Below you will find pages that utilize the taxonomy term “Understated Classics”
February 4, 2022
Understated Classics #39: Lifeforms by Future Sound of London
Lifeforms is the 1994 album from the Future Sound of London. A double album (just), it also features the talents of Robert Fripp, Ozric Tentacles, Talvin Singh, Toni Halliday, and Liz Frazer. It reached number 6 on the UK album chart and went silver.
I have wanted to write about the Lifeforms album for a long time. In 2012, I even tried learning how to tell the tracks apart from one another.
January 1, 2022
Understated Classics Or Not?
At the new year, thoughts and spare time for writing point me toward writing some new posts for my understated classics series. Expect some new ones soon.
I also reflected on my previous choices and thought a bit about how my music tastes have changed recently. Some of this has to do with streaming and the frustrations I wrote about in my last post. Some of it is just down to getting older: I have less time to listen to new music, and much of the ’new’ stuff I listen to is me investigating the stuff I missed first time around.
May 29, 2021
Understated Classics #38: Trance Nation (Various Artists)
I don’t know about you, but lately I’ve been in need of some music that:
Blots out the outside world Helps me to concentrate on my work Makes me feel a bit less anxious about the state of the world Well, allow me to submit the compilation Trance Nation for your consideration as an understated classic.
But Matt I’ve heard trance music, I hear you say, and it’s one of the least understated forms of music possible.
August 26, 2019
Understated Classics #37: Lost Souls by Doves
Doves are a band from Manchester who traded dance music for rock yet never left their former genre behind. Starting out as Sub Sub, they scored a worldwide hit in 1993 with “Ain’t No Love (Ain’t No Use)”: a timeless dance tune that immediately owns whatever room it plays in. However, subsequent releases by Sub Sub did not catch on and people started to think of the band as a one-hit wonder.
October 29, 2017
Understated Classics #36: The Coral by The Coral
Perhaps in today’s modern age of streaming and such, The Coral would be a bigger band and may have survived their eventual burnout. Their work ethic was evident from the start, as rumours swirled in the NME about a fantastic new band from Liverpool who were going to blow everybody’s socks off. I went to see them live in Bristol after they’d released three EPs and they were incredible. Their sound, a bit like the movie “Holy Mountain” set to pop music, imagined a Merseybeat channelled from an alternative universe in which Lennon and McCartney took their acid in the Mojave desert rather than in the English suburbs.
September 25, 2017
Understated Classics #35: Snivilisation by Orbital
I came late to Orbital’s work. I knew of them through a few remixes and because as a mad Orb fan, they could not have avoided my notice could they? Apart from that, one of my college friends tried to get me into “In Sides” just after its release in 1996. The same friend got me into “Second Toughest In The Infants” by Underworld. I cannot now understand the reason, but “In Sides” just left me cold.
October 13, 2016
Understated Classics #34: Stray by Aztec Camera
The next instalment in my understated classics series is "Stray" by Aztec Camera. Released in 1990, it features two hit singles and the cover is my favourite colour: green.
My angle for writing about “Stray” was that it was an album that I "caught" from my parents. I soon realised that I wrote about some of those already, for example “The Circle and the Square" by Red Box. Besides, I’m not sure that my parents liked this album that much.
July 20, 2016
Understated Classics #33: Embrya by Maxwell
I give the impression of planning these posts but to be honest I came across an article about Maxwell a few weeks ago and fondly remembered my cassette copy of this album. The joy of Spotify is that it’s easy to dig up old favourites. The recent warm weather makes for a good opportunity to enjoy the sultry embrace of “Embrya” once more.
“Gestation: Mythos” burbles along for two and a half minutes, overlaying spoken word samples, string phrases and weird underwater noises, before the bass line of “Everwanting: To Want You To Want” brings things to life.
October 31, 2015
Understated Classics #32: They Were Wrong So We Drowned by Liars
As it is Halloween, I’m writing about a spooky understated classic. Liars’ second album “They Were Wrong, So We Drowned” is a concept album about witches. It was the first of their albums that I owned having heard their name mentioned among those in the New York Post-punk revival scene at the start of the 00s.
I imagine that to most ears a first listen to “They Were Wrong, So We Drowned” sounds dreadful.
July 22, 2015
Understated Classics #31: The White Room by The KLF
This little masterpiece was released in 1991. I got my copy on cassette for Christmas that year, but by May in 1992 they’d already “retired” and split up.
The KLF were a band in the right place at the right time with the right idea. Taking advantage of synthesizers and the idea of fusing rock and pop music with the emerging sound of house music, they laid the ground for many of the most successful electronic acts that followed them.
