madonna: ray of lights vs. smashing pumpkins: adore vs. depeche mode: ultra vs. tori amos: from the choirgirl hotel vs. roland orzabal: tomcats screaming outside vs.

Saint Etienne are at least partly rooted in house music and synthpop from day one so they don't really count IMO. I'm not sure if Ultra does either fwiw - at least one record in the original post (Adore) is considerably more rooted in Depeche Mode than it is in either European or American dance music. Unless it's possible to be both originators and bandwagon jumpers at the same time.

Whereas there's virtually no electronic element to REM or Smashing Pumpkins pre-1998 but both are reaching back to something pre-house and techno. In Adore's case that's the gothy end of 80s synthpop (Gary Numan is all over that record), but then again gothy trip-hop was everywhere in 1998 so it sort of fits.

I've come back round to Up after an autumn of listening to Cluster and Harmonia and realising that its synths have far more to do with mid-70s Germany than anything from the 80s or 90s (although that was obvious from 'Hope' I suppose). Certainly more than the glossier and less inter synthy records they made in the 00s.

'Ray of Light' is the only one that really feels fully of its time and it's probably the best record here but also the one that sounds the most dated right now - very little contemporary music sounds that *pristine*.

Gran Turismo is a good call though, that's the one I immediately thought of. Is there a Placebo album that fits here? Feels like there should be.

Not sure if there’s a whole Placebo album that fits but “Pure Morning” and “Taste In Men” were both at least pretending to be on trend.

There’s probably some awful fake rap tune on the third album that i’ve deliberately erased from my memory.

Actually that reminds me: Suede’s ‘Head Music’ is kind of on this tip isn’t it.

Does Saint Etienne Sound of Water fit here?

Was thinking about this - like some of the other artists here they'd dabbled in dance music before but this was the album where they really went for the (as Brimstead put it) 'home listening' side of dance/electronica so I'd say yes personally.

Another one I thought of late last night was Cornershop's When I Was Born for the 7th Time.

Kid A totally fits, as does Super Furry Animals' Guerrilla

See I'm not really sure about this - Kid A is a bit too late to qualify (it's really the first of a particular kind of 00s record rather than a late 90s phenomenon), and it lacks the vampiness that unites a lot of these records. The Radiohead song that really, instantly, seems to fit is 'Talk Show Host' and somewhere there's a parallel universe where Radiohead went further down that rabbit hole. Maybe that its placement on the Romeo and Juliet soundtrack but there's also a sense of campness, of dressing up, that you don't usually get with Radiohead.

Guerilla is SFA's most obviously pluralistic record but it's the culmination of something that was building in their music from the very beginning, even on the first album they were into techno and that shows in the way they'd run an acid line through a punk pop track or whatever.

I should qualify my comment regarding US artists turning to European sources of inspiration - obv. the other really big influence was Beck's Odelay - and yeah to the extent that there is a shadow US narrative it'sin the deference paid to The Dust Brothers, Dan The Automator and Sean Lennon and even the enthusiasm which greeted the return of the Beastie Boys on Hello Nasty on its release

Feel like there was also a subset of early 90s indie/shoegaze dudes who reappred with new names making vaguely countryish music with faux-hip hop beats and obviously Odelay is the rosetta stone for those bands, although Delakota is the only one I can think of right now. Is this what Mojave 3 sounded like?

Agreed that Radiohead don't have an album that really fits - the Airbag/How Am I Driving? EP might do at a stretch I guess.

Thread has reminded me of:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3GN9PZG_qM

Matt OTM about “Talk Show Host”. I think the version on the R&J soundtrack was the Nelly Hooper remix but it applies to the original almost as much.

Airbag is probably the best fitting Radiohead track

Cut Here by The Cure, though a little later than most of this, feels related

ultra's inclusion is admittedly more about association and feeling than it fitting the narrative. also i should have called this thread "drowning in time to a desperate beat"

I think of the Cure as having been pretty darn electronic already, but I won't quarrel about it.

I remember discovering both Ultra and GusGus in about April 1997 and thinking "It's No Good" and "Believe" were the most futuristic music I had ever heard. In my defence I was not quite 15.

... Adore's case that's the gothy end of 80s synthpop (Gary Numan is all over that record)

Speaking as someone who has heard every Numan album, I really don't hear Numan's influence on that record at all.

Is this what Mojave 3 sounded like?

― Matt DC, Tuesday, November 14, 2017 4:55 AM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

not at all. it's been a while since i listened but "early 90s indie/shoegaze dudes who reappred with new names making vaguely countryish music with faux-hip hop beats" is accurate I suppose

Feel like there was also a subset of early 90s indie/shoegaze dudes who reappred with new names making vaguely countryish music with faux-hip hop beats and obviously Odelay is the rosetta stone for those bands, although Delakota is the only one I can think of right now.

