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Madonna

Madonna in 2000

Photo: George Pimentel/WireImage

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Madonna's 'Music' At 20 madonna-music-20-anniversary-2000

Music Makes The People Come Together: 20 Years Of Madonna's 'Music'

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Released in 2000, the Queen of Pop's five-time GRAMMY-nominated album is the work of an artist who has plenty to say, but nothing to prove—a reminder of a less complicated time and a blueprint for our future
Zel McCarthy
GRAMMYs
Sep 19, 2020 - 7:55 am

In the year 2000, America was sharply divided. A new generation of singers had lip-synced and danced its way to the top of the charts and the front of the pop culture proscenium with material Auto-Tuned to Pro Tools perfection. The (mostly rock) music establishment loudly decried the new pop as artifice and asserted the integrity of music made with analog instruments.

At the time, assessing the validity of popular music loomed larger than the growing threat of MP3 downloads that would eventually upend the entire record industry. Madonna had been through these kinds of polemics before, herself a frequent subject of musical legitimacy debates. But nearly two decades into her career, she had seemed to quiet her most ardent critics. 

Her seventh studio album, 1998's Ray of Light, had been the best-reviewed record of her career thus far, earning five GRAMMY nominations and winning three, including Best Pop Album, in 1999. Along with a pair of soundtrack singles, the album had maintained Madonna's presence on radio into the summer of 2000. On MTV's "Total Request Live," her videos played between those from upstart stars half her age, many of whom would cite her as an inspiration. In a contentious cultural landscape, Madonna occupied the highly coveted overlapping space of critical credibility and popular viability. 

Ray of Light struck gold by embracing Björk- and Massive Attack-esque electronica, thanks largely to the work of the album's primary producer, William Orbit. However, as a genre, electronica had yet to live up to predictions that it would dominate the U.S. as it had Europe. In combination with Madonna's reputation for reinvention, this only drove expectations higher for how she would follow her latest career highpoint. 

"Music," the lead single and title track of her eighth studio album, struck the airwaves like an intergalactic robot in August 2000, heralding a new sound for Madonna and the arrival of 21st-century pop music. With its digitally modified instruments, arpeggiated synths and a chorus Madonna says was inspired by the crowd at a Sting concert, "Music" combined elements of electronic and analog to create an anthem of unity on the dance floor. The Jonas Åkerlund-directed music video—featuring a pre-Borat Sacha Baron Cohen as his character, Ali G—seemed to skewer the decadence of late-'90s hip-hop bling while also revelling in it. We see a pimp-suited Madonna getting into the groove, relishing a night at the strip club with her girls and fending off creeps like a boss, all filmed while she was five and a half months pregnant.

On the strength of its lead single, Music released in the U.S. on September 19, 2000, via Madonna's Maverick imprint under Warner Bros. and opened at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, her highest-charting album in over a decade. Although critics didn't gush over Music with quite the same enthusiasm as they had its predecessor, the album moved millions of physical copies in its first few weeks, eventually going on to garner triple-platinum certification in the U.S. It ultimately earned five total GRAMMY nominations, including Best Pop Vocal Album and Record Of The Year for "Music" in 2001 and Best Short Form Music Video for "Don't Tell Me" in 2002. (Former Maverick Records art director and designer Kevin Reagan, who designed the album, won for Best Recording Package in 2001.)

In an effort to introduce the Queen of Pop to a new generation of fans, the album's promo campaign combined the traditional (a terrestrial radio premiere, a Rolling Stone cover story) with the new (an AOL listening party/live chat, a livestreamed club performance) over a timeline that seems enviably long by today's standards. Comparisons to more junior pop artists on the charts and airwaves swirled around her, but Madonna avoided miring herself in the muck. 

Instead, for an exclusive performance at New York City's 3000-capacity Roseland Ballroom that November, Madonna took the stage wearing a Dolce & Gabbana-designed T-shirt emblazoned with the name Britney Spears. For her performance at MTV's European Music Awards later that month, she wore a similar shirt that said Kylie Minogue. "It's my celebration of other girls in pop music," she said backstage at the EMAs, praising the younger women before adding, somewhat cheekily, "I think they're the cutest."

Read: Behind The Board: Tracy Young Breaks Down How She Approaches A Remix

Such spontaneous statements of support and admiration are almost boringly common now, but in an era when pop music had been denied entry into the credibility club, the moment held more weight. Though the press loved to pit female pop stars against each other at the turn of the century as much as it does now, musically, there wasn't much rivalry between them. With Spears still steeped in the sounds of Swedish pop on Oops!… I Did It Again and Minogue diving into disco on Light Years, Madonna had crafted a sound of her own on Music. 

While Orbit returned for several tracks on the album, the majority of Music was co-helmed by the relatively unknown French producer Mirwais Ahmadzaï. Like his contemporaries in the French touch electronic scene (Daft Punk, Air, Rinôçérôse), Mirwais was unabashed in his affection for American music of the '70s, including the funk and R&B influences of house. Those influences, paired with his proficiency in production, worked well with Madonna's penchant for pop hooks, resulting in an LP whose sonic textures included space-age fills, guitar-washed in computerizing effects, and vocals that alternate between alien and intimate. 

Music's second track, the distorted and ravey fan favorite "Impressive Instant," is a high-BPM ode to a trippy first encounter that sounded then like nothing anyone had heard before—20 years later, it still does. On the opposite end of the spectrum, closing track "Gone" is a stark and straightforward crooner made glorious by the fortitude of Madonna's vocals, selectively layered with exacting control. 

