We love to reminisce. Throughout the history of entertainment and culture, we always look back on moments in time that represent significant periods where our lives were moulded by the media we were consuming at the time. Occasionally there are sentiments that can resonate across the internet, but today I want to highlight a fairly short but important journey through a few years of my life enjoying dance music. (A private joke I make to myself today is that my reminiscence of the 90s is no different to me as a 90s kid listening to adults reminisce about the 60s. Cultural impact aside, all generations are as guilty of living in the past as each other – but I digress…) This was going to be a broader love-in that started from 1995 and ended at the turn of the millennium – and rest assured, we’re still going there – but in my mind I sharpened my focus on two albums that made 1999 the 1999 of dance music.
Preface – the club era, and Wipeout
In 1994 I hadn’t yet started secondary school, and I was starting to make my own discoveries in the world of music. We had no streaming media and we didn’t really have the internet as we know it now, so I was listening to the top 40 music chart on the radio every Sunday. Armed with a stereo recorder and cellophane-wrapped blank cassettes, I would record all manner of genres – but I particularly grew to like dance music, and through much of 1994-1996 I would enjoy bold, brash club hits such as Livin’ Joy’s “Dreamer” or Baby D’s “Let Me Be Your Fantasy”. I was never too selective about my favourite artists through this early period of discovery; I just enjoyed the vibe of the dance scene around that three year period, and so instead of looking for albums I would often look for compilations – Dance Mania 3, Dance Tip ‘95 and In The Mix ‘96. These releases provided an instant variety selection of – hopefully – the best of what the genre had to offer in the year, and so I didn’t have to worry about looking for one artist’s album and realising that the single whose vibe and hook disrupted the UK chart was also the only song of note in the subsequent album.
However, in the late 90s I found myself being introduced to new sounds. The Prodigy would release “Firestarter” and their album “The Fat of The Land” – an album that presented brooding moments in “Climbatize” alongside rap offerings via “Diesel Power”. Sony and Psygnosis would release Wipeout 2097, featuring music from The Prodigy, Future Sound of London, Leftfield and The Chemical Brothers. I’d discover electronic music that wasn’t just designed to fill a dancefloor and be easily digestible – it would explore different moods, tempos and vibes. There was definitely a point where the club music of the mid 90s just wasn’t holding the same appeal for me that it used to, and I was looking for more music like The Fat of the Land, or like the Wipeout OST representatives. (That’s not to say that there weren’t timeless classics amongst those compilation selections; In the Mix ’96 Vol. 3 featured Underworld’s “Born Slippy”, for instance.) At the same time, I was still listening to the radio and following music news on TV, and in the late 90s there were special radio programmes previewing new tracks from those very representatives. I remember making time to set up my stereo in preparation to record exclusive reveals of songs from Leftfield’s “Rhythm and Stealth”, and also “Surrender” by The Chemical Brothers. Things were changing in my world – at home, the mix and dance compilations were being left behind, and even something like “The Fat of the Land” felt like a singular moment of raw punk ethos that few would try to emulate.
The 1999 of dance music – a psychedelic surrender
Forget the 1998 of gaming; the 1999 of dance music cemented this change in me – when both “Surrender” and “Rhythm and Stealth” would be released in June and September respectively. At this point in time I still hadn’t listened to Leftism or the earlier albums from The Chemical Brothers – I was only interested in buying the Brand New Thing I had heard about. However, even without that frame of reference (or perhaps because I lacked the frame of reference), each album opened my ears to new ways of thinking about the dance and electronic genres. “Surrender” still had urgent, energetic tracks such as “Under The Influence” and the timeless single “Hey Boy Hey Girl”, but it also explored other avenues of sonics. “Orange Wedge” was a deliberately slower groove that combined harsh twangs with a reassuring bassline; elsewhere, “Asleep From Day” offered a gorgeous and dreamy vocal track to begin side B of the cassette album – a mood that would return with the closing track, “Dream On”. Even tracks like “The Sunshine Underground” combined a dancefloor-friendly tempo with a euphoric melody that was like nothing else I was listening to in the prior years. This was dance music via psychedelia – grooves and vibes sharing company with bleeps and beats. It didn’t have to be listened to whilst stood up and jumping in a crowd – it was something you could sink into as your headphones closed off the world around you. I remember at first I felt myself stirring impatiently when listening to the album and waiting for the next club banger, but over time those bangers were the ones that I ended up skipping. I find value in all of the tracks, of course, but if I’m curating highlights from albums in my media library, “Orange Wedge” will be my first selection from the album.
