90s UK electronic album music that's utterly forgettable

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This ain't a simple hating thred (though I don't mind those). More just wondering of anyone else finds a lot of this kind of stuff (which was reviewed fairly poisitvely at the time) to now be awfully dull. I'm thinking:
Everything Ninja Tune ever put out.
Amon Tobin, if he wasn't on Ninja Tune.
Cold Cut, after "Paid in Full"
Lamb
Plug
Funky Porcini
Groove Armada
Ruby
Tosca
Thievery Corporation
Nicolette
T Power
The Orb
Gus Gus
Morcheeba
etc

― paulhw (paulhw), Thursday, 1 July 2004 20:15 (twenty-one years ago)

oh yeah, the fucking sneaker pimps.

― paulhw (paulhw), Thursday, 1 July 2004 20:15 (twenty-one years ago)

some of those are not UK.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 1 July 2004 20:18 (twenty-one years ago)

erm, can we overlook that? though i've noticed that some people from *those islands* are quite prickly about nationalism...

― paulhw (paulhw), Thursday, 1 July 2004 20:19 (twenty-one years ago)

haah 90% of it to thread

― benito mussolinington (dubplatestyle), Thursday, 1 July 2004 20:20 (twenty-one years ago)

wait, wait washington is an island now??

― benito mussolinington (dubplatestyle), Thursday, 1 July 2004 20:20 (twenty-one years ago)

It's like he was waiting for Stevem to go out for the night before posting this.

― nabiscothingy, Thursday, 1 July 2004 20:21 (twenty-one years ago)

Most of the music mentioned is what my friend refers to as "Creative Director music" which seems to be an apt appellation. However, I 100% disagree with the Orb. I still think that all of their records up to Orbis Terrarum are quite good and hold up. In fact, Pomme Fritz is anything but forgettable.

― direct_program, Thursday, 1 July 2004 20:34 (twenty-one years ago)

the orb are STILL good, even

― fizzcaraldo (Justin M), Thursday, 1 July 2004 20:53 (twenty-one years ago)

Huge swathes of these are the folx that NMEish journos sneered at nonstop through the mid/late-90s for being TRIPHOPLITE i.e. not Tricky Massive Attack Portishead (& sometimes Bjork maybe) clearly none of whom were ever capable of recording anything below par ever ever. I think, y'know, some of them are quite great and some of them aren't and some of them are shite. Ruby have one ace album and the Orb did great bits clearly and Nicolette was quite good if wildly inconsistent and GusGus were neatish and Lamb have, like, one really great track etc etc etc (wot no Baby Fox? good)

What happened to Alex Reece? He was really godawful maybe in fact

― Alex in Doncaster (Alex in Doncaster), Thursday, 1 July 2004 20:57 (twenty-one years ago)

i would disagree with the sneaker pimps, at least the first album, which I think sounds better now than it did when it came out. but morcheeba, hooverphonic, the supreme beings of leisure, et all.... bah.

― kyle (akmonday), Thursday, 1 July 2004 21:00 (twenty-one years ago)

what??? alex reece was awesome! what are you talking about??

the fact that this stuff is forgettable is going to make it all the more fun to re-discover 10+ years from now (like i'm doing with the pre-wap50 warp catalog right now)

― vahid (vahid), Thursday, 1 July 2004 21:01 (twenty-one years ago)

vahid, you know i love you, but i have no idea how anyone could make a case for alex reece outside "pulp fiction".

― benito mussolinington (dubplatestyle), Thursday, 1 July 2004 21:05 (twenty-one years ago)

I disagree strongly on Amon Tobin, Coldcut, Lamb, the Orb, and the Thievery Corporation stuff compiled on Sounds from the Thievery Hi Fi. Aside from that....yeah I don't remember it so well.

― Gear! (Gear!), Thursday, 1 July 2004 21:06 (twenty-one years ago)

funniest thread title ever

― CeCe Peniston (Anthony Miccio), Thursday, 1 July 2004 21:07 (twenty-one years ago)

"rock bands with guitars"

― CeCe Peniston (Anthony Miccio), Thursday, 1 July 2004 21:07 (twenty-one years ago)

also FUNKI PORCINI is great, too!! i just re-bought the 2cd first album. a true masterpiece of trip-hop!!

