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<title>Top Electronica/Dance Artists on Rhapsody Online</title>
<dateCreated>Sat Dec 12 02:33:33 PST 2009</dateCreated>
<dateModified>Sat Dec 12 02:33:33 PST 2009</dateModified>
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<outline type="include" text="Owl City" description="Minnesota's Adam Young is a study in contradictions. Citing musical inspiration from the likes of Boards of Canada, Prefuse 73 and Sigur Ros, the vegetarian insomniac also claims God, G-rated movies and optimism as real-world influences. Left unsaid in either list are both Postal Services -- the government agency that delivers mail, and the group featuring Ben Gibbard and Dntel. But the latter's lush, electronic emo is a definitive influence on Owl City's own brightly hued, shiver-inducing electro-pop ditties, while the former symbolizes Young's epistolary approach, with every song sounding like a page ripped from his journal and zipped cross-country to a lovelorn crush. On Owl City's debut EP, &lt;I&gt;Of June&lt;/I&gt;, Young sang of floating in space in a set that referenced cruise ships, airplanes and nonstop modern motion, sounding at once thrilled with distance and nostalgic for a simpler, stay-at-home lifestyle. He came into his own style with &lt;I&gt;Maybe I'm Dreaming&lt;/I&gt;, which found him fleshing out his delicate, catchy sound with acoustic guitars and more intricate songwriting. This is the sound of being young, in love and 110% alive.
- Philip Sherburne" category="Electropop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/owl-city/data.opml?rws=%2Felectronica-dance%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="3OH!3" description="While Denver's Flobots were crafting organic, conscious hip-hop, their state-mates in the duo 3OH!3 had a different inspiration in mind: crunk. You might never have suspected that the style reached all the way to Colorado, but the dudes in 3OH!3 -- Sean Foreman and Nathaniel Motte -- clearly have established a Dirty South outpost up in the Rockies. 3OH!3's name reps their 303 area code, but it might also reference the famous Roland TB-303 bass synthesizer. Overdriven analog gear abounds in their music, which folds together electro, emo and hip-hop to create a high-intensity fusion that, in retrospect, was almost inevitable.
&lt;P&gt;
3OH!3's big break came at the Denver stop of 2007's Warped Tour; their strong showing got them booked to play the entire nationwide tour in 2008. The same year, they signed to the Atlantic subsidiary Photo Finish and released their debut album, &lt;I&gt;Want&lt;/I&gt;. For all the aggression in their songs, there's a wink and a smile behind the sneer, which makes sense given their punk roots: punks don't take anything too seriously, after all. Not even crunk.
&lt;/P&gt;" category="Electropop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/3oh3/data.opml?rws=%2Felectronica-dance%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Depeche Mode" description="Depeche Mode will forever be '80s icons thanks to their role in helping invent synth-pop as we know it. But unlike so many of their peers, they've remained both active and relevant. From their earliest days with Vince Clarke (before he left for Yaz, then Erasure), Depeche Mode took a spindly, synth-pop sound and filled it out with touches of techno, industrial, Americana and modern rock. Principal songwriter Martin Gore and his bandmates fuse classic pop songcraft with productions that keep pace with advances in music technology; lead singer Dave Gahan's dramatic delivery, meanwhile, has helped their songs of loss and redemption become pop-culture touchstones, covered by everyone from Tori Amos to Marilyn Manson. It's easy to chart the overall arc of the band's career, from its minimalist, electro-pop beginnings to the swelling pop yearning of &lt;I&gt;Music for the Masses&lt;/I&gt; and on to the dark extravagance of albums like &lt;I&gt;Violator&lt;/I&gt; and &lt;I&gt;Exciter&lt;/I&gt;. But an abundance of alternate versions and remixes has produced a messy canon. For many fans, that's half the fun: Depeche Mode's B-sides make for a fascinating alternative history of these alt-rock heroes.
- Philip Sherburne" category="Synth Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/depeche-mode/data.opml?rws=%2Felectronica-dance%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Moby" description="A revered, recognizable figure on the dance music scene since the early '90s, the enigmatic producer/DJ Moby was catapulted into mainstream stardom with the 1999 release of &lt;I&gt;Play&lt;/I&gt;. A surprise hit, &lt;I&gt;Play&lt;/I&gt; delved into highly personal areas in a downtempo vein never before explored in any of his previous releases. A master of such styles as techno, house, trance, ambient and breakbeat to name just a few, Moby is blessed with the ability to strike a sincere, emotive chord with a wide range of dance music devotees.
- Melissa Piazza" category="Electronica/Dance" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/moby/data.opml?rws=%2Felectronica-dance%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="MGMT" description="MGMT (pronounced Management) are a restless electronic-rock duo. The two members -- Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser -- came together in 2002 while attending Wesleyan University in Connecticut as art students. In 2005, they released the catchy synth scrum &quot;Time to Pretend,&quot; which became an underground hit and led to their being signed by Columbia Records. Their debut, &lt;i&gt;Oracular Spectacular&lt;/i&gt;, a collection of sweeping, electronic Flaming Lips-style noise-pop songs, was released in 2007. Critical and popular accolades for the band reached a high at the CMJ Music Marathon a few weeks after the album's release. A tour alongside Of Montreal and a remix from Justice helped the band continue to merge its twin tendencies towards psychedelic pop and electro.
- Philip Sherburne" category="Electropop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/mgmt/data.opml?rws=%2Felectronica-dance%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Thievery Corporation" description="Thievery Corporation hearken back to the suave musical era of the 1950s and '60s, when swizzle sticks and long cigarette holders were in vogue, and relaxing meant having a strong cocktail in very plush surroundings. While inherently down-tempo, Thievery Corporation (Rob Garza and Eric Hilton) toss in elements of nearly every musical genre, including Dub, Reggae, hip-hop, Cocktail/Lounge, jazz, and Funk, creating a highly relaxing world in which your ears will thank you. Predominantly instrumental, the pair occasionally draft the talents of evocative, breathy-vocaled women -- some of whom sing in French! They are also the founders of the Eighteenth Street Lounge nightclub in D.C. (as well as the label of the same name), concentrating on generating a calm and peaceful world in which languid beats, exotic instrumentation, and international influences are omnipresent. While definitely designed for the headnodders, Thievery Corporation continue to gain popularity among a wide variety of people for their sophisticated, stylish, and delicate musical charm.
