Electric Six - Dance Commander HD

2003

Electric Six - Dance Commander HD (2003) Director: Ruben Fleischer Era: Post-Millennial Indie Breakthrough (2003) - Peak of UK dance-punk crossover, era defined by ironic performance rock and MTV2 alternative rotation dominance High curatorial value as a documented, creatively contested artifact from the 2003 UK dance-punk peak. The video's production history, a director-band creative dispute resulting in public disavowal, makes it an unusually transparent window into music video industrial politics. It also serves as an early Ruben Fleischer directorial credit, predating his Hollywood feature career, and benefits from confirmed multi-source attribution across IMDB, Wikipedia, IMVDb, Songfacts, and Rate Your Music. Context: Released October 13, 2003 as the third UK-only single from Electric Six's debut album Fire on XL Recordings, 'Dance Commander' arrived at the apex of the post-punk/dance-punk revival that dominated UK alternative charts alongside Franz Ferdinand, The Rapture, and LCD Soundsystem. The song peaked at No. 40 on the UK Singles Chart, completing a hat-trick of Top 40 UK hits for the Detroit band following 'Danger! High Voltage' and 'Gay Bar.' The video's troubled production, rooted in a creative clash between band and director, mirrors broader tensions of the era around artistic control in the major-label music video system. The band's subsequent fallout with XL Recordings and internal lineup collapse shortly after this campaign illustrate the precarious commercial moment the video occupies. Director notes: Fleischer directed this video in 2003 as part of his pre-feature music video career. The production is documented as a creatively contentious shoot: frontman Tyler Spencer (Dick Valentine) wanted the video to depict a military general commanding a squad of cheerleaders, while Fleischer favored an approach reminiscent of the iconic dance sequence in Risky Business (1983). The final video incorporated both concepts but reportedly satisfied neither party, and the band publicly disowned it. The video features Spencer dancing erratically around a house, intercut with shots of him in military garb. Despite the internal conflict, the video received significant MTV airplay. Director of Photography is credited as Damian Acevedo per Rate Your Music.