Blood on the Dance Floor Retrospective: You Are The Heart

This is part of a Retrospective that covers the bands entire discography. You can find the post for the previous album here. There’s also an introduction and disclaimer that you can read here, that I strongly suggest you start out with.

Well folks, here we have it. The most inconsequential release in Blood on the Dance Floor’s entire discography, besides maybe Extended Play. But honestly, I’m not even sure if I can even call that an album or even an EP because it only has two songs on it, and one of them is a hilariously bad cover of Michael Jackson’s Beat It so… Yeah.

As far as I’m concerned, this EP is the most inconsequential and skippable album in the bands discography. Which makes it all the more sad that it’s also the last EP that would be released under the Blood on the Dance Floor name.

You Are The Heart is such a weird release. It’s notable for being the only EP to feature Fallon Vendetta (outside of Emotional, but I skipped that one because it’s literally just a preview of 4 tracks from Haunted) as well as the last EP the band would ever release. And it pretty much just consists of songs from other releases, but slightly different.

But before we talk about the tracks themselves, to make this post a little longer and more worthwhile, I figured I’d go into why this fucking thing was even made to begin with.

I vaguely remember that in 2018, Blood on the Dance Floor had actually been signed to a record label in Japan, which was a very weird thing, because up until then, everything they’d ever released was under Dahvie’s own “label” Dark Fantasy Records. And after getting signed to this label, the band put out a poll, asking fans which old Blood on the Dance Floor songs they’d like to see re-recorded with the current lineup of Dahvie and Fallon.

I remember I was backpacking in South East Asia at the time, and I distinctly remember placing my own votes in this poll, asking that Bewitched and Sluts Get Guts get re-recorded, but I guess everyone else voted for You Are The Heart from Evolution because after that poll closed, this EP was released.

Now, I’m not sure if that’s exactly why this thing got made. But I’m assuming so. You Are The Heart is one of the bands most popular songs, and for good reason, so it makes sense that it’d win a poll like this.

Now that I think about it, we never actually found out what the fuck happened with that Japanese label. Blood on the Dance Floor was seemingly removed from their website, and the teased music video for Kawaii Monster was never made. I’m assuming they heard about the sexual assault allegations and removed the band from their roster, but fuck knows. I can’t even remember what this fucking label was called. This whole fucking story I’m telling feels like some kind of fever dream, because I don’t recall anyone else ever fucking mentioning this besides me. Am I going insane? Has my obsession with Dahvie Vanity and his stupid, memeable life finally taken its toll on me? Probably.

Anyway, so what the fuck is this EP? Well, it’s a collection of various new versions of You Are The Heart and some alternative versions of other songs from Kawaii Monster and that’s it really.

So… I guess I’ll break these down…?

So first we have You Are The Heart (Japanese Message Version) which is a re-recorded version of the original song from the bands studio album Evolution. And it’s pretty good honestly.

I already talked about the original track at length in my post on Evolution and pretty much everything I said there remains true here. It’s a really great, emotionally charged, Pop Punk song, with an anti-suicide message that speaks to me on a really personal level. The only difference with this new version is that Fallon Vendetta replaces Jayy Von Monroe as the second vocalist and the instrumental for the song has been completely redone with pianos and a new guitar. And this particular version starts off with a Japanese version of Dahvie’s anti-suicide speech from the original song, which is kind of neat.

I like this version of the song a lot, but I still prefer the original for quite a few reasons. The new instrumentation isn’t bad, and Fallon does a good job overall, but I prefer the more standard Pop Punk sound of the original track and Jayy is just a better singer. It doesn’t really help that Fallon’s vocals have this weird reverb effect on them that makes her parts feel a little disconnected from the rest of the song as well.

But yeah. This version is good. Just not a 10/10 track like the original.

Next up we have Resurrection Spell (Japan Version) which is basically a new version of the song from Kawaii Monster with slightly different instrumentation and honestly, I prefer this version. Resurrection Spell was already a great song in its own right, and this version of the track makes it even better. I don’t have much else to say about it, because outside of the slightly different instrumentation, the song is exactly the same as it was on Kawaii Monster.

