Dance-bands - keep or bin?

[grobelaar]

I was having another sort out through my somewhat unused CD collection, the last time I had a clear-out I got rid of all the unbelievable bad pop/rock/easy listening music that I had bought over the years before becoming a wholesale born-again techno convert, but in the last purging my housemates convinced to keep my all my 'dance-band' albums like Chemical Brothers, Underworld, Leftfield etc etc - the thing is I never listen to them, and no matter how much everyone says how significant it all was/is it just doesn't pique my interest as much as a good bit of techno - so the question is, should they stay, or should they go?

I'd like to know what is everyone's opinion of this area of music is: Will I regret getting rid of them at a later date, or should I just ditch them? Is it all just commecial dogshit that I liked at the time because I didn't know anything else, or am I just being narrowminded. Is it Indie-pop producers do dance to Indie-pop formulae? I can't make my mind up whether I like this or not, having spent the day listening to it, I'm inclined to think I like some of the ideas, just it seems to get a bit formulaic, all the tracks seem to be clones of each other, just with different vocals and a different hook... A lot of the tracks strike me as being particularly unmemorable and quite anonymous too

The case for the prosection rests... anyone have any defence, I think Leftfield - Leftism might get to stay, but currently the rest of it is being consigned to deathrow...

[Basic 2: The Revenge]

Surely music has different meanings for everyone. If these CDs bring you memories or take you somewhere - then keep 'em. If you cringe at what you might deem as a naive buy (before you got into what you are now) then you may as well get shot of them.

[invisibleplanet]

i'd be hard pressed to rid myself of dubnobasswidmyheadman or leftism ..

[bitch one]

yeah leftism is the only one worth shit i reckon.

were you never into ultramarine? they were quite good.

[wheezer]

yes, ultramarine - every man and woman is a star is a very lush piece of vinyl bitch one!

as for underworld - my mom has all their old 80ies albums, and they suck. imho nothing ever changed in that respect concerning underworld, they are one of the most overhyped groups of electronic music, methinks.

chemical brothers is even worse simply because they are somehow associated with liam gallagher.

leftfield I never really listened to much, aside from the phat planet loop and the aaliyah bootleg...

[invisibleplanet]

well...i hear what u r all saying.

I don't listen to mainstream pop music, however, i consider these bands to be the 'pop' of the electronic music scene, and it's about as close to 'pop poop' as I have come - like 'em as they do what pop music does....fix a time in my mind ..upon hearing the tune I am transported back there..

[Hiro]

I left a box of old sounds, fliers etc... in a dark corner of my parents basement-

Stumbled upon it one day- Had a good laugh and a partial tear... It all made me freak out at a time- Also shows how far I've come...

Found an old Cocteau Twins album, in a Pirate Radio case- That alone was worth the revisit... You don't need to keep everything with you though- There are many ways of running into an old moment.

[amble]

i'd suggest keeping all that cds. i always do, even the really really bad stuff. i keep them in a box under my bed and take them to the light once every few years. it's always a good laugh! you just mustn't get embarrased (although that's not always easy) in front of your friends. it's a good sign of growing that you can look at this shit now and cry with laughter. no need to give it away unless you get something better back.

and yes ultramarine were cool. i was always looking for this one record, in the vid there's this small elephant playing trumpet on his nose - don't remember the name though.

[invisibleplanet]

the cocteau twins - what an amazing sound they had!

[wheezer]

yes, even crap music can mean something to you, in which case it'd be ill-advised to throw the media in question away - from a purely musical standpoint though, underworld just sucks ;-)

[c s]

Originally posted by invisibleplanet
the cocteau twins - what an amazing sound they had!

4AD had some great bands which were definitely not dance trash.

of course i keep the trash - anyone remember 2unlimited? ;)

[pille'ocheoni]

theres a group i just discovered at the record store called postal service......one of the guys is dntel and its fucking great!....best pop ive ever heard

[wheezer]

speaking of trash & 2unlimited, not a single person has posted a comment to my last mix, badtaste :sniff:

http://www.no-future.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2103

[wheezer]

Originally posted by pille'ocheoni
best pop ive ever heard

hihi, every time I've heard somebody say that it turned out not be pop in my ears lol

[invisibleplanet]

nope, but i remember fondly from the eighties (as I am an 'old' lady)..

bauhaus
the durutti column
dali's car
cocteau twins
dead can dance
the the

to name but a few

[wheezer]

the names you list there should def. not be muttered in the same breath as "2unlimited", ip =)

[phil]

What shit taste you had/have.

