Danny L Harle: Cerulean — earnest homage to early 00s bangers or poor imitation?

Cerulean is a confusing business: it is billed as Danny L Harle’s debut even though Harlecore came out in 2021. What sets this release apart is its weighty guestlist — Clairo, Caroline Polachek, PinkPantheress, MNEK and more — a sign of Harle’s rise into the major leagues of pop production; he has worked with Polachek before, and with Florence + the Machine and Dua Lipa, who also features on Cerulean.

In another respect, though, Cerulean resembles Harlecore. Its chief source material is the pop-trance that dominated BBC Radio 1 in the early 00s and the speedy, cheesy Eurodance behind the Clubland brand, presented here with high seriousness. “This album is my message,” Harle offers in the accompanying blurb, and a press release suggests he is drawing on “a particular strain of Italian artistry that encompasses the Renaissance composer Monteverdi and the Y2K club bangers of Eiffel 65”.

The echo of Blue (Da Ba Dee) is more noticeable than Monteverdi.

danny harle, cerulean, harlecore, clairo, caroline polachek, pinkpantheress, mnek, dua lipa, pop-trance, eurodance