Beaucoup Fish - 4 CD Remastered Deluxe Box Set (8/25/2017)

[pandamagic]

Originally Posted by dubman

What Sherburne touches on about Kittens is what i almost started a separate thread about (and in fact it'd be fun to have a whole thread dedicated to individual tracks in some interesting/personal perspective way), but couldn't capably condense my nebulous vibes&thoughts on it enough to justify making a whole thread.

KITTENS.

it's a bit of a awkward bastard in 2017 isn't it? it used to be a head-floating bigtime highlight for me, but in the last decade or so a bad notion started creeping up, that it might but be... extraordinarily cheeseball. and not in the "all in good fun" kind.
individually, there's nothing wrong with earnestness, big statements, escalating synths, and the hard beat, but put together in this kind of package, it's the one on beaucoup fish that feels the most dated. if it's techno, it equates to a noxious, neverending fistpump. if it's underworld, it's pretty juvenile. if it's a stadium banger, it's almost cynical? what does this track do that Cherry Pie doesn't also indulge in with better results?
maybe it just all circles back to Sherburne's off-handed diagnosis: those fucking crash cymbals.

yup, this exactly. Kittens is emblematic of what began to turn me off about Underworld during the Beaucoup Fish years. (This also applies to Moaner as well, I guess, which gave me a headache both then and now.) I'd always loved the fine-tuned craftsmanship of the previous two albums, the sumptuous layers, the intricate percussion, the balancing act of being simultaneously moody and danceable. Even the "big" tracks like Cowgirl and the aforementioned Cherry Pie were smart and elegant in their own ways, never having to sacrifice detail for large scale impact. Kittens on the other hand, even though it wasn't entirely without precedent (Rowla for example), just seemed very . . . basic. It's moves were predictable, its intentions were obvious. I could appreciate that not everything they did needed to be an ornate, elaborate masterpiece, but did they really need to dispense with all their usual nuance? As dubman mentioned, Cherry Pie is just as massive sounding while still managing to be about 100 times more interesting. And it was only a b-side!

At least Cups was there to reassure me that the old Underworld I knew and loved still existed.