Ed was on BBC 6music today saying he was really happy with the album, that it seems more real now after rehearsals last week and going to see the gorillaz play and seeing the roundhouse again.

Hey speaking of interviews, are the Chems featured in any magazines yet?

I also haven't seen any online reviews for Further yet. I haven't looked terribly hard but all I've seen were online blurbs that announced a new album and were pretty much copy and paste jobs from the official website.

All i can tell is that the French magazine Tsugi does not seem to like them. They were quite ironic about them in their news talking about Further and Escape Velocity. Saying that they are getting old, that they've been living on their past success for quite some years now, that Escape Velocity was "pretty good, but it still is Chemical Brothers"... Whatever

Ben_j, on 07 May 2010 - 07:59 PM, said:

haters.

Haha!

What a drag it is getting old, right?

I remember Push The Button era interview with Ed, and he was asked a question that pertained to a scathing criticism the Chems received, and he said it's good to still be around annoying people, lol!

It's true that there's an entirely new sound coming in to electronic music, and The Chemical Brothers have aged. But they're fucking legends!

The focus for a lot of marketing and demographics bleeds over into what people think is cool, reviews of music, etc. There's not a lot of marketing value in trying to attain peace and enlightenment. Oh well. ::yawn::

It may be the case that they've aged but they have always kept themselves a set apart from everyone else.
Dance music itself is a relativly new genre, let alone electronic dance, and it is only now elevating it's legendary 'must see' acts.
Like iron maiden or metallica are to rock and metal, the chems or daft punk are to the electronic genre.
You will ALWAYS get some reporter/critic who doesn't like 'old' musicians/bands and will try to bring them down in words for being 'repetitive'.

I grew up a rock/metal fan, veered into dance around 20, and have been keenly following the rise of electronic dance over the past 5 years. New sounds are always entering different genres and the same cycles of criticism of the old and support of the new will arrive each time too. Soon though, the dust settles and the big acts will still be there doing their thing, while many of those who were around when the new sound started, drop off the radar forever.....


(I've just realised I went off on one there...it's taken ages to type this out with one finger too so I dunno if any of it makes sense but I'll be damned if I'm pressing delete now! Ugh, I'll sort it in the morning)

i came in through the rock n metal route too Chin!

it's really weird about the french magazine comments - i was just thinking last night how the chems are probably going to put out what is going to be a super landmark record. if you heard escape velocity and swoon back to back, it's a brilliant all new sound the chems have gone for, it's nothing really like what the chems have done before, especially swoon. escape velocity is a mega monster - those two buildups - there are gonna be bodies on the dance floor. i can't imagine if the first two releases are this massive, what the whole album experience will be this time - it's certainly not like anything they've done before.
it's like they've put out two epics already, and there's a whole album to come.
swoon can destroy in a surrender way at midnight - people will go monkeys. escape velocity is that massive worthy tune to close an epic chems set. and there'r 6 more of those coming. that french critic is way off the mark this time.

Ben_j, on 08 May 2010 - 01:59 AM, said:

Maybe you've seen my commentary on the site ^^
Tsugi just follow the hype, sometimes they are just stupid Parisians making promotion of Parisians DJ...

chemicalmat, on 08 May 2010 - 10:09 AM, said:

Yes I've seen it It's funny because I also know one of the other 3 who posted a comment.

I remember an ironic story from another forum member back when PTB came out:

There were two guys at a grocery store that sold CDs. One says to the other, "Oh cool, a new album by The Chemical Brothers," to which the other replies, "yeah... but they're old." The ironic thing is that the other guy was wearing a U2 t-shirt!

Anyways, the factor of age or length of time in the music industry should not be a viable criticism if the artist is still good!

I'd put my money on people that call the brothers "old" or "tired" never seen one of their shows. Every time they have come to NY, I bring people with a passing interest in electronic music or non at all and they all leave the show converted.

Don't expect any open minded reviews from Pop disco lovers Q magazine either...

The live shows are indeed like no other on the planet, and I think you are spot on Apostle, people who are restricted to just the LP's are the ones who are likely to say that ..(MAYBE) although, I don't own any electronic album that even comes close to a Tom n Ed LP...and I own more than a few.

I think this concept album is a bold and very clever move for the chems, I can't wait to hear and for the first time have a visual aid for each track within that same package! Old maybe but still more than one step ahead of most!!!

Long live...

Probass, on 08 May 2010 - 04:26 PM, said:

I totally remember that story!

I love to read a good review about my favorite band, but there's still a part of me that gets overprotective when I read something negative about The Chems. It's so silly. But I can't help it! I'm still learning the art of not taking it too personally, I guess.

As for the Chems being old. Who the fuck cares, anyway? They've been there, done that better than anyone else in their league, and persevered when their musical peers have long thrown in the towel. So The Chems pull out their crowd pleaser 'hits' from yesteryear when they put on a show (let's give Paul McCartney shit for playing Beatles tunes at his gigs while we're at it). So Tom and Ed aren't in their 20's anymore. People age and if they're smart, they grow and expand their horizons. Even if it means they grow in ways we don't expect or necessarily want. We are such a youth obsessed society hell bent on being forever young and staying the same - and yeah, at times I find myself falling into that trap too. Sometimes even with the Chems (gasp!). It happens. I like what I listen to, and that's that. One great thing that comes with being old is at the end of the day - after all the ranting and raving - you just can't be bothered to give a rat's ass what other people think. Or maybe you're just too tired to care, heh. Anyway I just hope the Chems keep making music they want to make, and I hope I like whatever it is they decide to share.

I don't know where I'm going with this really. But I suppose what I'm trying to say is it's silly to bash the Chems for holding onto yesterday when they are criticized in the same breath for forging ahead and trying new and fresh and different things musically.

Great post, Whirly.

whirlygirl, on 11 May 2010 - 07:57 AM, said:

What? So they lie to us all these years?

ThePumisher, on 11 May 2010 - 05:06 PM, said:

Yes. Yes they did. It's new big jackets they've been buying. Distracts from wrinkles.

You Europeoples are lucky. Just the fact that you might get to hear a radio station drop a new Chemical Brothers track this early boggles me mind. I am about 99.999999999999999999999% sure that none of the new Chemical Brothers tracks will be played on any of the radio stations is my city...in my area of the United States. We don't have stations that are even aware of the CBs anymore. Sucks...I mean, I might get to hear the new Acorn or Akon or whatever, but if ain't fitting for an 8th grade dance,it's not getting aired in the Southeastern United States....at least not until you hit that Miami frequency range. The last time the Chemical Brothers were played on Atlanta radio, it was Galvanize that was taking the world by storm...and Atlanta only heard it a few times on the radio. I actually have the promo CD that was used to introduce the city to the tune, but it seems that I was the one who deemed as being a bit of a treasure. I convinced the radio station to give me the disc. : )

I feel your pain. I have literally never heard The Chems on the radio in the states. I went up to Minnesota lately, and I requested for them to ad Swoon to their library, and that they should play it (its such a summery anthem!). They have yet to add it.
(I just checked their playlist, and at some point they played IBIA, BRB, and Setting Sun back to back! I wish I was listening!)

Anyways, I think that I will be doing a radio show for my college for the next school year--I will definitely play at least one Chemical track per show