As an album, Music is a masterclass in juxtaposition that disguises some of its strangest elements in familiarity. Where futuristic production might distract, it's moderated by traditional instrumentation. This plays out most noticeably on second single, "Don't Tell Me." It's hard to hear the track's opening guitar riff without thinking of the album's disco cowboy visual aesthetic come to life in the Jean-Baptiste Mondino-directed video. The record soundtracking the sparkly western shirts and synchronized line dancing is downright audacious in how it interweaves acoustic guitar—played by Madonna herself—with midtempo dance beats, cushioned by country strings, all building to a crescendo in the final chorus. "Don't Tell Me" so effortlessly realizes the misbegotten '90s vision of folktronica that it sounds just as fresh today as it did in 2000. 

As a mainstay of '90s soft rock radio, Madonna was no stranger to love songs. Given the magnitude of her celebrity, the details of her personal life were bound to color how listeners heard Music's more personal lyrics. Two decades later, the declarations of love on "I Deserve It," presumably intended for then-boyfriend, husband-to-be Guy Ritchie, feel just as authentic now, long after their relationship ended. In contrast to the frequent unironic materialism expressed by today's celebrity pop stars, Music excelled at showing the former "Material Girl" in self-reflection. Its genius is how that introspection comes across as relatable and real, even when sung to highly synthesized beats by one of the biggest stars in the world.

For all its ebullience, at only 10 tracks and clocking in just under 45 minutes, Music is a model of restraint. It's the work of an artist who has plenty to say, but nothing to prove. And while her status as an innovator is deserved, Music shows how Madonna is an even better interpreter, fluent in musical languages across genres and capable of hewing them to her vision. 

Although Music faces forward to the new century, its unencumbered joyfulness is a bittersweet vestige of the uncomplicated '90s. When she wielded her axe on stage for the kickoff of the Drowned World Tour in June 2001, it was a subtle statement of sorts, expressing Madonna's own defiance of music rules: She could be both rock and pop, analog and digital, acoustic and electronic. But by the time that tour wrapped in Los Angeles on September 15, 2001, nobody cared about that debate anymore.

While she had deftly eschewed the petty cultural battles between genres and generations, the world had changed dramatically in the first year since the release of Music. The message would be muddled in years to come, but in that moment, Madonna was uniquely prepared to be a voice for unity with one simple yet inarguable statement: Music makes the people come together.

Dua Lipa Talks 'Club Future Nostalgia,' Working With Madonna And How She's Navigating The Music Industry In The COVID-19 Era

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Daft Punk at the world premiere of 'TRON: Legacy' in 2010

Daft Punk at the world premiere of 'TRON: Legacy' in 2010

Photo: Alberto E. Rodriguez/WireImage

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Daft Punk's 'Tron: Legacy' At 10 daft-punk-tron-legacy-10-year-anniversary

'Tron: Legacy' At 10: How Daft Punk Built An Enduring Soundtrack

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Released December 3, 2010, the soundtrack album pushed Daft Punk's music to new, exciting places and underscored the duo's prowess with live instrumentation
Gabriel Aikins
GRAMMYs
Dec 6, 2020 - 12:57 pm

In December 2010, The Walt Disney Company took a chance—the kind only a business can take when they're the most powerful entertainment conglomerate in the world. They took Tron—a 1982 film about the world and programs living inside computers that enjoyed a dedicated, if small, cult following—and gave it a sequel. Tron: Legacy brought back original star Jeff Bridges, alongside fresh faces Garrett Hedlund and Olivia Wilde, to revisit the film's computer world of "The Grid" with the help of some much-updated digital effects. 

As a film, Tron: Legacy was a mixed bag at the time, earning a modest, by Disney's standards, $400 million over its theatrical run. The movie garnered praise for its impressive visuals, while drawing criticism toward some questionable acting—and even more questionable de-aging effects on Bridges. Ten years on, many aspects of Tron: Legacy hold up quite well, especially its soundtrack, composed by none other than French electronic music duo, Daft Punk. 

By 2010, Daft Punk were already legends in the electronic music community. The duo, composed of producers Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, had three studio albums under the belt across a career that was nearing its second decade by then, but each release showcased the meticulous genius of their craft. So, too, was their artist persona well-set, with their signature robotic helmets and gloves and their aversion to interviews combining to craft an enigmatic aura around them that only heightened their mythical status. 

One only needs to look at the singles the group charted throughout the decades to understand the vast breadth of Daft Punk's skill and musical knowledge. "Da Funk," off their 1997 debut album, Homework, naturally draws from the groovy basslines and percussions of funk. The shimmering "Face To Face," off Discovery (2001), incorporates disco into the mix, and the undeniable "One More Time," from the same album, mashes sampled horns, jubilant dance music rhythms and French house music into a track that remains a foundational piece of electronic music in the 21st century. 

Even with that amount of range and expertise, it was no sure thing from either side to have Daft Punk compose the film's soundtrack. In one of the few interviews the duo gave about Tron: Legacy, Bangalter told The Hollywood Reporter that director Joe Kosinski had reached out to them all the way back in 2007, with no script in hand to reference. "We were on tour at that time, and it took almost a year to decide whether we had the desire and the energy to dive into something like that," Bangalter recalled. 

As well, there was initial hesitation from Disney to give the duo free rein. Another interview with the Los Angeles Times revealed that the original plan was to pair Daft Punk with a much more traditional and established film composer like Hans Zimmer. Instead, the final product saw Daft Punk forging ahead largely on their own, and the results speak for themselves.

