POSSE! YOU KEEP THE SPIRIT ALIVE! It's the 1990s ELECTRONIC ALBUMS poll results!

I'd also like to see Consumed by Plastikman.

And Every Man and Woman is a Star by Ultramarine.

(Ha, sorry, I know this is annoying; I'm just bummed I didn't vote!)

you could start a thread?

― make like a steak and beef (dog latin), Thursday, November 1, 2012 10:09 AM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I already have!

linky?

Japanese New Wave listening club - new albums every Monday

S/D: Japanese Techno

I only started one of those and a lot of it is outside the 90's but it's not the kind of thing I'd bother voting for here. I kind of subconsciously assumed that really only UK-centric albums were going to be represented here. Not that the UK really ISN'T the center of this in the 90's but still.

22. Aphex Twin - I Care Because You Do (Warp Recors, 1995)
116 points, 6 votes.

http://i1326.photobucket.com/albums/u641/Lixenixen/icarebecauseyoudo.jpeg

http://open.spotify.com/album/0VG7XLJ8gSynEQDVnpHNNU

I Care Because You Do is my favorite, because it's got a good balance of pretty, soothing tracks with the noisy/chaotic/
goofball ones.

― latebloomer (latebloomer), 8. joulukuuta 2003 15:22

...I care because you do is the nostalgic choice because i bought it when i was 14 and it was quite an experience to hear it at that age with almost no context at all (it was mentioned ina small sidebar in SPIN).

― Aaron Grossman (aajjgg), 9. joulukuuta 2003 1:18

my cats seem to appreciate Dillinger Escape Plan and I Care Because You Do. Meaning they open their eyes for a few seconds to look around and then go back to sleep.

― superultramega (superultramarinated), 9. maaliskuuta 2004 3:35

So there didn't seem to be an "IDM" thing till about 1995/6 when albums like I Care Because You Do and Tri Repetae came out - before that it was probably just seen as another brand of ambient of techno or whatnot.

And even by this point, it was about playing with dance's parameters. I used to love ICBYD because it was like a collection of speculative short stories with a twist in the tale - the best IDM stuff for me worked like a collection of "What ifs?" - "What if I make a techno tune that sounds like an asthma attack?" "What if I change the time signature?" "What if I slow it right down?" "What if I make it sound like Bjork" "What if I make a whole album out of a bird cage" etc.

― Post-Manpat Music (dog latin), 1. elokuuta 2011 18:25

i often feel like there was a general focal shift, not just in electronic music but in pop music as a whole, from the UK to Europe and the US come the end of the 90s.

If you were living in the UK maybe, not in the rest of the world.

I didn't vote because I only signed up to this site last week I think. If I had I would have gone for 'Neptune's Lair' by Drexciya

Drrexciya>>>>>

When it comes to techno, it seems German techno didn't get popular in the UK and USA before the turn of the millennium...? I was listening to a lot of German electronic music in the 90s, and it was pretty popular here in Finland (people like Westbam or Sven Väth were in the top 10 on Finnish charts), but whenever I try to discuss it on ILX, I get only a handful of comments (and they're usually from non-Anglo posters).

If you were living in the UK maybe, not in the rest of the world.

― Matt DC, Thursday, 1 November 2012 15:34 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Sure, sure. I probably didn't explain myself that well TBH, but these days I find myself pleasantly surprised when a producer I like comes from the UK, whereas in the nineties it felt more like the norm, with the UK holding fort with its Prodigys and Orbitals and Underworlds and Chems, and before that the entire M25 acid house scene etc. A lot of European dance felt cheesy and commercial, and the US didn't seem to know what to make of electronic music a lot of the time. I associate dance music in the 2000s as being much more Euro (and to a lesser extent US)-lead.

(save for things like dubstep/grime of course)

No I agree with you in dance music terms, probably not in wider terms.

21. Various - Metalheadz presents Platinum Breakz (FFRR, 1996)
118 points, 5 votes.

http://i1326.photobucket.com/albums/u641/Lixenixen/platinumbreakz.jpeg

what does this cd sound like today? i would assume horribly dated?

― cutty (mcutt), 25. helmikuuta 2004 21:27

"rider's ghost", innit and no, it sounds remarkably un-dated, really.

― strongo hulkington (dubplatestyle), 25. helmikuuta 2004 21:27

Rufige Kru's VIP Rider's Ghost opens the set. And in no way is this dated. Sounds superwow, to my ears.

Lemon D's In My Life is simultaneously tender and brutal.