[pille'ocheoni]

well its pop, with electronica. sk-1 beats, and smooth amostphereics, wezzer vocals, maybe elctronic punk?>or not>anyways it cool stuff:)

[wheezer]

@pille gotta have a listen then...

[pille'ocheoni]

you should at the store we just got the full length...........i think it came out three days ago.....i love this band.........they rock!......and its dntel, and hes awsome too!.......their on sub-pop records

[jess-ssej]

I keep everything. Good, bad and ugly. I still have La Bouche and Keoki records from when I was 15. The best of the worst -by far- is a promo copy of 'the macarena' that I got when I worked at a record shop. Followed closely by a 12" single from Traci Lords (the b-side is remixed by none other than mr. oakenfold) LOL

Someday when I'm 50 I'm going to have a good laugh listening to that shite.

[wheezer]

Originally posted by pille'ocheoni
you should at the store we just got the full length...........i think it came out three days ago.....i love this band.........they rock!......and its dntel, and hes awsome too!.......their on sub-pop records

thnx I think I'll soulseek it first and then possibly see if I can piss off a local dealer enough to actually import a copy for me :D

[invisibleplanet]

Originally posted by wheezer
the names you list there should def. not be muttered in the same breath as "2unlimited", ip =)

what is 2unlimited ??? i never heard of before!

²phil i'll take that as a compliment, considering u were probably listening to the 'wheels on the bus' at the time
:illin:

[bitch one]

i actually love 80s pop music - not in an ironic way, i really like lionel richie, michael jackson, duran duran, blondie, etc etc. i've even been a dj at weddings a couple of times, it was great fun.

[wheezer]

@ip

http://2unlimited.sitecity.ru/

[karitek]

i am a strong believer in not getting rid of music. every time that i have sold records or cds, a year or two later there was something in there that i wish i had kept.

@amble - i am a fan of the 'secret music stash' as well, got mine in a box under my shelving unit.

[pille'ocheoni]

i had a dreanm last night my records caught on fire and all of my computer blew up.........i ran to india and wandered mindlessly. it was a sad relavation

[deccard]

u don´t know 2unlimited?
hits like: no no, no no no, no no no, theeeeeeeeeere´s no limit.

hm i don´t got all the old stuff i had. those ol metal tapes i shared with friends etc all gone.
if i need to i could download some ol anthrax shit.
but vinyl is different. it weighs more and stix to you like shit.
everytime you move to a new home u wish u are a mp3 dj.

[deccard]

hm i liked the first underworld album.
skyscraper was a nice fluffy track.

[Hiro]

@ Invisible - You named off some of my old favourites! Did you ever heard Lisa Gerrard's solo stuff (actually done with Peter Bourke- but not under the Dead Can Dance name).

--I remember the first time I heard the words "Pump up the Volume- Dance!" on the radio... I hit snooze... but I listened for a bit- liked what I heard... and then... missed my first class.

Ah... snooze button junkie.

[MUX]

i love it to bits..
i make five alarms so that i dont wake up mad... i just say.. oh i still got three mintues left then u blink your and it passes :(

well... i think that these albums like underworld, the chemicals, leftfield .. well... they aint worth a listen.. cause now your into more intillengent stuff.. BUT keep in mind that they probbaly led you to where u are musically now....

hoy guys.. what about orbital? i think there total crap nowadays but i saw that DVD of therese last week after a couple of spliffs.. it sounded good and looked good too .. hmm... must have been the ganja

[invisibleplanet]

i liked In Sides at the time......I liked it that they recorded one track using the Greenpeace solar bank named 'CYRUS', and so I think they deserve a place in my music history annals... I won't be getting rid of it, and I hope one day the children will say 'aww mom, did u listen to this...it's soooooo outdated!"

