Mood, a list of words for switching into party mode

Party, baby, booty, flow. Just like that, no verbs or articles. Mood is made of loose words, a list of English terms that in Spain, and in half of Latin America, we use every day without translating and almost without noticing.

The inventory really amuses me: sexy, cool, check, beat, feeling, groovy, style, gangsta, break, cash, club, deal, drop, feedback, game, hit, jam, look, mix, outfit, show, vibe, wild, track, hype. If you read them out loud, it sounds like a group of friends talking on a Friday at eleven at night. Or a marketing team meeting. Or the bio of any profile on a dating app.

I see it as a portrait of how the language of partying has gone global. In Spanish we no longer say something puts us in a good humour, we say it gives us buen mood. We don't ask what clothes you're wearing, we ask about the outfit. Some people are scandalised and some embrace it without hang-ups. The song doesn't judge, it plays.

The chorus is the title word repeated four times, without frills. It works like a switch. Mood, mood, mood, mood, and you're in. It's the word that covers everything, the state of mind you go out looking for when you close the front door.

There's something very queer in that way of appropriating the vocabulary of the dance floor. Club culture has always had its own language, its codes, its words taken from elsewhere and turned inside out. Here they're gathered in one go, like someone tipping their wash bag out on the table before getting ready.

When to listen? Before going out, while you choose your outfit, of course. Or in the taxi, on the way to the club, when you need your body to understand that the week is over. It's short, direct and doesn't ask you to think too much, which sometimes is exactly what's needed.

Dedicate it to that friend who slips an English word into every sentence. It'll give her loads of mood.

The full lyrics are below. Listen on Spotify