Second Toughest Poll Ever!

i think i prefer this album to dubnobass...

i agree

it hangs together a lot better too and those opening two tracks are so epic.

I still never listen to this album.

so what do you listen to then?

Underworld-wise? dubnobass..., A Hundred Days Off and esp. Beaucoup Fish

yes, knowing already you are an underworld fan it's hard to believe you do not listen to 2d toughest

I believe I have been badmouthing Second Toughest... on this site forever.

i must have blocked that out of my memory because it makes me sad

I wish I liked it more! The people who like it REALLY love it, and when I first heard the songs off of it at an Underworld show in '96, I thought they were fantastic. Then, when I bought the album, they all sounded limp and unremarkable (except for "Pearl's Girl", which still didn't stand out for me until I heard it on "The Saint" soundtrack).

(I had the opposite reaction to "Jumbo"; I heard the Everything, Everything version first and thought it was muted and half-baked, then heard the Beaucoup Fish version which has much, much, MUCH crisper filters on the drum tracks and was totally blown away.)

PARC off the last album is 'very second toughest...' someone told me. they're right too it's great.

i do not have a track called PARC on "oblivion with bells"

it wasn't on OWB but it was released in Japan as Darc. Great track too. You will need Loads of Birds and Peach Tree to complete the OWB tracks.

Sorry to clarify = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bells_The_Bells

The album also includes the previously unreleased song "Parc", which was released by Underworld as the official J-Wave 20th Anniversary Song.
The song is a reworking of a previous live performance of the then-named "Darc" in Amsterdam in 2005.

dan you hurt me in my heart

ah, yes, had the naming backwards. Strumpet is another new song that is fantastic. Available on the Live Here Now discs through Underworldlive.com Highly recommend getting some of those discs, they're starting to sell out.

If I could only have two Underworld songs ever, both come from this album/era: "Juanita" and "Tin There."

juanita is the best underworld song. jumbo close 2nd.

Confusion the Waitress and Air Towel are both fantastic too despite only getting 1 vote between them. I go through periods of listening to them both a lot.

Remixes from this era are also very good. Some of the ones that have a distinct Second Toughest vibe are:

Massive Attack Remix
Zion Train remixes
Orbital Remix

there is a very distinct shift in the sound of their records and those mixes have the Second Toughest sound in my opinion. saint etienne, sven vath and drum club remixes all sound close but the drums on those still sound like dubnobass era.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75EQkwEVlyA

i love this so much, the 'juanita' section just stays at the same BPM but gradually keeps picking up momentum and little washes of sound along the way. i dunno, this whole album is devoid of obvious anthems and was a total eye-opener as an album for me.

^^^ this tune is so evocative of a particular time and place for me; first year uni, just getting into clubbing. it makes me well up. remember justin robertson playing it at cream and words can't describe the feeling, i'd never expected to hear it out. a song that hits me right there, all time.

wow guys, I used to really like this album but now I really LOVE it, had heard it 25+ times without hearing ANY of the crazy sounds that go on during "Banstyle" or "Confusion"

The remixes Underworld did from this era were amazing as well. The Dreadzone and Orbital mixes especially.

really, what else sounds like this album? it sounds as unique to me today as it did when it came out.

best album ever

http://oneweekoneband.tumblr.com/post/13885802998/second-toughest-in-the-infants

also for some reason 'open eye signal' from the new jon hopkins album reminds me of this album

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q04ILDXe3QE

or maybe just underworld in general to some degree, maybe it reminds me more of some of their deep cuts

holy shit i never knew "stagger" was completely improvised

can't remember who did the underworld one week one band but they were one of the bands i considered writing about; really enjoyed that week

thanks for that track. i can hear a similarity, for sure.

wow, I never knew that about "Stagger" either. it does make sense though - the music is fairly loose, and Hyde's lyrics make even less sense than usual. if anything sounds improvised (or put together quickly) it's "Airtowel" which sort of feels like their jam track. "Stagger" is just too perfect as it is.

