Released: 29th June 2009
Writers: Yann Peifer / Allan Eshuijs / Manuel Reuter
Peak position: #1
Chart run: 1-1-2-4-5-7-11-17-20-27-36-39-40-53-56-63-74
Billboard Hot 100 chart run: 80-57-47-41-39-47-46-42-39-31-29-33-28-27-27-28-25-25-28-27-27-35-34-38-38-46
Evacuate The Dancefloor was the lead single from Cascada’s third studio album and saw the Eurodance group embrace a new sound. But while the track looked set to become their biggest hit, it first had to contend with a unique chart battle that nobody saw coming.
Cascada made their UK chart debut in 2006 with Everytime We Touch, which peaked at #2 several months after reaching #10 on the US Billboard Hot 100. The group – fronted by Natalie Horler – quickly consolidated that success with further top ten hits – including a cover of Savage Garden’s Truly, Madly, Deeply – and a debut album (also titled Everytime We Touch) that sold more than 420,000 copies. It was swiftly followed by a second album, Perfect Day, in 2007, which performed consistently with total sales of around 406,000 copies. However, while the lead single, What Hurts The Most, reached #10, subsequent singles – What Do You Want From Me? and Because The Night – were modest hits that mostly flew under the radar. It seemed that, for the third album, an evolution in sound might be sensible, if not necessary, to galvanise interest.
Evacuate The Dancefloor proved to be just that, moving away from the hi-NRG Eurodance of their earlier material and leaning into the electropop that – by this point – had an established presence in the charts. Indeed, so convincing was the transition that comparisons were quickly drawn between Evacuate The Dancefloor and Lady Gaga, who had already scored two chart-topping hits from her debut album, The Fame. Cascada repeatedly stated that any similarities are purely coincidental, even going so far as to speculate that because work on the new album started in 2008, they might have inspired Lady Gaga(!) – though the group were likely self-aware enough for that to be nothing more than a light-hearted comment.
What such comparisons represent is that, regardless of when Evacuate The Dancefloor was actually composed, it feels like a song released at that point to capitalise on Lady Gaga’s brand of pop music – specifically Just Dance – rather than one that was attempting more broadly to evolve the genre. That isn’t a criticism; The Fame (and 2009’s The Fame Monster) became both profoundly influential and, therefore, also brazenly copied. It makes little difference whether Cascada were merely fortuitous or extremely quick off the mark; either way, Evacuate The Dancefloor was current enough to ride the crest of a wave.
There are, undeniably, parallels with Just Dance. The addition of (uncredited) rapper Carlprit is perhaps the most conspicuous example, and it’s hard not to draw the immediate conclusion that he’s primarily there to recreate the dynamic between Lady Gaga and Colby O’Donis. Crucially, however, there is more to Evacuate The Dancefloor than simply how it does – or doesn’t – emulate Just Dance; the track needed a purpose and identity beyond that, which it assuredly delivers.
The blaring, choppy synth intro is distinctively laced with a bombastic Eurodance sensibility that gives Evacuate The Dancefloor coherence as a Cascada song. However, in deviating (slightly) from their usual hi-NRG tempo, there’s now space for Natalie Horler to give a more considered performance. Her voice is filtered and distorted within the throbbing production of the verses, which she navigates with a sultry lower register (“Turn up the music, let’s get out on the floor, I like to move it, come and give me some more…”) before switching to a more urgent higher register: “Still the night, kill the lights, feel it under your skin, time is right, keep it tight, ‘cos it’s pulling you in”. There aren’t necessarily any revelations that’d change how she’s regarded as a singer, but it certainly builds on the charisma the group had already established.
Such is the conviction with which Evacuate The Dancefloor is delivered that the lyrical contradiction within the chorus almost goes unnoticed. Cascada’s raison d’être was to fill dancefloors, not empty them. The same sentiment is true of this song, until the group boldly declare: “Oh, oh, evacuate the dancefloor, oh, oh, I’m infected by the sound, oh, oh, stop this beat is killing me, hey doctor DJ let the music take me underground”. There’s never any risk of that happening; the thumping bassline fills the speaker, while the beats of the punchy chorus are intermittently accompanied by euphoric synths and punctuated with chants of: “Everybody in the club!”, creating an irresistibly catchy rhythm that works its way effortlessly into the body. The lyrics mightn’t always make sense in principle, but it scarcely matters; Evacuate The Dancefloor is so relentlessly irrepressible that its intent is readily understood.
While the song is every bit a triumphant comeback for Cascada, Carlprit may well feel hard done by – and rightly so. His contribution forms a fairly sizable part of Evacuate The Dancefloor, even though it doesn’t start until more than two minutes in. First there’s a half-sung, half-spoken middle eight so aggressively distorted that it’s more akin to the computerised vocals of the Vengaboys’ material than it is a human: “Come on and evacuate, feel the club is heating up, move on and accelerate, push it to the top, come on and evacuate, feel the club is heating up, move on and accelerate, you don’t have to be afraid”. The immediate transition into a rapped verse: “Now guess who’s back on a brand new track, that got everybody in the club goin’ mad? So everybody in the back, get your back up off the wall and just shake that thang…”, performed by Carlprit in his actual voice, highlights the stark difference.
