defend 1996

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Oh yes, Ye Olde Pinketron! I am biased insofar as in 1996 I had just moved to Chicago and started buying loads of music I didn't previously have available to me: I was listening to indie and indie was going through an interesting (and Chicago-friendly) transition, I (and presumably lots of other people) was just really opening up to dance and electronic music as more than a sideline to my regular listening; it was quite possibly the year that I was most interested in music and most excited about throwing myself into it. Obviously none of this defends that year's releases, and in fact a lot of the stuff I was just getting excited about went back a year or two: I think what I'm arguing was that it was an interesting and exciting year for me, musically speaking, and even in retrospect I'd argue that it really was an interesting and exciting moment in general. *

* And per Ethan's complaint YES, I DO mean this in an indie-centric way. "Electronica" was just opening up into unprecedented far-flung territories, the whole alt-rock explosion left "indie" scrambling for new territory, and the two were both colliding with these internationalist pop ideas and German, French, Brazilian, and Japanese influences and for a moment these territories were unstable and about to get pretty damned interesting.

― nabisco%%, Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Lamb. I look kindly upon any year that brought me Gorecki.

Fever In Fever Out as well.

― chris j, Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Blackstreet: "No Diggity" (Interscope)
Best single EVER made. No matter what comes next, this will stay number one.

― cuba libre (nathalie), Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

did dare just use the phrase "electronica explosion"?

― jess, Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

my bad, that was nitsuh.

― jess, Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

"electronica explosion"
KABOOM

― Nate Patrin, Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

you people are so Yearist

― electric sound of jim, Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

yeah i can never remember what year stuff happened unless i wasn't there/just read about it. i think 1996 was The Year Heroin Destroyed Our Band though, that's special.

― unknown or illegal user, Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

1996 was alright if you didn't like Tupac Shakur.

― Curt, Wednesday, 29 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Duane - is that, being NZ, The Year Cheap-Heroin-Substitutes Destroyed Our Band? Or on tour? Spacedusted In Memphis?

― dylan, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

oh it didnt really happen, it was just something i heard about from other ppl.

― , Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

JESS I SAID "ALT-ROCK EXPLOSION." I described electronica as "opening up into unprecedented far-flung territories."

― nabisco%%, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

(Which I'm still not sure how much I can defend the latter but I would try.)

― nabisco%%, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

"alt-rock" = "electronica"!

― geeta, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

haha thank you geeta.

― jess, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

did dr. dre produce no diggety or was it the head blackstreet boy, er teddy riley? i remember dre was in the video, wearing some kind of football jersey. but yeah, it's amazing.

― dave k, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Riley prod'd it. Dre just "rapped" (cough, cough) a verse

― M Matos, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

haha, i don't remember his actual rapping at all, just the shot of him on the beach posing before the camera moves into the party inside. also, moby sampled the piano riff in 'honey' from california love, right?

― dave k, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Best things on the radio, Auckland 1996: The Fugees (playing indie pop rap like a game of chess), the Spice Girls (pre-teen solidarity w/ partner swapping) and Darcy Clay (recorded demo, gave it the best title ever, "Jesus I Was Evil", and got it played). Does any of this cancel out Kula Shaker? Of course not.

― B-Rad, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

four years pass...

I was thinking the other day about how much I hated 1996 as a year for music. I only really started paying proper attention to music in 94, and yes I'm a huge advocate for Britpop (retrospectively, yes a lot of it was shite but at 15 it was all exciting!). 1996 spelled the arse-end of peak period Britpop and ushered in a bunch of bands that make my skin crawl.

Goth-Pop Revival
Garbage, Placebo, Suede - all the crap bits about Grunge but with eyeliner and men dressed in bin bags

Big Beat
A bunch of goons from Brighton making dance music out of children's cartoons is never going to be a dance revolution.

Jungle becomes Drum'n'Bass
Heralding a wave of boring loops with no energy to them at all. New Forms was a crap album, I WANT BIG BEEFY BASSLINES DAMNIT!

Britpop goes crap:
People don't remember Britpop for This Is A Low and Common People, no. People remember a bunch of soundalikes wearing waterproofs and making tuneless bilge about god knows what and Liam Gallagher flipping the bird at the camera.

Poppy Ska-Punk :
No Doubt, Reel Big Fish and that other band started it and before you knew every Hollywood High-School Prom band was fronted by a chubby goateed part-dude with a chequered tie. Queue a billion Ska-Punk covers of cheesy 80s songs.

Mitigating factors: If You're Feeling Sinister, Expecting To Fly

― wogan lenin (dog latin), Friday, 28 July 2006 09:50 (seventeen years ago) link

Mitigating factors: If You're Feeling Sinister, Expecting To Fly

LOLOLOLOLOL

― Roughage Crew (Enrique), Friday, 28 July 2006 09:57 (seventeen years ago) link

Is this an attempt to make Louis Jagger feel more at home?

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Friday, 28 July 2006 09:59 (seventeen years ago) link

coulda sworn 'sinister' was '97 anyway...

― Roughage Crew (Enrique), Friday, 28 July 2006 10:01 (seventeen years ago) link

Born Slippy didn't come out in 1996, I definitely remember buying some compilation which had it in 1995. But it was popularized by Trainspotting in 1996.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Friday, 28 July 2006 10:03 (seventeen years ago) link

ah 'sinister' was late '96.

fair point tuomas but to all intents and porpoises, 'born slippy' fkn DEFINED '96.

