Ableton Forum

I'm having a re-discovery moment - I just listened to all of Dig your own hole and now I'm into Surrender and these abums are soooooooooooooooooo much better than the last one, push the button

I had really forgotten just how good they are

I think there was a thread here not so long ago about the Chems because remember writing about how much I love "get yourself high" and the video for it and think it is probaby their best thing yet, but as albums go these 2 are just amazing - and push the button is far from amazing - I like a couple of ideas on it, but it is a long way from these ones

thing that gets me with the chemical brothers is every time I properly listen to them I sit in amazement at just how much they do EXACTLY what I love about electronic music - then I forget it and get on with life in 2006 which seems to be very little of that kind of Album based music and is track by track - often dont even buy the remixes, or just buy a remix, now that vinyl's almost officially dead it really is track by track now

that is so sad because there is something very special about a band/group whatever sitting down and working out track order and how the album will fit together and how it works as an hour long piece of work - now it's fucking mcdonalds cheeseburgers and if you dont like the first bite you stick it in the bin. we're like a bunch of spoilt overfed consumers who are totally saturated with music and dont know what to listen to

maybe that's just me, and I hear alot of great music I really love now too - but it is more faceless and short lived - compared to these albums any way

Nope, we're all going to hell for being selfish consumers (with ADHD), however I still buy CDs. I also still buy CD singles with remixes on them.

Don't believe the hype, the "art of the album" is still alive, it's just not supported in "popular-alternative" music as much as it was 5-10 years ago. Real quality music is being replaced by short and sharp mediocrity. Maybe it always was that way, I just wasn't aware of it. Like The Streets said:

"You say that everything sounds the same,
then you go buy them.
There's no excuses my friend,
let's push things forward"



And Surrender is easily the chems best album. The others aren't bad, but Surrender is awesome.

i prefer Exit Planet Dust and the early singles/EPs... i think the new stuff is too 'slick' and a bit lifeless comparatively. still haven't picked up the newer one yet, but plan to.

It's very easy to sound polished and professional these days - so you really can polish a turd and get away with it

jbuonacc wrote:i prefer Exit Planet Dust and the early singles/EPs... i think the new stuff is too 'slick' and a bit lifeless comparatively. still haven't picked up the newer one yet, but plan to.

Exactly.. the last couple of their albums have been really quite dull for the most part, unfortunately. Exit Planet Dust was ace.

I believe alot of their older stuff is Sampled base for alot of it not all.

The newer stuff seems more digital and orginal drums and vocals. Their sound is huge and I love BreakBeats so their right up my style.


I have heard their using the Vsynth alot now aswell.


later
Dustin

yeah it was definitely very sample heavy - I think that's what inspired me so much about it - it had a really unique and psychedelic sound, because of what they sampled and how they chopped it all up

but "get yourself high" sounds like they prgrammed it all and like I said I think it's one of if not their best - it's the simplicity that was so good about it, there's only ever a couple of sounds at once

re the whole Album comment - wht I think made music by people like the Chems, Leftfield, Underworld etc so great was the approach was more old school - like a band writing an album rather than Dance producer/DJ writing a tune - so the tracks were very acomplished and sound like songs - even if they have no vocals, they tend to have some kind of hook or samples that make it sound full and like an accomplished work that they spent some time on, not just a tune they knocked up in a day or 2.

One of the tracks on Dig your own hole "lost in the K-hole" is a good example where it has the verse chorus structure but the vocal is just a backwards sample of someone saying something that sounds melodic - the whole thing is a kind of sample montage that plays like a song - so they can have tracks that totally sound like songs but they're made up of loads of samples instead of real singers etc, but then they also have ones like their oasis/charlatans collabs where they do get vocalists

There was a thread here in the last couple of days saying Rennie Pilgrem is a believer in doing tracks quickly - but I think I'd rather take my time and make it into something memorable

their output indicates this is what they do - they dont put out a million tracks between meals