Smileys for miles: 10 rave culture classics that you should listen to immediately

Look at you, sat on your sofa watching repeats of the Nine O'Clock News from 1984 while munching seven-day old Jaffa cakes you found in the back of your cupboard. Jeez, what a loser. What you need, my lazy friend, are some rave-inspired records to ramp up your energy.

Here are ten tracks that, in their own individual way, bring alive the energy of rave music. Some are more directly connected to rave, and will transport you back to the days of poppers and smiley faces. Others owe some kind of historic debt to rave culture: even if you didn't experience rave back in the day, these tunes should still evoke the pill-popping hypercoloured club culture of yore. 

The highlighted links should open to a YouTube video of that track.

808 State: Cubik
Following the success of their blissful and balaeric Pacific State, 808 State put out a series of singles with a harder energy. Cubik was an unlikely top ten hit because of its cranky square-wave chords, alarmist emergency sirens and wild guitar shreds. There's footage online of young ravers partying to Cubik at Stone Roses' infamous Spike Island gig. Perfect for throwing (cuboid) shapes to.

Altern-8: Infiltrate 202
This was the masked mavericks' first hit single, and it peaked at number 28 in July 1991, just behind a new entry from Frankie Knuckles' The Whistle Song and just ahead of a new entry from Bomb The Bass's Winter In July. Crumbs, what a chart. And what an anthem. Simplistic, geometric breakbeat shapes which felt quite comical at the time, but laid some pretty serious groundwork in commercial chart rave.

Bicep: Glue
The video for Bicep's nostalgia-bazooka Glue interspersed images of abandoned rave sites with quote captions from ex-ravers. "Never had a comedown like that one," reminisces one caption. "Best days of my life," says another. "Off my box with four cans of Stella," interrupts one wag, ruining the mood. Joe Wilson's video was a perfect foil to the Bicep boys' heart-wrenching breakbeats. What a comedown. 

Chase & Status: Blind Faith
Like the Chemical Brothers, Chase & Status's partnership can be traced back to their time at Manchester university. And like the Chemical Brothers, the pair tread a neat line in roof-shattering beats. Blind Faith was a huge hit from their breakthrough album No More Idols. It was a tribute to grubby warehouse rave, bolstered by Loleatta Holloway-style live vocals from Yola. Chase & Status gonna work it out.

Fatboy Slim: Eat, Sleep, Rave, Repeat
Norman Cook has enjoyed number one success in various guises, and I had plenty of choice for this list. His creativity knows no bounds, whether it's a caveman turning into a chubby lad or Christopher Walken walkin' weird. Three decades after he learnt bass so he could join the Housemartins, Mr Slim released this modern classic in tribute to the fours states of raving. It's like Eat, Pray, Love but with poppers.

Klaxons: Atlantis To Interzone
They may have just been a bunch of London indie kids, but they brought "new rave" to the masses and singlehandedly re-popularised glowsticks with the gigging public. The awkwardly-named Atlantis To Interzone enjoyed radio support but, incredibly, failed to make a dent in the UK charts. A travesty. They followed-up this tribute to rave with an ace cover of Grace's Perfecto Records classic Not Over Yet.

Nia Archives: Off Wiv Ya Headz
I could have included A-Trak's iconic remix of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Heads Will Roll, but this junglist remix is irresistible. Nia Archives knocked up the track when trying to entertain crowds at Manchester's Warehouse Project, no mean feat considering the number of gurning bucket-hatters I've encountered there. If her name is new to you, dive into the Nia Archives archives immediately. Your rave heart will thank you.

Pet Shop Boys: Vocal
This might be a controversial one if you're a purist. And yes, I know Vocal has all the energy of your grandad pining for the days when the high street was all butchers and shoe shops. But this track has proper rave origins: the Boys say it was inspired by a clubbing venture in Brazil in the mid-1990s. They reflected this in the video by using footage from actual raves. A great tune from the domino dancers. 

Together: Hardcore Uproar
This John Carpenter-sampling classic was released on Pete Tong's brilliant FFRR label, It was the epitome of crossover rave bangers. That "ha-ha-hardcore uproar" voice? It's not a sample: it's just Suddi Raval's doing it directly into a mic. And the crowd cheers are from a Together live recording - in the background, you can hear Suddi shouting "yeeeeeah" to hype the crowd up. Rave to its very (hard)core.

