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

well i guess Ultraworld would be a fairer comparison chronologically and is yet to place.

too much wine.

originally read that as 'ultrasound' which would have been a weird twist, even for ILM standards ...

I much prefer their Chapterhouse remodelling entitled Pentamerous Metamorphosis. But as the listmaker for the first internet poll that enshrined 76:14 as an all-time ambient album, I can't deny 76:14's staying power.

I much prefer their Chapterhouse remodelling entitled Pentamerous Metamorphosis.

ringo bingo.

that deserves a big OTM from me ..

:D at using the inner gatefold of Jilted instead of the cover

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

they split up, apparently largely due to touring- and stimulant-related stresses on their personal relationship. Neil Barnes reformed to tour in 2010 with most of the original singers and a new drummer, with Daley's blessing but continued lack of interest in being involved.

Ah, thanks for the info. It doesn't look like either has done any solo releases either.

13. Underworld - Dubnobasswithmyheadman (Junior Boy's Own, 1994)
167 points, 7 votes.

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

Classic for sure. I ignored it for a few years as people were telling me how great it was and then was smitten around 96 and it struck me as sounding kinda old fashioned too, an almost 80's synth pop influence. I dug it out recently and it still sounds great.

― Winkelmann, 28. elokuuta 2002 12:19

dubnobasswithmyheadman eliminated the barriers between dance's escapism and modern life. it is the Velvet Underground & Nico of dance - a little clumsy, dated, known better for 2 or 3 songs - nonetheless forcing dance kids to listen to their own music with new ears and rock fans to revamp their notions of how popular music can be "soundtrack of life."

dubno is Bernard Summer discovering Fool's Gold on a 4/4 skyscraper in a city of balkanized thoughts. so classic Christ was on crutches.

― slippyepic, 29. elokuuta 2002 17:54

I don't understand all those comments above about it sounding a bit dated!!!! Er, how can I put this, it's a decade old dance music album, of course it's going to sound dated!!!!! And as for that "Awful, soulless, funk-free British knotted-hankie-on-yer-head techno shitness", that's a bit like saying The Eagles would have been decent if they shaved their beards off and didn't play guitars ie it's kind of missing the point in a massive way!!!! At the time most of the decent techno was soul-less, funk-free British knotted-hankie-on-yer-head, (or alternatively soul-less, funk-free and from Johnny Foreigner in Euroland!!!!!) and that's why it was bloody ace!!!! If you wanted "funky" and "soulful", you could go for progessive house, "garage", retreads of late-80s Detroit, "ambient dub" and millions of other dreary bollox that have dated so badly that they make "Dubnobass..." sounds like it was recorded in the year 3759!!!! (And before anyone mentions jungle, let remind you that at the time of the release "Dubnobass..." it was still underground and generally regarded as an extreme 'like gabber with breakbeats' offspring of hardcore rave- at least it was before some berks let go of their "progessive" records for long enough to put "jazz" chords over the beats, although the end results was usually about as "jazzy" as Val Doonican!!!!!)

― Old Fart!!! (oldfart_sd), 7. tammikuuta 2004 12:16

Wasn't Underworlds Dubnobass etc over 55 minutes. For me that constantly evolved and never once felt like a filler track plugging a musical gap anywhere on it

― Sonicred, 3. joulukuuta 2001 3:00

i mean the thing about underworld in general, and dubnobass in particular, is that you're guaranteed a few shit tracks per album. but when they're good, they're really, really good. and you can't knock cowgirl, or skyscraper. dark, moody, euphoric, utterly fucked lyrics. and superb production.

propellorheads? generic, going-through-the-motions big beat. dull at the time and they haven't dated well.

― drasticman, 13. tammikuuta 2006 18:57

Holy hell this Paperclip People album is amazing. Why did no one tell me about this before?

12. Underworld - Beaucoup Fish (Junior Boy's Own, 1999)
168 points, 7 votes, 1 first place vote.

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

I think one of the things that draws me back to Beaucoup Fish most frequently of all the Underworld albums is that it's really such an unusual proposition. I love Dubnobass... to death and totally understand why it's the favourite of many listeners, but I think if you described Underworld to someone who hadn't heard them before but knew dance music, they would imagine Dubnobass... and be spot on! Of all their albums it most closely lives up to the idea of Underworld as being Massive Attack with the hip hop basis replaced by dance music. Second Toughest... is a more inscrutable and enigmatic album (and the proper ballad moments are their best ever in that vein) but again it follows in the same general vein apart from some surface level stylistic modification (the occasional breakbeat etc.).

Whereas Beacoup Fish I think really plays around with one's assumption as to what Underworld are by just being so brutally uncompromising and tracky so frequently, and because Karl is so often very aggressive. Like, I find the first four tracks to be a totally emotional suite, but not emotional in the sense that the group inject "rock" emotion into a dance setting - the ebb and flow of intensity is much closer to a DJ set. And I perversely enjoy the fact that the slower tracks are just really odd and unwelcoming - it's like the group want to avoid people finding any sort of "relief" in them. Instead, the slow tracks are the uncomfortably, unsettling moments and the hard-edged tracks are the heart and soul of the album.