The vocal production is in keeping with the overall sound of Evacuate The Dancefloor, and Carlprit’s inclusion is carefully measured to complement the track without pulling focus from Cascada; the group remains the integral component. Yet, the same would still be true if Carlprit was formally credited on the track, and his presence is inarguably substantial enough to warrant that, so there’s no clear reason for the omission, which hasn’t gone unnoticed. When asked why he’s not listed as a featured artist in a comment on his official YouTube channel, Carlprit replied: ‘The label didn’t wana help out in someone else’s career’.
While Evacuate The Dancefloor represents an evolution musically, the accompanying video is more of a continuity effort where Cascada are concerned, in that it’s a perfectly serviceable yet overly familiar effort. The visuals include a selection of solo sequences: one in which Natalie Horler performs in a sleek room panelled with lights and mirrors, and another in which she writhes on a bed and dances in front of a door. There’s a neat segue at the end of the second verse where the door opens and transitions into a crowded party scene, but that is the extent of any attempt to link what is otherwise a video filled with a relentless flurry of disparate jump cuts.
If there’s a visual comparison to be drawn with Just Dance, it’s that Evacuate The Dancefloor takes a similar house-party concept but swaps edginess and quirkiness for slick artificiality, in both location and execution. Wall-length paintings adorn the room, ornate archways surround the DJ booth, and the crowd sequences feature choreographed routines – absolutely nobody is evacuating the dancefloor in this video. There’s even a rotating sofa that Natalie Horler and Carlprit sit atop as the track heads towards its finale. Evacuate The Dancefloor is presented in an undeniably Cascada-by-numbers way, which might seem like a missed opportunity. However, it wasn’t the case that the group were trying to cut all ties with their earlier material or reposition themselves as an entirely different prospect. Sticking to a tried and tested formula – and doing it well, incidentally – removes any uncertainty about where Cascada were pitching the song.
The commercial performance of Evacuate The Dancefloor would always have been a notable aspect of the narrative around the track because it became Cascada’s first – and only – #1 single in the UK. However, nobody could have predicted the circumstances in which they earned that accolade, and it became, in many ways, the defining legacy of the song here. Four days before the release of Evacuate The Dancefloor, news of Michael Jackson’s death broke, prompting increased sales of his back catalogue. In particular, fans coalesced around Man In The Mirror, which originally reached #21 in 1988. Cascada thus found themselves in an unconventional chart battle dominated by one of the decade’s biggest news stories. All they could really do was respectfully promote the song as planned and leave consumers to decide the outcome. Ultimately, the group triumphed; Evacuate The Dancefloor sold 61,211 copies – around 5,000 more than Man In The Mirror – to debut atop the chart.
While that achievement could have backfired on Cascada, nobody could really argue with the outcome because Evacuate The Dancefloor was a genuinely popular track. So popular, in fact, that it spent a second week at #1 with increased sales of 64,260 copies and was the 31st-highest-selling single of 2009 in the UK (376,810 copies). It’s the group’s biggest hit in the UK, with a total of 587,000 chart units. And, although Cascada may have prevented Michael Jackson from scoring a posthumous #1 single, 13 of his previous hits re-entered the top 40 that week, while five of his albums occupied the top 10. It was an extraordinary feat, and the outcome took nothing away from what that – or Man In The Mirror – symbolised. The staggered release of Evacuate The Dancefloor in other territories throughout summer 2009 meant the track did enjoy success in its own right. That included America, where an eventual peak of #25 on the Billboard Hot 100 gave Cascada their second biggest hit after Everytime We Touch.
Yet, the group weren’t afforded a victory lap in the UK because the Evacuate The Dancefloor album – released a week after the title track – followed much the same pattern as Perfect Day. It peaked at #8 and spent nine weeks in the top 40. However, the follow-up single, Dangerous, peaked at #67, while the third single from the album – Fever – didn’t receive a physical release at all and failed to chart. The campaign ended with sales for Evacuate The Dancefloor of 111,000 copies – significantly down on the previous albums.
From that point, Cascada never regained a prominent commercial footing. Subsequent singles Pyromania and San Francisco peaked at #60 and #64, respectively, while the group’s fourth studio album, Original Me, reached #24 in 2011, marking their final appearance on the chart to date. The UK wasn’t an outlier in that regard; Cascada’s profile was never again as globally prominent as it had been up to and including Evacuate The Dancefloor. Nonetheless, they continued touring and releasing material, including a festive album in 2012 (It’s Christmas Time), and the group even represented Germany at the Eurovision Song Contest in 2013 with Glorious, finishing in 21st place with 18 points. Since 2021, Natalie Horler has fronted Cascada as a solo act and released a fifth studio album, titled Studio 24, in 2024.
In almost every respect, Evacuate The Dancefloor marks a rather fascinating juncture in Cascada’s career that left them in a very odd predicament, whereby they scored both their biggest hit (in the most unusual of circumstances) and their lowest-selling album in one go.