The Wednesday Canon: DANCE DOUBLE HEADER!

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

A special double edition of the Wednesday Canon spotlighting those two titans of what top dance journo Ronan calls "album dance" - Basement Jaxx, and the Chemical Bros. Both blokey duos, both shifting plenty of units to the non clubbing inclined, both with a penchant for using guest vocalists from the worlds of pop, rap and Nindie. Let us see which of their hits rate, and which are RANK. You get FIVE per artist.




[Poll #717339]


And what of New Order, eh? Here's the official real actual canon:


1. Blue Monday (33 votes)
2. True Faith (31)
3=. Love Will Tear Us Apart (26)
3=. Regret (26)
5. Temptation (23)
6. Atmosphere (22)
7. World In Motion (16)
8=. Ceremony (15)
8=. Thieves Like Us (15)

And the best member is, obviously, Gilliang.

Comments

[bengraham.livejournal.com]

I went to the New York album launch party for the last Chemical Brothers album, and was lucky unfortunate enough to be kissed on the cheek by a rather worse-for-wear Tim Burgess. Who was supposed to be "DJing" the night, but in reality, was selecting records from his collection and then getting some other bloke to play them because he was too busy getting drunk/snorting coke etc.

[miss-newham.livejournal.com]

What??? Nobody but me has voted for 'Jump and shout' yet?

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

I guess I am the second to do so.

(I only ticked 4 Chemicals trax. They're a bit average for a Wednesday canon, no?)

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I was going to ask a WHO'S BETTER qn but then decided everyone would vote for the Jaxxies, as they are really named.

But then when doing the actual voting I realised that I have really gone off a lot of Basement Jaxx! O NOES! I am turning into jauntyalang.

Obviously the Chemmies, ATARN, would be better if they ditched the likes of RICHARD EFFING ASHCROFT and WAYNE EFFING COYNE.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

And WHATEVER EFFING GALLAGHER that was on that song!

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

It transpires that I really don't like the Chem Bros all that much! I hate at least three of their BIG singles, in fact I only have real affection for two of them. I have one of their albums and I never listen to it.

On the other hand, Basement Jaxx, HEARTS. They seem oddly oncongruous to where dance has now gone!

I suspect I am alone among Poptimists in rating Rooty the worst Jaxx album (though still ace obv).

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

the Jaxx albums are all so great that ranking them in order to determine which is best or worse is futility defined, tho i suppose i pick Remedy as best on a technicality because it was the fresh debut.

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

Can I trade in one of my unused Jaxx votes for an extra Chems vote? If neccesary I'll go as high as five-for-one.

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

Yes I hate hate hate the Chem Bros. I have only voted for one track since voting for none caused the poll to ignore me entirely, and I wanted to find a way of registering my dislike. Obv the track I have voted for is also arse, I wouldn't want anyone to think that the Flaming Lips link was anything other than poisonous.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

TS Jaxx guests vs Chem guests AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA etc

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

just cos they're students :(

I am an cliché

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Picture the year: 1995. GothKat has shoved Rave '92 to the bottom of her tape drawer and Elastica/Skunk Anansie posters abound. Then she hears Block Rockin' Beats and remembers that dance music is ok really. Add to this Fat Of The Land a year later and Kat = saved from a life of drudging indie.

Blimey, current music = Texas Cowboys by The Grid. HAHAHAHAHAH NOTHING HAS CHANGED.

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

General opinion of Chems = BOTHERD, so my votes shouldn't really count for much. Apart from Private Psychedelic Reel, that is, which is the aces and also the last good thing anyone in Mercury Rev was ever involved in.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

I never ever ever want to hear 'The Private Pschedelic Reel' again tho, esp. not live. It's, um, that special.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

this is my favourite 'band' evah vs my eighth favourite 'band' ever incidentally. 'Fly Life' is possibly my fave track of the 90s (last time i posted a 90s top 100 on ILM it came up trumps). GLAMMA KID FOR PM.

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

Funk meets Acid House via Hip-hop/electro i.e. conceptually ROCK SOLID, excellent dance music on account of fusing these genres + POP

Y'see that should be ace, but 99% of BB didn't actually sound like that. Basement Jaxx OTOH, *did*.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

you've not heard 99% of Big Beat ;)

to me it very often did sound like that. i went to clubs playing it and loads of people danced. the Fatboy formula was dancefloor gold for some time so inevitably there was much copycatting of that but you could always differentiate between his thing and the Skint sound and that of the Chems, Jon Carter etc.

this reminds me of the argument i have with The Lex re Public Enemy/Bomb Squad beats. he claims they are shit but i can't remember what the reasoning behind this was, or i just derided it as heresy and went 'LA LA LA NOT LISTENING' until he sauntered off.

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

Basement Jaxx = lifetime winner* of the "If only it sounded like its fans said it did" award. There's a about a minute of "Good Luck" that does, the rest is "nah, not feeling it".

*along with everything Tim Finney has ever written about ever.

[credoimprobus]

Pls note how Come with Us/The Test vote is entirely for the latter, which = MONSTER. If all Chem tracks were like that, I'd like them a lot more than I do.

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

(as many of you may know) this manages to deal with the 2 bands that everyone is surprised i don't think that much of. both have 1 track that i think is really good, and the rest is okish to dull.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I have nothing worthwhile to add to this, but I want to see the cats fite.

[awesomewells.livejournal.com]

HOW ON EARTH did the Private Psychedelic Reel not chart? I've got a CD single lying around somewhere, so I can only presume it was due to its length.

I'm surprised Good Luck has so few votes as well.

[mostlyconnect.livejournal.com]

wait song to the siren is missing too! that's their best two tracks :(

[martinskidmore.livejournal.com]

I love the Chemical Brothers, at least their old stuff, but Basement Jaxx are probably my favourite new act of the last decade or so, and it was painful only choosing five.

[umlauts.livejournal.com]

I find Basement Jaxx hideously overrated for the most part. Really only "Romeo", "Good Luck" and "Plug It In" are obvious ticks, although a few others are OK, quite good, sort of thing, but those highs tower so stupidly highly over everything else the idea of them being some kind of uberconsistent geniuses seems far-fetched to me. "Kish Kash" is as a whole fairly good, though.

The Chemical Brothers, well, my five picks were all bunched around the middle and everything recent is k-rub.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

You get this sort of indifference re Basement Jaxx from both the pop devotee with casual dance music interest on the side AND purists quite often, which is a risk of occupying that middle ground I guess.

At least they managed to avoid working with indie vocalists all this time though.