Best electronic album of all time?

Two that are constantly with me wherever I am:
Perfecto Fluoro – Mixed by Paul Oakenfold
Darkdancer – Les Rhythmes Digitales

Did I mention I’m seeing Leftfield at Brixton Academy next month?

Come on!

Hat-tip to STW…….good taste in music. Boards of Canada, The Campfire Headphase always makes an appearance in our kitchen after a long lairy night with mates…..just around 3am, you love it. No better way to let the dawn break than some lovely mellow electronica.

The BBC had some great programmes on the radio a few weeks ago, story of Kraftwerk. Its scary (and brilliant) how much of modern music you can hear in those albums. Almost 40yrs since Autobahn.

Can’t disagree with a lot of what’s up there, but even though it’s done with tapes rather than electronics : My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. Amazing album, even more so considering when and how it was made.

Best? Not so sure, but Melody A.M. by Royksopp is a damn fine album.

I thought Mylo – Destroy Rock and Roll was an incredible dance album. He put it together on a Mac in his parents house in Skye. Why hasnt he done anything else since 2004?

Aphex Twin – Selected Ambient Works 85-92

Or if you’re allowed compilations R & S presents: In Order to Dance

Very close runners up:

FSOL – Lifeforms
Hardkiss – Delusions of Granduer

I’m gonna throw in Tosca – Suzuki

Drexciya – Neptunes Lair
Galaxy 2 Galaxy -Galaxy 2 Galaxy
david Holmes – Lets Get Killed
Carl Craig – Landcruising

^^^^^^^^^^^^
BorardinBob

Very, very good choices.
Can I add ‘interstellar fugitives vols 1 & 2’ by underground resistance AND ‘programmed’ by innezone orchestra? Quality, quality tunes.

.

Sneaker pimps – bloodsport

IMAX – kingdom of welcome addiction

Pet shop boys – disco

Saw sneaker pimps do bloodsport in Oxford, best gig I’ve ever seen
🙂

another one for selected ambient works, with moon safari by air a close second.

Ulrich Schnauss – A Strangely Isolated Place

Absolutely gorgeous album 🙂

Some great calls and good memories up there. Can’t believe that no one has mentioned Hybrid yet? Probably Wide Angle for me, but all great albums

Leftfield – Leftism

Goldie – Timeless (the best drum programming I have *ever* heard)

Chemical Brothers – Exit Planet Dust

My votes go to
Crystal castles one by Cystal castles
The XX album,
Everything Everything Man Alive
Odd Blood by Yeasayer
Four Tet there is love in you
Chunk of Change EP by Passion Pit.

Goldie – Timeless – Track 1 (21m!)

Surprised the Prodigy haven’t been mentioned, though which album out of Experience, Music for the Jilted Generation and the Fat of the Land I’m not sure which would take it, probably Experience.

Feeling the muso glow of being well acquainted with and well fond of over half of the albums on this thread so far. Most of my favourites already on here. I will add:
Rest Proof Clockwork -Plaid
Organism -Jimi Tenor
Komputerwelt (in German of course) -Kraftwerk
[Guilty pleasure] – Dare -Human League 😳

Forgot about burial. must be up there, Untrue, also 3eps by shakleton.

Gary Numan Replicas
Cabaret Voltare the Covenant sword arm of the lord
John Foxx metamatic

Good call Peyote! A glaring omission. Got to be Experience FTW! Just because it was the soundtrack to a period of utter and complete madness 😀

I’ll add Laurent Garnier’s Unreasonable Behaviour or Cloud Making Machine.

Jean Michelle Jarre has to be on the list alongside Kraftwerk.

The Drum Club – Drum Club
Global Comminucation – 76:14(?)
Aphex Twin – Selected Ambient Works 85-92
Banco De Gaia – Maya
Nathan Fake – Drowning In A Sea Of Love
The Orb – Adventures Beyond The Ultra World
Orbital – Green Album (mainly for Impact, Lush & Halcyon)
FSOL – Cascade (ok not an album but it’s a 30mins+ single)
The Orb – The Blue room (again not an album, but a 40mins single is close enough!)
Hybrid – Wide Angle
Chicane – Far From The Maddening Crowds
Venetian Snares – Rossz Csillag Alatt Született
**** Buttons- Tarot Sport
The Prodigy – Experience
Leftfield – Leftism
Goldie – Timeless

Just because it was the soundtrack to a period of utter and complete madness

Yep, happy days! Then chilling out to Enigma, MCMXC and Cross of Changes, those two albums have got to be on the list too. Probably forget the Deep Forest phase though!

Going back a little I reckon Upstairs At Eric’s by Yazzoo is vastly under rated, Vince Clark has had his hand in a lot of excellent music (Bronski Beat were good pop but I somehow feel guilty for saying so).

