Paco Versailles

One Liner:  Combining of disco-fied electronica and flamenco for a fun flash of enjoyment

Wikipedia Genre:  No Wikipedia, but electronic and flamenco

Home: L.A.

Poster Position: 19
Weekend One Only.
Friday at 2:45.

Tito's Tent.

Thoughts:  I saw the name and at first was like, "okay, another Spanish language thing," but then thought more about the last name.  Which was correct, because the name pays homage to two things - the flamenco guitarist Paco De Lucia, and the opulent French Versailles.  BOth Daft Punk and Air hailed from Versailles.  So, in point of fact, you get some party/disco/EDM stuff, but also some flamenco-style guitar action.  Sounds like a weird combo, but it actually kinda works.  They call it Dancemenco.

Singer Ryan Merchant and guitarist Vahagni met while Merchant was touring with his other band Capital Cities (they came through ACL previously, so he is probably managed by the Live Nation folks).  He joined them for part of the 2016 tour and then the two of them decided to try out a few songs live out in L.A.  Merchant was DJing at a place called the Peppermint Club in 2019, and threw on one of those tunes, and it got a great reaction from the audience.  That first song, "Unwind," is still their top streamer at 8.1 million.

Those handclaps under the Flamenco guitar - dig it.  Fun combination.  To me, this is one of the most explicit songs in the catalog about combining these two sounds.  I feel like the rest do not go quite so hard with the Flamenco-ness action.  They are more straight disco/EDM tracks.  But this is fun.  They brought that initial single along when they released their 2021 album Dancemenco

The second most-streamed is also from that album - "Something New" - with 5.6 million streams.

See, less outright flamenco action there (it sort of pops up in places) but more of a late Daft Punk/Chic disco party vibe.  Their cover of "Ventura Highway" is a groovy little biscuit.  After that, more singles until 2023's Young In California, which doesn't appear to have gotten much traction on the streams.  We'll do "Entangle" anyway, with 1.4 million streams

A nightmare to be inside of a t-shirt with another human being.  I do not enjoy seeing that happen at all.  Meh song.  No cool flamenco-ness, nothing special about that beat/track otherwise.  Too bad, really.

It would appear that Capital Cities is still a thing.  That "Safe and Sound" song was everywhere for a while, but their last release was a cover of "Nothing Compares 2 U" in 2024.

Feels like I like the early stuff a lot more than the more recent stuff.  "Soy Gitano" from the newer album fires up more of the flamenco vibe, but I think does a less interesting job of the disco/party half of the action.  "Our Way" is more fun, as is "Young in California."  I will say though, these tunes feel more fun in isolation.  Like, I could see them spicing up a playlist with a little pop of this style, but listening to this for four hours straight is definitely reducing the pleasure of hearing it the first time.