Underworld - Classic or Dud?

I also went to one of the concerts (Broadcast on Radio 1!!!!!) at around the time of "Dubnobass...", (The same night as they found the body of Kurt Cobain!!!!) and it was grebt/GRATE/etc!!!!! Unlike the recent "live" album, it was one big long DJ mix style jam, mixing in various bits of their songs. The track on the live album which mixes "Cowgirl" and "Rez" is nearest equivalent- imagine a whole concert like that with most of the tracks from "Dubnobass..." and an early version "Born Slippy"!!!! (I've actually got a tape of it somewhere, taped of the radio...)

Anyways, Underworld is still classic because did I mention that "Tin There" is basically my favorite techno barnburner ever?

The kickass house/blues romp "Big Mouth" (with some guy named Philadelphia Slim whom I've never heard of on harmonica!!) is another awesome underrated early Underworld song. Underworld kicks ass.

(I'm sorry I won't pimp out that article ever again, this is the millionth time, prob haven't written anything decent for free since, it was 18 months ago)

But I must ask: If Underworld's a dud, who's classic?

...Ball ist rund. Spiel dauert 90 Minuten. Soviel ist schon mal klar. Alles andere ist Theorie...

I love how each record they make gets more and more minimal, but it doesn't diminish the impact at all.

With the benefit of hindsight, Darren Emerson leaving seems to have been beneficial.

That said, they are one of my faves.

I think it would ride pretty high in my best of the 90s, FWIW. For all I know I might have bypassed electronic music almost entirely if not for that album and 'In Sides'

"Juanite/Kiteless/Confusion The Waitress" would pass muster if it wasn't 8,000 years long.

Mencap, me too! I owe it al to STITI. It's the record that got me into electronic music, house music, DANCE music even.

gem, is that comp really worth buying? Couldn't I just burn it myself? What's the appeal?

'Rez' was a rare example of a video making me dislike the track more (which i initially thought was ok, then liked a lot) as opposed to the other way round. still prefer 'Cowgirl' tho.

Heh, the last three on there especially just kind of go by in a nameless haze (bringing us back to roxy's point).

not if you have all of the originals of course. but i don't. so it was for me.

There is nothing in the songs "Blueski", "Stagger" and "Juanita" (for example) that sounds anything like anything in the other two.

partly i think the danceability of second toughest is subtle yet powerful- the repetitive figures of the "juanita/kiteless" opening block at first just make you bounce around a little bit, jiggle a leg in your seat or whatever, but by later you're humming along with the vocoder and it picks up speed. this is opposed to the danceability of, say, "push upstairs," which just starts bashing down the door and forcing you to dance with the detroit-ness of it all and builds even more on that.

neither is a better approach.

that was me last year. not quite 30 years but they've pretty much always been my favorite group, was a bit worried I'd built it up so much in my mind that the actual show would be disappointing, it turned out to actually better than I expected

I got a cassette promo from Wax Trax!/TVT records at my record store the summer of ‘96 that had “Pearl’s Girl” on it (along with songs by Autechre and Nightmares on Wax) and I was hooked.

My then-roommate in 1996 had friends over and were planning to see Underworld at a club down the street. I knew and liked “Thrash” from Sire’s Just Say Mao compilation and decided to tag along to check out the show.

I was not prepared.

lol I bet ... considering which album they were touring

The ticket website is f’ed up. It (and all of Underworld’s advertising) clearly implies there are two concerts, one on Thursday Sep 3 and the other on Friday, Sep 4. when I go to the website try to buy a Friday ticket (which is $10 more than Thursday) the ticket I got back says thursday. so I email their customer service and they tell me “no your ticket is for Thursday and there is no Friday concert”

I ask them why everything says Thursday and Friday and they explain, “that’s because the concert goes to midnight”.

that famous way we describe a single concert if it might go to midnight “oh hey I went to so-and-so’s show on thursday and friday”

I also bought tickets for the friday show. Emailed them about the same problem and this is what i got back…

We're sorry for the confusion here.
I’ve checked your tickets for the event Underworld Presents Crazy, Crazy, and I can confirm they are definitely for September 4th.
Because this is a two-day event, the app often displays the start date of the overall festival (September 3rd) on the main heading. However, your specific ticket type is valid for September 4th.

yes I finally cleared that up again after another round of emails with their support :/

it might've been all the painkillers i was on, but when i saw them for the first time last year (i've been a fan suns dubno) it was a transcendental experience.
a lot of strawberry hotel stuff also didn't properly register until i heard those tracks live, denver luna needs to be heard live

actually tried to buy a ticket using half a dozen different browsers on three different devices and never even got far enough to learn what the ticket price was

tight one-hour festival set from EDC last Friday — thrilling views of Rick’s patch label strips for each song, the “for2026” versions of Pearls & Kittens with the Boiler Room samples back in, opener is Born Slippy with Good Day Today sung over the top