― paul c (paul c), 25. helmikuuta 2004 21:32

well now

i had wanted at first to vote for "unofficial ghost", which might now be my favorite drum and bass track of all time. repeated listening to "unofficial ghost" in 1996 turned me on to the mind-warping possibilities of techstep. i love how doc chops the hell out of the synth swells, so that they just keep billowing out eternally into space. the finer doc chops the synths the more they fill the room, like chopping a little strip of paper into a chain of dolls. having perked our ears, he teases us with all sorts of sound effects occupying different little corners of sound: method man sounds like he's speaking from deep in a tomb, then the sample is suddenly drenched in echo so we're in the tomb with method man. at the same time the establishing beat: a rigid stepper that sounds like the exhausted breakbeats that idm-leaning techno dudes were pushing at the time (subhead, landstrumm, swordsmen, beltram).

all this time we're sitting still while he's setting up the soundstage. out of nowhere, he hits us with a flat, thick wall of impossibly dense, warped bass. this bass fucks with you on two levels. first of all it's smeared so thickly over those rigid, static breakbeats that it really challenges your perception of time. second of all it's right up in the mix, sort of dry compared to everything else. at this range, it sounds like the bass is coming out of your body, pushing you along to the beat. now that you're moving he switches up the beat, alternating between an impossibly "hot"-sounding sample and a more traditional sounding amen break. the "hot" cymbal and snare hits sound impossibly cramped against the rest of the sound; alternating with the reverb-y amen sets up areas of pressure and release. for a while he plays with cramming the hot sample into the same space as two or three simultaneous bass bombs, then he alternates that by setting the amen break against the ghost of a rave siren.

for awhile these two (three?) strategies rub up against each other. then the bass drops out and it's just those rushy noises, like rave sirens from mount olympus, up against the dubby amen break, which is given a little more space to breathe, and it's like racing out of hot, dark tunnels and onto vast and starlit peaks.

it's a masterful track.

― moonship journey to baja, 10. elokuuta 2010 5:40

it's ridiculous that i've never heard these big nineties d'n'b albums. i should correct that.

20. The Prodigy - Experience
127 points, 6 votes.

http://open.spotify.com/album/3LYrQ4Pr2CMbQl3nWxXItR

Jilted was their vertical album - stately rhythms to show off their sound effects (and Liam's pretty haircut). This one was their horizontal album - furious forward motion with only tangential consideration for what's up top. But since the songs and the album are shorter, they wind (it) up highlighting what's up top as well anyway. Hence this one's my favorite.

― Kevin John Bozelka, 4. huhtikuuta 2009 20:54

The big criticism with original 'Experience' remains that it doesn't feature the versions of the singles bar 'Out Of Space' but I do love the album versions and it all still sounds good today.

― Sororah T Massacre (blueski), 4. tammikuuta 2006 18:11

The fact that the hits from 'Experience' still get young kids on the floor at the club pretty much sums Howlett's skills up for me.

― Alacrán, 18. lokakuuta 2001 3:00

They were playing early Prodge in Fopp this lunchtime. GOD it sounded great. GOD did I ever drop the ball in the early 1990s, what with my stuck-up soulboy snobbery and my Galliano singles.

― mike t-diva (mike t-diva), 18. lokakuuta 2005 15:26

I prefer Experience to Jilted - the latter is more well-constructed and purposeful, but nothing beats the seratonin rush of the early tunes.

― chap, 11. heinäkuuta 2008 18:19

Whoops, the cover image is missing, here it is:

http://i1326.photobucket.com/albums/u641/Lixenixen/experience.jpeg

Also, the album was relesed by XL Recordings in 1992.

Enjoying the Finnish months in the c&ped comments.

Experience is the first album I remember really, really loving as a young teenager. (Before that I mostly just listened to multi artist comps.) Me and my friends used to just play it again and again, day after day. I was really envious of a friend who had it on CD; I didn't even get a CD player until two years later in 1994, so I had to listen to the album from a cassette I'd copied from him.

I received Experience for Christmas when I was 11. I remember being incredibly disappointed it didn't feature the single versions, but I warmed to it and they remained my favourite band for years.

I prefer the album version of Your Love and Fire.

Single versions of Charley and Everybody in the Place are waaaay better, otoh.

I think I've only gained appreciation for prime-era d&b as I've gotten older.

That came out wrong... I liked it when I was younger, and if anything, my esteem has only grown. That's what I meant.

"Armoured D" by Dillinja is one of the sickest tracks of all time.

Single versions of Charley and Everybody in the Place are waaaay better, otoh.

Yes. Also, it's noticeable just how different they sound. Somebody said upthread (I think Ismael, but I'm on a phone and it's too much hassle to check) about how St Etienne in 1990 fitted in with a definition of dance music of that time (the slower tempo and Italo piano sounds) but by 1991 things had become more rave-oriented and they sounded nothing like that. Well, by the same token things got cranked up massively during 1992 (harder, darker, faster) to the extent that those two singles sound strikingly different (slower, softer, friendlier) to the album versions just 9-18 months later.

