Best album on Mixmag & Muzik's Best Albums of 1996?

late 90s was a very good time for UK dance music (if you go into the woods a little instead of riding past a billboard on the bus)

I thought 94 and 95 had better albums too but all you are showing here really is your hatred of rock music.

It's not just that... Part of what made me fell in love with electronic music at the beginning of the decade was that it was so forward-looking, you never what was around the corner, fresh new sounds were being generated every month. So when towards the end of the decade it started to integrate tired tropes and elements from older, time-worn genres, in order to become respectable or marketable or whatever, that felt like a betrayal of that earlier promise. "Forward forever, backward never ever" was the anthem of 1992, but by the end of the decade that turned into "hey, we can rock too!".

I mean, I didn't much care for jazzstep that was forming around this year either, and I bloody love jazz! It was just so regressive!

You're probably thinking of 'Temper Temper' ft. Noel Gallagher and his stupid Union Flag guitar, not 'Mother' which was more of a fusion with classical not rock elements.

Ahh yes, that rings a bell. I think you're right nashwan.

I remember "Temper Temper" too, I just meant to use the "Mother" disc of Saturnz Return as a major example why electronic producers wanting to do add "proper" music to the mix was such a misstep... (The second disc with all the crossover guest starts isn't particularly good either, but at least it isn't such an abysmal wankfest as the first one.) Doesn't it also have some grating indie-style wailing by David Bowie?

Doesn't it also have some grating indie-style wailing by David Bowie?

last track on disc 1 : 'truth' (all 15 mins of it)

Oh yeah, it was a separate track after the long abyss of "Mother", right?

I still remember buying that album and having my mouth drop after listening to the first disc? (Though to be honest I had to fast forward parts of "Mother", I've never managed to listen to all 60 minutes of it in one sitting.) How could the same person who was (co-)responsible for "Angel", "Terminator", and "Ghosts of My Life" have gone so far off the deep end?

the best things re the second album was the follow up 7 track ep that had a couple of edits/remixes of album tracks, ring of saturn.

Goldie was chatting to Gilles Peterson on his show the other day. Gilles obsequiously implied that 'Mother' was his greatest work.

"You know what Gilles, I think so too. Thank you so much for saying that. It gets overshadowed by the first album. I think the second album was a greater album but people didn't realise it. Mother is an absolute piece."

What a load of shit.

^^ lol. That's Goldie alright. Shame he's not made anything decent in 15 years.

"Forward forever, backward never ever" was the anthem of 1992, but by the end of the decade that turned into "hey, we can rock too!".
I mean, I didn't much care for jazzstep that was forming around this year either, and I bloody love jazz! It was just so regressive!

V selective argument that conveniently ignores all kinds of popular stuff from the late 90s in UK dance not crossing over with rock, jazz or whatever.

e.g. the whole of 2-step, UK Garage

Well of course I'm generalising here, the entirety of dance music could never fall under just one trend, but certainly this sort of crossover stuff became way more prominent in the latter half of the decade than it was in the early '90s. And a lot of formerly good artists were ruined by it, the Prodigy and Goldie probably being the most notable examples.

(xpost)

UK garage was never that popular outside UK itself, was it? Certainly no one in here was playing that stuff half as much as Chem Bros, Fatboy Slim, Prodigy, Underworld, Orbital, Roni Size, Goldie, etc.

Though I'm not saying UK artists were the only ones who fell for this crossover mentality. Just look at the CJ Bolland record in this poll: just a year earlier he was doing some weird trance/drum & bass hybrid stuff, but in 1996 he decided imitating "Firestarter" would be the way to get some acclaim (and it worked!).

I think a lot of producers saw the Fat of the Land go to #1 in the US and just saw dollar signs that never materialised (or at least took 15 years or so to materialise).

There is definitely something to be said for the (albeit reductive) contrast of Altern8 chainsawing guitars in half during the early 90s vs the Prodigy and Massive Attack explicitly referencing the Specials and Gang of Four in the late-90s. The former was reactionary and anti-establishment; the latter more like an attempt to find acceptance into broader slipstreams. Bleep techno wasn't about having forebears, save for the Detroit techno that directly inspired it. Roni Size helped bring drum'n'bass/jungle to the 'Later...' audience. At the same time Ibiza trance music from the late-90s wasn't about making hip references to the past so there are always counter-examples, and the narrative of 'dance music going Britpop' only makes sense from a UK-centric POV.