[Sheridan]

I too am a firm believer in not discarding old music. no matter how bad. because I end up wanting it back. I have even gone as far as going back to friends that I gave said music to, and asking for it back. I've certainly got my share of random music that sucks.
can anyone say:
'rave till dawn'?!?!

[c s]

Originally posted by wheezer
@ip

http://2unlimited.sitecity.ru/

oh thanks! :D

[c s]

i recently thought of re-doing the cover of "tribal dance" we did around 93.

[invisibleplanet]

Originally posted by Hiro
@ Invisible - You named off some of my old favourites! Did you ever heard Lisa Gerrard's solo stuff (actually done with Peter Bourke- but not under the Dead Can Dance name).

no Hiro, I didn't hear her solo stuff, u recokon it's worth checking out retro-stylee?

[Sheridan]

if you dig lisa gerrard then check out the soundtrack for the movie 'the insider'.
her and pieter bourke did the music for that and it is sick.

[alex cortex]

hmm, nobody mentioned yello and moloko so far. aren't they bands and somewhere inbetween techno and pop? regarding mark brydons musical career (didn't he found network records?). yello indeed is sick but wasn't it also quite forward-thinking? opinions?

[invisibleplanet]

hehehe I have the first yello LP original right here.....with it's delightfully sick parrot baby.

they were very well listened to by me in the eighties also...until at some point, they made a pop hit from their earlier work, and suddenly they became mainstream, but I had already by this time been over-exposed, and moved onto something else.

[phil]

In a Quasi Jeremey Beadle voice
//
what is "shite"? jess-ssej? are you from Northern England or have you been staring at too many Fractals?

[platinumray]

ultramarine "hooter" (carl craig mix), elephant trumpet nosed video thingy.

[invisibleplanet]

erm...what about it platinumray? haven't heard of ultramarine

[platinumray]

just that amble was asking about its title on the first page of this thread.

[grobelaar]

Originally posted by Hiro


Ah... snooze button junkie.

I always set my clock radio for two hours before I have to get up - the radio automatically switches off after 2 hours, so when the music stops I know I have to get up... But Bed's are ace - its not working from home that high technology has enabled - it should be working from Bed - you could have broadband internet beds and everything... :-)

[grobelaar]

Well it seems the jury has returned its verdict - guilty as charged. (maybe not on Dance-bands per se - but the Chems, Underworld et al)

I don’t have any emotional attachment to any of it, I can’t even remember why I bought most of it - I think at the time, I was getting into dance music, mostly techno. I knew nothing about it, and no one who was involved and none of my friends were into it. At the time there was a big regular techno night in Nottingham that I’d go to on my own, but that was it. I wasn’t taking drugs and I’m not the sort of person to go chatting to people I don’t know, in fact even on drugs I’m not the sort of person to go talking to people I don’t know or haven’t been introduced to. I remember once, someone asking me if I was going to the Marcus Garvey afterwards, but I declined. (I now realise a mistake as I would have skipped this next bit)...

So I probably bought a lot of these CDs in an attempt to find some music that was like what they were playing in the club. The honest truth is that I haven’t played them a lot at all. None of it ever came close to what was being played at this club - and it was until some years later, after satiating my liking for hard dance music with hard house, that I almost by accident went along to an underground techno night at a rock pub in Nottingham. This happens to be the same night that I now help run and promote… (I wasn’t gonna let it go again a second time)

Any one want to buy any Chemical Brothers, Underworld, Orbital albums and CD single then…?

@invisibleplanet: I too was a bit of Orbital: Insides fan, but I listened to a few weeks ago, and solar panel or no solar panel - it sucks really does sound like a couple of guys with far too much expensive studio equipment, reminded me a bit of Robert Miles - they should think of the world reources that are wasted everytime someone plays it, and think how much of the environment they could save if they never made it in the first place... :-)

[wheezer]

Originally posted by grobelaar
I don’t have any emotional attachment to any of it, I can’t even remember why I bought most of it - I think at the time, I was getting into dance music, mostly techno.

dude, that in itself might be reason enough not to give it away...