A conversation about the artistry within the Tron: Legacy soundtrack has to mention the original 1982 Tron soundtrack. Composed by Wendy Carlos, a pioneering electronic musician and composer, it planted the seeds for Daft Punk. While the original soundtrack is largely a traditional symphonic score, Carlos did incorporate synths where she could, like on mid-movie track, "Tron Scherzo." Even where she didn't, the physical instruments mirrored the chimes and notifications of a computer system, as in the intro to "Water, Music, and Tronaction." Daft Punk took these concepts and ran with them.

It's evident from the intro of Tron: Legacy's "Overture" how the duo innately understands the sounds they're working with and how they operate within the world of Tron. Instead of drawing from French house or club music, they pull from the sounds of an actual computer. The low thrum in the opening seconds sounds like a system booting up, and the lone horn delivering the main melodic line instantly connects this soundtrack with the original. The duo told the Los Angeles Times that the original film captivated them, and these direct links back to it prove they did their homework. 

Read: 20 Years Ago, 'O Brother, Where Art Thou?' Crashed The Country Music Party

Each track Daft Punk created stands on its own without the film. The cascading synth building with a sense of urgency on "Son Of Flynn" is prime Daft Punk in its understanding of tempo and musical momentum. "Derezzed," played in the film's neon club scene—in which the duo make a blink-and-you-miss-it cameo as the DJs—is an electronic dance track through and through. "Adagio For Tron" is a moving, sorrowful ode to a fallen hero, with a minor key and just a hint of a synth beat under the orchestral rise.

Altogether, the production across the soundtrack is topnotch. Moments like the live percussion blending into the synths in "The Game Has Changed" show a great understanding of both film scoring as well as the concept of bridging technology and humanity, a central theme in the film.

Much of Daft Punk's approach to Tron: Legacy is rooted in a darker, more ominous sound, which is a major reason why the soundtrack and the movie both still resonate today: They're decidedly more cynical and pessimistic than the original. Tron arrived at the dawn of widespread home computing, and both the film and its soundtrack embody the optimism of what technology could do for the average person. In 2010, things were vastly different. Mass data collection, security hacks and stolen information, social media toxicity, and disinformation spread were the name of the game; it's only gotten worse over time. 

Consequently, Tron: Legacy is cynical in its view and appropriately more sinister in its aesthetic, an approach Daft Punk heightened with their soundtrack. "Rinzler," the theme for one of the film's main villains, drips with menace from its abrasive percussion and moody synths. Even "Flynn Lives" and "Finale," two of the tracks at the end of the movie where the heroes emerge triumphantly, are more subdued than a typical climactic piece, with horns that fade quickly and quiet string sections taking their place.

2010 was a high-water mark for popular artists stepping into film music, with Daft Punk's Tron: Legacy soundtrack and Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' The Social Network score dropping in the same year. Still, the influence has been felt periodically on film scores since. Sucker Punch (2011) leaned heavily into dance and electronica in its cover album soundtrack, and Arcade Fire provided a futuristic tilt to Her (2013). For its part, Disney clearly learned the right lesson when it came to pairing a visionary film with an equally visionary artist: On the Black Panther soundtrack album (2018), Kendrick Lamar married his music with the film's fictional world of Wakanda, an approach extremely similar to what Daft Punk created on Tron: Legacy.

Read: Daft Punk, 'Random Access Memories': For The Record

Daft Punk, too, learned some things they took to heart. The integration of more live instrumentation within their production, an understanding and homage of music that came before, and the challenge to explore new genres resulted in something truly special: the duo's 2013 album, Random Access Memories. It's a disco album that switched gears heavily to include more live instruments than Bangalter and de Homem-Christo had ever used in their own material before, and included direct tributes to electronic music legends like Giorgio Moroder. (The duo's magnum opus, Random Access Memories won the coveted Album Of The Year honor at the 56th GRAMMY Awards in 2014.) And each of these new elements can be traced to the work they started on Tron: Legacy.

It's fitting that Tron: Legacy and its soundtrack released in December. The cold winter matches the darkness of The Grid and the tired cynicism of what technology can achieve. But December is also so close to the start of a new year, to the hope of something different and to the promise to do more and to do better. On Tron: Legacy, Daft Punk reached deep into their knowledge to push their music to new, exciting places. It still endures as a testament to their craft 10 years later.

How 1995 Became A Blockbuster Year For Movie Soundtracks

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Dua Lipa

Dua Lipa

Photo: Hugo Comte

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Dua Lipa Talks 'Club Future Nostalgia' dua-lipa-club-future-nostalgia-interview-madonna-blackpink-gwen-stefani

Dua Lipa Talks 'Club Future Nostalgia,' Working With Madonna And How She's Navigating The Music Industry In The COVID-19 Era

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The GRAMMY-winning pop superstar tells GRAMMY.com about the creative process behind her newly released remix album, the project's high-profile collaborations and the challenges of releasing music during the coronavirus age
Lucas Villa
GRAMMYs
Aug 29, 2020 - 5:33 pm

Club Future Nostalgia is open for business. As clubs and bar spaces around the world remained closed during the COVID-19 era, British pop superstar Dua Lipa has created a virtual club experience with Club Future Nostalgia, her newly released remix album she developed and curated alongside Chicago DJ/producer The Blessed Madonna while in quarantine.

