Hey, maybe it's time, maybe it's time to live your life today

February 13, 2018 10:24 PM

Pump the audio through your big speaker system and let DJ Rap give you a strong female [I seem to be posting these a lot right now!] album experience that starts out from dance electronica but ventures far afield through her 1999 (3rd) album Learning Curve: Cassette Side A: Bad Girl, Good To Be Alive, Fuck With Your Head, Bad Behavior[OMG THE PRESENTATION IN THIS BUT IT'S THE ONLY VERSION OF THIS SONG I FOUND I AM SO SORRY NSFW], Everyday Girl [missing], You Get Around

Cassette Side B: Human Kind, Live It For Today, Go, Stories From Around The World, Changes, Ordinary Day

posted by hippybear (9 comments total)

[Ed. note: Like, I honesty don't even know how to describe this album. There's NIN and there's Pink Floyd and there's Kate and there's Tori and there's even Joni and I'm sure influences others are going to notice that I'm not as familiar with but it feels ridiculously sui generis. She normally worked in jungle and drum-n-bass, so this album is like a step outside for her.

But goddamn! I bought it after seeing the video for fun, joyous video from 1999 for Good To Be Alive (that has been exterminated from the internet in favor of that other... remixed... thing) and I have loved it ever since.

Look, headphones, Fuck With Your Head, then Good To Be Alive, and then if you don't like it, set it aside. But really, there is a LOT going on here. Orbital might be a good comparison, in some sideways way?]
posted by hippybear at 10:25 PM on February 13, 2018 [1 favorite]

Ha, I did the music for an incredibly po faced experimental theatre piece and spent two hours up on a platform playing cello and sound/music cues, and as people were going out I put on 'good to be alive' (off the excellent Go soundtrack) as passive aggressive rebellion

For the first couple of nights anyway, then the director asked me to change it to mopey chet baker, sigh.
posted by Sebmojo at 1:13 AM on February 14, 2018

I honesty don't even know how to describe this album.

DJ Rap broadened her horizons greatly after her jungle/ drum'n'bass origins, and she talked about this album in an interview back in 1998:

Being strongly pushed by Higher Ground, this could be the end of DJ Rap as the underground knows her. Yet she insists she's not selling out. Is she worried that her jungle supporters may think she is? DJ Rap-speak takes over.

"I care not!" she smiles, shaking her head firmly. "I don't care about what they think, I've never cared what they think. Of course you worry a bit and you hope people like it, but I'm doing what I really need to do and expressing myself musically. There's no greater joy than going into the studio thinking I can make what I want, how I want, no formula - and if people don't like it and think I'm selling out, my answer to them is f*** you! D'you know what I mean? You must be confusing me with someone who gives a f***!"

We share a laugh - she knows she's mouthing off. Then she gets serious. "The point is, you can't please everyone. You've got to do what makes you happy, and do it with a true heart. There's only one Roni Size, there's only one Goldie. And there's only one me."

I've heard that some saw this as her label's effort to make her more main-stream, but this quote makes it sound like she enjoyed making the album. And anyway, the jungle scene wasn't too kind to her. Also in that article, they include the fact that she played General Levy's "Incredible" even after the self-appointed "Jungle Committee" put the single and Levy on the blacklist after he boasted "I run jungle" after that single was a hit, which got her blacklisted (and got her some death threats!) in turn.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:22 AM on February 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

I was still pretty young in '99, just barely able to start appreciating music. This album came to me somehow—I had started picking up UK music magazines when I could get them and probably got tipped off from there—and floored me with its combination of clear jungle inspiration, defiant-to-angelic vocals, and the sort of on-ramp from accessible tracks (Good to be Alive) to experimental ones (Fuck with your Head). It challenged suburban, early-teen Grimp0.

Hearing it all again now, it's definitely a late 90s creation, but I don't think you have to leave it there and only visit when you want some nostalgia. To me, much of it has a bit of the staying power that Glory Box has (though not quite as much; Glory Box is eternal).
posted by Grimp0teuthis at 8:43 AM on February 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

god, I think I might still have the "Good to be alive" maxi single somewhere amongst my records.
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 9:24 AM on February 14, 2018

But goddamn! I bought it after seeing the video for fun, joyous video from 1999 for Good To Be Alive (that has been exterminated from the internet in favor of that other... remixed... thing) and I have loved it ever since.

Here's that Good to be alive video.
posted by Sebmojo at 10:16 AM on February 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

Weird to realize the timeline here, I just never really paid attention;

Learning Curve (1999)
Propa Talent Classics, Volume 1 (2001)
Touching Bass (2003)

I didn't hear this album until long after those other 2, and I would swear V1 came out the late 90's.
That's kind of screwing with my head.
posted by bongo_x at 11:42 AM on February 14, 2018

I'm at work rn so I can't listen just yet, but if I like Underworld's songs like Born Slippy, Jumbo, Pearl's Girl, will I like this?
posted by gucci mane at 5:10 PM on February 14, 2018

I love all those songs and I love this so: yes.
posted by Sebmojo at 5:26 PM on February 14, 2018