The Streets: Weak Become Heroes
This list is almost in alphabetical order by artist, so we end up with The Streets. This is the best music act named after a road since, er, 'Don't Call Me Baby' hitmakers Madison Avenue. The downbeat Weak Become Heroes is Skinner's paeon to losing himself in the club and having a KFC afterwards. It's not a very ravey way to finish this list, but you can't have the smiley highs without the post-ecstasy crash.

Main blog picture: Altern-8

Further Fats: If it goes bleep, it may or may not be EDM (2013)

Further Fats: Just how DO you act at your first rave? (2019)

Best electronic albums of 2020: thirteen

13 – Luke Vibert – Luke Vibert Presents Amen Andrews / Luke Vibert Presents Modern Rave / Luke Vibert Presents Rave Hop (Hypercolour)

When I pop to the shops to get my daily Sara Lee double-chocolate gateau, I like to buy three. That's in case I drop one on the way home, and another accidentally gets stolen by a wolf. Logical, when you think about it.

I can only assume that was Luke Vibert's logic when he released three albums, called Luke Vibert Presents Amen Andrews, Luke Vibert Presents Modern Rave and Luke Vibert Presents Rave Hop. This trio of treats were dedicated to, respectively, old school jungle, early rave, and hip hop / breakbeat. For the purposes of this albums countdown, I've mushed them into one.

Although Vibert goes for a particular palate in his music (day-glo rave cut and pasted for your dancefloor pleasure), this trilogy gave us three distinct flavours. Amen Andrews, heavily based on the famous drum sample, had a full-on hardcore edge. Modern Rave felt like Altern-8 having a stroke, in a good way.

It's perhaps the strollin' vibes of the more relaxed Rave Hop that wins the day: it's mangling of hip hop and r'n'b is a pleasure to behold, and there are techno tunes galore. But to be honest, if a wolf came for any of these, or indeed the Vibert album I featured at number eighteen, I would punch it on the nose. I WOULD PUNCH IT ON THE NOSE.

 

Browse the rest of the Best Electronic Albums of 2020

Essential Hardcore got me started, ahem, on rave music

When I was a young droog, much of my musical education came from chart rave, and from compilation CDs.

One compilation I had forgotten about, until I tripped over the above image online, is 1991's Essential Hardcore. 

It's image was not original. It had a cherub on the cover, reminding us of New Order's Technique, and the acts listed on the front, a style later copied by terribly-named series The Best... Album in the World...Ever!

What was notable was its track curation. The album never leaves strays too far from the environs of commercial dance music, but there's definitely a change in flavour as it progresses.

At the start are charty bangers like Rozalla's saxophone-fuelled Faith (In The Power Of Love) and 2 Unlimited's ubiquitous Get Ready For This. Not great. The kind of music that clueless people mention when you say you're into techno.

Then we get into classic rave. The likes of Bizarre Inc's Playing With Knives, Altern 8's Activ 8 and Slipmatt & Lime (SL2)'s DJs Take Control, with the London breakbeat's duo's biggest hit On A Ragga Tip still a few months off.

By the end of the album, we're into the slightly harder stuff. Lords of Acid's moody and stomping Take Control. Joey Beltram's The Omen (Psycho Mix). And Dutch duo L.A. Style with their jackhammering James Brown Is Dead. It's a great introduction to rave. 

And the The Shamen's wibbly Possible Worlds was a great way to end the album. Most people only knew them for Move Any Mountain, and this was a gateway drug to their more trippy side.

Please let's not talk about the inclusion of Simply Red's Something Got Me Started, though. Crumbs.

This was actually the fourth in the Hardcore series, previous iterations being Hardcore Uproar, Hardcore Dancefloor and Hardcore Ecstasy. All of them showed the dark and light side of charty dance music. The first one included Betty Boo, and Together's ravetastic top 20 single Hardcore Uproar, from which the series no doubt got its name.