April 19, 2015
Understated Classics #30: Our Aim Is to Satisfy by Red Snapper
The thirtieth understated classic is by a band named after a fish. There isn’t a great deal for me to say about “Our Aim Is To Satisfy”1 apart from the usual insistence that it is quite good. There’s no overarching theme to write about, and no deep personal story attached. It was bound to happen eventually.
“Our Aim Is To Satisfy” is one of those albums spawned in the late nineties and early naughties at the height of the Electronica boom: dance music that you didn’t necessarily have to dance to.
February 22, 2015
Understated Classics #29: Let It Come Down by Spiritualized
I listened to Let It Come Down by Spiritualized for the first time during a difficult time in my life. I think this will always affect my feelings towards it. For me it’s a great big comfort blanket of a record. Coming after one of the all-time best break-up albums (in an artistic sense) in “Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space” perhaps it’s not that much of a surprise.
January 18, 2015
Understated Classics #28: The Meadowlands by The Wrens
One of the first lines of “The House That Guilt Built”, the soft cricket-laden lament that opens The Meadowlands by The Wrens, is “I’m nowhere near where I thought I’d be”. The last line of the whole album is “this is not what you had planned”. These bookending lines set the tone for this shimmering, ramshackle masterpiece - a fatigue and careworn pride in failing to meet impossible standards writ large over its first and last eighty or so seconds.
August 19, 2014
Understated Classics #27: A Ghost Is Born by Wilco
I have already given some of the personal background to why I love this album and now it’s time to give a bit of love to the music itself so I’ll stick to giving a track by track account of “A Ghost Is Born”.
If you are familiar with Wilco’s first few albums, you’ll know that A Ghost Is Born is on the line of best fit through Being There, Summerteeth, and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.
July 7, 2014
Understated Classics #26: Come On Die Young by Mogwai
I’ll tell you about punk rock: punk rock is a word used by dilettantes and ah… and ah… heartless manipulators about music that takes up the energies and the bodies and the hearts and the souls and the time and the minds of young men who give what they have to it and give everything they have to it and it’s a… it’s a term that’s based on contempt, it’s a term that’s based on fashion, style, elitism, satanism and everything that’s rotten about rock ’n’ roll.
September 14, 2013
Understated Classics #25: Long Gone Before Daylight by The Cardigans
The single biggest fact of life is that you are always going to be alone, you just might not realise it. Listening to The Cardigans’ excellent 2003 “Long Gone Before Daylight” will help you see that all our relationships are essentially screwed – but at least it sounds great while it does so.
“Long Gone Before Daylight” (“Long Gone Before Daylight”) plays the role of “The Empire Strikes Back” in a trilogy of great albums that The Cardigans released between 1999 (the arguably better and slightly happier “Gran Turismo”) and 2006 (the unarguably inferior and definitely happier “Super Extra Gravity”).
June 24, 2013
Understated Classics #24: Reservoir by Fanfarlo
I have written a lot in these posts about how music gets indelibly tied up with places, events and feelings. For me this album by Fanfarlo is tied up with all three of these. It makes me happy and sad at the same time in memory of great times that are now gone but are fondly remembered. I am aware that this is the youngest album on the list so far and so it might be a bit early to endow classic status upon it, but “Reservoir” is a fine album and to my ears it stands up really well.
May 23, 2013
Understated Classics #23: Gorgeous by 808 State
It was quite hard to choose an 808 State album for the understated classics series for two reasons. The first is that I was introduced to 808 State quite late through a friend’s sister’s cassette copy of The Shamen’s En-Tact (the original version recorded from vinyl that had a thirteen minute version of “Evil Is Eden”) that also had – to fill out the C90 – the full length sweary version of “What Time Is Love?
March 13, 2013
Understated Classics #22: Walking With Thee by Clinic
“Walking With Thee” is the second album by Liverpool band Clinic. It was released in 2002, which seems like an age ago now. Even longer ago they released the single “The Return of Evil Bill”, which was got me interested in them in the first place.
I recently got back into “Walking With Thee” when I picked “Vulture” in my A-Z of Animals playlist last month. I’d forgotten just how great a song it is, both musically and lyrically.
November 21, 2012
Understated Classics #21: Woob 2 by Woob
The second Woob album (AKA “Woob 4495”) is probably the greatest ambient album ever made and is certainly the best one you have never heard of. Originally released in 1995 on the em:t label it is also a rare record. I don’t have an actual copy but I have seen one! I downloaded it off the internet and even that is quite difficult to do. My friend is an avid collector of all the em:t releases and it is easy to see why: all the albums are titled in a specific way that is very appealing to people who like to collect things and they also have very striking nature photography on the covers.
