Music / Hadouken

Hadouken! are a British five-piece Electronic/Indie band. Which one generally depends on the album in question. They started in 2006.

Members:

• James Smith - Lead vocals and electronics
• Alice Spooner - Synthesiser
• Daniel "Pilau" Rice - Guitar, keyboards and backing vocals
• Christopher Purcell - Bass, keyboards and backing vocals
• Nick Rice - Drums

As of this writing, they've released three albums, Music for an Accelerated Culture in 2008, For the Masses in 2010, and Every Weekend in 2013. They also released three E Ps, Mixtape, Not Here to Please You and Love, Sweat and Beer in 2007.

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In November 2014 they announced a hiatus. James is currently producing a solo project, and Dan, Nick, and Chris are members of Cast of Lions alongside Stefan Abingdon of The Midnight Beast.

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Hadouken have examples of:

• Album Title Drop: Every Weekend is their first album to do this, being dropped in the first song, "Vortex".
• Animated Music Video: "Mecha Love", which uses footage from Appleseed. There's also an alternate video of "Oxygen" featuring Stop Motion animation of Action Man figures.
• The Artifact: Dan, Nick and Chris. They haven't been on a new song since 2010. Though they're still full members of the band, and live arrangements are switched around to feature them. This isn't a case of them being hated, just that the band's main output is electronic music, not rock.
• Audience Participation Song: "Mic Check"
• Bishōnen:

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  • The male members of the band before late 2009 all had sweep fringes and effeminate clothing. However these days:
  • Chris and Nick have quiffs.
  • James has short hair.
  • Dan has grown his hair out.
• Cover Version: They've covered Blur's "Song 2".
• Crunkcore: Not exactly, but the Nu-Rave scene was basically the UK equivalent.
• Darker and Edgier: Once per album:
  • Leap of Faith during the EP era, their only experiment with a straight up rock song.
  • Declaration of War on MFAAC.
  • Evil on For the Masses
  • The Vortex on Every Weekend
• Excited Show Title!
• Large Ham: James during live performances and Blogdouken.
• Genre Roulette
• Genre Shift:
  • Their EP era was New-Rave done ironically. Borders on Early Installment Weirdness
  • Their first album mixed re-recordings of these songs with Electronic Rock
  • Their second album drops the rock elements, aside from lead single "Turn the Lights Out".

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  • Their third album mixes in Dubstep and Drum and Bass with the previous electronic sound.
  • Their newest song Midnight is House Music.
• Harsh Vocals: On a lot of songs live, the general shouts are replaced with these.
• I Am the Band: Not much, but every time James is a guest vocalist, he's credited as Hadouken!.
• Lyrical Dissonance: A way to tell if a fan listens to the lyrics is if they think they were serious with the New Rave era.
• Mohs Scale of Lyrical Hardness: Generally ranges from 4-8.
• Mohs Scale of Rock and Metal Hardness: They come in at a 7, occasionally going down to a 3 or going up to a 9.
• Mood Whiplash: On Music for an Accelerated Culture, as the New Rave songs were dotted around the more serious electronic songs.
• New Sound Album: All of them, even the first one.
• Performance Video:
  • Most of the videos before their third album.
  • Subverted nowadays. Their last performance video was released in 2011 (not counting live videos) and highlighted a problem. Neither Chris nor Dan actually do anything on that album, so they were just stood there playing keyboards (which is actually Alice's job).
• Rearrange the Song: Live versions of the Every Weekend tracks feature guitars and bass replacing some of the keyboard layers, and live drums on a semi-acoustic kit as opposed to the programmed drumming on albums.
  • Also, any remix they do can feel like this, as James tends to add his own verses, sometimes changing the perspective of the song.
• Take That!: Their first song "Superstar" is a take that at... someone named Luke (he was in another band, but that band didn't become famous enough for anyone to remember who the song was actually about.)
• The Quiet One: Alice, deliberately or not, wasn't heard speaking until a brief moment in Blogdouken 18, nearly 6 years into their career.
• Piss-Take Rap: a lot, though James can rap, and has done so more seriously on recent songs.
• Record Producer: James, who previously made straight Grime music under the name Dr Venom.
• Stealth Parody: People thought they were serious with their partying Indie Rock image. Probably why they changed it.