Also, Depeche Mode are too often overlooked (in the UK at least) and have a massive back catalogue of good stuff.

Finally, I recently got hold of a copy of the Goa Mix by Paul Oakenfold that he did for Radio One in the early to mid 90s, just awesome.

I always find it a little funny when my wife and friends are surprised at my love of electronic/dance music at the age of 40 – I was there in its hey day you whippersnappers!!

How could I forget the mighty leftism? It’s a tough one as I have listened to Entroducing, Select ambient works and leftism so many times I have lost count.

Some of my other favorites (perhaps not the greatest, but still damn good) are:

Fila Brazilia – Brazilification
Kruder & Dorfmeister – The K&D Sessions
Boards of Canada – Music Has the Right to Children

If I could only pick one, it would have to be Entroducing. Absolute masterpiece. Poor old dj shadow set the bar so high, no-one, including himself could get close.

Have to agree with a lot of the selections although it’s difficult to pick just one, most influential would probably Selected ambient works or something by Jean Michel Jarre, The Orb, Drexciya, Bukem and loads of stuff I’m sure I’ve forgotten about in a drug induced hazy fog.

A few others worth a mention, maybe not the best but important to me –

A Guy Called Gerald – Automanikk
Atjazz – Labresults and pretty much everything released on DIY
Morgan Geist – Double Night Time
Consequence – Live For Never
Com Truise – Cyanide Sisters

Love stuff like Pawel, Zoot Woman, Cut Copy, Thieves Like Us, Erlend Oye, Oneohtrix Point Never, Tobacco, BMSR, Claro Intelecto, Air, ASC, The Moderator, blah blah blah

The Orb – Adventures beyond the Ultraworld (Aubrey remix).

Much better than the original offering IMO.

Nearly forgot….

Ciudad Feliz – Barrenador

Gunz

OMG I luv In my Room from that album, so beautiful.

Some great choices, difficult to choose a ‘best’.

Kraftwerk, YMO, Human League, Cabaret Voltaire all up there for leading the way,

Electribe 101, Eurythmics, Propaganda, Soft Cell and Yazoo for making electronic music that essential combination of voice and noises.

The Detroit techno pioneers, Chicago Acid house for the dance phenomenon.

Cold Cut, DJ Shadow, Liam from the Prodigy, Norman Cook for cutting and chopping it all up..

If I had to choose just one, definitive album it would be:

Depeche Mode – Violator

For the quality of the song writing and stucture, individually and as an album. For the electronics (‘spotters’ will know they always craft their sounds carefully and Violator combines some lovely warm old Roland System 100 with cutting edge digital stuff. For the productionDaniel Miller, Flood and Kevorkian all had a hand in it. For the fact it quietly sold millions and saw them go huge worldwide but was quietly underrated in the UK, for the ‘crazy’ stadium tour they did to accompany it that the fact that they are still doing it.

Emsz

You’re right, I’ve always wondered what a second album would have been like. I saw a documentary on Alison Moyet recently and she revealed that she and Vince Clark hardly ever met or spoke away from the studio. It wasn’t that they disliked each other, just didn’t socialise at all, strange.

Electribe 101 – Electribal Memories
Kruder & Dorfmeister – The K&D Sessions
Sasha – Involver
Bonobo – Days to Come
Lamb – Lamb, Five

+1 Boards of Canada – Music has the right to children
+1 f*** buttons – Tarot Sport

Renegade Soundwave – In Dub
Sofa Surfers – In Transit
Yonderboi – Shallow and Profound
Roni Size and Reprazent – New Forms

Roland The Bastard – Things to do in Devon When You’re Dead

Gunz

I read somewhere (probably NME 😳 ) that she was just doing a demo for a couple of the songs and the record company just loved it so they asked her to do the album, it weren’t like they were a group or anything.

Gunz – Member
Emsz

You’re right, I’ve always wondered what a second album would have been like. I saw a documentary on Alison Moyet recently and she revealed that she and Vince Clark hardly ever met or spoke away from the studio. It wasn’t that they disliked each other, just didn’t socialise at all, strange.

Don’t get me started on Vince n’ Alf!

Yazoo were the band that got me into music. First band I saw live.

‘Upstairs At Erics’ remains my ‘favourite’ album of all time.

Is ‘Only You’ the greatest pop song of all time?

Consider they followed that up with ‘Don’t Go’ a floor-filler that along with ‘Situation’ (which was only released as a remix in the US) set so many dance musicians off on their journeys.

There was a second album ‘You and Me Both’ really interesting contrast between the two of them (they both wrote and the songs were deliberately sequenced Clarke – Moyet – Clarke – Moyet.

They got back together of course, for a tour in 2008 (I did all the UK dates!!) and again for a one-off last year (The Mute festival). Great to see them become ‘friends’ again after all the years.

FSOL – ISDN