PEOPLE OF THE NATIONS, DANCING TOGETHER! It's the 1990s TOP 100 ELECTRONIC TRACKS poll results!

85. (tie) Bizarre Inc - Playing with Knives (Vinyl Solution, 1991)
336 points, 7 votes.

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

http://youtu.be/KQuHvJh_LeA

I think that the Mixmag Live! Hardcore Techno Classics mix is not bad, especially as it contains "Playing with knives".

― Aaron Grossman (aajjgg), 31. elokuuta 2002 6:26

"Playing With Knives" is obv one of the all time classic rave tracks

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), 18. toukokuuta 2005 19:48

i spent last friday night at an altern-8 gig in london (sooo good). i dunno about 'i'm gonna get you' but i'm certain 'playing with knives' got played at least about four times. this thread has just reminded me of it all again and i'm a very happy bunny now indeed ;)
oh and CLASSICCLASSICCLASSIC obviously as if it needs to be said any more....

― peteflynn (piratestyle), 19. toukokuuta 2005 14:10

lots of Bizarre Inc - always thought they were kind of an underrated 90s dance act really.

the three most underrated 90s dance albums IMO:

T99 - Children of Chaos
Eon - Void Dweller
Bizarre Inc - Energize

Don't know how I missed this, but so far the results suggest my ballot would've been with the crowd.

85. (tie) The Source featuring Candi Staton - You Got the Love (Truelove Electronic Connections, 1991)
336 points, 7 votes.

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

Original video with crappy sound.

Longer mix with much better sound.

The Source's "You've Got The Love" bass line

The other mix with a hardcore break and gospel pianos is also amazing.

Loving the overall raviness of this list so far

This feels too UK-centric so far. Not necessarily a bad thing.

Loving the overall raviness of this list so far

― formerly EDB (ed.b), Wednesday, December 12, 2012 6:04 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Can't go wrong with Playing With Knives.

This feels too UK-centric so far. Not necessarily a bad thing.

― Moka

UK dance music 90-94 is perhaps my favourite period of any music ever, so definitely no bad thing.

OTM

The other mix with a hardcore break and gospel pianos is also amazing.

link (or mix name)?

84. Aphex Twin - Rhubarb (aka track 3 of Selected Ambient Works II) (Warp Records, 1994)

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

http://youtu.be/ZVvjXJentik

the first three tracks on disc one. (especially three.) ;)

― jess, 27. lokakuuta 2001 3:00

With Jess. Especially about that third track.

― Ned Raggett, 27. lokakuuta 2001 3:00

Yup, that's the one for me. Best thing he ever did and he's no slouch when it comes to good stuff.

― Billy Dods, 27. lokakuuta 2001 3:00

Oddly enough, I think I would nominate this because it is so involving and entrancing. It is very out-of-yer-body and is creepy as a result.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), 4. toukokuuta 2003 4:19

i can't overstate how much i love this piece. (as a side note cddb now calls it "rhubarb," which seems a bit odd...are these the unofficial titles people puzzled out from the pics in the liner notes?) it marks the only time i've ever used a repeat function on a cd player. i wanted to listen to it a few times and accidentally left it on for at least an hour or two late at night. it must be tapped into my personal resonant frequency or something.

it seems strange to me that this and nirvana were happening coincidentally, on virtually opposite sides of the world. i experienced them sequentially but they've coincidentally both drifted back into my life- i just added saw II to itunes finally, and it and nevermind keep cropping up on random play.

― rgeary (rgeary), 6. huhtikuuta 2004 8:37

Sorry, forgot the points:

337 points, 5 votes, one 1st place vote.

83. Hardfloor - Acperience 1 (Harthouse, 1992)
337 points, 5 votes, two 1st place votes.

http://i1326.photobucket.com/albums/u641/Lixenixen/acperience1.jpg

http://youtu.be/wj4fj3VJ-Pk

Classic, they perfected one template, wobbly acid-line, fat bass, breakdown, enter strings, here come the drums, whoom-whoom, Nirvana!

― Omar, 10. marraskuuta 2001 3:00

the first time i heard hardfloors hardtrance acperience at the orbit (cant remember who dropped it), and then it fades out, and out and out, and then BBAAAAAAMMMMMMMMMMMM!! and the whole place is hanging from the rafters and there are lazers everywhere and the floor is shaking and everyone knows wow something really incredible just happened, like, this is the greatest thing ever!

