i definitely put them beyond all of those people.

they were all innovators no doubt and all deserve a spot in history.

Richard D james is nothing short of a music genius on par with phllip glass and steve reich more so than any electronic artist

i think Drukqs is his masterpiece because its a summation of everything hes done...and the emotion content is as staggering as the production value

somehow he connects emotions between songs like this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QC5aYsso ... E1&index=0

and songs like this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TFZVFNd ... E1&index=1

i understand it might be too dreary for some, but nothing comes close....

....too much "viagrated" ; he taken too serious like this; i remeber he also declared that he haven't got an album ready at the time of "druqsk" so he had to make this "sum of his work" album to satisfy warp records picking up old and new tracks from his recordings...


this is when he was ok (for me)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdZs5PVcwBs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-US91WU8zA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4j9goCerOg&feature=fvw

and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kNUFzuXvKA

i dont see that as a negative...hes made so many songs he could release an album every day if he wanted to, i would rather hear something hes proud of


the fact that we can both like different ERAS of the same freakin artist should tell you something. because those sound like a "warm up" to his later stuff more than anything else...maybe its do to the fact that you heard them when they were released and have more of a connection to them that way

he went from ambient to downtempo to acid house to industrial to drum n bass

but none of those genres he dabbled in sounded like the other people who just put out a couple of releases int hem

how many other people pulled off such a feat?

i cant think of any other!

that's probably true. but after this ERA (1990-1998) he hadn't produced something rilevant as the impact he had before in pop/electronic music; maybe, paradoxally returnig to his past, with his "analord" series he has recently made something not bad...
what i want to say is that "druqsk" didn't had the same impact in influencing other artists/geners at the same time of his works in the '90 (think about Luke Vibert-aka plug aka wagon christ- or Mike Paradinas - aka M-ziq, but also some productions of Radiohead)...




do you know mr Miles Davis?
bebop>cool jazz>new thing>orchestral>jazz rock>fusion>funk>hiphop....
many albums by him are innovator without loosing his personal touch.

brian eno too,
he started with Roxy Music (good rock/glam band) and then after some very good experiments in pop music he invented ambient music from a bed of an hospital...and we know his importance (also for mr R James, indeed)...


...have a nice pitch ...

cheers HD

yea I was speaking about electronic music in specific

obviously miles did it all

but eno's rock stuff was blanddd to me compared to music fo airports. i will always love him for his ambient not his random collaborations with rock artists

for B Eno :
"Before and after science" is a good album of his "pop" phase indeed.
with Roxy Music he made the first 2 albums, he contribuited with synths and noises.

i really like aphex twin, unfortunately i find drukqs to be nothing special, but as you say we all have opinions.

i think the problem with him is that he is put on such a pedestal and tbh it is very unrealistic. he has made quite a name for himself as this sort of "mystical genius" and let's be honest the sort of people who are drawn to idm (ego driven males) like this sort of image. half the stuff he put out if it was by any other unknown artist it would be like "meh".

he has done nothing to downplay this odd image and instead has lived up to it. i think as an electronic musician he has had some great albums and they are great. revolutionary? i don't know. unfortunately i don't really think he cuts it as a musical genius as his musical compositions don't really stack up to that of a genius.

i like him though. i like him a lot. although i prefer luke vibert and venetian snares if there was a "contest" about it.

i think using labels like "musical genius" is very difficult in an age when you can compose a classic electronic album and not know a thing about music theory. art is subjective. i think a lot of people confuse technicality and complexity with respect and therefore a lot of praise is heaped onto work simply for the sake of it. it's simply the "i don't understand or like this but it looks complicated so it must be good" syndrome.

IMO of course...

yes, and i agree with you; i find this album exactly nothing special as i said before. no surprises or nothing to became crazy with. only a normal album, good played and recorded, but that's all.



yes, expecially "the selected ambient works" series.



maybe in his field it was interesting what he proposed in his first phase: making some synths parts (coming from b eno-tangerine dream-cluster etc)colliding with synchopatic electronic drums/metallic parts (coming from acid house or the english underground first jungle)slowered. Autechre also done that.



Luke Vibert with his nickname Plug has made "drum'n'bass for papa" a really cool d'n'b/electronic album very interesting; also his Wagon Christ project is good (downtempo field). Amen Andrew thing is for me good but a little ripetitive.



maybe at the time of his first works an historical (electronic) perspective was still not clear....

i think part of the reason i hold him in such high regard is that i know how much work he has put into his music on top of how good it sounds to me
regardless of who wrote "Film" "Bouchephelous Bouncing Ball" and "avril 14th" i would still LOVE those songs.

Theres really no need to generalize for other people when you are speaking about yourself.

It is your perception that people like him for those reasons...and honestly thats just wrong. They like him for the same reason people like any music. Because they like it! its as simple as that. (unless you want to talk about pop music and image....)

he has opened up peoples minds to electronic music as a legitimate form of art beyond hip hop beats and techno club smashers....if you come from either of those backgrounds i might be able to see why you dont get "what all the fuss is about"

the pedestal is there for a reason

not because nobody else can put in the effort to create something with equal production and emotional value, but because no one has

or they just set the bar so low that they will never do anything out side
of the box and continue to rehash old genres to the point of absurdity

i agree with what you said.
but the point is that this "druqsk" is not a masterwork. not even his best work, i think. It is just what it is: a medium electronic album went out in a creativity crisis phase of R James. after his "R James" (1996 i think) album, aphex twin broke up the world with 2 singles of rare effective: "come to daddy"(some sounds taken from Digital Hardcore Rec indeed) and "windowlicker", 2 instant brutal classics wich made pop music progress. after that, a little silence. later a period of 2 years, warp records reclamed an album. so James made this "druqsk" to content his label first. an album wich resume his career at that point; an album wich gave no surprises.
maybe it would have been better to publish an anthology or a "best of".

what do intentions have to do with content?

?

you said its just a collection of songs he made in the past...

so what? if the songs are good. people do that all the time...rappers come to madlib and he just pulls one off the shelf from last year or something

i still think its his best work regardless of why or when it came to existence

so there

you've just made a general statement about people who like pop music. aphex twin is popular for a reason and part of that reason is the image surrounding him. most popular artists have images (and yes aphex twin is a popular artist). that is part of their appeal. art is art is art and although it should be viewed independently it is very difficult for a lot of people to separate between artist and piece. wheter or not we should even have to make that distinct separation is another topic entirely. when i talk about people who like aphex twin i am not directing my comment at you, or at any other specific individual. i am speaking generally.

a lot of aphex twin fans are drawn to his music because it represents something. something different. look at the track names of some instrumental hip-hop and then look at the track names for some idm. the themes and motifs shown in the names of both genres of instrumental music tell us something about the musicians and the fans, generally speaking of course.

if you are placing the entire recognition of electronic music (outside of hip-hop and techno "smashers") and his shoulders then i think i am correct in saying that you are giving him a tiny bit more credit than he actually deserves.

he has had influence and he is a talented artist, i am not disputing that. i am just saying that he isn't that good. genres (and anything left of something gets classed as something idm or something else anyway...) need "heroes" and heroes usually get elevated to god-like status. unfortunately in reality this isn't always deserved.