The video for summer anthem Love Like Waves by Friendly Fires is utterly generic in almost every way: there is a swimming pool, a DJ, a nice location and plenty of young people having a wonderful time. Except for one thing, that is. For a reason that we may well never discover, nobody in it can dance very well. They’re all giving it their best shot. Some of them clap their hands. Others point their fingers. But nothing can disguise the impenetrable tangle of self-conscious shuffling and heavy-limbed lumbering that resembles a truckload of dads being let loose in a malfunctioning fairground funhouse.
However, all is not lost. Whether knowingly or not, Friendly Fires have now entered the pantheon of all-time great dad-dancing music videos. The form was arguably invented in 1984 when Bruce Springsteen, then 34 years old, was forced to do something during the instrumental breaks in his Dancing in the Dark video. At a loss, he began to swing his arms about madly like he was trying to fend off an unsolicited hand-holding. By the time he had recruited the young Courteney Cox into his absurd dance death cult three minutes later, the fate of pop music was sealed for ever.
However, an impressive new high was reached a year later when David Bowie and Mick Jagger – then respectively in their late 30s and early 40s – made the video for their version of Dancing in the Street. In it, the pair energetically mimed what it would be like to be attacked by several types of insect in a condemned warehouse, to almost universal bewilderment.
Just a year later, salvation came in the form of irony. Paul Simon was pushing 45 when You Can Call Me Al was released, and he took his choreographic uselessness in his stride for the video; yes, he still danced poorly, but he did it with a knowing look on his face so it was all OK.
This was followed by a confusing dad-dancing phase known as the post-irony era. Look at Radiohead’s 2011 video for Lotus Flower, where Thom Yorke twitches and thrashes like a bouncy castle being Tasered. Or Drake’s Hotline Bling, which is almost orthopaedic in its ungainliness. Then there is that 2014 clip of Future Islands on Letterman, in which frontman Samuel T Herring lurches and crouches like the world’s most distressingly intense goose.
Which should make us all thankful that Friendly Fires exist. Not only is the dancing in Love Like Waves bad and awkward for everyone, it’s also totally relatable – like being mocked by someone we fancy at the school disco. Dad dancing in music has a rich lineage, but dad dancing that involuntarily reminds us of repressed adolescent trauma? Now that’s progress.
Love Like Waves is out now