I am actually in the process of sorting about 100 vinyls out of my collection - I am running out of space, and most of them are records I haven't heard for years, and are also more on the "tool" side of things i.e. there's little listening factor...

[amble]

Originally posted by platinumray
ultramarine "hooter" (carl craig mix), elephant trumpet nosed video thingy.

yep, thats the one. thanks platinum. you don't know where to get it do you?

[k-dub]

My policy has always been, if you aren't going to listen to it, sell it or toss it. At least with CD's... I try to keep under like no more than 50 or so cd's at any given time, and I only buy stuff that I know I will still listen to in a couple of years... I dumped my chem. bros a long time ago ;P (tho i am still known to spin Pink acapallas over top of "these beats are made for breakin"). you shouldn't keep music you don't like just because you feel you're "supposed to", any more than you should buy records you don't like because you're "supposed to". just my 2 cents.

[deccard]

Originally posted by Sheridan
if you dig lisa gerrard then check out the soundtrack for the movie 'the insider'.
her and pieter bourke did the music for that and it is sick.

lisa gerrard is absolutely great. she can sing so damn deep and different styles. i heard an interpretation of haydn by her on the radio and it blew my mind cause i only new her from dead can dance.

[Irrungenwirrungen]

Hey Grobs
I think you are right about Orbital 'Insides' to a degree, in that yes, maybe other producers could have pushed the envelope further with all that equipment, but like ip, I think its a great album- some really nice music on there.
As with the Green & Brown albums........

However....
Still not a patch on Boards of Canada or the ultimate LP- Aphex Twin- Selected Ambient Works

[invisibleplanet]

Originally posted by deccard


lisa gerrard is absolutely great. she can sing so damn deep and different styles. i heard an interpretation of haydn by her on the radio and it blew my mind cause i only new her from dead can dance.

i have to hear her latest works soon...I am so intrigued by these reports...and really! singing Haydn ...blowing me away before I hear it!!.

[ischo]

i say.....kick 'em... thats what they deserve ;)

[MUX]

hey hey.. what do boards of canada have to do with it?

I keep mine.. why should i be ashamed of my music collection?

i doubt that there isnt a person on this board that doesnt own one of these or at least did one day

The Chemical Brothers
Underworld
Orbital
Leftfield

i doubt anyone had made the move from top of the pops to Super-Collider

PS. Anyone want to sell me that Scooter - how much is the fish EP? it's getting so rare nowadays

[aleks]

yes, i also owned a copy of a chemical brothers record once and i don´t regret selling it for a buck or so...

[MUX]

if anyone has an record they really really hate u can always try this:
http://www.thriftdeluxe.biz/projects/record.asp

[Basic 2: The Revenge]

Originally posted by alex cortex
hmm, nobody mentioned yello and moloko so far. aren't they bands and somewhere inbetween techno and pop? regarding mark brydons musical career (didn't he found network records?). yello indeed is sick but wasn't it also quite forward-thinking? opinions?

Yeah, I like Yello. Bostich is a particularly tasty track!

Kraftwerk are a pop band and they are revered (by me at least)

[jess-ssej]

Just remember that 10 years from now you'll be asking yourself the same question about your super-collider (and other good sounds).

Ever wonder what the hell good music is going to sound like in 15 or 20 years?

-the packrat


*goes off to make a melty-record bowl out of Steve Stohl saw blade record*

[grobelaar]

Cheers for the advice, I don't think there is any emotional attachment to them, I don't even remember listening to them that often - I think its a testament to the power of the media to get you to buy something that you a) obviously don't need, but more importantly you don't even like...

I realised this a few years ago, that rampant purchasing of material items had got out of control, that's when I got rid of a lot CDs and videos and to a lesser extent some books. But the dancebands remained - and its come around again that I'm holding onto these for no reason, I don't think its good to keep something you probably shouldn't have purchased in the first place...

I severly doubt that I'll be thinking the same thing about Super_Collider in 10 years time... the making of a classic.

The thing about not getting into music until you are a lot older, it takes a lot longer for you to become comfortable with deciding what you do and do not like yourself... As opposed to being told what you like by the press.