How does it feel like to breathe with everything?

March 3, 2018 9:50 PM

Released on Summer Solstice 1999: Surrender [YT album, ~1h] was the third album from The Chemical Brothers: Side A: Music: Response, Under The Influence; Side B: Out Of Control [video], Orange Wedge, Let Forever Be [video] [short making of video]

Side C: The Sunshine Underground, Asleep From Day, Got Glint?; Side D: Hey Boy Hey Girl [video], Surrender, Dream On

posted by hippybear (22 comments total)

I enjoyed this one, a lot. Let Forever Be was the best Beatles song I'd never heard before. I played it over and over again. The video is pretty awesome too, but standard fare for the Brothers - they're all awesome.
posted by ashbury at 10:10 PM on March 3, 2018 [4 favorites]

OK, there may be room for us to meet musically. I have despaired this ever happening. I will listen with an open mind.
posted by evilDoug at 10:15 PM on March 3, 2018 [1 favorite]

Thanks for the post. I'll always have a soft spot for the Chemical Brothers.

I've been really enjoying their latest song and video: Wide Open. Featuring, of all people, Beck.
posted by Alex404 at 10:29 PM on March 3, 2018 [1 favorite]

Great album. Can't believe how old I am.
posted by senor biggles at 11:15 PM on March 3, 2018 [1 favorite]

This album has been joyfully bumped in my car with my kids in tow for tens of thousands of miles and whatever numbers of hours that adds up to.

This album is the “play it louder, daddy!” album for my kids.

And I oblige them.

And we jam the fuck out to it.

High fives.
posted by Annika Cicada at 11:38 PM on March 3, 2018 [6 favorites]

Huh, neat! I listened to Dig Your Own Hole a lot, and somehow thought it was the definitive Chemical Brothers release, but don't think I ever listened to their other albums to confirm that hypothesis... I'll throw this one on the rotation, and report back on the other side...
posted by kaibutsu at 12:55 AM on March 4, 2018

It's a great album. Sunshine Underground is still one of my favourite tracks of all time. The following track Asleep From Day seems to just merge into it like one song.

They may be best known for the "bangers" (Hey Boy, Hey Girl, Block Rocking Beats, Galvanize etc) but it's the longer more melodic tracks I love the best and most albums have at least one - Sunshine Underground, Escape Velocity (from Further), Surface to Air (from Push The Button), Star Guitar - with legendary Michel Gondry video (from Come With Us).
posted by jontyjago at 2:29 AM on March 4, 2018

Thank you hippybear for featuring all this great music. What a treat!
posted by james33 at 5:01 AM on March 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

I loved Exit Planet Dust and a couple of their earlier tracks as the Dust Brothers that appeared on obscure compilations (before they were forced to change their name due to the pre-existing Dust Brothers in the US), but was never able to get into their later albums. Gave Surrender another try just now, still doesn't work for me... but rocking out to Exit Planet Dust now.
posted by borsboom at 5:48 AM on March 4, 2018

It's funny, Chemical Brothers is in my general musical orbit, but I've never owned one of their albums and I couldn't tell you any of the album names. Yet when I listen to this, I recognize every single track on the album.

Thanks for sharing.
posted by Room 101 at 6:26 AM on March 4, 2018

I love this album because it continued the direction they were going from The Private Psychedelic Reel.
posted by Catblack at 6:59 AM on March 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

I came to the Chemical Brothers late (having grown up in a market featuring nothing except country and classic rock) but man, once I found them, I was sold. This is one of my favorite albums, and I also happily play it for the kid.
posted by caution live frogs at 7:02 AM on March 4, 2018

Holy Fuck! Almost 20 years? What the hell happened, it’s like I’ve been asleep.

Bush’s *son* you say? The cokehead? Donald Trump??!

Are the Dodgers still in Brooklyn?
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 7:07 AM on March 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

I enjoyed this one, a lot. Let Forever Be was the best Beatles song I'd never heard before. I played it over and over again. The video is pretty awesome too, but standard fare for the Brothers - they're all awesome.

Let Forever Be is a Michel Gondry video, so already guaranteed to be awesome, but in this case a weird experiment in playing with the "Video Inside/Film Outside" trope of vintage British television.
posted by Navelgazer at 7:37 AM on March 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

Quite good, listened before bed last night. Thanks hippybear.
posted by evilDoug at 8:26 AM on March 4, 2018

I am—and always will be—100% here for "It Doesn't Matter." I can take or leave a lot of 'big beat' stuff from that era, but the Chemical Brothers' foray into straight-up techno blew my wee little mind back in the 90s.
posted by LMGM at 10:32 AM on March 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

Thanks to The Onion, I can never hear anything about the Chemical Brothers without this immediately coming to mind.
posted by lagomorphius at 12:04 PM on March 4, 2018

Had a lovely breakfast with this album.

and then started listening to the new jonelle monae singles on repeat again, which I doubt hippybear will think less of me for.
posted by kaibutsu at 12:43 PM on March 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

I STILL CAN'T STOP LISTENING TO MAKE ME FEEL SO YES GO FOR THAT
posted by hippybear at 12:49 PM on March 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

I went to Turnmills a lot in London when I was there in the 90s and one time the most extraordinary ecstatic song was playing, like nothing I'd ever heard before. The Chemical Brothers had a residency there, and it was 'Setting Sun', before they released it.
posted by Sebmojo at 1:32 PM on March 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

One of my most vivid musical memories is attending the Big Day Out Festival here in Australia in 2000. The event in Melbourne was held on a scorching hot day and the Chemical Brothers played in the (somewhat appropriately named) Boiler Room, which was a large tent – think circus style big top tent – out in the sun in which most electronic music acts did their shows.

They were one of the final acts on as the event stretched into the night, and during the day the Boiler Room had gotten more and more oppressive due to the heat.

I remember staggering into the tent after watching Nine Inch Nails on one of the main stages. At that stage I was, unknowingly, suffering from some level of heat stroke despite ample water, hat and sunscreen.

Going into the Boiler Room as the Chemical Brothers started, there was, no joke, water running down the inside walls of the tent fabric – some collection of sweat and fresh water being propelled by giant fans. But the effect was that the tent walls looked like they were shimmering underwater.

Then when the music started, Music: Response was the first song played. Short stop motion animations began being projected up onto the tent walls, producing this unbelievably disorientating effect with the water running down the inside of them … all in intense heat.

All these things – the music, the movies, the liquid walls, all burnt themselves into my semi-heatstroke addled brain, so much so that whenever I hear the opening beats to Music: Response I have these unbelievably strong flashbacks to the Boiler Room tent.

I can’t remember much more from the show to be honest, and I still can’t remember how I got home that night. But that performance and that song is something I’ll never forget.
posted by chris88 at 6:09 PM on March 4, 2018 [5 favorites]

Sebmojo: I went to Turnmills a lot in London when I was there in the 90s and one time the most extraordinary ecstatic song was playing, like nothing I'd ever heard before.

I was coming in here to post my Turnmills story :). Was there one night in the late 90s with the Kahuna Brothers DJing and this one epic track was playing that kept going on and on and on as I walked through the club, and at some point I remembered that the new Chemical Brothers album was due out next week, and that the songs that had just been playing fitted exactly with the descriptions I'd read of them in the NME...and figured I must be listening to The Sunshine Underground before it had been released....and then a few songs later when Hey Boy Hey Girl kicked in I realised that the Kahunas had been playing Surrender from start to finish.

That was a good night.
posted by Pink Frost at 12:45 AM on March 5, 2018