Many xps but Muzik used to have a separate Compilations of the year chart. This was their one for 96 (no PB on it either though):

1. LTJ Bukem: Logical Progression
2. Central Heating
3. Elements
4. Source Lab 2
5. Nu Yorica Experiments In Latin Music 1970-77
6. Laurent Garnier: Laboratoire Mix
7. Jon Carter Live At The Heavenly Social Volume 2
8. High In The Basement
9. Kruder & Dorfmeister: DJ Kicks
10. Techsteppin'

If I could vote for Laboratoire Mix it'd be game over

shout out for that Jon Carter mix, but then I still like cheesy big beat

Just look at the CJ Bolland record in this poll: just a year earlier he was doing some weird trance/drum & bass hybrid stuff, but in 1996 he decided imitating "Firestarter" would be the way to get some acclaim (and it worked!).

But it was rapidly eclipsed by the colossal Van Helden mix and the biggest original track off the album here was the more orthodox trance banger 'The Prophet'.

and the narrative of 'dance music going Britpop' only makes sense from a UK-centric POV.

It was most notable in the UK, but certainly artists all around the world were joining the crossover bandwagon: Moby, CJ Bolland, Air Liquide, Scooter (before they became a pop sensation its members had been producing fairly straightforward house and trance), Praga Khan, Crystal Method, Westbam, etc.

But it was rapidly eclipsed by the colossal Van Helden mix and the biggest original track off the album here was the more orthodox trance banger 'The Prophet'.

I can't remember the Van Helden mix, but I don't think that was what they played on MTV?

Anyway, my point wasn't necessarily what was the biggest hit, just that a dude who was already acclaimed in techno circles for years of producing mostly instrumental club music suddenly, after the success of "Firestarter", decided to release an "edgy" vocal single with a hard "rock" sound.

come on xp

?

how shocking

I am listening to Timeless (the album) for the first time ever right now. It's really good!

after years of hoping to find the 2cd edition, i pickedup Timeless a few months back, and agree.

still stands up as a good'un.

'Mother' is... not very good, I think is the phrase.

mother is perfectly fine for a sunday morning post booze session.

Loved that Terry Lee Brown Jr record at the time, Pansoul probably stands up best now. Had to vote Second Toughest tho

The Rufige Cru tracks Goldie put out during 96 - 99 (the "Proto Rider 96" version of "Manslaughter", "Dark Metal", "Ark Angel 3" which despite being yet another "Angel" remix is maybe the pick of the bunch - so intense!) plus most of Rings of Saturn posits an alternate reality where Goldie didn't just not make his second album, but didn't make his first either - like he simply kept following the line of enquiry implied by "Ghosts Of My Life".

IIRC 2001's "Beachdrifta" is also v pretty and v good.

Beachdrifta is seminal.

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

I'll take UK garage over anything I've heard from this list.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

xxxpost If we consider that "UK garage" in its original iteration actually came from NYC and specifically the work of Armand Van Helden, it was pretty popular at the raves on the east coast of the USA around this time, We called it "speed garage" at first though. The main inspiration for speed garage that I know of came from "Armand's Dark Garage Mix" of Spin Spin Sugar by The Sneaker Pimps (although his "Drum & Bass Mix" of Sugar is Sweeter by CJ Bolland came first but was not as popular). In that song he laid out the exact prototype that most UK garage would follow for years -- the snare-driven beat, the mid-sub bass, and even the standard effect of timestrrrrrrretched vocals.

There is one song that I found around this time and loved because it was from 1992 but shared many of those traits, the song A Kind of Living by Eon (which I guess lends credence to the claim that there was a lot more experimentation and innovation earlier in the decade. Personally I think at that time it was all very localized. I'm sure what I experienced in SF and the (mostly suburban) east coast of the USA was vastly different to what someone would hear in London, Glasgow, Melbourne, Munich, Tokyo, or wherever.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bMxSQEZOBo

Anyway I'm voting for EBTG because it's what I listened to most, it was my introduction to the act, and I think it's a bit underrated. For overall influence I'd give to DJ Shadow, and for production values my vote would go to the Fugees. Those skits on hip hop albums really don't age well though. That skit in the Chinese restaurant is particularly cringeworthy.

This is going possibly sound pretty bad, but I can remember a conversation with some raver friends in 1996 that went something like this.

Raver #1: So do you guys like hip hop?
Ravers #2 and 3 (in unison): Yeah, we like A Tribe Called Quest
Raver #3: The Fugees are pretty good too.

I had no idea how much great hip hop was coming out around this time. I loved some of the older stuff but by the mid-90's I thought all the new hip hop was sugar-coated and watered down, so to speak.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

That's pretty much how I expected the Top 3 to look like, tbh. Just not in that order!

I thought second toughest would win tbh

Honest reappraisal of 1996 habits show this took up much of the end of my year and leaked into 97. A couple songs really hold up (PM Dawn, Cazuza), but Drum N Bossa be damned

http://www.music-bazaar.com/album-images/vol4/340/340126/2192202-big/Red-Hot-Rio-3-picture.jpg

stereolab doing 'one-note samba' is just too perfect of a pairing

whoa herbie mann played on that? damn. i love the groop.

Are we doing singles from 1996?