bassnation said:
oh come on, its not that bad. any list that contains ragga twins, sheet one and autechre can't be total pants can it?
Don't worry, I wasn't
really going to kill him. Yeah, there's a few pleasant surprises here and there, but a lot of it is just crossover-albums for people not really into this music in the first place - stuff that certainly was "massive" when it came out, but didn't have much relevance in the long run. Yes, Leftism was huge and hyped when it came out. I bought it too. But who did it influence? What developments did it initiate? It synthesized a lot of stuff going on in the rave scene, put some awful poetry on top of it to make it more "deep", but it didn't really come up with anything new or lasting.
There's two tricky things about this list. The one is that it's about "influential" albums, not necessarily good ones. The second is that it's about
albums, because these scenes are allmost allways evolving through tracks. This means that a lot of the most influential albums will probably be genre-defining compilations (or maybe mix-cds, but I can't really think of any obvious ones here). Therefore, a list of the 50 most influential dance albums would have to include: Techno! The New Dance Sound of Detroit (I hate the detroit puritanism and false myth this one initiated, but I have to give it credit for actually doing so - bloody influential, yes), No U Turns Torque (again a "bad influence" I guess, but there's no denying that it changed the face of drum'n'bass drastically), Thunderdome III (all the early Thunderdome-compilations were incredibly massive in the development of gabber, but this one is probably the most important), Dragonfly Order Odonata (the goa trance-compilation that started it all), Tresor II - a techno alliance (a lot of good stuff on this actually, but like Torque, it's legacy was an eternity of boring minimalism. Come to think of it, maybe Tresor III was even more influential in this way).
You have a very good point about the whole concept of "dance music". I've allways thought that it's a completely ridiculous name for something as diverse as what we're talking about here. And it seems to reinforce the equally ridiculous split between dance music and listening music. Not that the list here accept that split anyway, including things like Autechre and DJ Shadow as it does. I'd have no problem with it if it was all just called techno, or electronica, but the problem is that for a lot of people this is allready specifically defined genres. I have no better suggestions, though.
Anyway, it seems that what the list is basically about is post-acid house electronic dance music. There's no older stuff, as Nick noticed (and therefore no Kraftwerk, the OBVIOUS no.1). But even within that frame, it's a pretty poor list. OK, as it's about influence rather than greatness, I'll accept that maybe there's actually some reasonable choices. Approximately 20 of the albums have probably been as influential as to be worth considering, I think, even if I not sure all of them would make it in the end.
bassnation said:
we all know mid-nineties dance music is deeply unfashionable, but i'm not into having a scorched earth revisionist view on music i once loved. i'm happy to admit that i played leftism alongside congo natty and all the other stuff that would no doubt be highly credible on a board like this, but who gives a fuck about credibility anyway? its for losers.
Indeed. Who is Congo Natty?
bassnation said:
what i think would be interesting is for dissensus to do an alternative version of a poll like this
Well, for a start, here's some that I think ought to be there:
808 State: Newvbuild There'd have to be an acid house compilation somewhere too, of course, but for single artist albums, this one most likely had the longest lasting influence, longer than later, more succesful 808 State-albums.
Hardfloor: TB Resuscitation A cornerstone of trance as well as the rebirth of acid in the nineties.
Frankfurt Trax vol.II Not really a compilation, as almost everything is made by Marc Acardipane. This one pretty much contain the entire doomcore/cold rush/phuture techno-genepool.
Depth Charge: Nine Deadly Venoms Proto big beat far ahead of its time.
The Prodigy: Experience I don't know how influential this one was
as an album, actually. Not as much as it should have been, that's for sure. But it did contain a whole heap of outstanding, highly influential singles.
4 Hero: In Rough Territory Not really sure about this one, as I'm uncertain how many actually heard it. Still, musically, it's the obvious link between bleep'n'bass and jungle.
A Guy Called Gerald: 28 Gun Bad Boy I've only heard parts of this, I must admit. When is the rerelease coming out? Woebot?
Aphex Twin: Selected Ambient Works 85-92 Self evident. His Classics collection should probably be included as well.
Drax: Ltd. II The ultimaten hard trance record. Not sure if it count as an album, though.
LFO: Frequencies Influential simply by being so great an album, by showing how it can be done.
Jeff Mills: Waveform Transmission vol.1 I think this is very uneven and rather dull (vol.3 is much better), but I guess there's no way around it.
The minimal milestone, and much more so than Hoods Minimal Nation or Plastikmans Sheet One. (If there's to be a Plastikman-album on the list, it'll have to be Consumed).
Autechre: Chiastic Slide I'm sure a lot of people prefer the earlier, more emotianal stuff, but this one is the real genre-defining one.
Oval: Systemisch 94 Diskont could be just as worthy I guess. Not a hint of "dance" here, but the glitch concept is still big in a lot of dance music even today.
Boards of Canada: Music has the Right to Children I've never really managed to love BoC, but they're obviously among the most influential electronica artists of the last eight years. Together with Autechre and Oval they made the blueprint for countless glitchy laptop IDM-producers.
Speed Freak: Destruction by Speed The gabber equivalent of LFOs Frequencies.
Nasenbluten: 100% No Soul Guaranteed This one changed the face of hardcore techno in ways that are still being felt today. The impact it had on the scene back then was simply amazing.
Hellfish and Producer: Constant Mutation Simultaneously the Daft Punk and Timbaland of gabber.
Panacea: Low Profile Darkness The breakcore blueprint.
Squarepusher: Feed Me Weird Things Like it or not.
Mouse on Mars: Niun Niggung A milestone of both idyllitronica and post-techno indietronica.
