Best album on Mixmag & Muzik's Best Albums of 1996?

mobb deep

Fuck!

Dimitri From Paris on there twice.

Okay, as much as I'd love to vote for Underworld or Fugees or DJ Shadow or... fucking hell, FSOL or even EBtG or George Michael or several other records here...

...it's In Sides. What a year.

Will probably vote for one of the #1s but love the Sweetback album too

100lbs

In Sides was #3 with NME and #2 with Select that year

At first glance . . . Pansoul.

Fugees

100 lbs!

Unenthusiastically voting for Tortoise.

orbital of course

The actual 90s were so much more varied than what shows up in the current 90s revival. Yes there's some unfortunate acid-jazz in here but maybe that's the price to pay for greater variety of textures and tempos. This list is clearly from an era before 120bpm had "won"

Ten Days Of Blue or Alien probably. Special love for Sacrebleu, Sweetback, Pre-millenium tension and Endtroducing which had appeal at the time of release. Only know Pansoul and 100lbs from after '96.

There's some great stuff here but I've got to go with In Sides.

Yes there's some unfortunate acid-jazz in here but maybe that's the price to pay for greater variety of textures and tempos. This list is clearly from an era before 120bpm had "won"

What do you mean by you last comment? Didn't acid jazz/downtempo/blunted beatz/etc at least partially come into being around this time because some producers were tired of the faster and harsher techno/acid house/hardcore of the early '90s? So at this point the 120bpm had actually lost: if you listen to techno and house from the late '90s onwards, there's a clear change in how BPMs drop and the beatss (particularly the bass and kick drums) become less hard-hitting, and with more syncopation.

Or are you saying there's now some '90s revival that has brought back the faster, harder beats of the the early part of the decade?

Yes it seems to me things were very fluid in the mid-late 90s wrt to tempo and texture. More samples and "rough" sounds; jungle and "illbient" and straight-up ambient all just as forward-feeling as 120bpm house

I agree, but what do you mean with 120bpm having won after this? When did it win?

Excellent list.

loads of good stuff here, that Dave Clarke album is amazing, Dr Octagon is great and there's a bunch of other good to great albums but probably Underworld or Orbital for me

Wamdue is the one for me (though at points in the past it probably would have been Herbert)

that Dave Clarke album is amazing

it is, I gave my CD a spin earlier this year and it still sounds great.

The Lionrock album is great too. I saw them live a few times at t in the park and supporting the chemical brothers

That's Justin Robertson, he's dead good. I particularly the Dave Clarke number with the indescribably pompous and silly voice over.

That's Justin Robertson,

at that time a lot of the dance acts added a guitar. it wasnt always us vs them with dance and rock music. People were a lot more open minded until dadrock came along ie ocean colour scene, cast etc

Dadrock was around long before Cast came along. Fleetwood Mac, Eric Clapton, Dire Straits, Phil Collins/Genesis, The Rolling Stones were all still kicking around in the late '80s/early '90s. Prime dad stuff.

Congratulations on finding the least interesting line of discussion possible, dude.

and only dads listened to it until post Oasis dadrock came along sweeping up kids

I don't think Ocean Colour Scene prevented people from enjoying Underworld any more than Steel Wheels prevented people from getting E'd up and chewing their cheeks off to acid house. In other words, it didn't.

xp The ravers outside looked from kid to dad, and from dad to kid, and from kid to dad again; but already it was impossible to say which was which

I'm not particularly enamoured of most of these records, 96 feels around the time that Album Dance curdled into something particularly uninteresting. In Sides is my favourite but it'll win by a landslide so I'm going to give my vote to Pansoul - not sure it would have felt like that at the time but with hindsight it's the one quietly pointing in the direction of the future.

I had forgotten that George Michael was very briefly credible in the mid-90s.

Endtroducing

LTJ Bukem (various) - Logical Progression

I wonder why that's in the list but Platinum Breakz isn't. Guessing it might have come out later in the year and missed out.

PB came out in the Summer, def another absurd omission but then these lists were clearly jotted down in the pub on deadline day.

Indeed really odd PB didn't make it.

(man do I really want to do that ILM DNB/Jungle poll)

Enforcers: Above the Law. Great d&b comp on Reinforced - I still dig it out for time to time. Plus the Kemistry & Storm mix on disc 2 is loads of fun.

Yeah, Platinum Breakz would've been my vote if it had been on this list. A mndblowing compilation, for me at least.

which years lists do you think was better? 95 or 96?

95,definitely. Here you can already see the mainstreaming and collusion of electronic music. Less club-based innovations, more cases of artists thinking that taking elements from rock music is somehow cool and not regressive, or that coffee-table, "serious" noodling somehow makes you respectable.

The 94/95 jungle and drum'n'bass boom was pretty much the last important innovative period in 90s dance music, after this it's techno folks wanting to be rockers and rockers wanting to be technoheads.

The nadir of which was probably that Oasis/Chem Bros collaboration, or Goldie's "Mother".

