1990s hypes revisited - loose series installmant 02 - "Big Beat"

firefinga

Well-known member
Another episode of my 90s hypes series, this time - "Big Beat". I frankly admit, I never was a big fan nor did I follow "Big Beat" all that much. At the time Big Beat was quite a hype, namley mid-late 90s I was still very much into techno, jungle, gabba. Gotta also admit, I liked some of the Chemical Brothers releases - like the following:

 

Numbers

Well-known member

For some reason adolescent me liked this track a lot when it came out. Tastes chance, luckily.
 

version

Well-known member
It's always made me think of stylized ads with people running down the street in suits, vaulting over things with a bunch of zoom effects, but I don't know if an actual ad like that exists.
 

hucks

Your Message Here
I was at Sussex University in 1997-2001, so my first year was when Brimful of Asha, Renegade Master, Rockefeller Skank etc were all in the charts. I went to the Big Beat Boutique every Friday. I had a great time.

This music has not aged well, and I can't really see how it could ever come back round again, even in the midst of a 90s revival. It was never properly cool to begin with, there's no real nuance or edge or variety to it that you could see from a different angle.

The Chemical Brothers you could almost make a case for, but if they had to be sacrificed so we never heard of Bentley Rhythm Ace again, I think we'd all agree it was worth it.
 

luka

Well-known member
i couldnt stand this stuff but i do rate mr tea aka sid viscous for reviving it. only he could conceive of such a thing.
 

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
hated it 100% at the time but now i have a soft spot for anything using breaks from that period, esp anything that makes people happy, even if said people are a bunch of drunk twats, so its okay with me. plus its 2018, and basically anything goes in 2018, no one cares about things that were or werent cool anymore (asap rocky just sampled MOBY) so i wouldnt be surprised if 6music spearheads some sort of big beat revival/reappraisal. plus some of it was actually quite good. prodigy, chemical bros. that first daft punk album is sort of on that big beat axis too.
 

blissblogger

Well-known member
loved some of this stuff -bunch of Fatboy and Chems tunes, and this one track by Bentley Rhythm Ace which has a real Sixties-into-Nineties feel

 

blissblogger

Well-known member
also briefly enamored of the label Bolshi and particularly this track by an oddball outfit called Beachcomas


there's a Mekons sample in there and snippets from Gardener's Question Time
 

blissblogger

Well-known member
most of the Bolshi stuff i picked up i then promptly sold 6 years later, but kept the Beachcomas 12's and this tune by Rasmus, which reminded me a bit of Sonz of Loop Da Loop Era

 

Woebot

Well-known member
also briefly enamored of the label Bolshi and particularly this track by an oddball outfit called Beachcomas


there's a Mekons sample in there and snippets from Gardener's Question Time

i picked this up a year or so ago on your recommendation

it's the position normal end of big beat isn't it?
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
i couldnt stand this stuff but i do rate mr tea aka sid viscous for reviving it. only he could conceive of such a thing.

Heh, I could tell as soon as I saw this thread title that you'd mention my music here. I wouldn't say it's my main oeuvre but you could certainly say a few of my tunes are heading in that direction.

My old man got into Chemical Brothers a few years ago. Thankfully he was never a deadbeat dad but now he's a Big Beat dad, lol.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
When I was listening to Jilted Generation last week I stuck on 'Block Rocking Beats' with an ironic smirk but found myself pretty charged up by it.

Was Jilted Generation a big influence on this stuff? I was wondering if that album was a bit of a one-off but thinking about it now seems obvious that it belongs to that breaks lineage.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Was Jilted Generation a big influence on this stuff? I was wondering if that album was a bit of a one-off but thinking about it now seems obvious that it belongs to that breaks lineage.

Well it was on Fat Of The Land that the Prodge went full BB, so Jilted is the intermediate stage between that and the more purely hardcore/jungle (and far superior) first album, I suppose.

What's odd in my case is that while this stuff was massive while I was at high school and uni, I didn't particularly like it at the time and later got into 'proper' clubbing and 'proper' techno, but I guess I must have just absorbed some of that sound osmotically.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
And there was that comeback Prodigy album where they were doing 'nu skool breakz' ala Plump DJs/Freestylers/Deekline et al... That stuff was pretty big when I was at uni in Nottingham - was much more student (and - excuse potential sexism here - girl) friendly than drum n bass and even techno.

I'm guessing there was some intersecting going on between garage and breaks in the early 00s - cos I've heard sets from that time where you'll get some of those tunes sneaking in. 'I Don't smoke the Reefer'...

edit: relevant (not to this thread but to the garage / breaks intersection)

 
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Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Not sure but was the distinctive thing about 'breaks' that it was at a house tempo but with a skippy, DNB/garage style beat?
 
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