Released Friday (Aug. 28), Club Future Nostalgia remixes all the tracks off her latest album, Future Nostalgia, which Lipa dropped in late March just as the coronavirus pandemic began to spread widely around the world. The remix album, which features contributions from fellow Brits like Mark Ronson, Joe Goddard, Paul Woolford and Jacques Lu Cont as well as American and international electronic DJs/producers like Jayda G, Masters At Work, Yaeji and others, reimagines Future Nostalgia into a nearly hour-long set that spans '80s soul and '90s house music to today's Lipa-led disco-pop revival. 

Other artists featured on the album include the Queen Of Pop, Madonna, and hip-hop icon Missy Elliott, who both guest on The Blessed Madonna's funky "Levitating" remix, as well as Gwen Stefani and K-pop princesses BLACKPINK.

The album's unique creative setting was central to the creation of Club Future Nostalgia, Lipa says. 

"It was the perfect opportunity to create something like this," Lipa tells GRAMMY.com by phone. "I had what felt like all the time in the world, and everyone's at home. It doesn't really happen so often that you get the opportunity to collaborate with all these incredible producers and artists. I think it was of-the-moment that I was able to snap everyone up, especially The Blessed Madonna, who would've been on tour by [that] time. This album really came to be because of the current climate."

Five years ago this month, Lipa launched her career with the release of her debut single, "New Love." It would take more singles to build some buzz and nearly two years for her 2017 self-titled debut album to see the light of day. After a slow-burn success, she wowed the world with her 2017 breakthrough hit, "New Rules." Never limiting her musical horizons, she next delved into dance music via collaborations with Calvin Harris ("One Kiss") and Silk City ("Electricity"), Mark Ronson and Diplo's supergroup duo. The latter garnered her a GRAMMY win for Best Dance Recording in 2019. That same night, she also took home the coveted Best New Artist GRAMMY.

With the breakout success of Future Nostalgia further solidifying Lipa's name in the music industry, she's reached a point in her career where she can do as she pleases. She now has a Billboard Hot Latin Songs chart-topper under her belt with "Un Día (One Day)," a collaboration with J Balvin, Bad Bunny and Tainy. The sky's the limit for Lipa, but what she wants most is for her fans to find joy in Club Future Nostalgia. 

Dua Lipa chatted with GRAMMY.com about the creative process behind Club Future Nostalgia, the album's high-profile remixes and collaborations and the challenges of releasing music in the age of COVID-19.

How did you manage to get Madonna on the "Levitating" remix?

It was very much a manifestation thing. I was thinking out loud. I was just talking with my manager and I was like, "You know who would sound really good on this? Madonna." And he said, "You know, we could try. We could send it to her and see if she likes it." She responded and she was so down. I was over the moon. I couldn't believe that she wanted to do this record with me. I'm such a fan. It was really exciting.

How did Gwen Stefani get involved with the "Physical" remix?

Oh my God! She is my queen. She's just amazing. When I got to interview her for "Jimmy Kimmel [Live!]," she was such a ball of light and energy. It was one of those things that just happened by chance. We had the "Hollaback Girl" sample on the remix album and we were contacting her and her team to get it cleared. I was like, "While we're at it, we should just ask her if she wants to be on the record." She was so down. She loved the "Physical" remix that Mark Ronson did. She was totally up for jumping on it. When I was waiting for her vocal to come in, I was jumping around like a 5-year-old. I was so excited.

"Physical" sounds like it was made for Gwen. She sounds great on it.

Yeah, she snapped! [Laughs.]

What was the experience like to work with BLACKPINK on "Kiss And Make Up"?

On the original version, it was really cool and fun. I had written "Kiss And Make Up" probably a year and a bit before it came out. It didn't quite fit with my album at the time, and I wanted to put it out, but I wanted it to be really special. 

I did a show in Seoul. [BLACKPINK's] Jennie and Lisa came to the show to hang out. We had an absolute blast. Immediately after hanging out with them, I was like, "I have a crazy idea. I have this song and I would love for you guys to be on it." They were so up for it and they went in the studio and translated the lyrics. It worked out so perfectly. It's one of my favorite collaborations that I've done.

The album comes with an extensive animated visualizer. Where did the idea for that come from?

Being in quarantine and lockdown, I had to think outside the box. While I was preparing the "Hallucinate" video, which I ended up doing an animation for with the animator Lisha Tan, who is amazing; it was so exciting to do that with her. I thought, "What a perfect time to try to get as many incredible and fun animators to bring their own world with every song." That's what we did with the remix album, where every producer and DJ threw their flavor and take on it. I thought it was the perfect pairing to create an animated visual video. 

Again, during this time, when would I ever be able to have the opportunity to work with so many incredible animators and artists? It's been an amazing thing to see so many people come together to create this record. A lot of time, effort and love has been put into it. It's been a fun way to reimagine the album.

There's a disco-pop revival happening in music right now. Future Nostalgia is one of the albums leading the way. Why did you decide to take that direction?

Thank you. That's such a compliment for me, especially from my first album moving into my next. I wanted to do something that felt fresh and new, something that touched on a memory, something that always rings so true to me, especially in my childhood. To be able to recreate that in a modern way was an absolute dream for me. I'm so happy that I stood by and honed in on that sound that I love. It makes me feel so good. I'm really proud of this record because I feel like I found my [footing] as an artist and as a songwriter. I really wrote things that I absolutely love. It's definitely a milestone for me in my career.

Future Nostalgia was also one of the first major albums to be released at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. What was that experience like?

