Could someone explain to me why DI Go Pop isn't the best album ever made pretty damn sharpish

And now for a sixth time.

I thought *I* was obsessive.

great, great, great record. it took me a couple of years to really find it occupying my brain but now it sits in a corner there, quietly looping and whirring and mumbling.

Very minor-ish gripe but... it would have been nice to have a bit more of the stunning beauty demonstrated on the EPs of the time - "Summer's Last Sound", "Love Stepping Out", "Second Language", "The Last Dance" etc. D.I. Go Pop is a heady, frequently awesome record, but it's a bit heavygoing too. There's nothing wrong with heavygoing of course, but I can't help but think that someone who had only heard the album might be missing out on their gentler side - for what it's worth, I didn't actually "get" the band until I heard their EP stuff. As I said though, minor stuff.

I reckon this record is a bit over-rated - it slips into the noise/unlistenable a bit too much. Neck on the line here... I reckon Technicolour is better because of the more poppy touches.

Mighty fine album. Dense, powerful, almost overwhelmingly. Like admiring a ferocious thunderstorm, the air cracking with electricity. Must get hold of those EPs, cleary a case for a reissue (Damn! I've used the forbidden 'R' word already in 2002, sorry Omar)

is this the one with that "sharky water" track. i've had it lying around on tape for ages. never listened to it cos the guy who gave it to me was into all kinds of crap that i couldn't get into.

"Footprints In Snow" is one of the most poignant and nostalgic sounding songs I've ever heard. Love "Even The Sea Sides Against Us" also. Never got to hear the follw up LP "Technicolour". All their equipment and tapes for that album were stolen and by the time they got round to re-recording it I think the fire had gone out of them. EPs are excellent although a bit too New Orderish on a couple of trax. If anybody has their old MMs hoarded in the attic check out Jonathan Selzer's review for D.I. Go Pop. Great piece. From Feb/March 94 or thereabouts.

d.i. go pop is an amazing record, but i can see what mitch meant when he said that he thought it sounded somewhat muffled and claustrophobic. it is a bit much the first dozen or so times you listen until you start to pick out the subtlties. crause's main inspiration was the bomb squad, but he seemed to inherit more of their "bomb that never stops exploding" rather than their ability to layer the sounds. i think ned was spot on when he compared it to 154, especially if you consider in debt their chairs missing. it's post-punk agression abstracted out to the nth possible degree. i'm really looking forward to hearing the singles in comparison.

I actually do listen more to the homemade singles comp than Go Pop, partially because it definitely does show a greater range -- partially due to the freedom to experiment, perhaps, but then again we are talking about music recorded over a two-year period and more. If the singles collection were an actual album, then that would be the only rival for Loveless in my affections when it came to nineties albums, no question.

I listen to the singles more as well, as Go Pop is rather intense and not exactly the type of thing I just throw on for the hell of it. It reminds me of 154 as well, even more so when I think of programming out "I Should Have Known Better," "Map Ref," "Two People in a Room," "Single KO," and "The 15th." That's something I would only think about doing. Acutally, I hope I'll never think of doing such a thing again.

Because the first song is not really very good.

Alas, Scott P, you are wrong. *beheads him with melancholy and weeping for the need for death in this situation*

I definitely see the "D.I. Go Pop"/"154" relationship, but to me the whole point of the shift between "In Debt" and "D.I. Go Pop" is the switching of allegiances from Joy Division to Wire - the latter is a healthier allegiance I think (even if I do listen to JD more)... which leads me to the question: which historic bands should current bands be taking cues from if they want to do something new? Disco Inferno themselves have already been mentioned elsewhere, and quite beyond the sampling aesthetic I think their slightly bloodless, abstract approach to indie pop might actually be a *very good* thing in the right hands.

To answer the original question, you should take it off and hunt down their other records. I agree with whoever said "Technicolour" was a better overall album than "DI go POP", it seems more organised. "DI go POP" seems to be still experimenting with the possibilities of sampling and MIDI, which is why it sounds too tentative to me. The singles around it were far better. "The last dance" was the best New Order song never made with lyrics that hurt, "Second language" showed them grasping sampling and getting it right at last and "It's a kids world" just rocked like a bastard and makes me dance uncontrollably every time I play it. "Technicolour" continues in the vein of the last two singles and extrapolates the ideas and textures of sampling while working them into real songs. I'm still trying to get my head around "In debt" even after all these years (I was playing it while washing up yesterday oddly enough), it's like too much Joy Division and Durutti Column in a mixer. Not that it's a bad thing, but they'd not got the ideas right yet. I've got old interviews with DI saying how all the time they were with Che they knew the possibilities of sampling were there but they didn't have the money, "DI go POP" is like the first record everyone makes with a new piece of technology, it's all over the place and overexposed and experimental and tentative and "Can we do this? Yes we can! Isn't this fun?" Which doesn't make good music. Great lyrics, some great tunes, and "Footprints in snow" is damn near perfect... but they got even better.

Can't see the Wire / "154" influence myself, but then I always preferred "Chairs missing" to "154". That's my problem...

Tim, I agree wholeheartedly that Disco Inferno--esp. circa DI Go Pop-- would be an amazing band to take cues from. There's so much possibility there to be mined. It's been said elsewhere by others, but I certainly agree that early post-rock is a virtual goldmine of goodness that has basically never been followed up on on any sort of scale.

This thread reminded me I'd been meaning to pick up In Debt for some time now. I just did this evening, and I'm finding it absolutely breathtaking. The guitar interplay is just amazing.

Well I’m leaving it on my tape-desk for the moment as ‘D.I. go POP’ is rewarding repeated listens. The sound of a band grappling with new technologies, experimenting without a rulebook and coming up with some sonically astonishing material. I like it being ‘experimental’, and ‘tentative’. ‘Starbound’ is close to perfection, as are the whirlpools of noise that close ‘Even the Sea Sides against Us’ . Who needs more ‘real songs’, aren’t there enough in the world? ‘D.I. goes Pop’ offers exhilarating off-kilter schizophrenic pop.

That said I can’t (as yet) compare it with their other stuff but what a fine album, an untapped treasure trove of ideas that never were followed through.

Hmm... think I spoke too soon. I listened to it today - washing up again - and found a lot more in it than I remembered, the whirlpools of noise at the climax of certain songs, and while it still sounds tentative, I'd forgotten how powerful it was - the sounds and textures and the words as well. In fact, it's the words that draw me in over and over again, why don't people write lyrics like that any longer? Powerful, insightful and more than anything true.

Revive to ask what the vocal sample on "Starbound" is from because it feels on the tip of my brane.