I'm glad I rediscovered this again. Back in the olden days, it was useful to have compilations like this – Essential Hardcore and its sister albums played a key part in young me navigating my music taste. Hear a patchy stream of the album tracks over on YouTube.

Further Fats: Eight oh eight oh eight oh eight oh eight oh eight oh eight oh eight oh eight (2008)

Full-on also-rans hysteria

Almost there. Here's a bunch of solid techno albums that didn't make my final list.

I didn't want to deal with old stuff, so no space in my top 20 for the newly polished-up classic Mike & Rich's Expert Knob Twiddlers (Planet Mu). That also goes for Altern 8's Full-On Mask Hysteria (Bleech) which carries the only design in the world I'd have tattooed on my face. And no space either for the hugely pleasing 1995 (Skam), an ancient Jega album found on an old tape somewhere.

Here are three names I was sad not to include, including two names in my best-of-2011. I liked the sprawling soundtrack styles of Kuedo's Slow Knife (Planet Mu). And Illum Sphere's Glass (Ninja Tune) had a kind of echoing subterranean vibe that made me want to live in a techno submarine. Meanwhile, Surgeon kicked up an evil disco with From Farthest Known Objects (Dynamic Tension).

On a lighter housier note, it may be worth looking into the airy jazz-tinged electronics of Steven Julien's Fallen (Apron Records), the '90s bleepery of A Sagittariun's Elasticity (Elastic Dreams) or how about Shinichi Atobe's World (DDS), all sprightly beats and dubby ambience.

Only one more of these 'also-rans' round-ups left while the main top 20 marches on. Who will be the number one album of 2016? Get to William Hill and place your bets now (minimum stake: 2p).





Scroll all of the best 2016 electronic albums by clicking here.

Christmas chart battles and the chamber of echoes

We all remember where we were when a Facebook campaign shot Killing In The Name to the festive top spot. It was Britain's JFK moment.

A whole nation gasped as Joe McElderry was denied chart's biggest accolade. Ticker-tape news channels covered it for weeks. Joe's single was named The Climb. The irony of that title failing to reach the summit led to hundreds of floral tributes to be elastic-banded onto Simon Cowell's legs.

McElderry went the way of Steve Brookstein. He was last seen doing panto. His career became as successful as JFK's is now.

Enter this year's most interesting seasonal Facebook campaign:  LFO for Christmas Number One. 

LFO are sadly no more, after the death of sole musician and long-time Bjork collaborator Mark Bell (pictured above). He'll be sorely missed. LFO's Northern bleeps gave a voice to dour techno-heads and their eponymous debut on Warp Records should be regarded as one of the most influential electronic tracks of all time.

A similar campaign for Altern-8's Activ 8 (Come With Me) faltered in 2013, charting the single 30 places lower than its original peak in 1991. The LFO campaign has a memorial element, and despite the Facebook page yet reaching the tens of thousands of followers it needs, there are plenty of shares and likes.

Ah yes, the Facebook page. The other day, it posted a photo of Countdown lettersmith Rachel Riley displaying the letters L, F and O. All very amusing, Photoshop or no Photoshop.

Among the quips about consonants and vowels, there were comments about Rachel, both in the group comments and in the shares of the original post by ex-LFO member Gez Varley. About her. About her appearance. Boobs and oscillations and the like. You've seen the internet. You know what comments are like.

It made me feel sad. It reminded me that techno is male-dominated. It reminded me of the way debates are controlled and manipulated by men. It reminded me of pay gaps, of glass ceilings, of willies ruling all.

That's a lot to read into a small selection of comments that were nothing to do with the campaign.

But I like techno being a community. I liked going to a listening party for the new Aphex Twin album, or raving about favourite Orbital gigs, or gently prodding Venetian Snares fans about Westlife.

But when technoheads are being misogynist, where are their friends? Why aren't they being challenged? Are we as blind to our willy-powered echo chamber as the blunt-fingered keyboard warriors of #GamerGate?

I hope Mark Bell makes it to number one this Chrimbo. Meanwhile, I suspect McElderry's been more successful than this blog post has given him credit for. It doesn't matter. I'm still gaffer taping daffodils to Simon Cowell's hairy man tubes.