(In 2019 The Chemical Brothers would celebrate the 20th anniversary of “Surrender” by releasing several new editions of the album. Firstly, a box set for CD or vinyl fans that came with additional remixes, a DVD, art prints, a photo book and more. Additionally, a cheaper edition which included a second CD with remixes curated by The Chemical Brothers. I skipped the box set, but I picked up the 2 CD edition.)
Rhythm and Stealth in the 1999 of dance music
Leftfield’s “Rhythm and Stealth” followed a similar template – yes, there were high energy offerings in “Phat Planet” and “Double Flash”, and bold vocal showpieces courtesy of “Afrika Shox”, but this was a different way of enjoying the genre. Slow, complex soundscapes were painted across the likes of “Dub Gussett”, delivering steady rhythm and an almost “industrial” quality to the melody. Meanwhile, “6/8 War” was exactly as it sounded – a rhythmic march to an unconventional beat. One of my favourite tracks on the album, “El Cid”, is beautifully soothing and serene experience that almost feels embarrassed to introduce any rhythm – it already does so much with so little. (As you’d imagine from my poor student life, I originally bought both albums on cassette and listened to them religiously on my personal stereo, but the digital treatment from CD releases definitely revitalised them.) If “Surrender” from The Chemical Brothers was dance music via psychedelia, I thought of Leftfield’s album as something more meditative; even so, it was still unafraid to be outspoken when it wanted to. If you’re looking for some music that’s going to get people on their feet and busting their moves, you probably won’t be doing it by including “Chant of a Poor Man” in the playlist, but that’s almost the point. My perception of dance music had changed; it wasn’t just about the safe bops; it was about tunes that made you think – that made you feel. The 1999 of dance music has kind of become a distant memory for the moment as my tastes have shifted again (towards drum and bass), but these two albums still activated something inside that was dormant, and I still enjoy more complex, weirder electronica whenever I come across it.
(Unlike “Surrender”, there were no special re-releases of “Rhythm and Stealth” to coincide with recent anniversaries. However, following the release of their subsequent album “Alternative Light Source”, “Rhythm and Stealth” was reissued. “Alternative Light Source” was released more than a decade after the original release of “Rhythm and Stealth.”)
When I first started thinking of ideas for this article, I was going to talk about how the Wipeout series shaped my tastes in dance music… but the truth was that it merely brought my attention to some names I hadn’t heard of. It was the exclusive radio plays that did more work than anything else, and that spirit of discovery can still be felt today. Streaming services will try and push personalised playlists to you every week, but curation is performed by specialist podcasts, blogs and YouTube channels. I’m probably discovering more album releases now than I ever was in 1999, but this article wasn’t just about media consumption – it was about the influence on my own interests. Again, this piece could have documented a longer journey through the end of the 90s… but the more I want to cover, the more that needs to be said, and then the size of this article becomes unreasonable. Besides, I didn’t want to dilute the impact of a very specific point in time. I think that these two albums serve as fine representatives for a particular moment in the genre’s history, and I only hope that I’ve done them justice with this personal journey through “the 1999 of dance music”. They’re not necessarily my favourite albums from The Chemical Brothers and Leftfield, but they came around at a time when I still didn’t know what kind of “dance music” was out there. I’d also like to make it clear that I’m by no means claiming that these two albums were the only notable releases in 1999, but I only knew so much at the time, through my limited exposure to radio shows and the like. Even today I still wouldn’t say I know everything, but it’s moments such as my own 1999 that awaken these kind of discoveries, and I think that’s something worth celebrating.
Rhythm and Stealth was released by Leftfield under the Hard Hands label in 1999; Surrender was released by The Chemical Brothers under the Freestyle Dust label in 1999. Both albums are available to listen to on all good streaming services.
