Electric Six - Sound, Style, and Influences

Sound, Style, and Influences

Electric Six incorporates a variety of styles, resulting in being termed a "genre-blurring" band. The group's sound has been described as a synthesis of "disco, synth pop, glam, and arena rock," including the falsetto vocals of disco, laden with "rampant solos, be they guitar riffs, synth wails, or strutting drums" that enforce the band's "energetic sound." However, the band members themselves have rejected such genre classifications as "disco-metal" and "disco-punk."

Critics have termed their lyrics as "disaffected, angry, ironic and lustful," expressing "macho flippancy" and "tongue-in-cheek pomposity." Dick Valentine has estimated that "90 percent of our songs, maybe even higher than 90 percent" are "about absolutely nothing." Songs by Electric Six are often concerned with subjects such as human sexual behavior, masculinity, dancing, hypersexuality, fast food and fire (The band's official biography states that their debut album Fire was so named because they "noticed an abundance of the word fire on this record and...decided to go with it."). Lead singer Dick Valentine had commented on the aforementioned lyrical tendencies in song content with regards to the band's third album:

for the first time, none of the songs have the word "dance" or variation of "dance" in the title. But fear not. We have songs with "drugs" and "girls" and "tonight" and "night" and "louder" and "party" in the title, so we haven't given up on our philosophy just yet. Oh and Joe and Gary rock! —

Valentine cited Freddie Mercury, Talking Heads, Falco, Devo, and Captain Beefheart as his musical influences, as well as Black Sabbath, Queen and KISS for the rest of the group.