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), 13. marraskuuta 2004 6:08

All this talk of the new Underworld single led me to look for it on WinMX (NO JOY). What I ended up with instead was track 8 from _Beaucoup Fish_, a track I find to be stunning, surreal, ominous, uplifting, oppressive and all-around fucking marvelous. I would even go as far as saying that it's far and away the best thing Underworld has ever recorded, narrowly beating out "Pearl's Girl", "Dirty Epic", "MMM Skyscraper I Love You" and "Tongue". That lovely bliss-out part at 4:25 that just drones and swirls on for a minute is truly breath-taking, making a perfect counterpoint to the dirty drum cadence at the beginning of the song.

Why wasn't this a single instead of "Bruce Lee" (aka "That Fucking Embarrassing Song Which Is The Only Thing Keeping Me From Buying _Beaucoup Fish_")?

― Dan Perry, 17. kesäkuuta 2002 3:00

Second Toughest is sooo much worse than Beaucoup Fish it's ridiculous. I phoned Derrick May and he agreed.

― RickyT (RickyT), 1. marraskuuta 2004 1:54

I agree with everyone who's said Beaucoup Fish is Underworld's best album. Those HUGE lush chords in jumbo! And that syncopated synth riff in the closing minuts of Cups! Amazing. And many other bits too.

― JimD (JimD), 2. marraskuuta 2004 15:19

So yeah, Beaucoup Fish beat Dubnobass... by just one point.

lots of vote splitting it feels like? How many people voted in this? I'd have thought it would be insanely popular given this board's demographic.

All in all about 40 people voted in the poll, but I think only 25-30 of them voted for albums, the rest were tracks-only ballots.

No no no.

Dubno > STITI > BF

No Orbital or Daft Punk yet either

The Underworld albums are the right way round I think. Never liked Second Toughest but Beaucoup Fish is by far their best. It sags in the middle a bit but those first four tracks are just wow.

no way. how is BF higher than the other 2? Crazy!

11. LFO - Frequencies (Warp Records, 1991)
169 points, 8 votes.

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

Why is it after all this time I still think this is the best "Techno" record ever? I just can not find fault in anything about it. I have listened to electronic based music for years here as well so I am not some naive kid... DM/Kraftwerk/Soft Cell/HL/etc... to Juan Atkins/Derrick May/Armando etc... to Hawtin/Beltram/Tresor/R&S etc... now onto (too many to list) I just think that after 14 years of listening to this record and still thinking it is a masterpiece deserves some mention. It was hard for me to say this as I love sooooo much from this time period... but this one still throws one up me.

― benoit, 6. toukokuuta 2005 15:26

One of my all-time favorites. Completely sublime and still offering rewards each time I listen to it.

― chris breitenbach (Chris808), 6. toukokuuta 2005 18:55

Frequencies = still dope beyond all reason

― Music should never have changed anymore after my mid 80s (Noodle Vague), 15. lokakuuta 2009 11:37

"Frequencies" is probably my favourite warp album ever. The 5 track - We are back/Tan ta ha/you have to understand/el ef oh/ love is the message - sequence of the album makes me almost explode with joy. The sounds are so basic; the result is so rich. Gorgeous.

― jed_ (jed), 4. syyskuuta 2004 4:01

I have to take a break from posting now, but I'll try to post the final results later today.

Go on with the top 10 speculation then, you know you wanna!

More Aphex, the two Boards albums, a couple from Orbital, Photek and Incunabula of course ;)

I'm surprised Jilted Generation ranked so low. Overexposure maybe?

Frequencies is just amazing. I saw Mark Bell play live as LFO last year and the set was still largely drawn from that album and he took the room and shook it.

Do people actually listen to Jilted Generation that much? I haven't touched it in years.

Does anyone listen to anything on this list that much any more? I don't exactly dig out Jilted on a regular basis, but it was massively important to me throughout the nineties - got played pretty much any social occasion because of its wide appeal.

10. Super Discount
9. The White Rooms
8. Selected Ambient Works II
7. Endtroducing
6. In Sides
5. Music Has The Right To Children
4. Orbital II - The Brown Album
3. Homework
2. Selected Ambient Works 88-92
1. Bentley Rhythm Ace - Bentley Rhythm Ace

Played Jilted to death the year it came out and occasionally for the next couple of years. Honestly don't think I've listened to it once in the last 10.

Dubno still gets a couple of airings a year.

I listened to the whole of Exit Planet Dust yesterday. If anything it's improved with age (for me at least) totally thrilling, and you can really hear the Dust Brothers influence in there which I never noticed the first time round.

I've never heard Super Discount! Christ on crutches, there's so many records on this list I always thought I'd get round to checking out and never got to.