― Roughage Crew (Enrique), Friday, 28 July 2006 10:05 (seventeen years ago) link

Anyway, to defend 1996, one of the best rap LPs of the nineties came out then:

http://www.cdquest.com/images/album_art/sorted/0049/9250/0049925053227.jpg

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Friday, 28 July 2006 10:09 (seventeen years ago) link

I forgot also - Presidents Of The USA and Steve Lamacq coming out as music's biggest bilge-shoveller.

― wogan lenin (dog latin), Friday, 28 July 2006 10:09 (seventeen years ago) link

even the Boo Radleys released a slightly weaker album, C'Mon Kids (which I still like but it's not THAT good). It just seems like everything that was popular in 1996 has aged really really badly. Fun Lovin' Criminals etc... Whereas lots things from 1994 (Parklife, Music For A Jilted Generation, SAWII), 95 (Supergrass, Common People) 97 (OK Computer and loads of other stuff) are still classic.

Shit, is OK Computer really 9 years old?!!

― wogan lenin (dog latin), Friday, 28 July 2006 10:13 (seventeen years ago) link

1996 was when techstep broke through, right? For a while it felt like the future.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Friday, 28 July 2006 10:13 (seventeen years ago) link

You people are crazy! 1996 gave us:

Mogwai - "Tuner" and "Summer"
Ween - 12 Golden Country Greats
Scooter - Wicked
White Town - "Your Woman"
Air - "Modulor Mix"
Robert Miles - "Children"
DJ Trace - "Mutant Revisited"
The Cardigans - "Lovefool"
Sneaker Pimps - "Spin Spin Sugar (Armand's Dark Garage Mix)"
Disco Inferno - Technicolour

"defend 2006" would be a better thread.

― Mr. Snrub (Mr. Snrub), Friday, 28 July 2006 10:32 (seventeen years ago) link

people who think this year sucked suck

― Konal Doddz (blueski), Friday, 28 July 2006 10:40 (seventeen years ago) link

WHAT ABOUT THE BLUESTONES

― ESTEBAN BUTTEZ The Unstoppable Troll Machine (ESTEBAN BUTTEZ~!!!), Friday, 28 July 2006 10:42 (seventeen years ago) link

Also 1996 brought us OMC and you can't diss that.

1997 was a far worse year for music and almost put me off all recorded sound forever.

― ESTEBAN BUTTEZ The Unstoppable Troll Machine (ESTEBAN BUTTEZ~!!!), Friday, 28 July 2006 10:46 (seventeen years ago) link

just think of all those people reading this revived thread now, groaning and saying about how it should be locked/deleted.

― Konal Doddz (blueski), Friday, 28 July 2006 10:48 (seventeen years ago) link

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/51/Helenlovejoy.jpg

Sanskrit, yesterday.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Friday, 28 July 2006 10:51 (seventeen years ago) link

Looking at that NME top 50, this was def the year that organ and I were tightest, I liked a whole lot of that list.

I realised/estimated last night that this is the 10th anniversary MONTH I got into punk rock properly, which without sounding old and shit, was probably more important (to me) in hindsight

― DJ Mencap (DJ Mencap), Friday, 28 July 2006 10:51 (seventeen years ago) link

this was probably the year i bought most records and lived music most intensely.

plus it had 'endtroducing'.

but the aftertaste is curiously 'noelrock' :/

― Roughage Crew (Enrique), Friday, 28 July 2006 10:52 (seventeen years ago) link

monkeymafiaworkmibody.jpg

― Konal Doddz (blueski), Friday, 28 July 2006 10:57 (seventeen years ago) link

boymerangstillurbanspace.jpg

― Konal Doddz (blueski), Friday, 28 July 2006 10:59 (seventeen years ago) link

― Roughage Crew (Enrique), Friday, 28 July 2006 11:00 (seventeen years ago) link

lfoadvance.jpg

― Konal Doddz (blueski), Friday, 28 July 2006 11:00 (seventeen years ago) link

bad hotlinkin' me

― Konal Doddz (blueski), Friday, 28 July 2006 11:01 (seventeen years ago) link

http://vidangesdudiable.blogspirit.com/images/medium_man-head-hands.jpg

― Roughage Crew (Enrique), Friday, 28 July 2006 11:01 (seventeen years ago) link

tell us the picture in words!

― Roughage Crew (Enrique), Friday, 28 July 2006 11:02 (seventeen years ago) link

fixd

― Konal Doddz (blueski), Friday, 28 July 2006 11:03 (seventeen years ago) link

boys for pele by tori amos came out in 1996 => classic

― The Lex (The Lex), Friday, 28 July 2006 11:07 (seventeen years ago) link

excelsior!

― Roughage Crew (Enrique), Friday, 28 July 2006 11:53 (seventeen years ago) link

Tori Amos = an own goal for the defence.

― fandango (fandango), Friday, 28 July 2006 11:58 (seventeen years ago) link

armand's 'professional widow' remix is ten years old woo

― Konal Doddz (blueski), Friday, 28 July 2006 12:00 (seventeen years ago) link

an equaliser!

― fandango (fandango), Friday, 28 July 2006 12:00 (seventeen years ago) link

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