― gareth (gareth), 21. lokakuuta 2002 16:16

although the second time might have been better, becuase this time, we knew! we knew what was coming, the minute that bassline bounces in, and the whole crowd is peaking and like YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

― gareth (gareth), 21. lokakuuta 2002 16:17

There was no point making any more acid trance after that was there? You were never going to top Acperience.

― Treblekicker, 24. lokakuuta 2008 20:15

This list is already loads more fun and unexpected than the albums list. Of the two massive diva house tracks here I think Finally has definitely lasted the best. Possibly it's overplay I dunno, but I never need to hear You Got The Love again, like all enjoyment has been wrung out of it, but I can't imagine ever getting tired of Finally.

I feel the other way round. But I also feel like You Got The Love shouldn't be on this list, or at least if it's on a 90s list it also has to go on every decade's list.

Nice to see Acperience place. Getting kind of excited to see what direction the list goes in from here, because so far I'm not getting much feel for what subgenres and eras will dominate the higher placings.

That's not the Hardfloor track I voted for (my vote went to "Once Again Back", which still has, 21 years after it was released, the roughest, moss kick-ass bassline I've ever heard in dance music), but I'm glad it made it. They were largely responsible for reviving acid in the 90s, and as mentioned in this thread, "Acperience" also popularized the build & release technique that became quite common in 90s techno/house/trance.

I prefer Aceperience 5, which is a bit harder and seems to have more tension in it, but that might just be because I heard it first (a friend taped it for me in early 94, I didn't hear the Acperience 1 until I bought Flux Trax about 18 months later). That whole build & release technique was done to death and sounds annoyingly formulaic now.

I'm not well versed on the history of "You Got the Love", but AFAIK it was originally a disco/boogie tune released in 1986, then some British guy used an acappella of it and remixed with Jamie Principle's "Your Love", which was first released as a bootleg 1989, then officially released in 1991. So yeah, technically it's an 1980s tune, but since this version became commercially available (and subsequently became a hit) only in 1991, it's fair to include it on the 1990s list.

Maybe one or two ILXors heard the remix in 1989, but I assume for the most of us it's firmly a 90s tune.

this edit of it with the beat from "She's a Bitch" has been ruling my world of late

https://soundcloud.com/totalfreedom/slice-4-minimal-complaint-also

82. Origin Unknown - Valley of The Shadows (RAM Records, 1993)
341 points, 5 votes

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

http://youtu.be/a5meT63flnM

Can't find any good comment on it on ILX, but this is generally considered to be the first "darkcore" track, right? Or are there earlier examples? Also, it's one of the two tracks in the top 100 to inspire a book title.

Hardfloor disappointingly low. I was one of the #1 votes. The quintessential 90s dance record for me - a track that established a new template and did it so well that countless imitators couldn't improve on it. I never get bored of it.

The other mix with a hardcore break and gospel pianos is also amazing.

link (or mix name)?

― ( ͡° ͜ʖ͡°) (sic)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7dMGw3uzEU

Sorry to clutter the thread, but I don't know how to do non-imbed YTs.

Continuing the thought, dance tracks like Acperience and Horsepower (which I hope to see later in the poll) have the same effect on me as, say, I Wanna Be Your Dog - nothing extraneous, nothing high-minded, just the perfect application of noise.

"other mix with a hardcore break and gospel pianos is also amazing" - The Now Voyager mix?

I dunno what it's called, but I just posted it.

for future ref, the youtu.be shortened urls don't embed the video as far as i'm aware.

Yes, that's why I'm posting them instead of youtube.com urls. You get the youtu.be url by clicking "share".

Thanks!

81. I-f - Space Invaders Are Smoking Grass (Viewlexx, 1997)
343 points, 6 votes.

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

http://youtu.be/5Nx6QZnps_0

I-F heeft wel aangekondigd te stoppen met electro en iets heel nieuws te gaan doen. Hij is waarschijnlijk toch wel binnen omdat op elke electro verzamelaar verplicht Space Invaders Are Smoking Grass schijnt te moeten staan.
Ik ben trouwens ook erg benieuwd wat Felix Da Houscat samen met Marilyn Manson aan het brouwen is.

― Martijn ter Haar (wmterhaar), 4. syyskuuta 2002 13:59

Unofficial (as if!) leader of the "The Hague Underground" is I-f, well known for his Space Invaders Are Smoking Grass hit. I think it's all a bit ridiculous.

