hey guys ..

i realy loved your tracks up to your album THE SURRENDER .

please go back to those trippy sounds from that time and before ..

don't do this commercial stuff too much .

you don't need to be on MTV any more .. ^^

me and some friends would be realy glad if you go back to your roots .. .. ;o)))

best regards

Yeah. They sold out after 23th century sky ep. Have totally become commercial since Exit planet dust and are ridiculously repeated on MTV.

Every time any new album comes out, people start hoping it sounds like their favorite...

Here's a thought: how about hoping it REPLACES your favorite?

I don't understand why people always want them to do the same thing as when they were the Dust Brothers.

Yep! Since Tom cut his hair, things haven't been the same. We need another duet with Noel Gallagher and go back to being called the Dust Brothers. A sequel to DYOH would be awesome. While were at it, why not finish that 'Enter Sandman' remix!

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Ha! That was a good one!

Sorry MelanWastage, but it's not gonna happen! The Chems never repeat their past work. It's always been a challenge to the duo to create music that's refreshing and original in every album. The new album should change your mind very easily.

Anyways, welcome to the forum MelanWastage!

Hey guys, please stop to be badasses with newcomers (I remember when I begun on the forum...)... I think too the chems are more commercials than before, MelanWastage isn't talking about quality but about sound... When you compares singles like "Block Rock'in Beat" or "Out Of Control" to "Do It Again" or "Midnight Madness" it's an evidence that it's not the same level.

Even if the albums are very good there are wrong choices about singles...

To finish about newcomers, it's not because they did one post that they are stupid, they know Tom & Ed, it's already great compared to some stupid people around us... We like the same music, don't forget that...

How can someone reproach the Chems to be commercial AND want another Surrender whereas Surrender is precisely their most mainstream album ever ?

I don't see the problem: they make awesome music on the albums and pick the most commercial sounding one's to sell to the bigger audience. thereby they make money which gives them the artistic freedom to make the more "non-commercial" music.

to me all their tracks have some sort of quality which makes it recognisable as a chem. track.

Every album has been fresh and enthralling, they won't make what society or current trends expect just to sell out, Tom and Ed don't need to, this is obvious.

I remember Fatboy slim saying in a 1999 interview that he was offered a ridiculous sum of capital to produce and album of Chart hits (even though his own unique blend blew up the charts with LP YCAWB). Record companies stink, they can have a huge baring on what the final output it, and this happened to the Klaxons recently for their 2nd LP.

I agree with Csar, but also, not to give people a hard time, I guess some comments just light the blue touch paper, but it's up to the artist what they produce and up to the listner to decide if they like it...I however have never been disappointed with any Chemical Brothers LP.

I'm a bit late coming into this but I pretty much agree with everyone who disagrees with the OP.

The Chems have an incredible far reaching catalog and a career that spans nearly 2 decades. I don't think they've ever let go of their roots... I think their tree has grown taller and fuller over the years. It couldn't have done that if the Chems didn't have their roots firmly planted in the ground.

Surrender marked an amazing time for the Chems, and they've been there and done that, and moved on. This evolution of their sound, to me at least, doesn't just mark what the Chemicals are sounding like or their commercial success or whatever, but how their music makes me feel and the impact it has had on my life's soundtrack.

Ok, those ARE the words, right there...Whirly :-)

That's case closed i reckon.

Let's look forward.

I think that's what the b-sides are for really; a taste of old school Chemical beats.

well said @whirly

well said @iguanapunk

:-)

1st : it's no hating against the chems ! ;))

devolpment is good and i'm also not interested in stagnation .. ..

everybody who is doing anything will develop hisself in this thing for sure .

but you always have the choice where your things are going to , you know .. .. ?

i realy love their style and it makes me sad to listen that the sound is not so sophisticated .. ..

when you listen to their last album .. ..

there are soo much commercial parts / melodies & vocals .

easy music not so "heavy & trippy food" like before "the surrender" .

i'm missing their sounds from the beginning ..

i'm realy excited about their next upcoming stuff .

maybe they read this thread and they are a little bit insightful about it .. ^^

and about you haters :

go back and watch your other commercial MTV bullshit .. ;P

it's called "surrender" not "the surrender". that's a bingo

i really do hope they just make dubstep from now on like i suggested a while back

i just realised that the groove and feel of "my elastic eye" is very similar to dubstep, except that my elastic eye sounds a lot better :P

edit: i mean especially the part where that baseline starts. shivers every time i hear it.