Though German and American minimalists were still keeping things fresh in the latter half of the decade, but UK dance music in general took a long turn towards crappiness.

setting sun was great.

I thought 94 and 95 had better albums too but all you are showing here really is your hatred of rock music.

Was the goldie track the one noel gallagher appeared in the video for but didn't actually play on the track?

late 90s was a very good time for UK dance music (if you go into the woods a little instead of riding past a billboard on the bus)

I thought 94 and 95 had better albums too but all you are showing here really is your hatred of rock music.

It's not just that... Part of what made me fell in love with electronic music at the beginning of the decade was that it was so forward-looking, you never what was around the corner, fresh new sounds were being generated every month. So when towards the end of the decade it started to integrate tired tropes and elements from older, time-worn genres, in order to become respectable or marketable or whatever, that felt like a betrayal of that earlier promise. "Forward forever, backward never ever" was the anthem of 1992, but by the end of the decade that turned into "hey, we can rock too!".

I mean, I didn't much care for jazzstep that was forming around this year either, and I bloody love jazz! It was just so regressive!

You're probably thinking of 'Temper Temper' ft. Noel Gallagher and his stupid Union Flag guitar, not 'Mother' which was more of a fusion with classical not rock elements.

Ahh yes, that rings a bell. I think you're right nashwan.

I remember "Temper Temper" too, I just meant to use the "Mother" disc of Saturnz Return as a major example why electronic producers wanting to do add "proper" music to the mix was such a misstep... (The second disc with all the crossover guest starts isn't particularly good either, but at least it isn't such an abysmal wankfest as the first one.) Doesn't it also have some grating indie-style wailing by David Bowie?

Doesn't it also have some grating indie-style wailing by David Bowie?

last track on disc 1 : 'truth' (all 15 mins of it)

Oh yeah, it was a separate track after the long abyss of "Mother", right?

I still remember buying that album and having my mouth drop after listening to the first disc? (Though to be honest I had to fast forward parts of "Mother", I've never managed to listen to all 60 minutes of it in one sitting.) How could the same person who was (co-)responsible for "Angel", "Terminator", and "Ghosts of My Life" have gone so far off the deep end?

the best things re the second album was the follow up 7 track ep that had a couple of edits/remixes of album tracks, ring of saturn.

Goldie was chatting to Gilles Peterson on his show the other day. Gilles obsequiously implied that 'Mother' was his greatest work.

"You know what Gilles, I think so too. Thank you so much for saying that. It gets overshadowed by the first album. I think the second album was a greater album but people didn't realise it. Mother is an absolute piece."

What a load of shit.

^^ lol. That's Goldie alright. Shame he's not made anything decent in 15 years.

"Forward forever, backward never ever" was the anthem of 1992, but by the end of the decade that turned into "hey, we can rock too!".
I mean, I didn't much care for jazzstep that was forming around this year either, and I bloody love jazz! It was just so regressive!

V selective argument that conveniently ignores all kinds of popular stuff from the late 90s in UK dance not crossing over with rock, jazz or whatever.

e.g. the whole of 2-step, UK Garage

Well of course I'm generalising here, the entirety of dance music could never fall under just one trend, but certainly this sort of crossover stuff became way more prominent in the latter half of the decade than it was in the early '90s. And a lot of formerly good artists were ruined by it, the Prodigy and Goldie probably being the most notable examples.

(xpost)

UK garage was never that popular outside UK itself, was it? Certainly no one in here was playing that stuff half as much as Chem Bros, Fatboy Slim, Prodigy, Underworld, Orbital, Roni Size, Goldie, etc.

Though I'm not saying UK artists were the only ones who fell for this crossover mentality. Just look at the CJ Bolland record in this poll: just a year earlier he was doing some weird trance/drum & bass hybrid stuff, but in 1996 he decided imitating "Firestarter" would be the way to get some acclaim (and it worked!).

I think a lot of producers saw the Fat of the Land go to #1 in the US and just saw dollar signs that never materialised (or at least took 15 years or so to materialise).

There is definitely something to be said for the (albeit reductive) contrast of Altern8 chainsawing guitars in half during the early 90s vs the Prodigy and Massive Attack explicitly referencing the Specials and Gang of Four in the late-90s. The former was reactionary and anti-establishment; the latter more like an attempt to find acceptance into broader slipstreams. Bleep techno wasn't about having forebears, save for the Detroit techno that directly inspired it. Roni Size helped bring drum'n'bass/jungle to the 'Later...' audience. At the same time Ibiza trance music from the late-90s wasn't about making hip references to the past so there are always counter-examples, and the narrative of 'dance music going Britpop' only makes sense from a UK-centric POV.

