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

I don't think it's too big a spoiler to say that this was my number one, given that I've just done a search and the only reference to it on ILX is when I nominated it. The tune which I was expecting to place somewhere, but am beginning to doubt will turn up, is Liquid - Sweet Harmony. I've been assuming Da Funk will be up there somewhere and feel pretty sure Show Me Love will be top ten.

Things I'm hoping to see still: Loops of Fury, Da Funk, Flowerz, Renegade Snares, Narramine.

I reckon Sweet Harmony will place, people LOVE that tune.

Off the top of my head maybe some Drexciya/UR, more Carl Craig, Jeff Mills maybe?

Not sure exactly what's nominated but you'd expect The Bells to turn up at some point at the very least.

(xpost Renegade Snares definitely as well)

wow! such a stream of amazing tracks. 3am Eternal is my favourite KLF track. Surprised to see Something Good (another one I had on single as a kid). Never too mad on TGWTSIHH by Orbital, not a particular highlight of In Sides for me.

This, and the one upthread about the crowd tearing down the walls, just make me wonder why Sandstorm isn't the unanimous no.1. Imagine creating a record that can do that, you'd feel like god.

In Finnish, the word for "horce races" is "ravit", which conjugates similarly to the word "rave". Because of this, the Finnish word "raveissa" can mean both "at the horse races" or "at a rave". So it has become a common joke, when someone here says "I was at a rave", to ask "Oh, which horse won?". One day, in the early 00s, the local paper had a headline that said "Darude soitti raveissa" ("soitti" = "played"), which I automatically interpreted as "Darude played at a rave", so I was kinda wondering why that was somehow newsworthy... Until I read the article and found out Darude had actually played live at the horse races. It was kinda hard to take the guy seriously after that.

(Btw, fun fact: "Sandstorm" was co-produced by JS16, the same guy who produced "Freestyler", so he's partially responsible of the two biggest dance hits ever made in this country.)

Though "Freestyler" is, in my opinion, infinitely better than "Sandstorm".

One of the reasons I could never get 100% behind the John Talabot album was that I kept comparing it unfavourably to The Girl With The Sun In Her Head, which is completely unfair but they're attempting to do similar things with melody and build and the Orbital track is just on a different plane.

Which version of "Let Me Be Your Fantasy" has a total breakdown with a robot voice saying something like: "Underground is where we work and move it... Underground!" and then goes turbo rave bonkers? That was the version I used to have, but I haven't heard it in ages.

17. Beltram - Energy Flash (Transmat, 1990)
636 points, 10 votes.

http://i1326.photobucket.com/albums/u641/Lixenixen/energyflash_zps258e4b10.jpg

http://youtu.be/ALsHox5sYCk

van dyke parks could never have written such an anthem as energy flash.

― Francis, 8. heinäkuuta 2009 7:11

jb IS techno. put his records in a time capsule and forget the rest.

― blunt, 1. maaliskuuta 2008 22:26

you're right but there's something about the 'pop-trance' tracks and the like that just makes them seem so much weaker despite the harsh synth tones, heavy basslines and ultra-dense bassdrums...they're too polished even tho they are just built around a complete lobotomy of a riff, whats the point of such well EQ'd beats and sounds when the overall composition is so uninspiring? mind you, whats more minimal than 'ENergy Flash'? but at least THAT had some meance and attitude - dare i say profound given its uncomprimising appraoch and shockingly primitive production values?

― blueski, 9. lokakuuta 2002 17:20

also i was just listening to "energy flash" today and it sounds enervated as hell (especially next to the wedlock track that follows it on the mix cd), but compelling in a completely different way just the same.

― fiddo centington (dubplatestyle), 8. joulukuuta 2003 3:57

Van Dyke Parks vs Joey Beltram FITE

Btw, while searching for quotes on that, I found out that ILM has, no exaggeration, about 10 times as many posts on Energy Flash the book than Energy Flash the track, which I guess is indicative of something...

Which version of "Let Me Be Your Fantasy" has a total breakdown with a robot voice saying something like: "Underground is where we work and move it... Underground!" and then goes turbo rave bonkers? That was the version I used to have, but I haven't heard it in ages.

