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Fatboy Slim, The Crystal Method,
Daft Punk
Daft Punk
Dreamworks
Propellerheads:
Decksanddrums
androckandroll
Decksanddrums
androckandroll
- Electronic
- 1998
- Buy the CD
Reviewed by James B. Eldred
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ou may not know it, but if you were in a club during the late ‘90s, you were probably shaking your ass to a sub-genre of dance music called Big Beat. Consisting of simple samples, repetitive vocals and, not surprisingly, really loud beats, Big Beat was totally going to be the next big thing. The genre-defying psychedelic trip of the Chemical Brothers’ “Setting Sun,” Fatboy Slim’s funky-epic “The Rockafeller Skank,” and the Prodigy’s terrifying “Firestarter” were all supposed to be portents, signs that the Future Of Music was going to be something called “electronica.”
That, of course, never happened, and while many of the bands from the Big Beat movement have continued to find some success, many others have simply fallen off the face of the Earth. Big Beat didn’t have staying power, and other dance music movements, such as the resurging synth-pop and dance-punk scenes, killed off the party-friendly genre before most people even knew what it was.
But if you would have asked any music critic or dance fan which artist they thought would have made it past the Big Beat backlash and continue to make great records, many of them would have undoubtedly chosen the Propellerheads, based on the strength of their genre-shattering 1998 debut Decksanddrumsandrockandroll.
On Decksanddrumsandrockandroll, the duo (Bath, England natives Will White and Alex Gifford) destroyed the conventions of what an “electronic” album could be. Sure, they relied heavily on samplers, drum machines and heavy basslines, but they also masterfully incorporated other genres and instruments in ways that few had done before. There’s “Bang On!” which takes sample-heavy beats and synth loops and combines them with live drums and guitar. The end result was certainly the best amalgamation of rock and electronic music at that time, and probably still is. And while the Propellerheads weren’t the first to combine electronic music with rap, they showed they were damn good at it with the super-chill “360 (Oh Yeah?)” (featuring a guest spot by De La Soul), the first song in the history of music to in incorporate the sounds of skateboards into its backbeat. The insanely mellow groove of the collaboration serves as a stark contrast to the drum n’ bass rap collaboration “You Want It Back’ that closes the album. This time the Brits are joined by the Jungle Brothers, who add their signature rapid-fire rhyme skills to the Propellerheads’ unique production.
With all the brilliant vocal contributions, whacked-out samples and other Big Beat staples filling the album, it’s surprising that the real highlight of Decksanddrumsandrockandroll is a remix of the theme to the James Bond film “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.” From the moment the track begins, with an immediately disconcerting brass intro shooting back and forth from speaker to speaker, it’s clear that something special is happening. Soon the main theme is joined with a groovy bass beat and wah-wah guitar riffs; Bond just got a whole lot funkier.
The duo’s fixation with Bond doesn’t stop there – they even managed to recruit Bond diva Shirley Bassey (she sang the theme to “Goldfinger”) for the jazzy “History Repeating” and then there is the groovy “Spybreak,” which served as the soundtrack to “The Matrix’s” now-famous lobby fight scene.
It’s a great album, one that should go down as one of the best and least-dated of the Big Beat era. So what the hell happened to the Propellerheads?
Well, sometime after the release of Decksanddrumsandrockandroll, White was reportedly stricken with some sort of digestive disorder. The duo released an EP later that year and while both have contributed the occasional remix, producing credit and guest appearance to various compilations, they’ve pretty much disappeared. There is no Propellerheads website, and they barely get a mention on their original label Wall of Sound’s homepage.
While they have been reportedly working on a second album for many years now, information on it is sparse to say the least. But if Portishead can get off their trip-hop asses and release their third album, there’s no reason to think the boys from Bath can’t bring back the big beats and deliver their long-awaited sophomore effort.
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