At times, especially a couple days before, it was scary. It was a time of uncertainty that I was like, "I don't even know if people need my music right now." I was scared that maybe it won't get received well or that it would come across as tone-deaf because there was so much suffering. 

In the preparation to put it out, I remembered that I created this record to get away from any pressures or anxieties from the outside world. The album made me feel happy and want to dance. That persuaded me, like maybe this would at least get people's minds off what's going on and make them want to dance and feel happy. 

I'm grateful for the way people responded and the messages and videos I was sent. All the love that was pouring in—I was so happy. It still makes me so excited when people are like, "Thank you, because it was like the soundtrack to all our workouts and motivated us to stay fit during this quarantine." [Laughs.]

What was the experience like to work with J Balvin, Bad Bunny and Tainy on "Un Día (One Day)"?

It was really fun. They have such great energies, such lovely boys. What I love to do with the collaborations I do is always something that people don't expect me to do, something that's a little bit outside of my comfort zone. I love to experiment. I love to surprise people and learn so much from my peers. It was such a great experience. I love the song. 

I feel like it's another one that when I listen to it, it immediately transports me somewhere really sunny and warm. I feel like I'm by the beach when I listen to it. It was exciting for me to write to a track that I wouldn't naturally do for my own project. I think that's the magic of music and collaborations at this time. Everything is so genre-bending.

It's been five years since you released your debut single, "New Love." What have you learned about yourself in that time?

I think from five years ago, I really did stick to everything I believed in the beginning. And that was sticking to my vision, talking about my stories and being open and standing by things that I believe in and never backing down and believing in my art. That's something that I told myself five years ago that I stuck by. I always want to grow and learn so much. I really stuck to those words so much, so I feel like it helped me and guided me so much during this process.

You won the GRAMMY for Best New Artist in 2019. How did you feel when that happened?

Oh my God! I literally think I blacked out in that moment because I had to go back and listen to my speech afterwards. I was so nervous that all I did was "umm" and "ahh" because I just couldn't believe it. Like my whole world just exploded right in front of my eyes. It was the most insane thing to have ever happened. To be recognized by my peers and to have the opportunity to be up there was absolutely incredible and surreal. It definitely pushed me to be better and do better and work harder and really stick by what I believe in. I'm really grateful. I wanted to prove that I deserved it. 

You have always used your platform to support the LGBTQ+ community. Do you have a message for your LGBTQ+ fans?

Absolutely. I always believed that everyone deserves to live their truth. Tomorrow isn't promised, so we have to be as loud as we can and be proud. There's so much love and support, and I'm right here for you. I'm here every step of the way, and I love you. Thank you for everything that the LGBTQ+ community has done for me. I couldn't have done it without them.

Dua Lipa Reflects On Her Journey To Pop Stardom: "Absolutely Mental"

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The Chemical Brothers perform live in 1995

The Chemical Brothers perform live in 1995

Photo: Mick Hutson/Redferns

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How 1995 Changed Dance Music's Album Game 1995-dance-music-albums-electronic-edm

How 1995 Became The Year Dance Music Albums Came Of Age

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In the mid-'90s, then-scrappy acts like The Chemical Brothers, Leftfield, Goldie and Aphex Twin released landmark albums, upending misconceptions about electronic music and setting the standard for a new dance generation
Jack Tregoning
GRAMMYs
Jul 19, 2020 - 7:00 am

Back in 1995, years before the rise of Coachella, Lollapalooza was the U.S. festival to beat. Founded in 1991 by Jane's Addiction frontman Perry Farrell, the multi-city roadshow quickly became a peak summer institution. 

Lollapalooza's 1995 lineup featured alt-rock royalty like Sonic Youth, Pavement and The Jesus Lizard alongside artists as diverse as Beck, Cypress Hill, Sinead O'Connor and Hole. For all its genre-hopping, though, the festival largely missed one sound close to its founder's heart: electronic music. Even Moby, the former punk and sole raver on the bill, turned up with a guitar and his best rock snarl. 

Across the Atlantic, iconic U.K. festival Glastonbury took an alternative view on 1995: In its universe, electronic music was on the ascent. For the first time in Glastonbury's then-25-year history, the festival introduced a Dance Tent, which featured trip-hop collective Massive Attack alongside homegrown DJs Carl Cox, Spooky and Darren Emerson. 

Elsewhere, from the main stage to the Jazz World stage, Glastonbury lined up the best and brightest of U.K.-made electronic music: The Prodigy, Portishead, Tricky, Goldie and Orbital among them. That June weekend, a musical movement coalesced on a farm in the English countryside. 

One year prior, The Prodigy's Music For The Jilted Generation lit the fuse on the momentum to come. Released in July 1994, the album was an immediate outlier in a golden age of alternative rock. Soundgarden, Green Day, Pearl Jam and Nine Inch Nails loomed large Stateside, while in the U.K., Blur's Parklife and Oasis' Definitely Maybe battled for Britpop supremacy. Liam Howlett, The Prodigy's beatmaker-in-chief, came from a different world. Music For The Jilted Generation cut the grit and aggression of punk rock with the ecstatic highs of raving, producing indelible anthems like "Their Law" and "No Good (Start The Dance)." The album topped the charts in the U.K., but it failed to break through in the U.S. 

By the next year, a varied cast of then-newcomers was ready to make its mark. Not all fit The Prodigy's fast and furious mold. The crop of albums released in 1995, including several remarkable debuts, showcased the many moods, textures and possibilities in electronic music. The year brought legitimacy and studio polish to the format, while also sparking an era of intense, analog-heavy live shows. 