Isn't this just the regular version? The 12" mix I posted has the breakdown, and, as far as I can recall, the video/radio edit has it too.

probably. whenever i hear it out these days it doesn't have the breakdown. think people play a more modern version.

FWIW I'm not convinced that's the right version of Set You Free upthread, it certainly isn't in the Spotify playlist.

Well, whoever nominated it didn't specify any mix, so in those cases I've usually posted the music video, as it's fun to watch 90s dance videos.

'Bug in the Bass Bin' must be a lock fr the top 10.

And a Windowlicker/Come to Daddy one-two

I genuinely have no idea what's going to win this.

i'm really hoping it's not aphex or autechre, but it probably will be.

ROYGBIV hasn't appeared yet either, has it?

When I started this poll I had no idea either what tune might win, but in the end the winner was quite clear - it got almost 300 points more than number 2.

it can't be autechre, there's no consensus track.

Also there's like 20 Autechre tracks nominated and there'll be mad vote splitting.

I reckon 'Little Fluffy Clouds' has a fairly decent chance of winning this.

arch carrier?

these are random stabs in the dark - i dunno what might win.

There are plenty of Prodigy tracks that could make it of course.

Or maybe this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?hl=en-GB&gl=GB&v=IZDhCveQhOA

This, and the one upthread about the crowd tearing down the walls, just make me wonder why Sandstorm isn't the unanimous no.1. Imagine creating a record that can do that, you'd feel like god.

In my experience and these anecdotes the track is huge for people who weren't generally interested in the scene or genre it's taking its cues from (Trance and Hard House) at the time it came out. The love for it feels more ironic like it's a novelty hit (you're not 'supposed' to like or take seriously) - so much closer to 'Poing' than 'Storm' by Storm, big Gatecrasher anthems etc. This also explains the disdain for it compared to other hard monotonous but more credible bangers (altho I'm struggling to think of good examples from the same time as 'Sandstorm' as opposed to COUNTLESS from a few years before).

Sandstorm doesn't actually sound like anything else from the time either.

The only other Prodigy track that might possibly place is No Good, the idea of there being two tracks placing above Out of Space just doesn't make sense to me.

Other, less obvious tracks that might still show up due to being consensus picks among committed constituencies - 'Beau Mot Plage', 'Original Nuttah', Weatherall remix of 'Soon'.

All of these feel essential to me: No Good, Hey Boy Hey Girl, Age of Love, Rez, Hideaway, Your Loving Arms, Positive Education, Renegade Snares, Beau Mot Plage, Windowlicker, Soon, Da Funk, Papua New Guinea, Horsepower, Little Fluffy Clouds, Professional Widow. But they can't all place.

surely LFO before Horsepower

16. Kenny "Dope" presents The Bucketheads ‎- The Bomb! (These Sounds Fall into My Mind) (Henry Street Music, 1994)
639 points, 11 votes, one 1st place vote.

http://i1326.photobucket.com/albums/u641/Lixenixen/thebomb_zpsf4039651.jpg

http://youtu.be/W7Hk3o_knvY

who are they? how could they drop 'the bomb', never to be heard of again?

― minna, 20. maaliskuuta 2002 3:00

they were a bit pissed off when The Bomb was a UK hit cos ended up costing them 30 grand for the Chicago sample

― michael, 20. maaliskuuta 2002 3:00

bucketheads "the bomb" : dancefloor :: grenade : swiming pool

― :|, 28. lokakuuta 2004 19:10

what's interesting is that early house does not have what blueski/tracer are talking about. Nor does ardkore/jungle/drum and bass/2-step garage: what those styles all have instead is a more advanced use of the breakdown where the beat cuts out for a while and then rams back in with astonishing force (in modern drum & bass the difference here becomes almost imperceptibly small, as the linearity of the beat means you can "hear" it even after it has cut out, thus mimicking some of the effect of the trance-style build-up breakdown).

Whereas with trance/french house etc. it's like the groove is abandoning you, but then it comes back to save you... there can be something almost metaphysical about the experience of a breakdown/build-up/release section on the dancefloor, especially if drug-assisted: it's like you've lost yourself and you're stuck waiting for the groove to help you find yourself, and you can hear it searching for you with flashlights around the edges, always circling closer, but you're not sure when the flashlight will suddenly fix upon you.