― vahid (vahid), Thursday, 1 July 2004 21:30 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.jpc.de/jpcimages/big/7989919.jpg

― AdamL :') (nordicskilla), Thursday, 1 July 2004 21:32 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm being a bit revisionist here, because Headz is actually one of the few records where I actually had some kind of "WHAT IS THIS MUSIC?"-type epiphany! I heard it playing in Rough Trade and rushed to ask the clerk what it was and bought it immediately! It's shit, of course.

Even at the time, my friend and I said "this would sound GREAT at 45rpm"!

― AdamL :') (nordicskilla), Thursday, 1 July 2004 21:34 (twenty-one years ago)

OK what i think is interesting about a lot of old trip-hop of the ninja/mowax variety is how tracky it is. this of course has nothing to do with your molokos and morcheebas and whatever ... but the real vintage good stuff like ... um ... funki porcini and 9 lazy 9 and up bustle + out and etc etc.

the best of it is so vacant, so vacuous, so skeletal, so sparsely constructed. i can't believe that at some point in the 90s we were stoned enough to think that a looped jazz break and a looped one-bar bit of upright bass noodling and maybe a weird sample and some off-key horn flourish, repeated ad infinitum for five or six or ten minutes was somehow more organic than leftfield.

in my universe, it is the motorik kraut wing of hiphop.

― vahid (vahid), Thursday, 1 July 2004 21:35 (twenty-one years ago)

FUCK 45 RPM

WE WANT THE COSMIC SLOOOOOOOOOWNESS

― vahid (vahid), Thursday, 1 July 2004 21:35 (twenty-one years ago)

that is like saying alice coltrane should have been playing dixieland!!

― vahid (vahid), Thursday, 1 July 2004 21:35 (twenty-one years ago)

DAMN RIGHT

― AdamL :') (nordicskilla), Thursday, 1 July 2004 21:36 (twenty-one years ago)

did groove armada even have an album in the 90s?

I am suspicious of people hating on this stuff, for some reason. I fail to see how dance fans can switch between liking acts for their singles and wanting entire albums to be good at the drop of a hat.

Groove Armada, they've had one or two good singles. After this, who cares. Who cares about their crap album. Same goes for anyone else on this thread.

― Ronan (Ronan), Thursday, 1 July 2004 21:36 (twenty-one years ago)

think of the amount of AWFUL albums by acts who've had amazing one off dance singles, there must be hundreds, I mean far less well known or acclaimed ones than these, does it affect the single? no.

― Ronan (Ronan), Thursday, 1 July 2004 21:37 (twenty-one years ago)

strongo re: alex reece - i think on your blog you were once talking about "kid caprice" etc in not uncomplementary tones ... i think alex reece mapped out a middle ground between ltj bukem and techstep. this thin strip of, um, "jazzy crossover rollers" i think you called it, eventually became home to high contrast and dj marky and danny c, etc.

this sort of house-ish middle(brow)ground where functional != totally dire and depressing.

not that this middleground was the greatest thing ever or anything, but it keeps the pot boiling long enough to see the, um, current renaissance through. (i mean, i know there's no renaissance, but some hope is better than no hope right?? and the fact that i am actually putting a d+b track on mixtapes again - beyonce+sean paul's "baby boy", the "high on plastic" remix, which sounds a lot like "wishing on a star" or something - also means something)

― vahid (vahid), Thursday, 1 July 2004 21:41 (twenty-one years ago)

did i really talk about "kid caprice"?! (that was who? wax doctor?) i dont'r remember that at all. (i have a soft spot for both logical progression and that points in time 002 with "atlantis" on it.)

(oh wait, that must have been when i was talking about 2003 dnb.)

(i am actually feeling really positive about dnb this year. have you heard that dj clever mix reynolds was talking about? it's great!)

― benito mussolinington (dubplatestyle), Thursday, 1 July 2004 21:50 (twenty-one years ago)

nope, still looking. did you slsk it or did you buy it??