― JoB (JoB), 4. syyskuuta 2002 13:05

at least in NYC, Electroclash was a very specifically branded thing which attracted dozens and dozens and dozens of bands that came from diverse backgrounds but shared certain things...bad drum machine programming, weak preset synth sounds, assymetrical haircuts, new wave aesthethics etc. Failed ex-techno producers were adding guitars and singers and failed ex-rock bands were adding drum machines and synthesizers. They came from Austin and Chicago and San Francisco other distant locales, though some probably stayed in San Francisco. I can name an absurd amount of these bands but most never got as far as releasing a record beyond a 4 song cd-r demo.

There was the superficial and aesthethic influence coming from "electro" as in the electro-funk revival started in Detroit, Germany and England around 95, but it was more influenced by the electro into italo revival epitomized by I-F's Space Invaders are Smoking Grass in the late 80s and his Mixed Up at the Hague mix from 2000.

Sorry, what I'm trying to get at is electroclash as a distinctly seperate thing from the electro revival, perhaps.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), 11. toukokuuta 2004 21:55

I love Space Invaders Are Smoking Grass

― This Is... The Police (dog latin), 10. syyskuuta 2012 15:00

Oo, new to me. I like that.

Nice choice. Again, probably would've maybe been on my ballot.

80. The Artful Dodger presents Craig David - Re-Rewind (The Crowd Say Bo Selecta) (Sony Music Entertainment, 1999)
347 points, 8 votes.

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

http://youtu.be/vEtWdI9FByA

This one goes out to all the dee-hee-jays: Artful Dodger singles poll

Hopefully Movin Too Fast will make it as well, it's way better IMO.

Space Invaders Are Smoking Grass is all time. Electroclash about 5 years before the fact too.

Again, lots of great stuff here!

I-F unfairly still gets a bit of flack from some people about the electroclash connection.

Enjoying most of this rundown so far, naming no names.

This brought to mind..

Well, the introdutory post on this thread:

I can feel Excelsior in the air tonight, oh lord, and I've been LOL all my life, etcetcetrc

Roy North: Rewind, and select when the crowd say bo.
Basil Brush: Reeeeewindddd, and when the crowd say bo, Sellleeeeccter, ah ha HA HA HA!!!

― mark grout (mark grout), Monday, 25 October 2004 08:42 (8 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I know Space Invaders was cited as a proto-electroclash tune but it feels like a brilliant anomaly to me. It has none of the tropes that I associate with electroclash in its 2001/2002 incarnation.

ha, I'd never heard it before and within 10-15 seconds of hitting play I was like "electroclash!"

a friend and part-time lurker just texted me to say he'd heard 'acperience 1' for the first time because of this thread and just sat there in his house bopping, enthralled for it's duration. i was jealous. he's listening to them all and next up was the SAWii track which put a downer on him so he stuck hardfloor on again straight after.

Can I get a 'TOO LOW' for Valley Of The Shadows?

(Not disputing that these results are ace so far though).

but this is generally considered to be the first "darkcore" track, right? Or are there earlier examples?
There were def earlier darkcore tunes, but I get the impression that VOTS was one of the tunes where the distance from earlier breakbeat hardcore became really marked - like there's no rave stabs or anything, just bass/beats/sample, so you're already most of the way towards what would become jungle/dnb.

Much love for "Space Invaders" and much love for all the 80s tracks I'd never have heard if not for Mixed Up In The Hague.

What other people did after that isn't I-F's fault - which isn't to knock electroclash, cz ten years after rolling my eyes at it but still buying it I've come round to admitting that I do actually like most of it, or most of what I've bothered remembering

I know Space Invaders was cited as a proto-electroclash tune but it feels like a brilliant anomaly to me

There's a funny thing about wikipedia's reference for Space Invaders being cited as proto-electroclash... (uh, sorry if this crosses a line!)

There were other electro revivalists than I-f in the mid-to-late-90s too... Some of the Cologne posse, like Kerosene and Khan and Jammin' Unit, were doing similar electro-with-90s-sensibilities stuff around the same time, and didn't the Global Communication guys release an electro album too (never really listened to that one)? To me the 90s electro revival felt like an unique thing of its own, not a precursor to electroclash or whatever. (For example, those guys didn't really use the sort of 80s new wave vocals and sounds later artists did, because they were grounded in house/techno, not in pop/rock.) Though by the early 00s I wasn't paying that much attention to the dance scene anymore, so maybe there was some lineage I missed.

To me, the 90s record that really sounds like a precursor to electroclash is DJ Hell's Munich Machine from 1998, especially this tune on it:

http://youtu.be/bNXuOae_f80