September 19, 2012
Understated Classics #20: Folklore by Nelly Furtado
It’s rather spooky but shortly after deciding to write about Nelly Furtado’s “Folklore” as the next understated classic, I found out that she has a new album out this week. As a result, I have been listening to a lot of her music while writing this post, and I’ve been enjoying it too.
As always with these choices of mine, “Folklore” is a record that I can link to particular events and emotions in my life and so I guess my perception of it is coloured by that.
August 15, 2012
Understated Classics #19: The Dreaming by Kate Bush
“I see the people working and see it working for them.” (Sat In Your Lap)
The Dreaming by Kate Bush is a strange 1982 album that many believed had destroyed her career. Two weeks before her first ever performance of “Running Up That Hill”, the NME had written an editorial asking whether she had burnt herself out completely. Obviously “Running Up That Hill” (recently used to great effect in the Olympic Closing Ceremony) and the parent album “The Hounds Of Love” that followed showed that she had plenty more up her sleeve.
June 5, 2012
Understated Classics #18: Fabric 12 mixed by The Amalgamation Of Soundz
Say what? We’re allowing compilations now?
Yes. Why not? A good mix is as much an artistic statement as a full-blown single artist album. It takes a lot of skill to get from A to B and keep everything on the boil in between. This Fabric mix by The Amalgamation Of Soundz is one of my favourites because it is a downtempo (but, crucially, not too downtempo) compilation delivered with flair and using what I consider to be unconventional sources (soundtracks, tribute albums, hip-hop) to do it.
April 19, 2012
Understated Classics #17: Nearly God by Nearly God (Tricky)
Sit back and let it happen, / Let us take your time away.
Nearly God is Tricky’s second album, which was released under a different name either because Island rejected it as the follow-up to Maxinequaye or because it came too quickly after and Tricky just wanted it released. I had this album before Maxinequaye because back then it wasn’t as easy to go back and catch up with albums that you had missed as it is now.
March 21, 2012
Understated Classics #16: Ambient 2 / The Plateaux Of Mirror by Howard Budd and Brian Eno
Among Fields of Crystal / Wind in Lonely Fences I have written about a fair number of ambient albums in this series (and there are at least two more to come!) but perhaps none are as unobtrusive as this one by Howard Budd and Brian Eno. It’s a subtle collection of music that sits at the margins of your consciousness: for a long time it was the music that I turned to when I could not sleep but I could just as easily imagine it as (ahem!
January 23, 2012
Understated Classics #15: Début by Björk
I got into Début via a cassette from the library, much like I did with Together Alone by Crowded House. I suppose it is less obscure than many of my choices for this strand but I do think that Post is more well-known (because of It’s Oh So Quiet, which we shall mention here only briefly) and that Homogenic is probably more popular among her fans.
What I really like about Début though, as much as the album itself, is the panoply of remixes and alternative versions that surround the release.
November 7, 2011
Understated Classics #14: Clear by Bomb The Bass
I think it’s time to discuss your philosophy of drug use as it relates to artistic endeavour…
That quote is from the movie “The Naked Lunch” directed by David Cronenburg (see also this) and it also opens “Bug Powder Dust” by Bomb The Bass, the five star single that opens “Clear”. A rollicking piece of rock rap dripping with pop culture references that runs for four and half minutes and does not stop until another quote from “The Naked Lunch”, it is probably one of my favourite songs of the 90s.
September 9, 2011
Understated Classics #13: U.F.Orb by The Orb
FUN FACT: It was because of the artwork to this album that I obsessively scrawled onourwayhome onourwayhome onourwayhome onourwayhome onourwayhome onourwayhome onourwayhome onourwayhome onourwayhome onourwayhome onourwayhome onourwayhome onourwayhome onourwayhome onourwayhome onourwayhome onourwayhome onourwayhome onourwayhome onourwayhome onourwayhome onourwayhome onourwayhome onourwayhome onourwayhome onourwayhome onourwayhome onourwayhome on my pencil case at school. I also had a very passable u.f.orb logo drawn on it too.
In The Blue Room I had my first “close encounter” with The Orb in 1992 when the single Blue Room was in the charts.
August 16, 2011
Understated Classics #12: Look Sharp! by Roxette
Happy Birthday! No matter how intellectual one gets about these things, the primary function of music is to have fun. With this in mind it is a good time to turn to Roxette then, as they are almost always the epitome of fun.
I received Look Sharp! as a present for my ninth birthday. This was probably a bit young to fully understand all the emotions expressed on the record. It’s just as well that it is also crammed with the kind of pop confections that made “Don’t bore us, get to the chorus!