Released in January 1995, Leftfield's Leftism reached for a more transcendent plane than the rave anthems of the day. "At the time, a lot of people thought dance music was this fake thing," Neil Barnes, one half of the duo, alongside Paul Daley, told The Guardian in 2017. "[Leftism] came out in the middle of Britpop, which we didn't really understand." 

Leftfield called on surprising voices, including Toni Halliday of alt-rock group Curve and The Sex Pistols frontman John Lydon, to challenge the demarcation of dance music. While the album was nominally "progressive house," its songs channeled the thrum of London through dub, reggae and pop hooks. Over two decades later, Leftism remains thrillingly true to its time and place.

Across the country from Liam Howlett's Essex studio, Bristol natives Massive Attack had their own designs on the jilted generation. Where The Prodigy raged, Massive Attack seethed. Like Leftfield's Leftism, Massive Attack's Blue Lines (1991) and Protection (1994) drew on dub, reggae and soul, arriving not at house music, but at the slow creep of Bristol's signature trip-hop sound. Protection collaborator Tricky broke through in 1995 with his own trip-hop masterpiece, Maxinquaye; its opener, "Overcome," is an alternative version of Protection cut "Karmacoma." Björk, a then-recent '90s transplant to the U.K. from Iceland, also called on Bristol connections for her startling second album, Post (1995).

Read: 'Post' at 25: How Björk Brought Her Ageless Sophomore Album To Life

Meanwhile, in London, motor-mouthed DJ/producer Goldie emerged from the basement clubs with a fully realized debut album. Released in July 1995, Timeless exemplified the drum & bass genre in LP form, stretching from deep and sonorous atmospherics to heads-down jungle roll-outs. Audacious to a fault, Goldie packaged his star-making single, "Inner City Life," inside a 21-minute opening track. (The opener on his next album, 1998's Saturnz Return, runs an hour long.) Grounded by vocals throughout from the late Diane Charlemagne, Timeless brought widescreen validation to an underground culture. Recognized as a key moment in dance music history by The Guardian, the album became a surprise Top 10 hit in the U.K. "Timeless was a f*cking good blueprint," the producer told Computer Music in 2017. "There were ten years of my life in that album." 

The mid-'90s also introduced one of the dominant dance headliners of the next 25 years, sharing a tier with The Prodigy and two French upstarts called Daft Punk—that is, if Daft Punk played the festival game. 

After a couple of releases as The Dust Brothers, including the propulsive steamrollers "Chemical Beats" and "Song To The Siren," Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons became The Chemical Brothers with 1995's Exit Planet Dust. (The Dust Brothers name already belonged to a songwriting/production team out of Los Angeles.) 

Exit Planet Dust contains none of the reticence you might expect from a debut album. Right from the sleazy chug of opener "Leave Home," it's a dance record with classic rock heft. Even the hippieish cover art, lifted from a 1970s fashion shoot, references a world beyond the rave. (A favorite of early fans, Exit Planet Dust set the stage for the true breakout of 1997's Dig Your Own Hole, which featured the group's career-defining single, "Block Rockin' Beats.")

Crucially, "Chemical Beats" and "Song To The Siren" put The Chemical Brothers on lineups alongside fellow gear geeks Underworld, Leftfield and Orbital. Each act brought a version of their studio hardware to the stage, working the synthesizers, drum machines and mixing consoles under the cover of darkness.

This period of live innovation dovetailed with the superstar DJ phenomenon, ushered in by landmark mix albums like Sasha & Digweed's Northern Exposure (1996) and Paul Oakenfold's Tranceport (1998). A new rank of DJs, predominantly British and male, commanded skyrocketing fees, foreshadowing the excesses of America's own EDM boom more than a decade later. In the run-up to the 2000s, DJs and live acts struck a sometimes-uneven alliance. Fast-forward to Miami's dance massive Ultra Music Festival in the 2010s: DJs represented the main stage status quo, with live acts neatly billed in their own amphitheater.

In the pre-Facebook days of the mid-'90s, dance stars turned to magazines to vent or cause mischief. Aphex Twin, who released his bracing third album, …I Care Because You Do, in 1995, enjoyed derailing interviewers with fanciful responses. Goldie took the opposite approach, talking on and on without a filter. Ed Simons of The Chemical Brothers, on the other hand, got right to the point. 

"I'm amazed at the low expectations which have always been centered on dance music," Simons told Muzik Magazine in 1995. In the same interview, he rankled at the critique that his music lacks soul: "Not everyone wants to be like Portishead, making music for people to put on when they have little dinner parties." (Later, in a 1997 Paper profile, Björk mocked America's adoption of The Chemical Brothers as electronic saviors: "The Chemical Brothers are hard rock!")

In the U.S., the top-selling album of 1995 was Hootie & The Blowfish's Cracked Rear View, ahead of the likes of Mariah Carey's Daydream, 2Pac's Me Against The World and The Lion King soundtrack. 

Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill went on to win big at the 1996 GRAMMYs, picking up the Album Of The Year award. For now, dance acts were left watching the party from the kids' table. (The GRAMMYS would later introduce the Best Dance Recording category in 1998.)

