Following on from the LOL 98 Sunny D 4 Lyf thread aka 'Dog Latin remembers the 90s' aka Drinking In L.A. * Steal My Sunshine * In The Meantime * Get What You Give * Novocaine For The Soul, I wanted to talk about another sub-sub-genre aesthetic that seemed retrospectively prevalent at the turn of the 21st century.
Maybe it was a combination of millennium angst, a burning space-age optimism and a quasi-ironic appreciation for the retro-futuristic, as well as a backlash against the more grounded aesthetics of Britpop and grunge, but suddenly people were doing indulgent progressive mini-epics, often referencing robots, space-travel and other galactic themes, soundtracked by big string soundtracks, twinkly synths and lots of luxuriant echo delay.
It wasn't restricted to one genre either - this seemed to happen across rock hip hop and dance, and listening to the list below works as a nice little snapshot of what was happening at the time. So while we're getting indulgent, indulge me and feel free to add suggestions (Spotify list below, of course)
Lemon Jelly - Page One
Deltron 3030 - 3030 (and the whole album)
Air - Don't Be Light (and the whole of 10,000hz the Legend)
Spiritualized - Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space
Blur - Battle
Pavement - The Hexx
Add N To (X) - Revenge of the Black Regent (and the whole of Avant Hard)
Super Furry Animals - Rings Around The World
Beastie Boys - Intergalactic
Daft Punk - Voyager (and the whole Discovery album concept)
DJ Shadow - Six Days (a bit)
Aim - Coldwater Music (a bit)
Radiohead - Paranoid Android (possibly instrumental in kicking this all off)
https://open.spotify.com/user/1153731601/playlist/1l8wBLsRQCQMGLnar2OgPk?si=2zOlZoauRO2PpxswusnkQQ
Ignore this thread if you hate this
― Gâteau Superstar (dog latin), Wednesday, 18 July 2018 09:39 (five years ago) link
no such thing as 'too prog' for this thread. I don't think I've heard the whole of Soft Bulletin. The Sophtware Slump, being all about a robot, probably counts though.
― Gâteau Superstar (dog latin), Wednesday, 18 July 2018 10:49 (five years ago) link
I find it hard to see this as a turn-of-the-century trend in dance music, since techno/trance/house/d&b/etc producers had been doing futuristic, cosmic, sci-fi inspired music throughout the '90s... Or did you mean Air and Daft Punk popularised it for people who hadn't been listening to electronic music?
― Tuomas, Wednesday, 18 July 2018 14:24 (five years ago) link
I think they added proggy elements, yeah. Obviously it's not just about using futuristic themes, people have done that forever. it's a vibe man.
― Gâteau Superstar (dog latin), Wednesday, 18 July 2018 14:29 (five years ago) link
You don't think proggy elements were there in dance music before? When something like this (just to name one example among the many) was one of the most popular electronic albums of 1994?
https://assets.boomkat.com/spree/products/238624/large/original.jpg
Daft Punk and especially Air don't even sound that proggy to me, they're pretty poppy. Even people like The Prodigy were proggier than them ("Weather Report", "Narcotic Suite", "Narayan", etc) in the '90s.
― Tuomas, Wednesday, 18 July 2018 14:39 (five years ago) link
You don't think proggy elements were there in dance music before? When something like this (just to name one example among the many) was one of the most popular electronic albums of 1994?
And I didn't say there weren't prog or sci-fi elements in electronic music before that. Of course there was. There was from the start with space-disco/Cybotron stuff. It's also a bit of a stretch to say Sven Vath counts as one of the most popular electronic albums of 1994 either?
― Gâteau Superstar (dog latin), Wednesday, 18 July 2018 14:49 (five years ago) link