Sure there was a good deal of post-improv splicing and editing.

confusion the waitress 0

:-(

yeah that's a joke

i can buy that the overall structure and lyrics were spur of the moment though

Really vibing on Air Towel at the moment.

just listened to this yesterday, juanita/kiteless never fails to make me stop whatever im doing and just listen

listening to this for the first time

report back, I'm curious as to how it's held up to someone who doesn't have any memories attached to it. my last impression of this was that it dated very well...feels cleaner and more timeless than dubnobass or Beacoup Fish

this album makes me want to live my life driving around in a car at night

first time, crut?!?? we should have talked about this IRL while you were here

also al leong otm in the extreme.

Think this is my favourite dance album of all time these days. It definitely has dated better than Dubnobass and Beaucoup Fish (as great as those they are)

Obviously didn't need those and they in that last sentence.

I love the lack of obvious bangers on this one (I don't think Hyde does his shouty vox thing here except on pearls girl and even there it's deeply distorted.) and those hooks are just really so subtle and they immerse themselves in my head. like on confusion the waitress, which is all time great. I think they really achieved something singular here, like the perfect moody, propulsive, shining cityscape fast approaching in the distance album.

this album makes me want to live my life driving around in a car at night

― christmas candy bar (al leong), Friday, February 14, 2014 5:38 PM (1 year ago)

Listening again to this again now, mainly thanks to the epics poll, and I'm hearing again how good it is and how much I loved it. Such great tracks all the way through. It reminds me so much of my travelling to meet my gf in Liverpool from Leeds on the trans eur.. erm trans peninne express. Great days.

http://www.underworldlive.com/news/2015/09/underworld-second-toughest-in-the-infants-remaster/

CD3: previously unreleased material
1. Bug
2. Confusion The Waitress (She Said)
3. D+B Thing
4. D’Arbly St
5. 4 Crowns
6. Rowla A1806
7. Bing Here
8. Techno Thang
9. Pearls Ver2
10. Bloody 1

yessssssss

i've been listening to this album a lot lately and it's still >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

my cd copy is still way too quiet, gotta crank the stereo up double to hear it. But it still sounds amazing.

Full set:

Disc: 1
1. Juanita: Kiteless: To Dream Of Love
2. Banstyle / Sappys Curry
3. Confusion the Waitress
4. Rowla
5. Pearl's Girl
6. Air Towel
7. Blueski
8. Stagger
Disc: 2
1. Cherry Pie
2. Oich Oich
3. Puppies
4. Mosaic
5. Deep Arch
6. Pearl's Girl (Tin There)
7. Pearl's Girl (14996 Version)
8. Born Slippy (Original Instrumental Version)
9. Born Slippy.Nuxx (Deep Pan)
Disc: 3
1. Bug
2. Confusion The Waitress (She Said)
3. D+B Thing
4. D'Arbly St
5. 4 Crowns
6. Rowla A1806
7. Bing Here
8. Techno Thang
9. Pearls Ver2
10. Bloody 1
Disc: 4
1. Nuxx A1796
2. Nuxx A2221 UW live (2 sets) Leicester M Dog 94
3. Nuxx A4712 Live @ Zap club Brighton Feb94
4. Nuxx A4733 UW live Amsterdam Apr94
5. Nuxx Liquid Room 94 A2254 UW Live Liquid Room 2 Tokyo
6. Nuxx from A1825
7. Born Slippy (Nuxx)

i've been listening to this album a lot lately and it's still >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

― insufficiently familiar with xgau's work to comment intelligently (BradNelson)

i only found out the titles origin last year

which is?

The unusual name of the album derives from a comment made by member Rick Smith's six-year-old nephew, Simon Prosser, when asked on his progress at infant school, the level of schooling attended by four- to seven-year-old children in the United Kingdom[citation needed].

yes it may or may not be true but between truth and [citation needed] print the later

The first two tracks on this album = godlike.

cannot believe Amazon wants $$110 for the 4cd set!

I've gotta say, I love how this album is mastered so quietly compared to other electronic records of the time, it means it really blossoms when you crank it up.

this has got to have the best first six minutes of any electronic album ever. even though I've heard it a zillion times I still get drawn in every time.

The best 30 minutes, more like!

Second disc of the deluxe edition (which gets split out over 3 discs + added tracks differently on the superdeluxe) is so quality front-to-back. I love this era of Underworld, when production technique got more sophisticated but they hadn't yet gone technicolor, it was still pretty straightahead, driving, melancholy dance music.