By 1997, dance music's outsider reputation was starting to shift, thanks in large part to the streak of groundbreaking albums two years prior. The Prodigy, previously overlooked in the U.S., sparked a label bidding war for its third album, The Fat Of The Land; Madonna's boutique imprint, Maverick Records, won out. Propelled by a polished big beat sound and the introduction of livewire hype man Keith Flint, The Fat Of The Land went to No. 1 in the States. That year, the floodgates opened, delivering Daft Punk's Homework, The Chemical Brothers' Dig Your Own Hole and Aphex Twin's still-creepy Come To Daddy EP. 

Lollapalooza's 1997 lineup, in turn, looked a lot different from its 1995 run. This time, founder Perry Farrell brought electronic music to the fore. The change-up had mixed results: Attendance overall was down, The Prodigy protested the venue choices, Orbital and fellow U.K. beatmakers The Orb had to follow Tool, and Tricky felt askew sharing a main stage with Korn. But Lollapalooza's gamble signaled changing times. 

Coachella debuted in 1999 with The Chemical Brothers, Underworld and Moby among the headliners. Like Glastonbury before it, the new desert festival even had a dedicated dance tent: the Sahara stage. At last, the underdog genre of 1995 had stepped into the light.

How Will Coronavirus Shift Electronic Music? Maceo Plex, Paul Van Dyk, Luttrell, Mikey Lion & DJ Manager Max Leader Weigh In

Björk in The Netherlands in 1995

Björk in The Netherlands in 1995

Photo: Michel Linssen/Redferns

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'Post' at 25: Björk's Ageless Sophomore Album bjork-post-anniversary-25

'Post' at 25: How Björk Brought Her Ageless Sophomore Album To Life

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Released in June 1995, 'Post' remains a kinetic and exhilarating reflection of the experimental pop artist's London years
Jack Tregoning
GRAMMYs
Jul 12, 2020 - 3:00 am

The name Björk conjures some well-worn images. She's the otherworldly artist whose album rollouts resemble large-scale art projects. She's the avant-garde fashion maven who smiled serenely in the "swan dress" at the 2001 Oscars. And yes, she's the eternal kook selling a box set of 14 handmade bird-call flutes to complement her 2017 album, Utopia. 

But there's a relatable image often missed in all the mythmaking: Björk in her late-20s, a wide-eyed new arrival in London, still at the grimy nightclub when the lights come on. 

Born Björk Guðmundsdóttir, the singer moved from her native Iceland to London in the early '90s. Single in the big city with a young son, Sindri, the musician was eager for new experiences. London's sound clash of electronic music promised endless possibilities. 

Björk went headlong into the nighttime world of the city, sampling jungle, drum & bass, house and techno. Not all of it connected. "Ninety-five percent of the dance music you hear today is crap," she told Rolling Stone in 1993. "It's only that experimental five percent that I'm into — the records that get played in clubs after seven o'clock in the morning, when the DJs are playing stuff for themselves, rather than trying to please people." 

Gradually, Björk met her people. She found kindred spirits in Graham Massey, founding member of Manchester acid house innovators 808 State, and Nellee Hooper, a sound system veteran known for his work with Soul II Soul. Out of this creative awakening came Björk's Debut, in 1993, and its astonishing follow-up, Post, which turned 25 this June. 

In her formative years, Björk played in rock bands, but she was never a rock loyalist. Growing up in the Icelandic capital of Reykjavík, she learned the country's folk songs from her grandmother. After her parents divorced early in her life, Björk moved between the domains of her straight-laced electrician father and free-spirited activist mother. 

In spite of splitting her time between parents, she was always surrounded by music. Her mother couldn't afford an oboe, so Björk learned the flute instead. On the long walks to and from school, she honed her remarkable singing voice. She released an album at 11 years old and found success in the Icelandic alt-rock group, The Sugarcubes. (Her former husband and father to her son, Sindri, was the band's guitarist.)

But Björk was unfulfilled, and 808 State's Graham Massey represented a new path. On Björk's request, the pair met in London to discuss beats. She liked the uncommercial approach to electronic music he’d honed in Manchester’s acid house scene; he was floored by her spine-tingling voice. Björk had arrangements for two songs, "Army Of Me" and "The Modern Things," that needed some edge. They finished "Army Of Me" in an afternoon, with Björk tinkering on a pocket sequencer while Massey perfected a giant bass riff. (Meanwhile, Björk appeared as a vocalist on 808 State's 1991 album, ex:el, and brought the band to Reykjavík to play the songs live.)

Björk also found a creative groove with Nellee Hooper, a former member of the Bristol DJ collective The Wild Bunch turned GRAMMY-winning superproducer for the likes of U2, Sinead O'Connor and Gwen Stefani, among others. Björk and Hooper shared a vision for a complete concept, which would later become her aptly titled 1993 debut album, Debut. (The Massey-assisted "Army Of Me" and "The Modern Things" were shelved for later use.) Produced by Björk and Hooper alone, Debut cleanly broke ties with the singer's rock past and instead welcomed trip-hop, house and synth-pop into her sound.

In the afterglow of Debut, Björk went deeper into London club culture. She wanted her next album to reflect the restless pulse and possibilities of her newly adopted home. "Most acts were putting out seven-inches with throwaway lyrics like, 'Ooh, baby, baby,'" Massey told Paper Magazine in 1997. "But Björk took that culture and made an album with poetic lyrics. It blew everyone away. She never tried to fit in with any electronic movement, she just took the ideas and got personal with it." 

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That "poetic" album was Post. On its cover, Björk looks out from a heightened Piccadilly Circus in London's West End. Her jacket, designed by art world favorite Hussein Chalayan, resembles a U.K. Airmail envelope. (Björk, a frequent shopper at London's acid-house-inspired fashion store Sign Of The Times, already had designer cred.) 