I've actually been listening to Super Discount again the last couple of weeks. Great record and much better than Super Discount 2.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4biQDLz_uwI

1. Bentley Rhythm Ace - Bentley Rhythm Ace

― Matt DC,

ouch!

i was actually half expecting them to turn up. for some reason, and despite being wilfully crap, they're sort of the first band i think of when i hear the phrase "nineties dance music".

Being an old bastard who doesn't keep up with new releases as much as I did, I listen to stuff on this list / era quite regularly.

I think the only album among these I still play regularly is Las Vegas... But I do occasionally give Music for the Jilted Generation a spin, and it never sounds dated (unlike many other mid-90s breakbeat/d&b records), and I have such fond memories of that album and that era (I was 15 when it came out, the perfect age for something like MftJG; I can't remember ever having expected - and subsequently, played - any album as much as I did that one) that it would've been impossible not to put it in my top 10.

I liked that Bentley Rhythm Ace album at the time. LOOK I WAS 18 OKAY???

I remember some friends playing BRA a lot back in the day, but now I can't quite recall what they sounded like...? Were they like a big beat version of Mouse on Mars?

I've seen Bentley Rhythm Ace live (they were on a Radio 1 Sound City double bill with DJ Shadow. We stood at the back and talked through their set.)

I don't know what a big beat version of MoM would be like but iirc they were utterly artless, music for the lads mag set.

This was probably the best thing they did. And it's still pretty shit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IWl77o3l50

more like a big beat version of Pop Will Eat Itself, and if I remember (I try to block the memories TBH) they had some greebo-type connections?

members of PWEI and EMF

Members of Pop Will Eat Itself were actually in Bentley Rhythm Ace so yeah that's yr connection. (xpost)

Dubno > STITI > BF
This is correct ==> this poll is wrong.

my prediction is that mr fingers-introduction is not gonna make it and i can think of no sadder indictment.

the youtube comments on BRA songs are super unfathomable:

"these were way ahead of their time and because of that people thought they were too obscure and cast them aside.."

in what universe could BRA have been ignored for being ahead of their time? they were the most 1997 of all acts who released records in 1997.

i saw BRA dj when i was 18, they played the coronation st theme tune

lol 90s

I remember some friends playing BRA a lot back in the day, but now I can't quite recall what they sounded like...? Were they like a big beat version of Mouse on Mars?

― Tuomas, Friday, 2 November 2012 11:03 (20 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Heinously in-jokey big beat act mixing lightweight Skint Records beats with comedy whistle-and-bell samples. They were going for a "British indie-dance played out the back of a Morris Minor at a carboot sale" vibe and represented much of what was wrong with the mid-90s IMO.

Yeah the 90s album dance canon has felt really ossified for, what, 10 years now? I'd expect the tracks list to be a LOT more vibrant and surprising.

no Nightmares on Wax on this poll? I'd have liked to have seen their second album in the lower echelons. I'm just surprised this didn't get a bigger response.

Sure it's shit but I still quite like "Bentley's Gonna Sort You Out". Considerably less after watching the video (for the first time, today) though.

Can dog latin or anyone else tell me why BRA are "heinously in-jokey" but the goofier moments of his new 80s thread (which btw I've enjoyed the youtubes on and will be watching with interest), Nightmares on Wax or Aphex Twin are "mutant/offbeat/catchy nonsense", in ways more specific/descriptive than asserting that BRA are shit? I mean "BRA are shit because they're jokey" but clearly being jokey isn't enough to be shit and it all gets a bit circular "they're shit because their jokes are shit and their jokes are shit because they're shit", not that I disagree.

(btw I do like the three other things I mentioned in the previous post, and can't remember a single Bentleys track apart from "...Sort You Out". I think I bought the album for £1 from a charity shop and listened to it all of once. Let us not talk of how I also spent money on reduced-to-clear promo bin singles by Bentleys/PWEI drummer Fuzz Townshend.)

Suppose it's that fine line between humorous music and comedy music.

Air - Moon Safari (Source, 1998)
170 points, 9 votes.

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

wht a fkn GREAT album

I hear loads in it now I'd never have heard back when I first listened

― cozen (Cozen), 3. joulukuuta 2005 18:39

this record goes out of its way to sound nice. makes it great fodder for shoe stores and thai restaurants. it is a sweet thing to listen to though.

― Charlie Howard, 13. maaliskuuta 2008 18:32

This album reminds me of good times. Although I bought it in fall '99, a year after its release, it took nearly that long for it to make an impact in my little group. It played at a lot of parties. "Kelly Watch The Stars!" I listen to most fondly.

― Filmmaker, Author, Radio Host Stephen Baldwin (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), 26. toukokuuta 2010 3:07

La Femme D'Argent is quintessential Air to me, closest to what I liked about early singles like Casanova 70, Modular, Le Soleil est Pres de Moi, etc. I like the pop stuff just fine but this is where I think they introduced a whole new vocabulary to downtempo instrumental music.

― Haunted Clocks For Sale (Dorianlynskey), 28. toukokuuta 2010 17:15