- Tim Pratt" category="Ambient Dub" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/thievery-corporation/data.opml?rws=%2Felectronica-dance%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="The Ting Tings" description="Glitzy and sassy with a DIY spin, the Ting Tings are for hipsters who aren't ashamed to unfold their arms, clap along and bust a move. Based at Islington Mill, a former cotton spinning mill near Manchester turned art and recording space, the Brit twosome of Katie White and Jules De Martino started playing off-the-cuff performances for their friends. Word spread, and their impromptu sessions became the hottest ticket in Manchester. Major labels quickly took notice, and they were signed to Columbia Records. Even before releasing their debut album, &lt;I&gt;We Started Nothing&lt;/I&gt;, in May 2008, the Ting Tings got a boost of exposure from an iTunes ad featuring the song &quot;Shut Up and Let Me Go.&quot; With White providing a feisty bite of snotty shouts and sharp guitar and De Martino offering an inventive mix of chopped beats and quirky effects, the two unite a sound that draws from indie party bands such as Bloc Party and CSS while taking cues from garage rock groups like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and the Kills.
- Stephanie Benson" category="Alt Dance" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/the-ting-tings/data.opml?rws=%2Felectronica-dance%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="M.I.A." description="When she was little, Maya Arulpragasam, aka M.I.A., probably had no idea she'd grow up to become an underground dancehall sensation. Her father was a resistance figure in the Sri Lankan independence struggle, and Arulpragasam's family was forced to leave Sri Lanka -- for their safety -- when she was nine years old. But after growing up in a London housing estate and studying film, Arulpragasam's life changed when she picked up a Roland MC-505 for the first time and started composing songs. Skillfully weaving street slang with geo-politics, nonsense rhymes with low-tech dancehall riddims, Arulpragasam's angular, low-tech sound has struck a chord. Her debut, &lt;i&gt;Arular&lt;/i&gt;, was released in 2005.
- Sarah Bardeen" category="Electronica/Dance" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/mia/data.opml?rws=%2Felectronica-dance%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Daft Punk" description="Daft Punk assumed their reign over the French electronic scene shortly after the appearance of their second single &quot;Da Funk&quot; in 1995, making mere subjects of such high-profile names as Motorbass, Air and Dimitri from Paris. Transforming a heritage of early Acid House, Detroit Techno, Indie Rock and hip-hop into a flawless progressive electronica sound that made loyal followers of both staunch rock crowds and Techno fiends alike, the collaboration of Guy-Manuel de Homem Christo and Thomas Bangalter triggered a deluge of critical praise. Heavy funk-fortified House beats lumber confidently at a mid-tempo hip-hop pace, weighed down with metallic murmurs, shrill electronic squeals, and catchy vocodered vocal hooks. With a style that shifts without warning from the hard end of dance music to the easier side of the spectrum and takes care to steer clear of cliches and overwrought themes, Daft Punk is the model for crossover electronic music.
- Melissa Piazza" category="House" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/daft-punk/data.opml?rws=%2Felectronica-dance%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Zero 7" description="Studio assistants turned superstars, London's Henry Bins and Sam Hardaker are now finding their cool and sexy tunes played all over the world. Prior to their highly acclaimed debut album, &lt;i&gt;Simple Things&lt;/i&gt;, Zero 7 started making waves with a series of EPs and remixes, including Radiohead's &quot;Climbing Up The Walls&quot; and Lenny Kravitz's &quot;If You Can't Say No.&quot; Soul vocalists Mozez, Sia Fuller, and Sophie Barker take their downtempo sound into the mainstream, yet their music shows no inclination to sell out.
- Nicholas Baker" category="Trip-Hop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/zero-7/data.opml?rws=%2Felectronica-dance%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Basshunter" description="Malmo, Sweden's Jonas Altberg was born in 1984, and you can hear his youthful exuberance leaping out of the music he records as Basshunter. In his teens, he began experimenting with Fruity Loops music software, and by 2006 he'd scored a deal with Warner Music -- not a bad learning curve. In his official bio, he sounds a bit baffled himself by the rate at which he went from being a video-game expert to a musician &quot;that performed almost every day all over Scandinavia.&quot; (Some things haven't changed: He still lives at home with his parents.)
&lt;P&gt;
Basshunter's first release was 2006's &lt;I&gt;Anna Boten&lt;/I&gt; single, a glammy trance stomper notable in part for its Swedish vocals. Later that year he followed up with his debut album, a collection of stab-happy trance (&quot;Strand Tylosand,&quot; named after the beach by his family home) and harder, more acidic fare (&quot;I'm Your Bass Creator&quot;). In 2008, with his international profile bolstered by Ultra's re-release of his album, he came out with the singles &quot;Please Don't Go&quot; and &quot;Now You're Gone,&quot; both of them lighters-in-the-air trance ballads.
&lt;/P&gt;
- Philip Sherburne" category="Trance" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/basshunter/data.opml?rws=%2Felectronica-dance%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Jamiroquai" description="Along with many other soul-jazz bands coming out of London in the '90s, Jamiroquai (and groups like The James Taylor Quartet) gave critics a good reason to come up with a new genre for the burgeoning electronic sound in jazz. The result was &quot;Acid Jazz&quot; and Jamiroquai's 1993 debut &quot;Emergency on Planet Earth&quot; became a key album for the style and led the band to quickly sign an outstanding eight album deal with Sony. The &quot;Stevie Wonder sounding&quot; lead vocalist and bandleader Jason &quot;Jay&quot; Kay sports a trendy earth conscious lifestyle and has an addiction for fast cars, space traveling and funked-out space disco.
- Peter Gavin" category="Acid Jazz" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/jamiroquai/data.opml?rws=%2Felectronica-dance%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="The Postal Service" description="As crazy as it sounds, the two creative minds behind the Postal Service (Jimmy Tamborello and Ben Gibbard) never met before working together. It seems Tamborello, a Death Cab For Cutie fan, asked its lead singer to come to L.A. and record vocals for his Dntel project, and Gibbard did! Of course, it probably helped that Tamborello's roomie is Pedro Benito from the Jealous Sound; either way, this initial meeting of musical minds was the genesis of the Postal Service. The two continued to collaborate for the better part of ten months, each mailing the other songs to add parts to, until all ten tracks for their debut album were completed. Inspired by their creative process, the duo dubbed themselves the Postal Service. Sub Pop released the 1980s-influenced fruits of their labor under the title &lt;I&gt;Give Up&lt;/I&gt; in early 2003.