Disclaimer: I don't have access to any of these tunes right now and may have misremembered

19. The Chemical Brothers - Dig Your Own Hole (Freestyle Dust, 1997)
128 points, 7 votes, 1 first place vote.

http://i1326.photobucket.com/albums/u641/Lixenixen/digyourownhole.jpeg

http://open.spotify.com/album/2DYl4Z5qrQrQvEbMj4Alle

Ah, well, I still think Dig Your Own Hole is one of the finest rekkids evah.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), 19. kesäkuuta 2003 11:18

Both of these songs sound really dated now but as an album Dig Your Own Hole still sounds really good.

― BYE! GOOD (latebloomer), 4. marraskuuta 2008 0:09

Dig Your Own Hole for me. Sounds equally wonderful on the dancefloor as through headphones. Also excellent to do housework to. And particularly useful as a background motivational soundtrack for demolishing an old broken bed, thoroughly reducing a worthless box-spring mattress to an even more useless pile of broken springs, rusty nails, rotting wood and soiled canvas. (A true story.)

― Myonga Vön Bontee, 2. lokakuuta 2007 23:19

The Chemical Brothers Dig Your Own Hole

Pro Social Elemnts: None

A woman wakes up in the company of a stranger, the implication being that they've had sex ("Sunday morning I'm waking up/Can't even focus on a coffee cup/Don't even know whose bed I'm in"). A lover is referred to as "the devil in me" ("Setting Sun"). Behind the computer-driven sounds of "Electrobank," a fuzzy, yet audible f-word appears. Even the all-instrumental tracks serve up annoyingly hypnotic sensory overload. This band's incessant barrage of nonsense, set to a dizzying repetition of the same eight or ten notes, is inherently nerve-wracking.

Explosive musical chemistry. It's a shame the unrelenting, intoxicating dance beats don't subside long enough for young listeners to clear their heads. Lyrics offer more tangible evidence that The Chemical Brothers are experimenting with unstable elements.

― M1chael Ph1lip Ph1lip Ph1lip Ph1lip Ph1lip Ann0yman (Ferg), 18. marraskuuta 2004 22:35

(The last comment is from Creepy christian music reviews - it's not the Ferg's own text.)

When it comes to techno, it seems German techno didn't get popular in the UK and USA before the turn of the millennium...? I was listening to a lot of German electronic music in the 90s, and it was pretty popular here in Finland (people like Westbam or Sven Väth were in the top 10 on Finnish charts), but whenever I try to discuss it on ILX, I get only a handful of comments (and they're usually from non-Anglo posters).

Sven Väth and Hardfloor were big in Britain.

I'd love to see some Seefeel place.
I don't think quique was nominated

Well, by the same token things got cranked up massively during 1992 (harder, darker, faster) to the extent that those two singles sound strikingly different (slower, softer, friendlier) to the album versions just 9-18 months later.

Shame they didn't think to adapt in this way with FOTL which felt really tired by the time it had come out several months after Firestarter and Breathe had been played to death.

They were part of a scene in 1992 though and were quickly absorbing what was happening around them. By 1997 they were miles away from the rest of dance music and ploughing their own furrow with very mixed results.

Sven Väth and Hardfloor were big in Britain.

They were? For some reason people seem to rarely discuss them here, though, and they never place in polls like this one.

I never felt a big affinity with Dig Your Own Hole and never listened to the Chems after. It just didn't feel as "of a piece" as Exit Planet Dust to me. Maybe I ought to dig it out again. I did used to adore Electrobank - maybe my favourite track by them? Block Rockin Beats was good too, if a bit Fatboy Slim-y. They made tremendous use of the 23 Skiddoo sample if anything.

A woman wakes up in the company of a stranger, the implication being that they've had sex ("Sunday morning I'm waking up/Can't even focus on a coffee cup/Don't even know whose bed I'm in"). A lover is referred to as "the devil in me" ("Setting Sun"). Behind the computer-driven sounds of "Electrobank," a fuzzy, yet audible f-word appears. Even the all-instrumental tracks serve up annoyingly hypnotic sensory overload. This band's incessant barrage of nonsense, set to a dizzying repetition of the same eight or ten notes, is inherently nerve-wracking.

Explosive musical chemistry. It's a shame the unrelenting, intoxicating dance beats don't subside long enough for young listeners to clear their heads. Lyrics offer more tangible evidence that The Chemical Brothers are experimenting with unstable elements.

For a 'creepy christian review', that's not bad going...

Dig definitely sounds dated now, but you listen to Justice or Skrillex these days and it's not like that aesthetic of "loud and annoying as possible" has really gone away. Just the monster bass riffs and airraid sirens.