With disco - esp. say Larry Levan productions or in a different way Moroder - I'd say there's a lot of stuff which replicates part of this effect: with Levan stuff it's the way that layers are added and subtracted in order to create the sense of peaks and valleys in the track. But there's nothing like this specific trick with trance perhaps kickstarted.

Indeed, I thought to myself "surely Wild Pitch house would be the first time this trick was used in "proper" house music in a substantive, sustained and deliberate way?? Which at least coincides with early trance, and probably just predates it??" But then I went back and listened to Photon Inc's "Generate Power (Wild Pitch Mix)" and there's no breakdown section at all, let alone a build-up version of one - I had assumed there was because the use of layering in this track the whole way through is just out of this world - but, crucially, it's "out of this world" in a post-Levan sense, not a trance sense. If anyone can think of Wild Pitch tracks that actually do this trick that'd be interesting.

So maybe the use of EQing really kickstarted this in house. EQing, I think, formed the sonic highpoint for this tactic, and in some senses dealt a bit of a blow to trance by stealing and improving on one of the key weapons in its arsenal in the name of house music.

So then I thought perhaps an early example of this being done in a substantive/sustained/deliberative way in house would be something like The Bucketheads' "The Bomb". Still one of the best house tracks ever in its full fifteen minute version, and sounding so so current right now - and first and foremost the whole thing is an experiment in eliciting different types of anticipatory tension. Anyway, I listened to it again, and you can start to hear this idea (ahem) filter through, but still in a very limited and hesitant sense, it's still in a post-Wild Pitch (i.e. post-Levan) mode of adding and subtracting layers strategically, the EQing is very subtle. Moments at the eight/nine minute marks are very close to being build-up breakdowns, but fall short, I think, of what this thread is looking for - on a tangent, what this track does really well that's not done enough in house (and certainly not in trance) is cut from one groove to another suddenly and radically (going from the percussion and "Wooh! Wooh!" section to the disco/vocal section) - a trick which mimics some of the effect of the build-up breakdown insofar as the first section explicitly sets itself up as a prelude to something. But the lack of a proper build-up breakdown surprised me, and makes me wonder what the first use of this in a house context would be.

Around The World as well probably. Maybe Impact (The Earth Is Burning) if that was nominated.

(xpost - I totally forgot about that one and am completely delighted to see it).

Sorry, the final part of the post was cut off, that extra-long quote is from Tim F... And like so many extra-long posts by Tim, it's essential reading.

There are lots of good things here which I don't really have anything new to say about, but I'll just note that I saw Orbital live last week and Chime was so fucking immense and transcendent.

I say "saw live", I mean I couldn't really see them and I suspect none of it was actually live bcz I was behind the visuals dude's computer and everything was so perfectly synced without any intervention, but it didn't matter, it was still the best ~event~ I have been at this year.

Also I somehow missed On A Ragga Tip placing last night and am delighted to have noticed it this morning thanks to Matt DC's mention.

xp Of course. LFO. Yes.

Have we had Show Me Love yet? And was A Little Bit of Luck nominated?

Only heard the short single length versh of 'The Bomb' - and as Tim says incredibly tense, great account of all the shifts and turns the track is taking.

15. The Prodigy - No Good (Start the Dance) (XL Recordings, 1994)
642 points, 11 votes.

http://i1326.photobucket.com/albums/u641/Lixenixen/nogood_zps0aba5531.jpg

http://youtu.be/svJvT6ruolA

Spot on to select "No Good (Start The Dance)" over the obvious and tired choices from the Prodigy's "rock'n'roll" period.

― Robin Carmody, 5. helmikuuta 2001 3:00

summer of 94 i was 9 going on 10 and I remember hearing some older kids listening to this on their boom box in their garden and thinking, wow.

― Blackout Crew are the Beatles of donk (jim), 4. huhtikuuta 2009 2:06

but i think it'll have to be no good for both the sample and the drum programming

― rentboy, 4. huhtikuuta 2009 5:08

'No Good (Start the Dance)' by a huuuuge margin. Whenever I put that song on, I end up listening to it on repeat at least 10 times.