- Linda Ryan" category="Indie/Alternative" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/the-postal-service/data.opml?rws=%2Felectronica-dance%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Aphex Twin" description="Aphex Twin follows Newton's Third Law: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Describing his music becomes a web of contradictions. For every violent and vitriolic &quot;Come to Daddy,&quot; there is an absurd children's song such as &quot;Milkman.&quot; For every acid anthem (&quot;Digeridoo&quot;), there is a frazzled complex of rhythms (&quot;INKEY$&quot;). For every surging, grinning dance track such as &quot;Donkey Rhubarb,&quot; there is the near stillness of &quot;Weathered Stone&quot; or &quot;Parallel Stripes.&quot; A track-by-track breakdown may not equate a balance of yin and yang, but throughout his career as Aphex Twin, AFX, Caustic Window, Polygon Window, the Dice Man and countless other pseudonyms, Richard D. James has created what is perhaps the widest spectrum of electronic sound by a single artist.
- Marc Kate" category="Leftfield/IDM" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/aphex-twin/data.opml?rws=%2Felectronica-dance%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Cascada" description="Cascada were formed in Germany when Natalie Horler joined forces with DJ Manian and Yanou. Natalie's love of music came from her jazz musician father -- she used to practice singing Disney numbers and copying jazz classics in the home studio before rounding out her performance skills with dance lessons and acting. This portfolio no doubt helped in the crafting of Cascada's famously high-energy live performances. They are best known for their hits &quot;Miracle&quot; and &quot;Everytime We Touch.&quot;
- Nicholas Baker" category="Dance Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/cascada-2/data.opml?rws=%2Felectronica-dance%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="The Crystal Method" description="U.S. groundbreakers who took cues from The Chemical Brothers. Born in Las Vegas, Ken Jordan and Scott Kirkland moved to Los Angeles and revitalized the waning Southern California scene with their legendary 1995 debut single &quot;Keep Hope Alive.&quot; Armed with an artillery of Acid, Funk, rock, hip-hop and Soul, The Crystal Method's Prodigy-style attack upon American audiences soon inflated into a worldwide conquest. Traces of this duo's aggressive big beat sound can be detected in endless numbers of international producers of both the bedroom and commercial types. A mind-jarring mix of ruthless breaks and basslines that quake like a building about to fall, this high-powered style is sewn together with threads of soulful vocal hooks and no-nonsense rap lyrics. Unavoidable.
- Melissa Piazza" category="Beats &amp; Breaks" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/the-crystal-method/data.opml?rws=%2Felectronica-dance%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Air" description="Originally gaining recognition for their down-tempo cocktail funk of &quot;Modular Mix&quot; and &quot;Casanova 70&quot; on the French SourceLab compilations of 1997, Air released their full-length debut the following year. An incredibly ambitious and successful melange of Serge Gainsbourg by way of Vangelis, &lt;i&gt;Moon Safari&lt;/i&gt; is awash in strings, vocoders, analog synths, fluttering electro pulses and soulful backbeats. Everything from the rare groove of &quot;La Femme D'Argent&quot; to the Euro-pop of &quot;Kelly, Watch the Stars!&quot; is vaguely familiar, but never so successfully arranged until this point. Live, they are prone to wearing white jumpsuits while strategically placed fans blow wind through their hair, and there is no shortage of body-popping electro-funk. In the end, you are left with perfect road trip music -- assuming you're driving to the moon.
- Jon Pruett" category="Downtempo" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/air/data.opml?rws=%2Felectronica-dance%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Everything But the Girl" description="Ben Watt's versatile production techniques coupled with Tracey Thorn's dry yet emotionally resonant vocals continue to win critical acclaim for Everything But the Girl. They also enjoyed mainstream loyalty throughout dance music's evolution in the '90s. Collaborating with such heavy-hitters as Massive Attack and J Majik, they've brought sophisticated jazz leanings to alternative pop, Trip-Hop, Drum 'n' Bass, and House. Timelessly talented, EBTG prove their ability to both follow and rise above the trends of dance music.
- Melissa Piazza" category="Adult Alternative" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/everything-but-the-girl/data.opml?rws=%2Felectronica-dance%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Royksopp" description="There was a time when A-Ha carried the mantle of globally-successful Norwegian bands, but the arrival of Royksopp's Torbjorn Brundtland and Svein Berge inspired a whole new generation of melodic electronica, making Norway, and Scandinavia in general, the go-to place for hopeful A&amp;R scouts looking for a new sound. And what a sound: gorgeous pop melodies layered over long-forgotten bits of old electronic equipment (no doubt chipped free from the very ice floes that influenced Royksopp's intimate yet sparse soundscapes). &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt; Torbjorn and Svein met at the age of 12, and began their musical career performing Kraftwerk covers for friends. Naming themselves Aedena Cycle, they started creating their own ambient sounds reflecting their love for King Crimson, Brian Eno and the Orb -- influences that would continue to show as their production capabilities matured. Briefly joining Those Norwegians, Torbjorn sharpened his house sensibilities, and then the two friends formed Royksopp, releasing &quot;So Easy&quot; and signed soon thereafter by Wall of Sound. Their debut album, &lt;I&gt;Melody AM&lt;/I&gt;, was a slow-burner that generated huge word of mouth and massive sales until even your postman could be heard whistling &quot;Poor Leno&quot; and &quot;Eple.&quot; The music was a curious combination of electronica, downtempo, folk and pop -- catchy melodies and fun, uplifting beats that were especially needed in the overly po-faced prog house days at the beginning of the millennium. Global tours followed, accompanied by a number of award-winning and highly creative videos. Remixing requests started to come in, and soon it was possible to detect a specific Royksopp sound: the warmth of a good melody combined with a sparse clinical and washy Arctic rhythmic backdrop. Clearly not wanting to be pigeonholed, their next release, 2005's &lt;I&gt;The Understanding&lt;/I&gt;, had a different feel and employed new vocalists (even using their own on some tracks), but their love of prog rock, especially the Alan Parsons Project, could still be clearly detected on tracks like &quot;Alpha Male.&quot;
- Nicholas Baker" category="Downtempo" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/royksopp/data.opml?rws=%2Felectronica-dance%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Massive Attack" description="The roots of Massive Attack start in 1983 as the Wild Bunch, a DJ sound system and collective based in England's Bristol. They were known for their broad taste in music, blending reggae with classic R&amp;B and even some punk grooves. Two of the Wild Bunch, Grant &quot;Daddy G&quot; Marshall and Andrew &quot;Mushroom&quot; Vowles split off to form Massive Attack with local graffiti artist Robert &quot;3D&quot; del Naja in 1987. A series of well-received singles followed, but the first Massive Attack album, &lt;I&gt;Blue Lines&lt;/I&gt;, was a revelation. At the time of its release in 1992, downtempo electronica and house were the province of Soul To Soul (&lt;I&gt;Keep On Movin'&lt;/I&gt;) and their dangerously overused but catchy slack-hop beat. Massive Attack, true to their name, came out of nowhere and razed all before them. There was nothing else like it. Credit must be given to producer Nellee Hooper, in some respects the fourth man of the group, since he used his experience producing the first Soul To Soul album to take this new rhythmic style to a different level with the Massive Attack boys, effectively inventing trip-hop in the process. Dubby, soulful and funky, trip-hop became an essential sound for the downtempo cognoscenti. A mini musical revolution had begun, with the likes of Portishead, Beth Orton, the Sneaker Pimps and former Massive Attack member Tricky all starting successful creative careers in the trip-hop world. Sensitive to the cultural zeitgeist of the time in England, the boys briefly changed their name after their debut release to 'Massive' during the first Iraq war. This did not play well in America however, and their first tour here proved a failure. Three years later they came back with &lt;I&gt;Protection&lt;/I&gt;, another essential purchase, featuring Everything But The Girl's Tracey Thorn on the stunning opening track. The entire album was then re-mixed by the Mad Professor and released as &lt;I&gt;No Protection&lt;/I&gt;. Tracey Thorn's voice was hard to beat, but they managed it with their third release &lt;I&gt;Mezzanine&lt;/I&gt;, recruiting the Cocteau Twins' inimitable Elizabeth Fraser, and turning &quot;Teardrop&quot; into the best single the Twins' never released. By the time Massive Attack released their fourth album &lt;I&gt;100th Window&lt;/I&gt; in 2003, it was effectively a solo debut for 3D, since Mushroom and Daddy G had left due to creative differences and family duties respectively. Their most recent work, &lt;I&gt;Danny The Dog&lt;/I&gt;, takes them into soundtrack territory, leaving time for frequent remixing requests from anyone with an ear for an elegant and sexy beat.
