I got my copy of this when it came out in 2001 from Recommended Records. It still had an air of being subversive then, and I think I was seduced by the description in the Recommended catalogue, which I guess was similar (or identical) to what you can now read on the website: "has to be one of the pivotal musical paradigm shifters of the second half of the C20". There was also the impression that this 2-CD set could be banned at any moment, but now Amazon are only too happy to sell you a copy.
The thing about paradigm shifters is that they're not always that much fun to listen to. Don't get me wrong: this is a lot more interesting than those lazy mash-ups you get nowadays, because it gets into the detail of the songs and the sounds. But the first 'songs' CD can't help being a bit of a parlour game as you try to name all the original songs from which the voices are taken. I find that gets in the way of listening to the music as music. All recognisable sampling has an air of parody about it, and parody may be conceptually interesting, but it's rarely musically interesting. The second 'tunes' CD works better for me for the simple reason that I'm ignorant enough not to recognise many of the samples on it. So I can enjoy them more as a coherent piece.
One day I'll read all 40-plus pages of the interview with John Oswald that makes up part of this package, but so far I've only skim-read half of it.
 MusicBrainz entry for disc 1disc 2 |
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