anyone want to make a joke dubstep edit of that song

** props to Eis-T and iguanapunk for keeping it succinct **

It's funny when people try, vainly and caught in irony, to rationalize urges and cravings. Some would like to justify their distaste (however mild, however vivid) with a particular direction, sound, or style of music by association with modern evil; inaccurate descriptors tend to fruition, and accident runs amok—defences against such are similarly crafted. Declaring a simplification (or, with greater omen, the detriment and downfall!) of the sound and craft of the Chemical Brothers, without your being clear or even cursory about a timeframe or about pieces of music or about the nature of your concerns, is sure to spawn a fairly worthless discussion if any at all. Similarly, statements that music is art and that musicians who are pure in their spirit should pursue what draws them, despite the enormity of truth likely to be found therein, don't seem to be terribly relevant to this discussion and typically amount to vague affirmations of cosmic law.

I would like to establish a measure of decency in this thread; it is imperative to first determine an appraisal of weight in music. What is the purest and most primal charge of the sonic output of the Chemical Brothers? A quick gloss of this thread endeavours to suggest a muddled assortment of possibilities (remarkably like iggy's signature, aside from the deliciousness thereof and the bitterness herein), that they are required to provide at least one of: the big, badass beats of the late nineties, or maybe just some bold instrumental hip-hop spiced with a synthi and acid house; or the elusive sound of the trippy, what was once related to drugs, once related to all things oriental, and, more recently, related to the exotic world of modular synthesizers driven by broken arpeggiators; or the latest creations of their collective heart's desire, what we call art and the true nature of truthiness; or it is representation of the underground, of the indie spirit, and of a vision they had in nineteen-ninety-three; or, finally, it is the sound of the future—what has yet to be created by any other musician or scene. Let's say that it's whatever sounds cool or (returning to omens) that which sounds, somehow, right.

The experience of Chemical Brothers music is one generally of timbre. The "way it sounds" is certainly the most fundamental part of how their music penetrates the listener; its primary objective is to alter your mood and overall disposition. This means that a lot of people will respond to some song of theirs on a particular level, and the associations triggered by listening are likely to have an enormous impact on one's enjoyment. But this is where the listening experience becomes more complex and difficult: they have a desire to create sounds that nobody has heard before, sounds for which association with other things becomes abstract. One song might sound like eating an orange; another might sound like an evergreen. This is precisely the root of difficulty in explicating one's dissatisfaction with their music. What if "The Big Jump" sounds like diving, and you hate water? Well then, it's poppy, it's simple, and it sounds too, well, something! Experience needs no explication. Over time, perhaps since Surrender, the trouble has become that the associations derived from their music are no longer so frequently so abstract or with music whose cycle has long since ended.

I'd like to visit whirlygirl's exploration of the growth of the band and that which amounts to closure and retrospection. My favourite album by the Chemical Brothers is Surrender. For me, it sounds the best and it's about closure. Surrender ends the chapter of layering samples and weird old synthesizers on top of each other until the result is tough to suss out. This album is all about combining unique sounds with familiar styles in a smooth and clean fashion with a stalwart focus. It also announces a new birthplace for their sound; perhaps they've always been doing what they feel is artful and personal and important, but the scene to which they belong has changed. When they first started to produce music, they were a part of a scene that loved house, weird old funk records, psychedelic rock, and hip-hop, and their sound reflected it. They're still producing music from their roots—but now they're rooted somewhere else: _new_ dance music and _new_ pop. A startling difference is that this scene is much more popular than their old scene (when it started), and probably a scene with which all are more familiar (especially with the internet). If you don't like the sound of it, be it so. It's probably not because it's commercially viable; it's probably because you like one sound more than this one. Don't forget that they sold approximately a bajillion albums way back when, and Surrender went double platinum.

Should the Chemical Brothers be at the fore of new music; should they be creating music out of noise? I don't care. I like some of their music, and I dislike some of their music. I'm not going to attack the "sophistication" of their music, however, because I like the sound of the synthesizers they used to use more than the ones they use today. I'm not going to blindly defend their latest album because it's in a different style from "We Are The Night" and is therefore artistic. Please, people, make an attempt to articulate yourselves reasonably. This is about music and cool stuff. Stick to that.

Embarrassingly, that post was super long and exactly five paragraphs.... baaaaaaaaah.