― vahid (vahid), Thursday, 1 July 2004 21:54 (twenty-one years ago)

"kid caprice" was included on vol. 6 of the r&s compilation series "in order to dance". that volume was a 2cd set that sort of focused on that streamlined wax doctor / reece sound. sort of prescient title.

i can't really sum up the diff between these guys and the bukem crew but i think it's real and a lot bigger than it looks from outside the d+b scene.

― vahid (vahid), Thursday, 1 July 2004 21:56 (twenty-one years ago)

maybe i am going out on a limb here but i am of the mind that no alex reece = no "spaced invader"

― vahid (vahid), Thursday, 1 July 2004 21:57 (twenty-one years ago)

Unsurprisingly I still love most of the artists quoted in the original post (except Morcheeba, whom I never liked).

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 1 July 2004 21:58 (twenty-one years ago)

the one's i'll grant UTTERLY SUCKED are morcheeba, baby fox, and thievery corporation. i can't believe anthony saw fit to mention hooverphonic and SBOL. i thought people knew they sucked from the beginning!

― vahid (vahid), Thursday, 1 July 2004 22:04 (twenty-one years ago)

me too dan, kinda, except morcheeba and thievery corp and groove armada (who maybe shouldn't be on the list anyway) and yet i still find it all a bit dull. will have to dig plug out again! fuck i even like headz.

― gaz (gaz), Thursday, 1 July 2004 22:06 (twenty-one years ago)

― AdamL :') (nordicskilla), Thursday, 1 July 2004 22:07 (twenty-one years ago)

i agree about ninja tunes being shit and all of your list in fact, but NICOLETTE? "now is early" is absolute ace! total classic. wow, how i kaned that record "wicked mathematics"!

― xenografia, Thursday, 1 July 2004 22:13 (twenty-one years ago)

I remember finding it awfully dull when people were saying it was amazing. I still haven't properly got the NinjaTune phenomenon.

Lamb put out a couple of good albums though. Fear of Fours has some fantastic tracks... Ear Parcel has /frog samples/ in the beat and crazy crazy brass noodlings, which is much better than understated brass noodlings. Five manages to drop into a very strong and deceptively simple groove in some quite random time signature. And Lullaby is just beautiful..

Also the Global Communication mix of Gorecki is like the bestestestest.

― damian_nz (damian_nz), Thursday, 1 July 2004 22:13 (twenty-one years ago)

I am total sucker for Gorecki, also I suspect Now Is Early by Nicolette is milliontimes better than Let No One Rent Free Head Etc which was a Proper Chart Hit in the UK and everything chiefly because NME (specifically Stephen Dalton HRRRRRRRRRRRRM) talked it up nonstop for about 9 months before release and it was SPORADIC really (in terms of being much good)

― Alex in Doncaster (Alex in Doncaster), Thursday, 1 July 2004 22:35 (twenty-one years ago)

A guy at work really likes Salmonella Dub (a local slightly rocky dub/d&b combo act, imagine "Brown Paper Bag" meets Digital meets Mezzanine), and then he heard LTJ Bukem play and really enjoyed that. But he bought Logical Progressions and was disappointed - fair enough, but he doesn't even like "Music" much! His problems were that the music was too wishy-washy, the bass to soft and the breaks too complicated (or rather "fussy"). I told him I'd make him a comp. of better d&b and I'm really tempted to put on the really mindmelting breakbeat stuff that I personally go for, But I know that he really wants ten Alex Reece tracks.

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Thursday, 1 July 2004 22:54 (twenty-one years ago)

i like feel the sunshine

*ducks*

― gaz (gaz), Friday, 2 July 2004 00:17 (twenty-one years ago)

Most of the music mentioned is what my friend refers to as "Creative Director music" which seems to be an apt appellation..

How so?

― jeffery (jeffery), Friday, 2 July 2004 00:34 (twenty-one years ago)

Salmonella Dub local as in Melbourne? Good. I hope they stay there.