Scott 4 were one of these bands I think? Though as far as I know they just appeared rather than reappeared.

yep. feel like the Beta Band's "Dog's Got a Bone" was a touchstone for a lot of this stuff too

Better Than Ezra - How Does Your Garden Grow?

hey brad - posted this on another thread but wanted to make sure you saw it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Vx3wCAWJSk

Rickie Lee Jones' 'Ghostyhead' belongs here too. Oddly seems a more natural fit for her than many others who dabbled in this and would have liked to see her do more in this vein.

Rickie Lee Jones' 'Ghostyhead' belongs here too. Oddly seems a more natural fit for her than many others who dabbled in this and would have liked to see her do more in this vein.

― Dan Worsley, Tuesday, November 14, 2017 8:38 AM (nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

aw hell yeah i am listening to this record when i get home

Beth Orton's Superpinkymandy seems like this whole scenario in reverse, wherein she began with the "engagement with electronica" approach and then abruptly moved to a folk pop sound.

A distinguishing feature of Ghostyhead for me is that Rickie used the “going electronica” manoeuvre to give full rein to a certain beatnik spontaneity that had been part of her stylistic make up from the beginning. For me the shifts in songwriting and performance are probably more essential to what makes that album fascinating than the album’s laurel canyon trip hop production, though that’s pretty interesting and largely successfully as well.

I think the Cure songs that best fit the thread are Wrong Number and their cover of World In My Eyes.

an electronic RLJ album is totally expected

I think the Cure songs that best fit the thread are Wrong Number and their cover of World In My Eyes.

I was thinking Mixed Up.

Mixed Up is not a part of this trend any more than “W.F.L” or “Fool’s Gold” are.

I don't think The Cure is part of this at all, really.

would Chromatics fit into this? going from a punk lo-fi style band into an Italo-disco style act.

bands that change their sound completely like that are kind of a different thing, i think. i associate this period with one album detours.

i think there might be one person left from the og chromatics? it's almost like maybe the band broke up but johnny jewel wanted to still use the name? it is a cool band name.

madonna interview Tim posted was great, thanks Tim

The thread specified late 90's - early 00's. To my ears, Wong Number ('97) and World in My Eyes ('98) have that electronic texture that was being used at the time. Also More Than This and A Sign From God. (x-post)

13 by Blur, right? At least a few of the tracks seem to go down this path, plus produced by Orbit

Also, Medazzaland by Duran Duran seemed distinctly informed by electronica, even though they've also been synthy

always been*

Guys it’s simple: if the stylistic development has no conceivable relationship to quote unquote “electronica” then it is not part of this thread.

Chromatic definitely don’t count.

wanted to like Ghostyhead a lot more than I actually did.

Chromatics are the best part of a decade too late?

It's not really a coincidence that the vast majority of the records in the original post are from the same year, and a general sense that the a lot of the defining musical narratives of the 90s had played themselves out by 1998. With a lot of these records you get a sense of artists spinning around trying to work out what to do next. Once again it's Ray of Light that feels like the most sure-footed step here.

A lot of this general malaise feels embodied in UNKLE's 'Psyence Fiction' but that obviously isn't within the remit of this thread.

iirc Madonna had a few other producers in mind for Ray of Light before or at least in addition to William Orbit so think she was spinning around as much as anyone - but the album does a good job of sounding like it was always meant to sound I guess.

oh shit here's one i completely forgot about: twilight as played by the twilight singers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwS4Rby2Re0

yesssss good call

Kid A is a bit too late to qualify (it's really the first of a particular kind of 00s record rather than a late 90s phenomenon),

we don't really need to talk about radiohead any more than we already have obv but surely kid a is a part of this phenomenon, "rock band explores electronica" was the overwhelming press narrative w/ this album and i think predecessors like u2, pumpkins, and rem who had already dabbled with electronica possibly allowed for the success of something like kid a, it was such a common arc for a band at that time

And in a sense, what the artists were really engaging with was the uncertainty of what it meant to be modern and "alternative" in the late nineties, which you could boil down to appearing on the cover of Spin with slightly oddball make-up and ensuring that your music felt like it could soundtrack that cover photo

ha this is amazing. otm.

i agree with the people who have suggested that the "talk show host" remix on the romeo + juliet soundtrack has more to do with this thread than kid a

though technically one of the options in the poll is "too late to qualify" (the orzabal record is from 2002, it just sounds like it was recorded in 1998)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxkYMCA104o

actually it's from 2001. sorry, that's an extremely misleading youtube embed

^^^ i really love this record now

i agree with the people who have suggested that the "talk show host" remix on the romeo + juliet soundtrack has more to do with this thread than kid a

― ToddBonzalez (BradNelson), Wednesday, November 15, 2017 4:24 PM (forty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't. The approach of Kid A isn't distinct, it's part of the same continuum.

Also, if Guerrilla doesn't fit (it does) then Madonna and Depeche Mode sure as hell don't.

ok thanks turrican