A helpful pie chart to summarise Fat Roland On Electronica

Welcome to the various new bloggers I met at last night's Manchester Blogmeet (#mcrblogmeet).

Fat Roland On Electronica [June 2016 edit: the old name for this website] is a murky old water in which sardines come in their millions to die. I hope the pie chart (above) helps explain a little more about what goes on around here. Click for bigger.

I'll thrash together a blogmeet write-up in due course. Huge thanks must go to I Love To Love, who sponsored the meeting and infused the whole enterprise with the aroma of quality leather (one of my childhood-memory smells, along with bike oil), to Common Bar for being helpful and jovial hosts, and to Manchizzle for getting the whole thing up and running before being struck down with a lurgy caught from her (very cute) wee bairn.

Meanwhile, here's my new favourite band. Enjoy.

So Greater Music Police have been tweeting every 999 call...

Call 1: Report of murder of deputy sheriff and his immediate superior. One suspect in custody. Keeps asking what rhymes with 'lion'.

Call 2: Silly-haired man found igniting blazes. Has apparent tourettes.

Call 3: Five black Americans arrested for using course language to police officer. Seemed to object to our "badge and mother-effing traffic gun."

Call 4: Four post-punk Londoners Three reggae-pilfering new wavers* arrested impersonating officers of the law. The blondest one waffled about tantric sex: re-arrested for being a gobshite.

Call 5: Scotsman and Liverpudlian caught driving around in an old police car, towing an ice cream van. Cargo included heavy artillery, a list of northern cities and several dead sheep.

Call 6: Eccentric man-child caught breaking and entering before attacking a woman, leaving bloodstains on the carpet. Victim's name is Annie.

Call 7: Australian woman found bludgeoned by river. Rose found in mouth of victim. A wiley Hugo Weaving lookalike was seen fleeing scene.

Call 8: Welshman complaining of theft of sun from heart. Was asked to remove balaclava but refused.

Call 9: Young men in chemical masks found in a hypnotic st-8. Had to activ-8 back-up. Won't stop bloody dancing.

Call 10: Smirking gangsters caught running around robbing banks. Evidence of cartoon-dog-based drug taking.

Call 11: Fight broken up between reptiles and local petty criminals. Eye masks seem colour co-ordinated with Teletubbies. Started doing dance routines. Probably mentally unstable: did not intervene.

Call 808: Report of sample theft by Manchester ravers...

If you want some time to figure some of these out, try to ignore the tags below this post!

*see comments section

This is not a brave new world: it's just another house group

I could cope with "skweee" and its stripped-down aquafunk that leaned heavy on the pitch wheel.

It was a stupid name for a genre, but then again so is "new rave" and, for that matter, "rock". Chairs rock. Weebles rock. Boats rock. The one thing long-haired leathered-up guitar gods do not do is "rock".

But now we're supposed to believe there's a new genre called "brave".

Axwell of top ten chart ticklers Swedish House Mafia said in a Newsbeat interview recently (and repeated again on the news today): "It's a new genre we made up, we're calling it 'brave'. It's not rave: it's a little bit more ballsy than that, so that's why it's called 'brave'."

More ballsy than rave? More ballsy than Altern8 and their chemical attack masks? More ballsy than the KLF firing machine gun blanks into a crowd (pictured)? More ballsy than the skipload of wrong-uns I used to trough down my neck at Tribal Gathering?

Crikes, that paragraph made me look old. In the Swedish House bloke's defence, he does add the comment: "We thought of that five minutes ago. We like it a lot."

But no, it's rubbish. Yeah, our pop band's sexy, so we're going mash sexy and pop to bring you "sop". Yeah, our rock band's crazy, it's crazy rock so we're going to call it "cock".

Swedish House Mafia, your argument fell down the moment you wedged your genre into your name. This is not a brave new world: it's just another house group, albeit with a neat single that sounds better without the annoying vocals.

Although I've still quite a fondness for randomNumber's self-proclaimed genre "Northern wrongbeat", anyone who invents their own genre is mostly a "toffist".

Oh, I'm sorry, did I not mention that? I've invented a new genre of idiot: "toss-faced egotist". Toffists of the world unite!