― Andrew Blood Thames (Andrew Thames), Friday, 2 July 2004 00:53 (twenty-one years ago)

you know if its from nz its aussie Andrew

― gaz (gaz), Friday, 2 July 2004 00:55 (twenty-one years ago)

Creative Director music!!!

Funniest thing all week.

― Jacob (Jacob), Friday, 2 July 2004 00:58 (twenty-one years ago)

I've always been very sceptical of Salmonella Dub but I caught part of their show at the Big Day Out and it was quite good. Mainly because very loud. But yeah this guy at work was trying to explain to me why they were so much better than all other d&b and it required all my powers of polite deception not to sigh plaintively or snort derisively.

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Friday, 2 July 2004 00:59 (twenty-one years ago)

You could have gargled contemptuously.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 2 July 2004 01:01 (twenty-one years ago)

or kicked him in the goolies

― gaz (gaz), Friday, 2 July 2004 01:03 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm supposed to like Sal Dub because I'm a dub-loving dreadlock-sporting hippy from New Zealand's most dub-friendly city (Wellington). But I just don't. They have maybe two or three good songs but otherwise they've basically been playing the same musical idea since like 1996.

― damian_nz (damian_nz), Friday, 2 July 2004 01:10 (twenty-one years ago)

My standard line was that The Hive (now with a different name i think) were better, but then their second album sounded really boring when I listened in store. However they did come up with the idea of turning The Cure's "Close To Me" into a dancehall riddim about a year before the Germaicans did.

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Friday, 2 July 2004 01:15 (twenty-one years ago)

How is it that nobody has defended Plug yet? The Plug 1,2,3 ep's are classics.

― Barry Bruner (Barry Bruner), Friday, 2 July 2004 01:16 (twenty-one years ago)

well i did say i was gonna go listen to them again ;)

― gaz (gaz), Friday, 2 July 2004 01:22 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh god this thread just reminded me of:

Salt City Orchestra

Bleh.

― Jacob (Jacob), Friday, 2 July 2004 02:11 (twenty-one years ago)

the KLF

(just kidding)

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Friday, 2 July 2004 02:21 (twenty-one years ago)

The Plug 1,2,3 ep's are classics.

― jeffery (jeffery), Friday, 2 July 2004 04:17 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah, take plug off that list, that's not right.

― sherm, Friday, 2 July 2004 05:32 (twenty-one years ago)

Drum'n'Bass For Papa is perfectly memorable.

I see that and raise you CUP OF TEA RECORDS

― DJ Mencap (DJ Mencap), Friday, 2 July 2004 08:05 (twenty-one years ago)

YOU BASTARDS

― stevem (blueski), Friday, 2 July 2004 08:43 (twenty-one years ago)

I AM A CREATIVE DIRECTOR

― stevem (blueski), Friday, 2 July 2004 08:44 (twenty-one years ago)

it is kinda scary just how MUCH i adored Fila Brazillia four years ago

― stevem (blueski), Friday, 2 July 2004 08:45 (twenty-one years ago)

Amon Tobin's 'Sordid' was picked up for a car ad recently and so i was reminded how ace it is, tho the novelty does not last i guess. but i'll never forget the time i had it blasting at full volume while playing Quake with my 3 college housemates with all the lights out, in our pants.

― stevem (blueski), Friday, 2 July 2004 08:47 (twenty-one years ago)

Nicolette's 'No Government' and T Power's 'Silver' are very exciting

― stevem (blueski), Friday, 2 July 2004 08:49 (twenty-one years ago)

vahid otm tho

― stevem (blueski), Friday, 2 July 2004 08:51 (twenty-one years ago)

except about alex reece - one trick pony with a handful of decent tunes/remixes

― stevem (blueski), Friday, 2 July 2004 08:52 (twenty-one years ago)

yes there are good/great tracks. i recently mp3'd a lot of this stuff along with other stuff for my listening pleasure travelling to work and there is SO much that is just meh. and alex reece is the most culpable.

― gaz (gaz), Friday, 2 July 2004 08:52 (twenty-one years ago)

as for Ninja, i think the Funkungfusion and Xen Cuts comps may be all anyone needs. very good them.

