Hooked on Chemicals
Nov 2, 23:24 by Stefan KoopmanschapNo, this is not an article about a new party drug or anything like that. I’ve never used drugs in my whole life, aside from those that I needed for medical reasons. It’s my experience of The Chemical Brothers. I’m a fan.
Back in 1996, I was a house DJ. I mainly played club house, with a bit of techhouse and detroit. However, I got bored. There was a period in those days where every 3rd or 4th record that you’d pull out of the racks at the record stores contained the exact same organ sound, with just a different melody. Now, at first, I liked that sound, but after hearing it quite a bit, it started to bore me.
It was around that period when I first encountered The Chemical Brothers, through MTV. MTV played their Setting Sun video, and I was immediately interested in the music. I bought Dig Your Own Hole and not long after that I got my hands on a copy of Exit Planet Dust, only to find out that years before I had already heard Song To The Siren, not knowing it was Song To The Siren. I’d looked for it for a while but never found out who it was back in those days.
Dig Your Own Hole quickly became my favorite album, and I started using music from it in my DJ sets. I also started browsing the breakbeat-records more and more, and also the big beat section of the record store, which they had recently introduced after the big success of the chemical brothers. I signed up for the now-dead Chemical Brothers mailinglist, and quickly became a regular there. I ended up traveling to London for a list members party, where my DJ set, with a mixture of house, techno and breaks, was enthousiastically welcomed.
Soon, I also had the luck of seeing the Brothers perform live. What a breathtaking experience! A period started where not a single performance by The Chemical Brothers in The Netherlands went by without me attending. I started collecting their music, and was able to get my hands on a few great old releases as well. I was also lucky enough to get a cd-r copy of the BBC Radio 1 Anti-Nazi Mix that they released as limited edition (I think 1000 copies), and which ended up being the basis of their ‘Brothers Gonna Work It Out’ mix compilation. The Anti-Nazi Mix, however, was ten times better, and included an early mix of Hey Boy, Hey Girl.
Unfortunately, Surrender came out, and saw The Chemical Brothers taking a turn for more mainstream popular electronica. Though some individual tracks were quite good (Hey Boy, Hey Girl, Music:Response) there was also quite a few bad tracks, either trying to mimick the sound of popular earlier epic tunes (Dream on / Private Psychedelic Reel), or simply very bad music (Got Glint is a good example of this). Slowly, I lost a bit of my interest in the Brothers’ music. This move was only strengthened by Come With Us, where some blatant house tracks were the top tracks, or even became singles (Star Guitar), which, for as far as I could see, was a proof that The Chemical Brothers had “sold out” and tried to clone Daft Punk and similar acts, which were quite popular in that period. I never bought Come With Us, don’t even have it now. From what I heard of it, it wasn’t the solid album I had come to expect from the chemical brothers, but, similar to Surrender, had a few individual top tracks that unfortunately never made it to single.
By this time, The Chemical Brothers had become mighty popular though, the move they had made starting with Surrender and Come With Us was not without merit for them. And, as is usual with popular artists, it was time for a Greatest Hits album. They, or probably their record company, played the old trick, and released that album with two new tracks which were exclusive to the Greatest Hits album, to get even the fans who already have all the music to buy it. This is the point where I did actually get interested again in the doings of Tom and Ed. Because those two tracks were actually quite good, the best tracks I’ve heard from their hands in years, and seriously made it to the list of best tracks of that year. The Golden Path especially caught my attention, and for a period I was hooked on that specific track. It also made me listen a lot to the old Chemical Brothers album again, and gave me hope for a new album.
And that new album, which I reviewed earlier, confirmed my hopes. The Chemical Brothers were back to full strength! Push The Button was both refreshing in style, and still gave me that good old Chemical Brothers feeling. Unfortunately I had to miss their first performance in the Netherlands, but when they come by again, I’m definitely going to try and make it there. I feel it’s worth it again! After a small lapse, I’m a fan again!
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