Full disclosure: I don’t like the alternative dance subgenres (mostly British) which combine dance music and rock music. I don’t like them because I like rock music and I don’t like dance music. So the idea of adding dance beats to rock music doesn’t make much sense to me.
Tag: Alternative Dance
Viva! La Woman (1996) by Cibo Matto
I’m a subtitles guy, I’ll take subtitles over dubbing every single time. (Well, not quite: I’ll watch dubs for laughs.) Similarly, with music, I have strong opinions about listening to people sing in their own language versus singing in English when they don’t have complete command of that. This view appears to be a minority …
Garbage (1995)
As I have said way too many times, I do not like post grunge. Usually, post grunge takes something I like and basically ruins it. However, Garbage avoid many of the most irritating aspects of post grunge, if you can even classify Garbage as post grunge. (In fact, that false categorization may explain why I …
Low-Life (1985) by New Order
I generally don’t like and don’t get the gradual drift tin dance music of so many of the trailblazers and followers of the initial wave of post punk. It doesn’t make much sense to me to be excited by the possibilities of punk, and want to expand it, and then to decide that what you …
Things to Make and Do (2000) by Moloko
I don’t know Moloko at all, so I don’t know how this album changed their sound from previous record. I read that they were considerably more electronic before this record, but I’m taking that on faith. All I can really talk about what’s here, whish might be described as soulful, funky, dancier Portishead – like …
Pills ‘n’ Thrills and Bellyaches (1990) by Happy Mondays
I’ve listened to a few madchester/baggy albums at this point and it’s safe to say that I just don’t get the genre. Now, I get very few dance-rock hybrids outside of Talking Heads’ version of that kind of thing, but this one I find particularly perplexing.
Midnite Vultures (1999) by Beck
I really like Beck. You might say I love Beck, or at least Beck’s mainstream records from ’90s and early ’00s. (I have slowly become less of a fan, over the years.) And I’d like to think I also really enjoy listening to musicians I enjoy having a great time, though I don’t know if …
Technique (1989) by New Order
The fusion of alternative and dance was such a big thing in the late 1980s in the UK. But it’s not something I really get because, well, I don’t like dance music. But I wish I could appreciate it more, because there are all these bands, with all these acclaimed albums, and I listen to …
Post Historic Monsters (1993) by Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine
Though this band were a really big deal in the UK when I was young, I don’t know that they made much of an impact across the pond. I don’t remember anything about them except their name. And even then, I don’t really remember why I remember their name, just that I heard it somewhere.
Version 2.0 (1998) by Garbage
Though I feel like Garbage songs were everywhere when I was in High School, I honestly don’t remember too many of them. (A couple here are sort of ringing some bells, I guess.) So I was genuinely surprised when I listened to the record and then I decided the title must have something to do …
Power, Corruption and Lies (1983) by New Order
I was pretty disappointed by New Order’s debut. If I can recall, I believe I was expecting something along the lines of the little I knew about New Order, and what I got was Joy Division minus Ian Curtis. Yes, that’s basically the band, but I was not expecting that. I was disappointed.
Tubthumper (1997) by Chumbawamba
If you were alive in 1997 you heard “Tubthumping.” You’ve probably heard it even if you weren’t very old then. It came out of nowhere and, unless you were in the UK, the band then vanished from the public eye soon after.
The Fat of the Land (1997) by Prodigy
Like everyone on the planet I have heard the three singles more times than I can count. The only reason those tracks don’t sound so dated is because I’ve heard them so much; they were so much a part of my late ’90s high school life even though I didn’t even understand what electronic music …
Glee (1997) by Bran Van 3000
I love genre-bending. A number of my most favourite bands are bands that can play a wide variety of genres well, and make these genres sound like their own – or, alternatively, convince you they are an entirely different band. So I should like this. I should like this even though it is based in …
The Faming Lips and Heady Fwends (2012)
I want to make some kind of Supernatural joke but I can’t come up with one because I don’t watch the show.