― stevem (blueski), Friday, 2 July 2004 08:54 (twenty-one years ago)

the first comp is classic...what was that called? with the black & white cover? still its hard to disengage from nostalgia when listening.

― gaz (gaz), Friday, 2 July 2004 08:56 (twenty-one years ago)

uh...Funkjazztical Tricknology....i used to like their CLEVER WORDPLAY...

― stevem (blueski), Friday, 2 July 2004 08:57 (twenty-one years ago)

haha. i like them but there have been too many pointless records in recent years.

― gaz (gaz), Friday, 2 July 2004 09:01 (twenty-one years ago)

couple of albums that fill the criteria for the thread : deadstock - orbital copyists, Nuetron9000 - The Gree House Effect album (or something like that !) and that PWEI spinoff Golden Claw Music .. just not good, second rate Orb stuff.

as for Babyfox .. damn their first lp was worthy of many spins .. its a superb album. i have the second album hidden away, but so far not had time nor inclination to get into it.
there was a lot of this stuff about in the 90's though .. other names that have popped up : The Advent - their first double cd ? good/bad ? cant recall just remember it was fullon stuff!, Neil Landstrum - an album on Peacefrog that is totally unbearable to get all way through.
onwards ! m.e

― mark e (mark e), Friday, 2 July 2004 09:01 (twenty-one years ago)

the price of prolificity? (is that a word?)

― stevem (blueski), Friday, 2 July 2004 09:01 (twenty-one years ago)

On the strength of his Tresor stuff this century Landstrumm doesn't deserve to be on here.

I just dug out an old comp tape this morning with All Exhale by Luke Slater on, and it was pretty ripping but *very* dated. Do his albums still stand up? I haven't played 'em for years

― DJ Mencap (DJ Mencap), Friday, 2 July 2004 09:04 (twenty-one years ago)

anyone like tony thorpes label Language? does that fit here?

xpost: i think dull techno records are another thread!

― gaz (gaz), Friday, 2 July 2004 09:05 (twenty-one years ago)

Freek Funk was/is kinda awesome - i think stuff like 'Time Dancer' would only sound dated in that it's so British mid 90s electronic idea of futurism

― stevem (blueski), Friday, 2 July 2004 09:06 (twenty-one years ago)

'All Exhale' = good just for idea of vocodering 'Mad World' - better than that Gary Jules shit

― stevem (blueski), Friday, 2 July 2004 09:07 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, that's pretty much what I got from it (and agreed Gaz, although Slater always seemed to have this sort of surface-level eclecticism/8pm-dance-tent-at-Glasto type niche that set him apart from most UK techno)

― DJ Mencap (DJ Mencap), Friday, 2 July 2004 09:09 (twenty-one years ago)

the second palmskin prods disc (was there a third?)
any electronic comp which mentioned "jazz" in the title
most things on POrk
glamourous hooligan
juryman
spacer after the first record
anything on inertia
ObO
anything to do with mixmaster morris

― gaz (gaz), Friday, 2 July 2004 09:17 (twenty-one years ago)

terminalhead

― gaz (gaz), Friday, 2 July 2004 09:20 (twenty-one years ago)

can you tell i've been checking my shelves?

― gaz (gaz), Friday, 2 July 2004 09:20 (twenty-one years ago)

o
fuck
chris bangs (mr electric triangle tec)

― gaz (gaz), Friday, 2 July 2004 09:30 (twenty-one years ago)

Cinema and other stuff on Series 500

― DJ Mencap (DJ Mencap), Friday, 2 July 2004 09:33 (twenty-one years ago)

two months pass...

re-vive

i'm guessing vahid upthread is speaking of funki porcini's Hed Phone Sex. or at least i hope he is cuz it still sounds totally ace to me. i love "dubble" and a few others esp. and i like Tosca's Opera a whole lot still. much of that stuff that i somehow liked for a while (thievery corp., k&d, etc) sounds like music from an ad featuring beautiful young professionals enjoying a decadent desert at a dinner party.

― andrew m. (andrewmorgan), Wednesday, 15 September 2004 18:57 (twenty-one years ago)

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