- Nicholas Baker" category="Trip-Hop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/massive-attack/data.opml?rws=%2Felectronica-dance%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Passion Pit" description="Tripped-out samples culled from around the world and then sped up, high-register vocals that recall the Danielson Famile, the whole spectrum of electronic percussion, fat club synthesizers, a subtle but undeniable prog-rock feel -- Passion Pit are damn near the weirdest band ever to come out of Cambridge, Mass. Formed in 2007, the five-piece electronic dance-pop subversives made an immediate splash in critics' polls on the strength of the inescapably fun, oddly exotic &quot;Sleepyhead&quot; and &quot;Better Things,&quot; which takes the giddy happiness of Stevie Wonder's &quot;Sir Duke&quot; and presumably shoves steroids down its throat. The band debuted on wax in 2008 with the &lt;i&gt;Chunk of Change&lt;/i&gt; EP. A full-length, &lt;i&gt;Manners&lt;/i&gt;, followed a year later, with Passion Pit making the successful crossover into the world of TV ads (PlayStation) and appearances (in the U.K., anyway)." category="Electropop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/passion-pit/data.opml?rws=%2Felectronica-dance%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Shiny Toy Guns" description="Los Angeles' Shiny Toy Guns are part of a new wave of electropop acts, like Cut Copy and She Wants Revenge, updating classic '80s pop with touches of emo and modern rock. Founded in 2002 by keyboardist Jeremy Dawson and vocalist/guitarist Chad Petree -- former bandmates from the Shawnee, Okla., scene -- they rounded out the lineup in 2004 with drummer Mikey Martin and vocalist Carah Faye Charnow. An early MySpace success story, they toured the U.S. in 2005 in support of their debut album, &lt;I&gt;We Are Pilots&lt;/I&gt;, initially released on Stormwest International. Perhaps the landing gear wasn't working, because later that year Shiny Toy Guns re-recorded the album, this time for SideCho Records. But listeners along for the ride didn't unbuckle their seatbelts until 2006, when the band once again redid the album for its major-label debut on Universal. Though it only climbed to No. 90 on the &lt;I&gt;Billboard&lt;/I&gt; 200, the album earned them a Grammy nomination for Best Electronic/Dance Album and landed three songs -- including &quot;Le Disko,&quot; a sassy blast of punk-spirited electro -- in the upper quarter of &lt;I&gt;Billboard&lt;/I&gt;'s Modern Rock charts.
- Philip Sherburne" category="Synth Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/shiny-toy-guns/data.opml?rws=%2Felectronica-dance%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="The Prodigy" description="The Prodigy always understood the need for visceral energy in dance music. What made them unique at the time of their debut in 1991 was the fusing of punk sounds and mores with the emergent acid house beats of the dancefloor. This glowstick-with-a-safety-pin-through-it attitude was made manifest by front man Keith Flint, a snarling manic Johnny Rotten for the club crowd, but the true soul of the group was techno boffin Liam Howlett. Liam was a local Essex DJ at a time when one could say the word rave without fear of scorn or imprisonment. He had seen the effect of a big track on the right crowd and was keen to try his hand at some original compositions. Keith Flint and Leeroy Thornhill had heard Liam spin and pestered him for mix tapes and examples of his songs. Before long they were working together, taking their name from Liam's Moog synthesizer. Their debut was &quot;What Evil Lurks&quot; (1991) but it was the second effort &quot;Charly&quot; (1991) that made the big impact, going to No. 3 in the UK charts. &quot;Fire&quot; (1991) also made the Top-20, after which they released their debut long player &lt;I&gt;The Prodigy Experience&lt;/I&gt; (1992), which sold over 1 million copies in the UK alone. By now word was out about their live performances -- an intense combination of Tubeway Army style keyboard-lurking (Liam) and full-on mental moshing (Keith and Leeroy). Clearly Underworld's Karl Hyde must have been paying attention -- it was now possible for an electronic dance act to be exciting live, instead of just po-faced avant-garde. &lt;I&gt;Music For A Jilted Generation&lt;/I&gt; (1995) was next -- a hard techno banger of an album that made no concessions to the loved-up house massive. However, it was the release of &quot;Firestarter&quot; from their third opus &lt;I&gt;The Fat Of The Land&lt;/I&gt; (1997) that really put them on the mass media map. Fearful that the track and its provocative video were inciting arson, the inevitable tabloid frenzy ensured The Prodigy were a household name by the end of the year. &quot;Breathe&quot; (1995) was even bigger -- the beats so massive that it crossed genre boundaries to be popular with metal fans, rock heads and house fanatics across the country. The time was right to really push their luck, which they did with the release of &quot;Smack My Bitch Up&quot; (1997), a track almost specifically designed to simultaneously fill dance floors and appall the politically correct. It was a huge hit and they were at the top of their game. Time then for some time off, which ended up being seven years, before &lt;I&gt;Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned&lt;/I&gt; (2004) was released. This proved to be more of a solo effort from Liam. All three original members were back on board, though, for 2009's &lt;i&gt;Invaders Must Die&lt;/i&gt;.