After that we have Six Feet Under and You Are Enough which are both tracks that were taken straight from Kawaii Monster with no changes whatsoever. Why? I have no fucking idea. These two tracks were already on an album that was released a year before this EP, so their inclusion feels so fucking pointless and only pads out the albums overall runtime. Yes, they are both excellent songs, but they don’t need to be here because… They’re already on Kawaii Monster. Everything I said about them in my Kawaii Monster post applies here.

Then we have You Are The Heart (Japan Version) which is basically the exact same song as You Are The Heart (Japanese Message Version) only the Japanese version of Dahvie’s anti-suicide speech is replaced with the original one from the original song. Besides that, everything else is the exact same. The instrumentation. The vocals. The verses and chorus. It’s the same fucking song.

And immediately after that we get… Another version of You Are The Heart! The “US Version” this time. Which is the exact same as the previous track, only with a slightly different instrumentation because it’s the “not Japanese version” of the song. Otherwise, it’s the exact same fucking song. Again. Which means if you were to listen to this album in one sitting, you’d have listened to three versions of the same fucking song.

Then we have Resurrection Spell (US Version) which is literally just the original version of the song lifted straight from Kawaii Monster. Why? I have no idea. Pointless.

And last but not least we have… You Are The Heart (Karaoke Version) which is exactly what it sounds like. It’s an instrumental version of You Are The Heart so you can sing it with all your family and friends during a drunken karaoke night at your Uncle’s bar that he built in his back yard. I may or may not have done this.

And… That’s it. That’s You Are The Heart. That’s literally all I have to say about this EP.

Look, I love the original song. You Are The Heart is an amazing song that speaks to me on a personal level. It’s a song that I listen to all the time, and seeing it get the remake treatment with the Dahvie and Fallon lineup was really neat.

But we didn’t need an EP with four versions of it. And we certainly didn’t need four other tracks that are literally just other songs lifted straight from Kawaii Monster and thrown onto this just to make it longer. And even with those four songs, two of those are the same fucking song too!

You Are The Heart isn’t even a bad EP, but its existence is just kind of pointless. The re-recorded version of the song could have easily just been released as a single or placed on another album as a bonus track, and the other three versions didn’t even need to exist at all. There’s no real reason for this thing to exist other than “we needed to get an EP out, so let’s just make multiple versions of the same song, take a few other existing songs, and throw them all together so we can get something out.”

So yeah. Kind of pointless. It would’ve been so much cooler if this EP was a collection of re-recorded classic BOTDF songs with the 2018 lineup, but I guess you can’t always get what you wish for.

Ah well.

And now, here’s some track ratings for you all:

Track Ratings:

1. You Are The Heart (Japanese Message Version) – 8/10
2. Resurrection Spell (Japan Version) – 10/10
3. Six Feet Under – 10/10
4. You Are Enough – 8/10
5. You Are The Heart (Japan Version) – 8/10
6. You Are The Heart (US Version) – 7/10
7. Resurrection Spell (US Version) – 10/10
8. You Are The Heart (Karaoke Version) 4/10

Best Song(s):

Resurrection Spell (Both versions I guess?), You Are The Heart (Japan Version) (But like, they’re all the same song?)

Worst Song(s):

You Are The Heart (Karaoke Version) (Because it’s not really interesting to listen to if you’re not going to use it during a karaoke session with the homies)

Would I Recommend It?

Like I said, I love the song, but we didn’t need four versions of it crammed into an album, and everything else on this EP can already be found on Kawaii Monster.

So no. I don’t recommend it. Not because it’s bad, but because there’s no real reason for this to even exist. Just go listen to whichever new version of You Are The Heart takes your fancy. Maybe listen to the new version of Resurrection Spell. And hell, maybe even use the Karaoke Version of You Are The Heart to entertain your folks at a drunken karaoke night.

You Are The Heart is easily the most inconsequential release in Blood on the Dance Floor’s entire discography and I can’t believe I wrote over 1,500 words talking about it in spite of that.

I have a problem.

What’s Next?

Next time, we’ll be looking at the next studio album: Cinema Erotica which is honestly an album I always forget exists because it’s been removed from almost every fucking streaming platform that still hosts Blood on the Dance Floor’s music and I have no fucking idea why.

It’s notable for being the last album to feature Fallon Vendetta and is honestly an album I’ve barely listened to, so I’m not even sure how I feel about it. I’ll need to give it a few listens before I write about it.

Until next time!