The Avalanches - didn't Negativland do this better?

don't know about who did it first or anything as haven't really heard negativland. the only thing about the avalanches album i don't like is the fact that its actually not very good. alongside outkast and magnetic fields its an ILM standard i just don't 'get'. the avalanches album sounds dull and studied, and its just not that much fun. i wanted them to be a poppier version of tipsy or sukia, and i ended up with a halfway house of classicism and turntablism.

I find the idea that Negativland are better at ANYTHING than ANYONE highly implausible...

The Avalanches album is a big hit around here... What I love about it is that they do cut-up/patchwork/whatever you want to call it, but make really beautiful (at times, anyway) girlie disco out of it. It sounds like what would happen (literally, I mean) if you played the pretty parts of 'Loveless' over top of the first Disco Tex album. In fact, it's much closer in spirit to Tex, I'd say, than to Negativland or even DJ Shadow. I doubt my infatuation with it will last more than a few months, but hey...

Oh, and (unlike Negativland, I'm assuming -- I've actually heard very little by them, and am not in a hurry to do so) note that the samples-references of-to Madonna, Boney M, Kid Creole, etc. work as MUSIC, not merely as hey-that's-cool. I mean, their use of "Holiday" sounds like a holiday. In the sun.

Being even less qualified than everyone else to contribute (having only heard the Avalanches gimix mix, which is great and apparently what the albums kind of based on and a couple of the tracks and only one Negativland track), I would tend to think that Avalanches are pretty POP! in a way that Negativland weren't interested in. The Avalanches strength is combining the cleverness with stuff that still works as pure pop.

Maybe I've said this before : colourbox!! Anyway, I like "since I left you" and I love the title song.

Ooooh, Colourbox: lovely version of Baby, I Love You So with the King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown dubby chucked in. Victims of a number 1 single, supposedly. Anyway, the difference between the Avalanches and Negativland is indeed that the Avanlanches are trying to make music whereas Negativland were trying to make a point. Not the same thing at all, really...

Blimey, looks like I'm fighting my own corner here...

OK, most of the time Negativland are very much yer media terrorist types, but oddly enough the "Dick Vaughn" thing was quite populist, in that it sampled a whole load of seventies grooves and put the occasional soundbite over the top of them, which is where the Avalanches similarity begins and ends. I wasn't saying that everything Negativland has ever done was better than the Avalanches (early Negativland is noise for the sake of it, and sometimes they are just plain crap), just that I was expecting to be blown away by "Since I left you" and wasn't, simply because I thought it was a bit passe and overdone. Sure, the surprise element of hearing Boney M and Kid Creole in a 'cool' context was great the first time, but the effect wears thin after a few more listens. There's no doubt it's a great party record, and will probably be this year's Portishead / Air / Moby coffee-table record for those who want to feel hip, but I was expecting something more which I didn't get from it. The pretty bits of "Loveless"? Can't hear that in it. Anyway, nice to see I can get a discussion going rather than kill it dead. Cheers folks for the input.

I just can't help laughing at how revered the Avalanches are in the UK. Here in their hometown, Melbourne, they've been the recipients of a fair amount of negative press (some from me)... The fact that some of them/some people associated with them behave like a pack of cocks in public (long story) has probably served to demystify the band's music to a large extent.

Plus, everyone here knows they can't play live for shit.