- Nicholas Baker" category="Hardcore Electronic" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/the-prodigy/data.opml?rws=%2Felectronica-dance%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="SiA" description="It was inevitable that Sia's unique vocal talent would find a significant audience outside her native Australia. In 2000 her debut album, &lt;I&gt;Healing Is Difficult,&lt;/I&gt; was championed by critics -- the lead single, &quot;Taken For Granted,&quot; even made the U.K. Top 10 -- but sales were relatively poor. The record did, however, bring Sia to the attention of London studio assistants Henry Bins and Sam Hardaker, who invited her to record vocals for two tracks on a CD they were making in their spare time. The resulting recordings -- &quot;Destiny&quot; and &quot;In The Waiting Line,&quot; on Zero 7's world-conquering &lt;I&gt;Simple Things&lt;/I&gt; (2001) -- are two of downtempo's high water marks. After touring with Zero 7 (a process she credits with broadening her musical horizons), Sia stepped back from the scene to regroup. Her back-to-basics LP, &lt;I&gt;Colour the Small One&lt;/I&gt; (2006), features &quot;Breathe Me,&quot; a song used to powerful effect in the closing scene of the finale of TV series &lt;I&gt;Six Feet Under&lt;/I&gt;, as well as &quot;The Bully,&quot; a song cowritten with Beck. Sia's next major release came in early 2008 with &lt;i&gt;Some People Have Real Problems&lt;/i&gt;.
- Neil West" category="Downtempo" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/sia/data.opml?rws=%2Felectronica-dance%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Bjork" description="Bjork is hard to pin down and trace. Pointing to her pre-solo incarnations as a jazz singer, a Crass Records punk and an international indie-pop star with the Sugarcubes only shows a fraction of her depth. Since her &lt;I&gt;Debut&lt;/I&gt;, in 1993, she has created a symbiosis between academic music and pop, her hands holding a score by Karlheinz Stockhausen while her feet dance to the faceless sounds of rave culture. Masterfully, her music never flies out into obscurity or stoops to obviousness. Working with innovative producers and remixers, such as Nellee Hooper, Howie B., Mark Bell, Matmos and, most recently, Timbaland, she has been able to consistently change strategies, keeping her sound contemporary, gently nudging at the edges of the mainstream. While she takes these adventurous turns through her career, her versatile voice is unmistakable. She displays wide emotional range from the contained rage of &quot;Army of Me&quot; to the explosive joy of &quot;It's Oh So Quiet&quot; to the ethereal bliss of &quot;All Is Full of Love.&quot; While her music is always challenging, her fine art and screen side-projects are equally thought-provoking. For the Palme D'Or-winning Lars Von Trier film &lt;i&gt;Dancer In the Dark&lt;/i&gt;, she won a Best Actress award for her leading role at Cannes in 2000. She would later collaborate with long-time boyfriend and fine art star Matthew Barney on the eerie and indulgent film &lt;i&gt;Drawing Restraint 9&lt;/i&gt;.
- Marc Kate" category="Post-Modern Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/bjork/data.opml?rws=%2Felectronica-dance%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Tiesto" description="A favorite among Progressive Trance followers for his epic DJ sets and
larger-than-life original tunes, Holland-born DJ Tiesto rose to the
forefront of the genre in record time. Not unlike contemporaries BT, Ferry
Corsten, Paul Van Dyk and Sasha &amp; Digweed (to name but a few), Tiesto's take
on Trance is anything but alienating. His own tracks are grandiose efforts
featuring wispy female vocals embedded in a hypnotic atmosphere awash with
dream-like synths.
- Melissa Piazza" category="Trance" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/tiesto-2/data.opml?rws=%2Felectronica-dance%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Santigold" description="Santogold, nee Santi White, has quite the curriculum vitae. Born and raised in Philadelphia, but based out of Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, she was an African-drum-playing music major at Wesleyan University, a Sony A&amp;R underling, and ska-punk band Stiffed's leading lady before evolving into an avant-garde mash-up artist and critical darling. And even though she's spent the majority of her career in the deep underground, she's definitely got some friends in high places: she's toured with friend and artistic peer M.I.A.; opened for Bjork; worked with Spank Rock; penned and produced for R&amp;B siren Res; and has written for the GZA, Lily Allen and Ashlee Simpson. Master craftsmen like Mark Ronson, Switch, Diplo, Jon Hill (her partner in Stiffed) and the late Disco D produced her self-titled debut album. &lt;i&gt;Santogold&lt;/i&gt;, which reflects influences like Bad Brains, Tina Turner, Devo, the Smiths, Cocteau Twins and many more, is a stunning display of hipster pastiche -- it's ear candy loaded with brain food of a subversive flavor.
- Angela Bruno" category="Electropop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/santigold/data.opml?rws=%2Felectronica-dance%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Delerium" description="Bill Leeb and Rhys Fulber, formerly of such Industrial dance acts as Frontline Assembly, Noise Unit, Intermix and Synaesthesia, take a stylistic leap into more accessible dance tracks under the guise of Delerium. Originally included on a variety of electronic remix albums such as Emd/Nettwerk's &lt;I&gt;Plastic Compilation&lt;/I&gt;, Delerium's ambient-pop mixes shed all industrial elements in favor of radio-friendly club rhythms laced with dark, esoteric flavors. The silky vocal stylings of such female guest artists as Sarah McLachlan, Camille Henderson, Lisa Gerrard of Dead Can Dance, Kristy Thirsk of the Rose Chronicles and Single Gun Theory's Jacqui Hunt lift up Delerium's mysterious blend of haunting melodies and tribal percussion.
- Eric Shea" category="New Age Electronic" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/delerium/data.opml?rws=%2Felectronica-dance%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Girl Talk" description="Pittsburgh native Gregg Gillis is Girl Talk. When he started out in the early '00s, Gillis composed glitchy IDM pieces, standing next to his laptop during performances flanked by costumed dancers to make the show a little more visceral. But he struck hipster gold in 2006 with &lt;i&gt;Night Ripper&lt;/i&gt;, an album-length mash-up of approximately 160 different songs.
