Top 50 Most Overrated Electronic Albums

Case closed via review by Aquarius Records:

"At this rate by volume 6 or 7 there may not be any sound left at all, just gentle whispers and inaudible drones."

does anybody still rate leftfield?

i WAS gonna mention 'A Hundred Days Off', i was surprised it seemed to get good reviews all round but it's an album of occasional great moments rather than thru and thru quality and freshness

'Leftism': only real flaw is it's painful '95-ness, if that makes sense. i enjoyed that year tho so it suits me. the poem at the end is bloody silly tho

'rhythm & Stealth': a bit too much boring minimalist thudthud but a lot of fantastic moments still - not quite worth the wait tho i guess

I'm sure his other albums are equally bad, but these are the ones I've heard too much of.

-- strongo hulkington (dubplatestyl...), June 3rd, 2004.

Shit, Strongo! you've got ballz to say the things you say

pure contempt.

and the subtle inflections of the envelope filter are stunning displayed on chainzzzzzzzzz

oh, while i am here:

13. dj/rupture - gold teeth thief

You know Incunabula is a real word, right strongo?

Hmmmm.....can the same be said of Mo'Wax? Or do they escape such scrutiny? UNKLE was/is certainly overrated.....

Well, you don't count. *winky*

stevem otm on Moon Safari, Alex otm on Endtroducing.

That sounds about right....

Them's fighting words.

Also, Come With Us is genius. And while Geogaddi may be better, MHTRTC is also essential. It's not just about "Roygbiv". I mean "Turquoise Hexagon Sun", "Kaini Industries", "Happy Cycling", "Aquarius", . . .

(Beau Mot Plage has lasted, obviously, but individual tracks rarely feel over or underrated in the way that albums do)

I like a lot of early Bicep tracks and remixes but their album was just really formulaic and boring, not in a joyous and familiar way but in a predictable and unthrilling way

Yeah. I bought the album purely on the strength of seeing it appear several times in the ILM 'best of 2017' poll, not previously having heard a note of it. I was quite dismayed by how pedestrian it is. Probably the first time that the hivemind has let me down.

"probably the first time that the hivemind has let me down"

If that was only your first time, you're in for a world of hurt

challop: SAW 2 is 85% meh

I have a bunch of Thomas Koner CDs that I picked up because The Wire was all over them, and I'm still not sure just what the hell I'm supposed to be hearing! (The Porter Ricks stuff is pretty good, though.)

Wearemonster generated a lot of buzz at the time but it doesn't seem to have lasted in the critical memory in the way that, say, Alcachofa has. Isolee in general now feels like one of those producers who made so many great, detail-packed records and now gets overlooked in the rush to lay hosannas on Villalobos as the crowning auterish genius of his era.

― Matt DC, Saturday, May 19, 2018 4:49 AM (six hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this to me feels like a better example of 'overrated' than villalobos for that reason kinda? like, i also actually want to listen to achso but not wearemonster

that said 'rest' is pretty awesome to me still in the way that mid 00s villalobos is

I've always felt that way about SAW2

köner is awesome
thirded on the SAW2 "what gives?"

I agree with the post upthread to the effect that a lot of the excitement around Wearemonster was catch-up for people who missed Rest the first time around. The former is still a great record IMO, but Isolee's "auteur" period was really in the years leading up to and culminating with Rest (see also the early singles, many of which ended up on Western Stores, and stuff like the remix of Blaze's "Lovelee Dae").

There's still total classic tracks in the following years like the "Lent" and "Sweet Chat Rio" remixes from 2003, and especially the "Cardiology" and "Africa / Brazil" remixes from 2004, but they're more like superb dancefloor articulations of all of the producer's assembled tricks and tactics (no surprises that this stuff is often my favourite Isolee) (actually in retrospect Playhouse really missed a trick by not putting out a remixes collection at about that point).

The fact that Isolee was really an auteur in the years before the microhouse / minimal crossover means that, while Wearemonster arguably was overrated on release, Isolee as an artist is now underrated - perhaps because more people had the luxury of following the tail end of Villalobos' classic era in real time, it's easier to think of his work as "important" in a way that is less obvious for Isolee.