Many xps but Muzik used to have a separate Compilations of the year chart. This was their one for 96 (no PB on it either though):

1. LTJ Bukem: Logical Progression
2. Central Heating
3. Elements
4. Source Lab 2
5. Nu Yorica Experiments In Latin Music 1970-77
6. Laurent Garnier: Laboratoire Mix
7. Jon Carter Live At The Heavenly Social Volume 2
8. High In The Basement
9. Kruder & Dorfmeister: DJ Kicks
10. Techsteppin'

If I could vote for Laboratoire Mix it'd be game over

shout out for that Jon Carter mix, but then I still like cheesy big beat

Just look at the CJ Bolland record in this poll: just a year earlier he was doing some weird trance/drum & bass hybrid stuff, but in 1996 he decided imitating "Firestarter" would be the way to get some acclaim (and it worked!).

But it was rapidly eclipsed by the colossal Van Helden mix and the biggest original track off the album here was the more orthodox trance banger 'The Prophet'.

and the narrative of 'dance music going Britpop' only makes sense from a UK-centric POV.

It was most notable in the UK, but certainly artists all around the world were joining the crossover bandwagon: Moby, CJ Bolland, Air Liquide, Scooter (before they became a pop sensation its members had been producing fairly straightforward house and trance), Praga Khan, Crystal Method, Westbam, etc.

But it was rapidly eclipsed by the colossal Van Helden mix and the biggest original track off the album here was the more orthodox trance banger 'The Prophet'.

I can't remember the Van Helden mix, but I don't think that was what they played on MTV?

Anyway, my point wasn't necessarily what was the biggest hit, just that a dude who was already acclaimed in techno circles for years of producing mostly instrumental club music suddenly, after the success of "Firestarter", decided to release an "edgy" vocal single with a hard "rock" sound.

come on xp

?

how shocking

I am listening to Timeless (the album) for the first time ever right now. It's really good!

after years of hoping to find the 2cd edition, i pickedup Timeless a few months back, and agree.

still stands up as a good'un.

'Mother' is... not very good, I think is the phrase.

mother is perfectly fine for a sunday morning post booze session.

Loved that Terry Lee Brown Jr record at the time, Pansoul probably stands up best now. Had to vote Second Toughest tho

The Rufige Cru tracks Goldie put out during 96 - 99 (the "Proto Rider 96" version of "Manslaughter", "Dark Metal", "Ark Angel 3" which despite being yet another "Angel" remix is maybe the pick of the bunch - so intense!) plus most of Rings of Saturn posits an alternate reality where Goldie didn't just not make his second album, but didn't make his first either - like he simply kept following the line of enquiry implied by "Ghosts Of My Life".

IIRC 2001's "Beachdrifta" is also v pretty and v good.

Beachdrifta is seminal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IweqjAlQfSA

I'll take UK garage over anything I've heard from this list.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

xxxpost If we consider that "UK garage" in its original iteration actually came from NYC and specifically the work of Armand Van Helden, it was pretty popular at the raves on the east coast of the USA around this time, We called it "speed garage" at first though. The main inspiration for speed garage that I know of came from "Armand's Dark Garage Mix" of Spin Spin Sugar by The Sneaker Pimps (although his "Drum & Bass Mix" of Sugar is Sweeter by CJ Bolland came first but was not as popular). In that song he laid out the exact prototype that most UK garage would follow for years -- the snare-driven beat, the mid-sub bass, and even the standard effect of timestrrrrrrretched vocals.

There is one song that I found around this time and loved because it was from 1992 but shared many of those traits, the song A Kind of Living by Eon (which I guess lends credence to the claim that there was a lot more experimentation and innovation earlier in the decade. Personally I think at that time it was all very localized. I'm sure what I experienced in SF and the (mostly suburban) east coast of the USA was vastly different to what someone would hear in London, Glasgow, Melbourne, Munich, Tokyo, or wherever.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bMxSQEZOBo

Anyway I'm voting for EBTG because it's what I listened to most, it was my introduction to the act, and I think it's a bit underrated. For overall influence I'd give to DJ Shadow, and for production values my vote would go to the Fugees. Those skits on hip hop albums really don't age well though. That skit in the Chinese restaurant is particularly cringeworthy.

This is going possibly sound pretty bad, but I can remember a conversation with some raver friends in 1996 that went something like this.

Raver #1: So do you guys like hip hop?
Ravers #2 and 3 (in unison): Yeah, we like A Tribe Called Quest
Raver #3: The Fugees are pretty good too.

I had no idea how much great hip hop was coming out around this time. I loved some of the older stuff but by the mid-90's I thought all the new hip hop was sugar-coated and watered down, so to speak.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

That's pretty much how I expected the Top 3 to look like, tbh. Just not in that order!

I thought second toughest would win tbh

Honest reappraisal of 1996 habits show this took up much of the end of my year and leaked into 97. A couple songs really hold up (PM Dawn, Cazuza), but Drum N Bossa be damned

http://www.music-bazaar.com/album-images/vol4/340/340126/2192202-big/Red-Hot-Rio-3-picture.jpg

stereolab doing 'one-note samba' is just too perfect of a pairing

whoa herbie mann played on that? damn. i love the groop.

Are we doing singles from 1996?