- Garrett Kamps" category="Laptronica" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/girl-talk/data.opml?rws=%2Felectronica-dance%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Ratatat" description="Arena rock built byte-by-byte: Ratatat has sonic ambitions way beyond their two-dude-in-a-bedroom setup. Brooklynites Evan Mast and Mike Stroud got their break in 2002 when their first single, &quot;17 Years,&quot; released on Mast's own Audiodregs label, gained attention from DJs across the U.S. With Mast on beat production and bass and Stroud -- a sought-after guitarist who also plays in Dashboard Confessional's touring lineup -- ripping up various looped six-strings, Ratatat released its self-titled debut in 2003 and opened for a slew of major indie acts. Their stripped down, amped up sound appealed to rockers and rappers enough that they self-released a CD of their own compositions backing a cappella tracks by Jay-Z, Missy Elliot, Raekwon and more. Their official sophomore album, 2006's &lt;i&gt;Classics&lt;/i&gt;, was mostly recorded in upstate New York and substantially broadened their style. Ask 'em and Ratatat will try to convince you that small is the new big.
- Jonathan Zwickel" category="Leftfield/IDM" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/ratatat/data.opml?rws=%2Felectronica-dance%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Portishead" description="Together with Massive Attack, Portishead broke new ground for the vocal style of Trip-Hop that grew out Bristol in the early 1990s. Their melancholy, rainy-day approach to electronica came as a refreshing alternative the overzealous club music that was being made around that time. Beth Gibbons' passionate vocals offer a surreal complement to producer Geoff Barrow's head-bobbing beats. It could be argued that Portishead make modern blues, given the way both lyrics and mood relate to troubling times.
- Peter Gavin" category="Trip-Hop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/portishead/data.opml?rws=%2Felectronica-dance%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Goldfrapp" description="The sultry vocals of Alison Goldfrapp are the centerpiece of this gorgeous trip-hop from Goldfrapp and composer Will Gregory. Ms. Goldfrapp, who contributes vocals on tracks by Tricky and Orbital, lets her breathy vocals work their magic alongside lush strings and intricate production.
- Tim Pratt" category="Baroque Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/goldfrapp/data.opml?rws=%2Felectronica-dance%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Brian Eno" description="A brilliant conceptualist, a founding member of Roxy Music, and a self-described &quot;nonmusician,&quot; the appallingly prolific Brian Eno is probably best known as a producer &amp;#8212; he was behind the boards for some of the best albums made by David Bowie, Talking Heads, Devo, and U2 &amp;#8212; and for having coined the phrase &quot;ambient music.&quot; A pity, that; Eno has also made wonderful music of his own, recording entrancing tunes with ingenious countermelodies that should have been hits, but weren't.
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Pop content is just one component in the Eno catalogue and melody doesn't seem to interest him half as much as sound itself. Consequently, trawling through the Eno catalogue can be as frustrating as it is rewarding, especially as his later albums tend more toward music that seems airy, empty, and maddeningly diffuse.
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In that sense, perhaps the best way to approach the Eno oeuvre is by forgetting chronology and diving in with the box sets. &lt;I&gt;I: Instrumentals&lt;/I&gt; is a delightful omnibus of sound sketches, studio experiments, and sonic art. Some of it is from collaborations with Bowie, avant-pop trumpeter Jon Hassell, minimalist composer Harold Budd, King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp, or the German electro group Cluster; some is from solo work using his own keyboards or session musicians. Invariably, Eno finds a certain idiosyncratic element in the sounds produced, and tickles them out. When his teasing tends toward atmospheric stasis, the results are generally dubbed &quot;ambient&quot; &amp;#8212; sort of like New Age gets an MFA. But not everything there falls into that category; some tracks, such as &quot;Energy Fools the Magician&quot; or &quot;Chemin de Fer,&quot; are as catchy and well-crafted as any pop single.
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The second box, &lt;I&gt;II: Vocals&lt;/I&gt;, has far more of that, and relies heavily on Eno's early albums. Applying what he learned about pop subversion from his tenure in Roxy Music to the revisionist aesthetic of new-wave rock, songs such as &quot;Baby's On Fire,&quot; &quot;King's Lead Hat,&quot; and &quot;Here Come the Warm Jets&quot; boast all the hook-driven appeal of hit singles, yet without the heard-it-before predictability of conventional pop. Eno rarely took the conventional give-the-singer-the-melody approach, however, and on a number of tracks, the vocal &amp;#8212; which may be song, or speech, or some &quot;found&quot; bit of a movie or radio broadcast -- is just part of the overall sound, often almost incidental to the instrumental parts.
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For fans of his vocal music, the key Eno albums are &lt;I&gt;Here Come the Warm Jets&lt;/I&gt;, &lt;I&gt;Taking Tiger Mountain (by Strategy)&lt;/I&gt;, and &lt;I&gt;Before and After Science&lt;/I&gt;. It may be easy to hear in both an anticipation of punk and an echo of Roxy Music in the arch clangor of &lt;I&gt;Here Come the Warm Jets&lt;/I&gt;, but what shines brightest is the offhand accessibility of the songs. It hardly matters whether he's playing with style (as with the doo-wop undercurrent to &quot;Cindy Tells Me&quot;) or fooling with form (the portmanteau construction of &quot;Dead Finks Don't Talk&quot;); the melodies linger on. Listening to it now, the album seems almost a blueprint for the pop experiments Bowie (with Eno producing) would conduct with &lt;I&gt;Low&lt;/I&gt;.
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&lt;I&gt;Taking Tiger Mountain (by Strategy)&lt;/I&gt; is just as pop-friendly and eclectic, but shies away from the abrasive textures of its predecessor, swapping distortion and dissonance for blurred edges and open-ended harmonies. Not that the album is entirely without teeth, as there's an itchy aggression to the breathless &quot;Third Uncle&quot; and an ominous urgency to the latter half of &quot;The True Wheel.&quot; But Eno keeps such snarls on a tight leash; far more typical is the dry wit of &quot;Back in Judy's Jungle.&quot;
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But it's &lt;I&gt;Before and After Science&lt;/I&gt; that stands as the greatest of Eno's &quot;pop&quot; albums. A nearly perfect album, it frames Eno's melodic instincts in every imaginable way, from the chilly funk of &quot;No One Receiving&quot; to the irrepressible vigor of &quot;King's Lead Hat&quot; (an anagram for Talking Heads), to the dreamy cadences of &quot;Here He Comes.&quot;
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After sitting out the 1980s, Eno returned to the pop form in 1990 with the brittle, uneven &lt;I&gt;Wrong Way Up&lt;/I&gt;. Recorded with John Cale, it's a good attempt at recapturing the old magic, but frankly Cale's intense artiness undercuts Eno's instincts. &lt;I&gt;My Squelchy Life&lt;/I&gt; was originally intended as the follow-up, but after making advance copies available to the press, Eno withdrew the album (which is now available only on bootleg). Instead, the unexpectedly funky &lt;I&gt;Nerve Net&lt;/I&gt; became his next pop effort, and it mostly fizzles. Perhaps sensing the tenor of the times, Eno puts more effort into making good grooves than in writing memorable melodies, and while the resulting tracks are full of good energy and interesting sounds, they lack the hooky good nature of &lt;I&gt;Before and After Science&lt;/I&gt;.
