Concepts like trip-hop, turntablism, etc., aren't quite past tense enough to stir warm feelings of nostalgia.
Uh oh.
Allow me then to reveal the Skeleton hiding in my indie rock closet: Trip hop, 'Electronica' and Drum n' bass do stir warm feelings for me. Like really warm and in my belly, were warm feelings live.
Now i totally agree with the rating on this Coldcut album. In fact i would have agreed at 6.0. When its good i think its fantastic. When its not (see Robert Owens track) my finger meets the forward button quickly.
But was the mid 90's boon of electronic music really something to look back on in shame?
Not to me. An argument can be made that i am a sucker (and trust me many have made this argument) but i still have Roni Size on my i-pod. I still wish AMP was on MTV (actually i wish anything was on MTV). Was the whole thing that cheesy? Was Keith Flints haircut really that more hilarious than Sunn0)))'s robes?
I have shed a lot of music over the years, especially after the first wave of excitement hit. Hell half my 'garage rock' cds were sold long ago. But i still have almost all my electronica, and yes i listen to it, and yes most of it makes me nostalgic. Am i the only one? Oh god i am.
As to the question 'What the fuck were we thinking?', well i can only speak to myself. I lived in a town that had one Werehouse store and nothing else. MTV sucked. The Radio sucked. I could only listen to my punk and grunge albums so many times before i got bored. I stopped listening to music for 2 years (except, oddly enough, early B-52's. I was a weird kid). So when all these electronic acts came along it was new and interesting and at the very least different. I was in the outlands, so i didnt hear any of the hype that surrounded it. I just honestly liked the music. And, shhhhhh, i still do.
PS: Tricky and Goldie fighting over Bjork was way more fun than anything indie rock has thrown at me in the last few years.
