[Marxism] The Chemical Brothers get political

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

The Independent, 19 January 2005
The Chemical Brothers: Packing serious beats
The new album contains their most political moment to date. Even dance
music can't ignore the real world, they tell Fiona Sturges

They may be the biggest thing in dance music since the mixer was invented,
but you'd be hard pushed to spot The Chemical Brothers - aka Tom Rowlands,
33, and Ed Simons, 34 - in a crowd. It's probably a result of all that time
spent indoors realigning his hard drive that Simons could easily pass for a
computer salesman or a schoolteacher - almost anything, in fact, except one
half of a world-famous dance duo. Rowlands, who has finally abandoned his
long indie-kid tresses in favour of a more sensible crop, is at least
vaguely recognisable in his trademark tinted specs, though he, too, retains
the look of someone who could do with getting out more.

We meet at The Social, a central-London offshoot of the legendary Heavenly
Social, the cramped basement club in central London where, 11 years ago,
under the stolen alias The Dust Brothers, Simons and Rowlands famously
demonstrated their disregard for musical boundaries as they mixed My Bloody
Valentine into Grandmaster Flash into Love Unlimited. Their joyously
eclectic approach to their art has stood them in good stead. Where other
dance acts have foundered with each passing fad, the Chemicals have
remained one of the few constants in an ever-changing scene, holding on to
a fiercely loyal fan-base comprising ravers, rockers and everyone in
between. Now Simons and Rowlands have sold almost seven million albums and
had 13 chart hits in the UK, two of them No 1s. They also have the
distinction of being the only British dance act ever to win a Grammy, with
the 1998 single "Block Rockin' Beats". Their live performances, as popular
in Melbourne as in Manchester, have gathered near-mythical status - their
show at Glastonbury in 2000 amassed the biggest audience in the festival's
history.

The pair met in 1989 at Manchester University while attending a lecture on
medieval literature. Their field of study quickly became a source of mirth
among critics in the early years, who struggled to take these
mild-mannered, middle-class boys seriously. Even now, Rowlands and Simons
admit they have something of an image problem. "The 'nerd' tag rather
follows us around, though I quite like the fact that we don't fit into
someone else's idea of what a dance musician should be," Rowlands remarks.
"It was never about us, anyway; we never wanted to be rock stars. We're
happy for the music to be bigger than us."

(clip)

The main topic of discussion right now is their fifth LP, Push the Button,
which is released on Monday. In terms of beats, the album is business as
usual, with Rowlands and Simons drawing on a range of genres, from rock and
rap to Bollywood film soundtracks, to create a collage of propulsive
anthems. The impassioned vocal contribution of the rising US rapper Anwar
Superstar to "Left Right" brings one of its most powerful moments.
Detailing a soldier's mounting disillusionment with his job, it's by far
the most political statement the Chemicals have made. "In the Nineties, our
records were very much about escapism and sensory deprivation," Simons
reflects. "It used to be about turning away from the world, but now it
feels like you can't keep doing that. People are much more politicised, and
rightly so. We did think very hard about whether this was the right thing
to do - saying something so explicit is a big change for us - but now we're
very proud of it."

full:
http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/music/interviews/story.jsp?story=602197

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