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Then again, after Eno's having spent most of the previous decade releasing album after album on which texture was king, what were we to expect? Although some critics have derided his instrumental albums as being a sort of high-concept mood music, it wasn't mood he was interested in; it was atmosphere. On these discs, he took an almost functional approach to music, manipulating its sonic power in the same way a painter or interior designer might manipulate the power of light, color, and form.
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Eno began moving in that direction with &lt;I&gt;Another Green World&lt;/I&gt;. Here, he uses the studio itself as an instrument, molding directed improvisation, electronic effects, and old-fashioned songcraft into perfectly balanced aural ecosystems such as &quot;Sky Saw&quot; or &quot;St. Elmo's Fire.&quot; Initially, he referred to these quiet soundscapes as &quot;discreet&quot; music, and on &lt;I&gt;Discreet Music&lt;/I&gt; (a wry deconstruction of &quot;Pachelbel's Canon in D&quot;) demonstrates his basic tools: minimal melodies, subtle textures, and variable repetition. Around this time, he had also been collaborating with the German synth duo Cluster on a pair of moody, coloristic electronic albums, selections from which may be found on the &lt;I&gt;Begegnungen&lt;/I&gt; and &lt;I&gt;Begegnungen II&lt;/I&gt; compilations. But it was &lt;I&gt;Music for Airports&lt;/I&gt; that finally codified these experiments into an aesthetic, and even provided a label for the sound: ambient music.
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
As much as Eno understands about psycho-acoustics and the relationship between what is heard and what is merely sensed, the largely functional (and mostly tuneless) nature of the music limits the listening pleasure of subsequent ambient releases, such as &lt;I&gt;On Land&lt;/I&gt;, &lt;I&gt;Apollo&lt;/I&gt;, and &lt;I&gt;Thursday Afternoon&lt;/I&gt;. (Eno also produced albums by other artists for his ambient series: both Harold Budd's rich, moody &lt;I&gt;Plateaux of Mirror&lt;/I&gt; and Laraaji's shimmering &lt;I&gt;Day of Radiance&lt;/I&gt; are slightly more energetic and engaging than Eno's own efforts.)
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
There were, of course, releases that didn't carry the ambient tag but seemed part of the same musical subspecies. The three volumes of &lt;I&gt;Music for Film&lt;/I&gt; work very much on the same principle as the ambient albums, and feature some of the same collaborators. Likewise, there's an extreme emphasis on atmosphere in the spacey &lt;I&gt;Shutov Assembly&lt;/I&gt;, the contemplative &lt;I&gt;Neroli&lt;/I&gt;, and the delicately textured &lt;i&gt;Drop&lt;/i&gt;.
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Meanwhile, Eno continued to collaborate with others. &lt;I&gt;My Life in the Bush of Ghosts&lt;/I&gt;, which takes its title from Amos Tutuola's novel, was recorded with Talking Headman David Byrne, and offers some insight into the cut-and-paste approach to groove the two applied while making Talking Heads' &lt;I&gt;Remain in Light&lt;/I&gt;. Its &quot;found art&quot; approach to vocals (however scrupulously footnoted) is an acquired taste, but in hindsight it sounds like a true forerunner of hip-hop sampling. &lt;I&gt;Spinner&lt;/I&gt;, recorded with former Public Image Ltd. bassist Jah Wobble, boasts gently insistent grooves and strongly Middle Eastern flavors, elements Eno had flirted with on the earlier &lt;I&gt;Ali Click&lt;/I&gt;.
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Eno also worked with the German DJ Jan Peter Schwalm. Their first collaboration, the Japanese-only &lt;I&gt;Music for Onmyoji&lt;/I&gt; (literally, &quot;Music for the Fortune-teller&quot;), is a double album combining one disc of conventional, deftly crafted synth-scapes with a disc of manipulated and collaged recordings based on gagaku, the ancient traditional music of the Japanese Imperial Court. &lt;I&gt;Drawn From Life&lt;/I&gt; is rather less exotic, relying on Western instrumentation and household sounds to generate a rich, surprisingly evocative sonic tapestry celebrating the rhythm of day-to-day life (hence the title).
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
There's a third stream to Eno's catalogue that isn't represented by a box, and that's his &quot;installations.&quot; These are sound sculptures created for specific environments; usually instrumental, they are not compositions in the traditional sense, with a beginning, middle, and end, but are open-ended constructions designed to go on indefinitely without looping or intentionally repeating the material. (Opal is Eno's own label, and these discs are available online from www.enoshop.co.uk.) Some, such as &lt;I&gt;Kite Stories&lt;/I&gt; or &lt;I&gt;Compact Forest Proposal&lt;/I&gt;, for instance, come from environmental pieces in which multiple CD players, loaded with multiple discs, provide layers of music from varied locations. Obviously, the CD experience can only approximate the installation. Others, such as &lt;I&gt;Lightness&lt;/I&gt; and &lt;I&gt;I Dormienti&lt;/I&gt;, are more conventional ambient pieces. Perhaps the most interesting is &lt;I&gt;January 07003: Bell Studies for the Clock of Long Now&lt;/I&gt;, which treats, toys with, and manipulates the sound of bells, a wonderfully transformative piece that provides new insight into everyday chiming.
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
&lt;I&gt;More Blank Than Frank&lt;/I&gt; and &lt;I&gt;Desert Island Selection&lt;/I&gt; are best-of albums emphasizing material from &lt;I&gt;Warm Jets&lt;/I&gt; through &lt;I&gt;Science&lt;/I&gt;. And &lt;I&gt;Curiosities, Vol. 1&lt;/I&gt; is essentially a collection of leftovers, tracks deemed by Eno too interesting to discard, but too singular to be included elsewhere. Completists only.
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
By the 1990s, Eno was an established voice in a range of contemporary music. In &lt;I&gt;Low Symphony&lt;/I&gt;, composer Philip Glass spun off themes and variations of Bowie's &lt;I&gt;Low&lt;/I&gt;, a work indelibly marked by Eno's stamp; ambient techno bands like the Orb and Irresistible Force owed an obvious debt to Eno. He has also long been interested in other media, his video installations having been exhibited at the Venice Biennale and the Pompidou Centre in Paris, and his 1996 autobiography, &lt;I&gt;A Year (With Swollen Appendices)&lt;/I&gt; having provided an index of his omnivorous interests. Eno continued to expand the vocabulary of music into the new millennium, composing for video games and producing albums by artists ranging from veteran Paul Simon to newcomer Coldplay.
