Underworld - Classic or Dud?

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.

OTM OTM OTM OTM and incidentally this is why "Pearl's Girl" is the only track on the album that works.

_Second Toughest..._ comes across like they took the miniscule edge of _dubnobass..._ and sanded it off of every track, leaving a completely innoffensive and uninvolving puddle of bland (with the SOLE exception of "Pearl's Girl"); the entire reason why most of those songs work better in a live situation is because beefed up through a gigantic club system with all of the live filter processing and feedback inherent in the setup the tracks regain bite and crispness. I first heard most of the _Second Toughest..._ material live at one of their shows in support of the album and was DEEPLY LET DOWN by the faceless blancmange that they put in the stores, so I basically turned back to the drum n bass CDs that were piling up next to my stereo and wrote them off for YEARS.

I've been meaning to listen to dubnobass and stiti again - it's been a while.

Underworld x Kettama

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwSNXtzWER4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J91SR8wfAvU

another one with Kettama, doesn't really sound like UW but it's pretty sweet

I had a load of marking to do tonight and put on Everything, Everything to make it more bearable, and the version of Moaner on the DVD is fucking incredible isn't it I am only used to the CD, why the fuck was it not on the CD?

You've all heard this a thousand times I'm sure, but I hadn't until just now, because some brilliant person put the whole DVD on youtube a year ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h93w-28dVY

the whole Pinkpop 1999 show where that version of Moaner was filmed is on YT if you want more of a concert experience - (oh, look for Palladium Koln 1999 there as well for another treat)

it wasnt on the CD because it's already 80 minutes long and they had to cut something

god I hope we get a vinyl reissue of it one day, I still don't think anything's captured the pure euphoria of live electronic music as well as this album does

A remastered / expanded double CD would be just fine.