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

Love the Brown album. Still gets a regular airing on the car stereo. It's all about that Lush, Impact, Remind run though.

Also must have worn out my CD single with Underworld's Lush 3.3 on it.

Wasn't there some sort of story where he lucid dreamt the album or something? Not sure how much truth there was in that.

Also where did the track titles come from? I remember them not having any but it seems things like Rhubarb and Cliffs are accepted as the the titles these days. Is that something to do with the little picture that accompanied each track?

How well does SAWII hold up today? Such a big important album. So many different moods and vibes and jarring bits and interesting bits and frightening bits, it's hard to define exactly how one should appreciate a record like this because, well, it's actually very hard to chill out to it.

My main memory of this record is reading books to it. That works best.

Wasn't there some sort of story where he lucid dreamt the album or something? Not sure how much truth there was in that.

He claims a lot of his melodies come to him in dreams and he can induce lucid dreaming through thinking about melodies etc.

Also where did the track titles come from? I remember them not having any but it seems things like Rhubarb and Cliffs are accepted as the the titles these days. Is that something to do with the little picture that accompanied each track?

― groovypanda, Friday, 2 November 2012 12:55 (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Made up by fans online. They're rather tenuous descriptions of the images on the inner sleeve.

6. Daft Punk - Homework (Virgin, 1997)
216 points, 12 votes.

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

I liked Homework better. Not because it is a better album per se, just because it is a bit more raw and tracky. It is the difference between a mid-90's underground 12" act vibe, or a more mature "musical" dance act.

At the end of the day nothing will beat hearing Mike Dearborn or Robert Armani play Rolling and Scratching or Rock and Roll right along with the hard tracky Chicago stuff through 10' tall bassbins at midwest raves in the mid-90's.

Your playing Daft Punk for the Rock Kids at CBGB's mileage may vary.

― Disco Nihilist (mjt), 17. tammikuuta 2005 7:27

Exactly, l like Homework for it's immediacy and intensity.

― supercub, 17. tammikuuta 2005 7:35

Loved it at the time and think it's a perfect distillation of 20 years of dance music up to that point. It's hard to forget now how by '96 a lot of electronic and club stuff was getting a really cheesy pseudo-spiritual vibe: from "underground" PLUR raves to drippy chart house and trance. This record put a harder, more streamlined perspective on things. Pedestrian it aint!

― Bodrick III, 2. maaliskuuta 2008 23:12

it was like a pop version of 20 years of Detroit and Chicago rolled into one, mixed with love, and while giving props to the artists they loved.

― pipecock, 3. maaliskuuta 2008 4:55

I only heard 'Homework' within the last month.

God only knows why I'd avoided them for so long. The suspicion of them being a major label act in the boom-time of dance popularity? I got it cheap and expected dissapointment, ace couple of singles, probably overlong filler.

fuck ................. me

16 tracks and I'd maybe lose only 3 or 4 if I had to and tbh nothing drags as much as I'd expected at all.

It's astounding. So simple in excecution, yet so innovative. All within the confines of a totally recognisable house/techno/disco blueprint (I mean it isn't 'prog'-anything).

And it rocks like a bastard.

― fandango (fandango), 31. toukokuuta 2005 2:08

REALLY didn't expect that to miss the top five.

I hope Tuomas fiddled the results to get Utah Saints in the top three or something.

Ah cheers.

So six to go and I'm thinking more Orbital, Homework and Boards Of Canada to come?

And would Massive Attack qualify?

I'm also guessing there'll be no place for Gargantuan in the Top 50 which is a shame.

No Massive Attack albums were nominated for this poll.

ugh Homework :(

those three Underworld albums wipe the floor with anything Daft Punk's done, come on people

I don't know about, but this poll is making me sad. Sorry :/

phew, for a minute i was worried there might be some dance music in the top 5

For them to wipe Daft Punk they'd have to get rid of the vocals first...

I actually love the original, instrumental version of "Dirty" (the one which samples the creepy toy sounds from Akira) more than any Daft Punk song; back in the day I was under the impression Underworld was some kind of a trance/ambient act, based on hearing only that track and "Why Why Why", so you can imagine my disappointment when I bought Dubnobass and found out every tune had rock singing on them. Only later did I find out Underworld were a indie band gone techno.

(xx-post)

Jabba, dance music is, by definition, more about tracks than albums, so it shouldn't be too surprising that the albums poll is less focused on dance than the tracks poll.

oh i'm not surprised :)

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

their 2CD (!) mix for FSUK was gr8 iirc

shan't be checking any time soon though

jed's Chill Out comment is beautiful

I wonder if there's any electronic music albums where that would true, though? I guess Vladislav Delay's Anima could theoretically be an example (though I don't really think it is): I can imagine him starting to record the track, then going to a nearby tea house while some random number generator runs the changes, then coming back after 50 minutes to add the vocal sample to the end.

Tuomas - have you heard "Thing in a Book"?

It's a joke about the actual recording process of the album, combined with its deliberately hypnagogic affect, but mainly lovely in its poetry

There's a Finnish rock musician who claims to have actually recorded an album in less time than its length. He says every song on it was a first take, and the band played everything non-stop in the studio, but on the album there are a few seconds of silence between the tracks, so the extra length comes from that.

ha

I don't know about, but this poll is making me sad. Sorry :/

I'm curious, what's missing that's making you sad?

"In Sides"

My money's on In Sides winning

SAW I is what my money's on.

SAW is good, for sure, but it never pulled me into a hypnotic state the way SAWII always does. Not sure why people rate it higher, except that it came first.

Pleased that dubnobass placed above Second Toughest, that feels like the right way round to me.