July 22, 2011
Understated Classics #11: Second Toughest In The Infants by Underworld
Your rails, your fins, your thin paper wings Second Toughest in the Infants (STITI) is the second album by Underworld, released in 1995. This was just ahead of the mania caused by the .NUXX version of Born Slippy appearing on the Trainspotting soundtrack a little later. Born Slippy itself, the blippy techno confection released between their début Dubnobasswithmyheadman and this album. STITI then is very much the calm before the storm and features a band (in the truest sense, which is unusual among electronic acts) in full flow.
June 24, 2011
Understated Classics #10: Tubular Bells II by Mike Oldfield
I admit that it was the artwork that got me interested in Tubular Bells II. Trevor Key’s wonderful icon of the twisted tubular bell is even more mysterious rendered in yellow and blue. Seeing it one day in Woolworth’s in Leigh Park back in 1992 aroused my curiosity. The huge display must have been part of the massive publicity drive for the album. Despite dwindling sales for his newer albums, a sequel to Tubular Bells represented a huge potential for sales.
May 6, 2011
Understated Classics #9: Tiger Bay by Saint Etienne
Background Tiger Bay is Saint Etienne’s third album and I think it is among their best. It was released in June 1994 on Heavenly records. I first owned a copy in 1998 when I picked it up while living in halls as an undergraduate. The reason for including this album in the understated classics series is the same as for Second Light by Dreadzone: it marries traditional forms to newer electronic music1.
March 17, 2011
Understated Classics #8: Second Light by Dreadzone
In the understated classics series, I try to alternate between pop/rock and electronic albums. Keeping with this trend number eight is the wonderful dub-infused album Second Light by Dreadzone. Released in 1996 it was well-received critically and four of its tracks featured on John Peel’s best-of-year list that year. Little Britain received a lot of radio play, a popular choice for that flag-waving period of britpop and assorted other demons.
January 9, 2011
Understated Classics #7: 100 Broken Windows by Idlewild
Idewild are a solid band who have released four or five albums that I could consider for this series. I’m even in the sleeve credits of one: Post-Electric Blues, if you’re asking.
In the end I went for 100 Broken Windows because it means a lot to me. It has more of a place in my life than the others. Usually I find that this happens if I can remember where I bought an album.
December 3, 2010
Understated Classics #6: Arbor Bona Arbor Mala by The Shamen
Background Ask anyone into pop music between 1991 and 1993 about The Shamen, and you’ll either receive a flood of euphoric good will about excellent tracks like Move Any Mountain, LSI, and Phorever People1; or they will rant at you about the evils of Ebeneezer Goode. The Shamen are either one of the pantheon of great acts from early 90’s dance and electronic music, or they are a shameless vaudeville novelty act.
November 8, 2010
Understated Classics #5: A Weekend In The City by Bloc Party
A Weekend In The City: Background This is the youngest album I have chosen for this series. I try to pick albums that are at least ten years old but every now and then, I will think of an album that matches the sort of things I want to write about. That’s the case here. A Weekend in the City is an unusual album that, in a reversal of the old adage, is “easy to love but hard to admire”.
September 11, 2010
Understated Classics #4: Substrata by Biosphere
I bought this album in the summer between my two years at college. I remember listening to this music under skies glowering with clouds so 1997 must have been a poor summer. I’d just bought a book of photography too, which placed photos from the north and south poles on opposite pages. I bought it mainly for the penguins that were, of course, on pretty much every other page. The pictures of snow and ice soon became the ideal companions to this album.
August 17, 2010
Understated Classics #3: The Circle & The Square by Red Box
When is understated not understated? The trouble with writing a series of articles all themed somehow is that eventually you might find something that sits naturally in the sequence but at the same time goes against the grain a little. Et voila, I give you “The Circle & The Square” by Red Box. An album that hardly anyone has heard containing two top 10 UK singles that probably everyone has heard.
August 12, 2010
Understated Classics #2: Sinking by The Aloof
I discovered The Aloof while listening to the Top 40 When I was younger, I used to listen to the Top 40 every Sunday. To begin with, this was partly an endurance thing and partly an obsession with one day seeing Roxette top the charts - alas, they never did, though for one thrilling spring “Joyride” did flirt with the upper reaches of the chart.
Listening to the charts is probably the best way to become a lover of music.
August 3, 2010
Understated Classics #1: Together Alone by Crowded House
This week Arcade Fire released their hotly anticipated third album “The Suburbs”. I loved “Neon Bible” but critics found it preachy, as overbearing as the religious folk it sought to satirise. I disagree and think it was an impressive continuation from an exciting debut. “The Suburbs” steps on from their previous two albums, both in subject matter and tone. It’s sad, thoughtful, resigned, angry and tetchy - among other things. “The Suburbs” isn’t the understated classic that I want to discuss though: with all the praise and plaudits, it may never suit this new thread of posts.