Dancer First is the name of Nashville musician book NOT brooke’s debut album. It’s also her philosophy for making music. “If it’s good enough to dance to, then it makes the cut” she says.

Claiming pop

Brooke Vespoli is a pop musician. “Claiming pop is important to me” she says in her apartment/studio in East Nashville. Claiming to be a straight pop musician is a bit of a turn because for the past couple decades there has been an effort to get rid of music labels to broaden the industry and up inclusivity. Many artists found genre labels restrictive and limiting and once in a genre, it can be easy to be dismissed. A way artists and writers have expanded past genre to is to put “indie” before their primary genre. “Indie” is often viewed as conveying that the music is coming from a genuine place.

About the “indie” moniker, book says, “That’s a nice sentiment, but there is something to be said about really claiming what it feels like you are making in your heart. I make pop.”

Midwest Yo-Yo Ma

Nashville hasn’t really been a destination for pop musicians aside from Nashville native, Ke$ha. But that might be changing. Last year’s big breakthrough pop musician Alex Warren just moved here and there are rumors that Ed Sheeran might be posting up soon. 

But Book didn’t second guess Nashville as being a place to make pop music when she came here five years ago. “Nashville just felt like the obvious spot for me. I knew I would find people who were making and recording music, which is what I wanted to be doing” she said. 

Book was born in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio, and knew that she wanted to make music early on. When she was five years old, she went to her sister’s orchestra performance and fixated on the cellos.

“I still remember just how I felt and how much I loved it. I was asking my parents if I could play cello after that.”

At seven, she convinced her parents that the cello wasn’t a phase and started playing, immersing herself in the orchestra culture of Cleveland. 

Though the cello isn’t her primary instrument anymore, if you watch the Anni DiRusso Tiny Desk video, there Book is, shredding at NPR HQ.

When she moved to Nashville she didn’t even know what a mix was or how to produce music at all. She started experimenting. “I wanted to do performance art in Nashville” she said. At the time she was trying to figure out the connection between her music and her body. She focused on movement. It planted the seed. And then one day, the way she should make music clicked and the Dancer First Philosophy came to her.

Dancer First

“If it’s good enough to dance to, then it makes the cut” she said.

The Dancer First Philosophy is this: a song must make her dance. And that the instinct to dance comes from outside the brain, so it can be trusted. Once she is dancing, she knows that a song is good and she will continue or stop working. It’s about listening to her body over her brain.

“That’s why it’s so liberating for me. Because in embracing the dancer first philosophy, which is how I truly feel in my heart, I can relinquish perfectionism from a musician standpoint” she said.

Musicians often struggle with knowing when to finish the song and walk away.

“I am a perfectionist. I genuinely have spent hundreds of hours mixing one song before. I kind of had to ground myself around how I am going to fully see a concept through and Dancer First is the mantra for all of it. If it’s good enough to dance to, it’s good enough for me” she said.

And that is why the production on her new album, Dancer First, has so many unpredictable elements. They might not make sense to your brain, but they make you move. Like the eagle screech on the song “O.U. Oh Ya.”

Dance dance revolution

She’s hoping that as a listener, you also feel called to move by an instinct beyond your control.

“A lot of people shy away from dancing because of this constructed barrier to entry of, you have to be good in order to dance. And people shy away from art of all kinds for that same reason.

But that’s where the power is in the Dancer First movement. You don’t have to be good at dancing in order to feel its impact. You just have to be willing to let go.

It’s basically an invitation to go there and really confront our fears and our insecurities” she said.

I asked Book how you get past the insecurity.

She said, “For me, it’s radical acceptance and seeking out joy.”