― sous les paves, 13. syyskuuta 2007 11:17

I remember hearing this on the UK chart rundown in the week it went top 1 and it just sounded the most massive, terrifying and exhilarating thing I'd ever heard. Their stock fell pretty soon afterwards and the fact that they stopped playing No Good live shows how bad they became at spotting what they were good at. They were actually proud of jettisoning it, when it was the perfect bridge between their earlier and later sounds.

OTM. I pretty much grew up with the Prodigy, but when I first heard Jilted Generation it sounded like the most disturbing, dark, drugged thing (drugs! swearing! screaming faces coming out of silvery muck! EVIL!) to my 13y/o ears. Firestarter was good, Breathe was okay, but somehow when they actively tried to be daring and dangerous it felt like they were trying to frighten my granny rather than me. Something like Break and Enter didn't need Keith rasping all over it to sound edgy.

When we first heard it, I remember me and my friends being a bit disappointed by it, because even though we loved the helium rave tunes of 1991 and 1992 to death, dance music had changed so rapidly in a couple of years that those chipmunk vocals in "No Good" felt kinda dated compared to jungle. But soon we learned to accept and love it as the hybrid monster it was. (Though my favourite tune from this era, in fact my favourite Prodge tune of them all, remains "Break & Enter".)

(xpost)

Yeah Break and Enter is so good. Did it get nommed?

You're right about the helium vocals - No Good felt almost retro in the context of Jilted and the rest of what was going on in electronic dance at the time. Seems that every time I've had the errr.. pleasure of hearing any new Prodge tracks they sound like they're trying to do an update on No Good (and failing at it, suffice to say).

Break and Enter was nominated and did get some votes, but it only got to #111 on the list.

Also, it was #8 on your ballot, so you should remember. :)

Their stock fell pretty soon afterwards and the fact that they stopped playing No Good live shows how bad they became at spotting what they were good at. They were actually proud of jettisoning it, when it was the perfect bridge between their earlier and later sounds.

I saw them headlining the V97 festival and about halfway through their set Howlett teased the crowd with the opening keyboard stabs of 'No Good', then stopped and laughed. Then they played some boring Fat of the Land album track. Such a disappointing gig.

I think it was me who nominated Break and Enter, I had it at #11. I had The Bomb way up at #4 as well, surprisingly (given that I've hardly listened to it in years) - I just listen to everything I'm thinking of voting for and give them marks out of ten and then rank them, I must have really liked it that day.

The Bomb is so, so, so amazing. I only recently found the Chicago original, and though I love it and it's exactly the same as The Bomb, they are very different records and my love for them is not the same.

14. The Chemical Brothers - Hey Boy Hey Girl (Freestyle Dust, 1999)
667 points, 12 votes.

http://i1326.photobucket.com/albums/u641/Lixenixen/heyboyheygirl_zps95a87223.jpg

http://youtu.be/tpKCqp9CALQ

Chemicals got good again once they dumped those Shite Rockin Beats. I'll take the retro-rave of 'Hey Boy Hey Girl'/'Under the Inluence' over any of that Dig Your Own Anus.

― Omar, 19. lokakuuta 2001 3:00

Yeah Ronan, "Hey Boy Hey Girl" is great without the vocal sample, but as Ned notes sometimes words just have a purely aural purpose. HBHG *needs* catchphrases in order to become an anthem because it has less of a song-structure than the usual Chem Brothers fare. And I think HBHG actually works better as an anthem than as a cool-but-secret track. The reason the specific samples in HBHG work is that they're so meaningless, so of course any number of things could have been put in their place.

― Tim, 11. helmikuuta 2002 3:00

'rockefeller skank' was never a particular favourite of mine ('right here right now' on the other hand is IMMENSE) - i prefer fatboy slim generally (w/the usual caveats) but 'block rockin' beats' is one of the 3-4 chem bros tracks i unreservedly love (though not quite as much as 'hey boy hey girl').

― lex pretend, 3. marraskuuta 2008 11:53

Always found it underwhelming myself.

There was a bit of Beatles/Stones thing going on with the Chems and the Prodge at my sixth form. I was firmly in the Prodge camp.

Chems, and I'm happily surprised it's that song.