Can't really remember much about Beaucoup Fish though.

Beaucoup Fish is amazing

I wonder if there's any electronic music albums where that would true, though?

― Tuomas, Friday, November 2, 2012 2:06 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Fairly sure that side one of Discreet Music is played back at half speed. Don't quote me though.

i just love the sound of everything on it (SAW I). you can pull out almost any track from that album and hear a blueprint for a decade's worth of electronic music.

xposts

I'd rate dubno slightly above STITI, Beacoup Fish slightly below, but all three would probably make my top ten

I'm guessing SAW I and In Sides will be 1 and 2, SAW I just seems to have so many fans on here. #3 is probably gonna be Music has the Right to Children. *shudder* Also we haven't had Snivilisation yet as I would expect good things there

Snivilisation was always forgettable for me. and what's wrong with "Music Has the Right..."???

SAW1? Seriously? It's okay, it's got some lovely moments but it's not even in the top 3 Aphex albums let alone best electronic album of the '90s. The second side drags along quite a lot and it's a really inconsistent record compared to SAWII.

what's wrong with "Music Has the Right..."???

for me it'll always be one of those "four star albums given five star status by indie rock P4k worshippers who don't really know better" (see also: In an Aeroplane Over the Sea), I support its inclusion in the top 50, but if it makes top 5, you must be joking

SAW1 is a better record and one I think tends to represent the genre in a primordial way, as Thermo says "you can pull out almost any track from that album and hear a blueprint for a decade's worth of electronic music". I mean I get it. It doesn't really hold up so well today; I'd say even Dig Your Own Hole feels more relevant now. I would put it in the top 20, but thats it. But ILX really, really loves this record.

I like BF and dubno... equally. I've gone on at length with the issues I have with 2nd Toughest... and won't repeat them hear

every Orbital album from Brown through The Middle of Nowhere is amazing

Music Has a Right... is fucking great and I fully support it hitting top 5 if it does

where is artists of color

down at the bottom of the results, right where I expected they would be

Frogbs offtm. As if people are pretending they like BoC cos of some indie agenda. Pfork didn't even exist when this came out anyway. I do prefer Geogaddi slightly, but MHTRTC set the stage. It's too easy to look back and say it wasn't all that, especially in the light of hauntology and chillwave, but other than a few ghostbox releases, nothing like it had really come out before.

Pitchfork has been around since... 1995? 1996?

also, I love Music Has... to death but the entire Ninja Tune roster had been mining that territory for years, only with fewer samples of children

The special thing about MHTRTC is the muffled sound, a bit like magnetic remanence decay. Like the film deterioration on the cover, it pretty directly presses the nostalgia button in a lot of brains.

Eh I dunno, the main reason I liked it so much was because it was like a more cohesive version of the DJ Krush mix disc on Cold Krush Cuts, plus "Turquoise Hexagon Sun"; innovation/being something NEW never even crossed my mind, rather it hit me like a refinement of something I'd already been enjoying for the past two to three years

MHTRTC is a beautiful album, at the time the nostalgic public broadcast theme sampling thing really sounded quite different from what anyone else in the field was doing

wow i was listening to that dj krush thing - and dj vadim and wagon christ and lots of other sleepytime trip hop - but when it came out it really felt to me like BoC were coming from somewhere else

part of it is probably that THS was on the Bento Box compilation I'd been playing to death circa 97-98 so I was already tying it to stuff like "Mod You" in my mind back then, years before the album came out:

http://www.discogs.com/Various-Bento-Box/release/44028

I've always said 310 were doing a similar thing as BoC (sepia-toned, breakbeat-based headphones music where nostalgia mixes with underlying creepiness) in the late 90s/early 00s, except that they had a more unique sound (BoC still owns a lot to the 90s Warp sound, besides the nostalgia thing there's nothing particularly original in their production), but few people were paying attention to them.

5. Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works 85-92 (Apollo, 1992)
232 points, 10 votes, 2 first place votes.

http://i1326.photobucket.com/albums/u641/Lixenixen/saw8592.jpeg

this is such a special album, could conceivably vote for at least half the tracks

another album i didn't srsly take an interest in for years despite liking most of the rest of afx, but i'm mystified in retrospect because this is such a transparently brilliant record

the gossamer synths and electro insistency create a lighter-than-air driftiness that's really unplaceable, not kosmische but not of this world (whereas the second selected ambient works is very much a chthonic creature)

nothing gets close

― The Managing Director of Being (nakhchivan), 29. syyskuuta 2010 15:02

SAW2 is a classic piece of canonical garbage. everybody owns a copy but nobody listens to it.

― TOMBOT,

Nicely put. I did have a few months of intense listening and it was very special, but 85-92 was a little more outgoing, and somehow connected meaningfully with the rave experience, if I may be so silly as to say it.

― moley, 29. lokakuuta 2008 7:24

i love how scratchy, old and weird 85-92 sounds

― the sir weeze, 29. lokakuuta 2008 15:28

SAW1 makes me immensely happy and brings make too many good memories of being in London and my conversion from serious student to clubber; SAW2 is rewarding, but not immediate in the same way as SAW1.

I listened to both this week, and SAW1 wins.

― Nik (Nik), 9. huhtikuuta 2004 23:29

you have to love that one track that is a complete rip off of Discreet Music by Brain Eno. I really lived in the record for a while a year or two ago. amazing what you can do with a matrix 6 and ms20 and a sampler.

― Disco Nihilist (mjt), 6. marraskuuta 2006 2:51

to my knowledge, I've still never heard this

prob more accurate: I've probably heard it twice way after the fact and don't remember a thing about it