On nights out, Björk had got to know Hooper's friends, including Massive Attack collaborator Tricky and Scottish producer Howie B. With input from her nocturnal cohort, Björk was determined to make Post much more riotous than Debut. 

Björk left the hustle of London to begin work on Post at Compass Point Studios in the Bahamas. The stories from those sessions are pure, uncut Björk excess. She used extra-long leads on her microphone and headphones to record at the ocean's edge. She sang "Cover Me" in a cave full of bats. On a side trip to Iceland, she swam in hot springs and admired glaciers with Tricky. (The pair briefly dated, but as Tricky put it bluntly to self-titled years later, "I wasn't a good boyfriend.") 

Back in London, Björk continued to hone Post, reaching for a balance between organic sounds and machine-made elements. In the final stretch, she coaxed Brazilian composer Eumir Deodato from semi-retirement to help fill out the sound. At last, Post was ready for the world. 

Albums often open with something moody and instrumental to set the tone. Post is not that kind of album. From the first moment, "Army Of Me" is all crunching propulsion, its shoulder-shaking lyrics sparked by Björk's sometimes-wayward younger brother. ("It's sort of a 'big sister telling little brother off' song," she told Stereogum in 2008.) 

From the jump, Post refuses to sit still. No two tracks can be easily grouped. "Hyperballad" is somehow a few songs in one five-minute package: equal parts acid house and Deodato's swelling strings, with a virtuoso vocal performance that combines innocent wonder and furious catharsis. 

There's no greater example of the album's tonal shifts than "It's Oh So Quiet" into "Enjoy." The former became the album’s biggest hit—its visual was nominated for Best Music Video, Short Form at the 1996 GRAMMYs, alongside a Best Alternative Music Performance nod for Post. But awards glory was never in the plan. "It was the last song we did,” Björk told Stereogum of "It's Oh So Quiet." "Just to make absolutely certain the album would be as schizophrenic as possible."

All these years later, "It's Oh So Quiet" remains an uninhibited thrill. While reverent to the 1951 version by Betty Hutton, itself a powerhouse, the song's ecstatic Björk-ness cuts through the throwback big-band sound, building from a whisper to gale-force theatrics. 

"Enjoy" then switches the setting from wartime revue to Bristol basement club. Created with Tricky—who released his masterful debut album, Maxinquaye, in the same year—"Enjoy" is scuffed and oppressive in the best way. In short: This ain't a show tune. 

On "Isobel," written with Icelandic poet Sjón, Björk reached for, as she later told Stereogum, a "heightened mythical state." The song sounds like scaling a glacier and singing to the stars. But Post never lets you pin Björk as an ethereal, unknowable pixie. She also does "normal people" things, like getting too drunk and staying out until sunrise. (Hungover Björk interviews were a theme of the mid-'90s. "I come from a country where from the age of 15 you drink one liter of vodka every Friday straight from the bottle," she told SPIN in 1997.)

She also knows a messy breakup as well as anyone. So from the astral plane of "Isobel" we go to "Possibly Maybe," a lovelorn, but still wry slowburner. You picture it sung late at night in a London apartment, far from the warmth of the Bahamas. 

"I Miss You," the final single released from Post, is the synthesis of all its wild instincts. There's so much here: horns, relentless percussion, a skittering, curving beat and Björk in blistering form. But the excess works. "Cover Me" and then "Headphones," written as an ode to Graham Massey's mixtapes, provide the album's gentle comedown. By the hushed final moments of Björk singing about sleep, you forget how furiously Post began. 

It's hard to pinpoint the exact influence of Björk's Post over the past 25 years. Forever on the move, the 15-time GRAMMY nominee has never been defined by one album alone. 

After a nightmarish 1996, which included a scuffle with a journalist and a bomb threat from a stalker, Björk decamped to Spain to record a follow-up to Post. Released in 1997, the brilliant Homogenic was more unified and consciously Icelandic than its predecessors. 

Homogenic set a precedent for an artistic reinvention by the singer every few years. As a result, other artists tend to credit the totality of Björk's output, rather than a single album, as inspirational. Most avoid her name at all: Citing a talent as vast and singular as Björk can only invite unfair comparisons. 

Over the decades since Post, Björk has made a habit of working with artists she's inspired. "That's the good thing with being so obsessed with music," she told the Evening Standard in 2016, "you've always got other nerds who are obsessing, too. It's kind of ageless." 

In recent years, those collaborators have included experimental electronic producers The Haxan Cloak and Arca as well as art-pop original ANOHNI. Throughout her many creative partnerships, Björk has battled sexist notions of authorship. "It's always like I'm this esoteric creature; that I just turn up and sing and go home," she vented to the Evening Standard. 

Contemporary singer-songwriters Jenny Hval and Mitski openly worship Björk, both jumping at the chance to interview their hero for a Dazed feature in 2017. Other parallels can be reductive. Shapeshifting singer FKA twigs, for one, is often cited as Björk-like. While the pair share a collaborator in music video visionary Andrew Thomas Huang, the comparison is a too-easy catch-all for women skirting traditional pop. 

In the 25 years since its release, Post has come to represent something wider than Björk's specific viewpoint. It's the best possible outcome of a timeless conceit: the transplant intoxicated by a new city, channeling their experiences and anxieties into art. In an era when cities are siloed and flights are grounded, Post feels impossibly romantic. 

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