18. Leftfield - Leftism (Hard Hands, 1995)
129 points, 7 votes, 1 first place vote.

http://i1326.photobucket.com/albums/u641/Lixenixen/leftism.jpeg

http://open.spotify.com/album/6Hh2XrY2Yuse8omAzSabdp

Agree with Dan - Leftism is fun but not nearly as ephocal as you'd expect from all the hype. That said, it's a very open-minded release (hints of dub, hip hop, jungle etc.) which is more than can be said for a lot of house artists circa '95.

― Tim, 10. elokuuta 2001 3:00

Leftism is FAR from overrated imo - it is certainly one of the most seminal dance albums to released in the 90's, and off the top of my head, cannot think of a more perfect example of the coming of age of electronic music and the death of rock.

― Jarrod, 2. heinäkuuta 2002 3:00

And anyway, well, sometime around 96-97, I discovered I didn't really hate all techno. There was even a lot of techno without melodies (although not without harmonies, which is even more important to me) that I liked.

Orbital's "In Sides" was the album that really turned me into techno, but I liked "Leftism" even before that.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), 19. huhtikuuta 2003 0:22

My #1

Whatever happened to Leftfield, btw? It seems they haven't released any new music since 1999, neither as Leftfield nor under any other aliases.

17. Basement Jaxx - Remedy (XL Recordings, 1999)
148 points, 9 votes.

http://i1326.photobucket.com/albums/u641/Lixenixen/remedy.jpeg

http://open.spotify.com/album/6G9fHYDCoyEErUkHrFYfs4

Not too long ago I picked up "Remedy" by the Basmeent Jaxx and I could have kicked myself for waiting this long.

― Brenya, 14. lokakuuta 2002 17:28

I picked up "Remedy" the other day knowing the 4 singles and "Same Old Show". It really is one of the best albums I've ever heard. It's smooth and flowing, suprising and unpredictable, bouncy and fun, hooky and spiky. It just sounds so easy.

― Nick H, 10. toukokuuta 2003 17:38

basement jaxx are the bomb squad of house

― vahid (vahid), 19. elokuuta 2003 7:08 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i mean more in the wall-of-sound sense. i am closing the bookstore and i'm going to put remedy on RIGHT THIS MINUTE.

― vahid (vahid), 19. elokuuta 2003 7:11

The Prodigy - Music for the Jilted Generation (XL Recordings, 1994)
155 points, 9 votes.

http://i1326.photobucket.com/albums/u641/Lixenixen/musicforthejiltedgeneration.jpg

http://open.spotify.com/album/04moHShgS3I0ErPt2mTAtd

summer of 94 i was 9 going on 10 and I remember hearing some older kids listening to this on their boom box in their garden and thinking, wow.

― Blackout Crew are the Beatles of donk (jim), 4. huhtikuuta 2009 2:06

When I was 14, I went to France on holiday with my best mate and his family - we had a tape of this which we listened to on headphones pretty much anytime we went anywhere by car throughout the whole two weeks. 'No Good', 'One Love', 'Break and Enter', all great but I'd have to pick 'Poison', it's just so hard.

― Gavin in Leeds, 4. huhtikuuta 2009 16:41

I think I've told this story before, but around the time this album came out, one day my cousin was sitting in his car at a parking lot and blasting it on his car stereo. When "One Love" started to play, some random dude came knocking on his window. My cousin opened the window, and the dude was like, "Yeah! Yeah! I love this track!", and proceeded to dance and sing the vocal sample along the tune.

― Tuomas, 5. huhtikuuta 2009 2:22

Shit, I love them, esp Music For The Jilted Generation which brought my rawking arse closer to dance.

― nathalie (nathalie), 28. elokuuta 2003 17:17

1990-1994 - The Prodigy - Dance music was my first and most natural love. I was given a radio for Christmas and hearing all the early (kiddy) rave stuff was amazing... So fast and sugary with comical noises etc. I got the first album the following Christmas and was disappointed with how the original single versions had been replaced with slightly drier, more serious remixes, but it didn't matter. A few years later, a lad came round with Music For A Jilted Generation and my mind was blown again - this wasn't kiddy rave pop, it was laced with evilous intent - references to drugs, swearing and loads of stuff I had NO IDEA about but knew my parents wouldn't like it.

― Why'd You Wanna Tweet Me So Bad? (dog latin), 22. elokuuta 2011 17:47

That's 16., obviously.

There will never be a better inner sleeve than that.

Yup, I'd forgotten about that cover. Brilliant.

so far the list is only 45% IDM, nice!

only artist of color not a junglist is carl craig, who of course invented jungle

Boo to Leftism but yay to everything else that's shown up today.

the top 10 is going to be all detroit techno

waiting for the lardossen takeover