Underworld - Classic or Dud?

I dont really agree with that but it's a case where their 90's output was so good that you can't really blame them for not living up to it. Underworld from 1993-1999 was such an insane run. As for 8 Ball it's disappointing that it's going to remain kind of an obscurity, I would have loved it on AHDO. But they've definitely done great stuff since - most of OWB is incredible, Barking is very very good, the second and third Riverrun EPs...not to mention a lot of the stuff that's gone unreleased (thinking mostly of Silver Boots and Bamboo...)

I listened to OWB again for the first time in years a few months ago and was startled by how great it was right up until "Ring Road" started, at which point I went "oh yeah, I forgot what a horrible momentum killer this song is" and turned it off

I don't know that I've played the second half of the album more than three times

that's definitely a mistake - the three tunes that end the album are ace. I love each one of them. To be honest I was never that bothered by Ring Road (or Bruce Lee, or Trim), I like the chorus fine, but it is quite an odd choice for the middle of an album.

"Trim" is okay; I really really hate "Bruce Lee" too

think "8 Ball" is really meh tbh.

I love 8 Ball. Really great song and strangely very epic as well. One of my favorite 'walking around the city' songs.

"8 Ball" is fine, I just wish it didn't take 4 minutes for it to get going.

The big problem I have with most moody mid-tempo Underworld songs that morph into dance jams is that none of them are as good as "mmm skyscraper" or "Dirty Epic"

although very few songs are as good as "Dirty Epic" so that's probably unfair

I especially like (Dirty Guitar Mix).

yeah "Dirty Epic" does give me some serious "this may be the greatest song ever" vibes when it's on

The Boy With The Jigsaw Puzzle Fingers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TH11yG9MtwY

trying to put my finger on what this reminds me of and I can't figure it out. sounds lovely though

So, what else have I missed since Oblivion With Bells (or thereabouts)?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7h2-hbv5U2U

There were a couple nice tracks from the Olympics soundtrack.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2013/apr/02/karl-hyde-underworld-outer-edges-trailer

10. Dancing On The Graves Of Le Corbusier’s Dreams [Bonus Track]
11. Final Ray Of The Sun [Bonus Track]
12. Slummin’ It (Eno Mix) [Bonus Track]
13. Cut Clouds (Figures Remix) [Bonus Track]

ordered the ltd edition vinyl with 12x12 signed litho.

so, new Hyde album is really quite excellent and lovely, though I wish he hadn't done with the bonus track thing, because "Dancing" and "Final Ray" are really great

seriously, I think I like "Should Have Been a Painter" as much as any UW track I can think of right now

Oh man, I'm going to have to wait for 1 hour 58 minutes to hear this!

Yes, this is excellent. Mediocre reviews, but then I think Underworld are one of these bands where what they do/want to do is not what they're famous for doing.

It's the vocals that let this down - not that they are anything particularly shocking given Underworld's previous form, but they feel a lot more intrusive on this.

The bonus tracks didn't really add much for me ...

Live version of 8 Ball from Union Chapel on YouTube is wonderful.

"The Night Slips Us..." is a profoundly beautiful song.

http://thequietus.com/articles/12083-karl-hyde-underworld-favourite-albums

^ I found this quite endearing

Miles Davis – Kind Of Blue
If I was trying to be cool I’d say Bitches Brew, but this is the seminal album really, isn’t it?

^^^ awesome

He could've listed both and it would've been even cooler.

I like that he thanks the UK PR for Rune Grammofon on the album sleeve.

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

Video of Hyde and his solo band doing "8 Ball"...fucking brilliant!!

Awesome.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mss2tv8PYBw

why u no embed, secure YT

That's pretty cool. Wonder how long it takes to start feeling repetitive.

if you're driving in Midwest Karl comes on to sing 'corn corn corn corn Stuckey's'

Dubno is 20 years old today.

Blimey

It was used to mark the 10-year anniversary of the Mac.

one of my ten favorite albums. as far away now as Autobahn was back then :)

The quality of music from Hyde/Smith/Emerson from 92-94, loosely the 'Dubno' era, is extremely high. I wish they could arrange a comprehensive remix anthology from this era.

hard to think of any electronic group putting out as much great music as UW did from 1992-1997

Orbital
The Orb
Prodigy
Aphex Twin
Squarepusher
Mike Paradinas
Luke Vibert
Coldcut

just off the top of my head and not considering labels (Moving Shadow, Suburban Base, Reinforced, R&S, early XL, +8, etc etc)

Meant to say "over a five year span" there. I think both the Orb and Orbital come really close. Aphex Twin, Squarepusher, and Paradinas certainly did a lot of music in there but I don't think all of it is great. I don't know much about the others. But I admit that I probably overrate Underworld - for them it's two of my all-time favorite albums, a handful of classic, non-album singles ("Dark Train", "Rez", "Nuxx"), some excellent side releases (Dark and Long, with the magnificant "Thing in a Book", and Pearl's Girl, which was practically a whole new album in itself), plus a lot of really good single tracks - "Spikee", "Why Why Why", the original "Born Slippy", and so on. None of those guys did so much great stuff outside of the albums!

underworld created an unbelievably deep and rich catalog in that era simply by remixing themselves a lot

Jaxx did tons within 5 years fwiw.

yeah I know a lot of those are supposed to be remixes but they're often so different from the source material that you almost wouldn't know. the three mixes of "Born Slippy" are so different that I would have never guessed they sprung from the same thing. even when it's more obvious (say "Rowla" and "Cherry Pie") the overall mood is so different that it doesn't quite register as just a "remix"

exactly

The remixes they did for other people from 92-95 are killer too. Spooky, Simply Red, Bjork, dreadzone, Orbital, mental Generation, Massive Attack etc etc etc

hard to think of any electronic group putting out as much great music as UW did from 1992-1997

UR

xp Lush 3.3 and Soundsystem are two of my all time favourite remixes