Stereo MC's - Connected

where do the strings on 'Chicken Shake' (or is it 'Don't Let Up? can't remember) come from? i heard the original the other day and was disappointed (not in the track), as if it wasn't obvious they were audaciously swiped from some 60s/70s orchestral merchant.

this was in queens and i still can't imagine why hed go out of his way to ask me...

it warrants a spin here and there

its of its time admittedly . but still a fine album to spin when the mood is right.

the followup 'Deep down and dirty' was more of the same - but didn't quite reach the same heights.

not heard the newbie one yet ..

live 105 played "connected" like 22 hours out of the day the year it came out. i heard absolutely nothing else on that station, ever, at the time. this is no exaggeration.

i couldn't name another song by them.

Yeah I was going to say, I don't understand this because "Connected" definitely seemed to have, well "connected" in the States at the time. Not sure if it was T.V. or radio that gave me that feeling exactly, but that's how it seems from my memory.

i really like the connected album, although that doesnt mean its good (like beats international). the 90s was really into that weird mid tempo funk thing wasnt it?

i like the way "creation" is like a total rip off of the other two big tunes, (but maybe better?)

whatever

I thought they had some modest success before Connected broke big in the UK. Didn't they have a big single on the dance/r&b charts in 90-91?

Does anyone else love the early stuff of this band the way I do? You know what I mean, their first album 33-45-78??? I didn't think Supernatural was all that great....but I do have a strange memory of driving in my car to the next town (an hour drive on the highway) and bizarrely, just as I was playing "Two Horse Town", some people crossed over the highway on a footbridge kind of thing and they had two horses. That was fucking weird. Even weirder that they would have been there while I was driving under the footbridge.

Anyway, I like the Connection album just fine, too. Had an autographed copy that someone stole from me, and I never replaced it. Boo hoo. Got it now, though.

Didn't they support Happy Mondays when they were on the way on the way up (and the Monday's were rapidly disintergrating)?

Apparently blew the main act away.

and the 90's was definitely NOT a shit decade for music by the way. sorry.

Does anyone else love the early stuff of this band the way I do? You know what I mean, their first album 33-45-78??? I didn't think Supernatural was all that great....

-- Bimble

Yes, me too Bimble - not for the vocals, though they weren't too bad, but for the killer backing tracks. And the overall sound, very lo-fi but exceedingly funky. The whole album was wonderful. Apart from the title track, one that really hit the gut was 'What Is Soul'. After that album, which I flogged to death, nothing really grabbed me, especially not 'Connected' - very bland.

Does anyone else love the early stuff of this band the way I do? You know what I mean, their first album 33-45-78???

'Gee Street' is fucking amazing (or at least all the samples and the way they're thrown together like that are)

As posted elsewhere:

--

I mean, is Stereo MCs or EMF the equivalent today's Gym Class Heroes or Flobots whatev megahit non-rap rap? Because that shit sucks my balls all day long and "Connected" and "Unbelievable" rule to this very day

― Whiney G. Weingarten, Sunday, August 8, 2010 10:53 AM (53 seconds ago)

Is this awesome thing the equivalent thing to this shit thing? I draw the comparison because one is great and the other one is awful.

I was like 12 when I grooved on this and 12 year olds like travvie McCoy, so

ta ra hip hop, 'ello electro pop :

http://www.stereomcs-emperorsnightingale.com

not that bad.

from a quick spin its certainly a lot more listenable than the 'double bubble' album they released a few years back

I've never heard this album, but I still remember how 'Step It Up' and 'Connected' go, despite the fact that I haven't heard them since the early '90s (and I was about 9 years old when these songs came out!)

My main overriding memory of Stereo MCs, though, is that their singer always looked so gaunt and painfully thin and ill.

I can't believe how happy I am to discover that Stereo MCs are still recording

new stuff aint more of the same old same old djp ..

one track even has italian piano house riff

[and it works way better than i ever expected]

yeah, I'm listening now

this is surprisingly effective stuff!

I'll have to check this out.

this. should. not. work.

but it really does.

[if this was an album by a new artist i suspect a lot more folks would have picked up on it .. but given the bands history they will probably gert slated/ignored]

ha i am enjoying that i’ve never heard this band and album at all except for ad infinitum reps of title track and i think that step up song. i’d always assumed they were well-known in usa because connected was ubiquitous in my zone. and i thought they were terrible emf jesus jones post baggie runoff shit.

my uk awareness then shifted from showgaze straight to like aphex autechre or the orb orbital etc and skipped this and then all britoop except suede pulp some plur albarny stuff and what are they anyway.

so if they were hiphop, my hiphop was all domestic then. but this feels just like groovy dancepop to me now and i am sure then, too. anyhow i like it enough.