballroom in New York City. Andy Rourke from The Smiths was on stage with me, and it took everything in my power not to pelt him with questions about his former band. I hit a dull skid in my set, and the dance floor had emptied. Then I cranked “Daft Punk Is Playing At My House” by LCD Soundsystem, and the place erupted. It felt as though James Murphy had completed the bridge between rock and dance music. Or at least, that’s what it felt like in the room that night.

“Club Foot” by Kasabian

When Kasabian arrived, the approach was familiar. The band had swagger, with its DNA in lad culture, and the baggy beats of The Stone Roses. But music doesn’t have to be novel to move you. “Club Foot” is propelled by a distorted bass line that, at the time, felt like a revolution. Kasabian wandered about the stage like the Gallagher brothers but infused their sound with the block-rocking beats of The Chemical Brothers. This one’s a banger.

“Somebody Told Me” by The Killers

The Killers emerged from, of all places, Las Vegas. Still, they wore their Anglophilia on their sleeves and seemed far more ambitious than their post-punk and new wave revivalist peers. Singer Brandon Flowers entered with Bono vibes, but he also loves Bruce Springsteen, and his band’s debut, Hot Fuss, is loaded with hits to back up the arena-size ambition. “Somebody Told Me” pays homage to one of the band’s influences, New Order, whose video “Crystal” features a fictitious group that gave The Killers their name.

Photo by Rob Verhorst/Redferns