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
In 2004 he teamed up with old friend Fripp for another ambient collection, and in 2006 he celebrated the 25th anniversary of &lt;I&gt;My Life in the Bush of Ghosts&lt;/I&gt; with Byrne. The latter project had feet in both the past and future, as the marketing plan included a Website wherein fans of the classic work could legally download multi-tracks of two songs, remix them and then repost them for others to hear. That same year, Eno released the visual work &lt;I&gt;77 Million Paintings&lt;/I&gt;, a DVD/software package offering computer screens a constantly evolving painting with an ambient-music background. In 2008, after nearly 30 years, Eno and Byrne again reconnected for &lt;I&gt;Everything That Will Happen Will Happen Today&lt;/I&gt;, a follow up of sorts to &lt;I&gt;My Life in the Bush of Ghosts&lt;/I&gt;.
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
As a composer, producer, keyboardist, singer and multi-media visual artist, Eno is responsible less for a new sound and look in pop than for an entirely new way of thinking about music &amp;#8212; as an atmosphere, rather than a statement, an experiment in sound, rather than a virtuosic expression. Combining the cerebral qualities of European high culture with the technological outlook of a futurist, he also has been responsible for an aesthetic movement that incorporates both Western and Third World sounds.
" category="Art &amp; Progressive Rock" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/brian-eno/data.opml?rws=%2Felectronica-dance%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Morcheeba" description="Coming out of the post-Portishead boom of female-led trip-hop acts, Morcheeba joined the party in 1996. Inspired more by pop music than moody atmospherics, they snared American ears with &quot;Trigger Hippie.&quot; While not completely straying from the &quot;dark beats + spy themes = Trip-Hop&quot; formula on 1998's sophomore outing, &lt;I&gt;Big Calm&lt;/I&gt;, Morcheeba made the wise move to turn the spotlight towards the sultry whisperings of singer Sky Edwards and the exceptional guitar of Ross Godfrey. The resulting funk-fueled fire of 2000's &lt;I&gt;Fragments Of Freedom&lt;/I&gt; may not have been a huge success, but it paved the way for the group's more cohesive 2002 effort, &lt;I&gt;Charango&lt;/I&gt;. 2005's &lt;I&gt;The Antidote&lt;/I&gt; relies on a sound that is more orchestrated pop than synthetic dance music.
- Jon Pruett" category="Downtempo" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/morcheeba/data.opml?rws=%2Felectronica-dance%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="The Chemical Brothers" description="It was a love of dance and rock music that brought Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons together at Manchester University. Tom had enrolled to be nearer to Factory Records' fabled Hacienda nightclub, and Ed wanted to spend time in the city of his heroes -- The Smiths and New Order. This was the early nineties, a heady time for musical change in England. Emerging DJ's like Mike Pickering and Paul Oakenfold were coming back from their Ibiza holidays and trying to re-create the &lt;I&gt;anything goes&lt;/I&gt; playlists they had experienced at clubs on the island. This blend of hip-hop, rare house, classic rock and just about anything else provided it &lt;I&gt;worked&lt;/I&gt; became known as Balearic (named after the group of Mediterranean islands that include Ibiza). Tom and Ed loved the Balearic blending of genres and started their own similar night at local Manchester club, Naked Under Leather, in 1991. As this extra-curricular diversion grew in popularity, they took the name The Dust Brothers in tribute to the U.S. production team responsible for the Beastie Boys' &lt;I&gt;Paul's Boutique&lt;/I&gt;, and started to produce their own music. Their first effort, &quot;Song To The Siren&quot; immediately put them on the map. Darren Emerson, Andy Weatherall and Lionrock's Justin Robertson all took notice and they soon found themselves in-residence in London as a production and remixing duo. It was here that they began their now-legendary Heavenly Social Sunday night parties -- a regular hedonistic gathering that has become over time a touchstone of electronica history credibility with more people claiming to have been than there were nights available. As their notoriety grew, the &quot;real&quot; Dust Brothers sent in the lawyers, so a name change to The Chemical Brothers was required and a graceful departure was fashioned in the title of their debut album &lt;I&gt;Exit Planet Dust&lt;/I&gt; (1995). By now they were approaching Underworld levels of fame and critical appreciation, so it was no surprise when Oasis's Noel Gallagher agreed to sing on their Beatle-y &quot;Setting Sun&quot; release, again cementing their popularity in both the rock and dance camps, something that was underscored by their opening gig for Oasis at the Knebworth music festival, a pre-cursor to several headlining global tours. &lt;I&gt;Dig Your Own Hole&lt;/I&gt; (1997) followed, with the inescapable hit &quot;Block Rockin' Beats,&quot; after which there was the excellent &lt;I&gt;Surrender&lt;/I&gt; (1999) (&quot;The Sunshine Underground&quot; being a standout track) and &lt;I&gt;Come With Us&lt;/I&gt; (2002). The inevitable career review &lt;I&gt;Singles 93-03&lt;/I&gt; (2003) started tongues wagging about a creative block, but the beats kept rockin' with 2005's &lt;I&gt;Push The Button&lt;/I&gt; and 2007's &lt;i&gt;We Are The Night.&lt;/i&gt;
- Nicholas Baker" category="Big Beat" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/the-chemical-brothers/data.opml?rws=%2Felectronica-dance%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Kaskade" description="Chicago native Ryan Raddon started out as a fan of British New Wave, listening to Tears For Fears, the Smiths and the Cult. However, after hanging around clubs with the great Frankie Knuckles behind the decks he began to develop a taste for house. By the time he attended school in Salt Lake City he was making a name for himself as a DJ and started releasing his own productions. One of them impressed OM Records so much, that they picked it up for distribution. Lured by the energetic house scene, he moved to San Francisco and joined OM in their Artist Relations department, and released his debut &lt;I&gt;It's You, It's Me&lt;/I&gt; in 2003. The title track proved popular with the Lazy Dog club founders (Ben Watt and Jay Hannan), and repeated spins at their Sunday Socials led to Ryan making a name for himself as a deep house DJ. More credibility followed, with Roger Sanchez picking up two tracks for his &lt;I&gt;Release Yourself 2003&lt;/I&gt; mix, and Jay Hannan launching his Society Heights label with Raddon's &quot;In This Life&quot; (2003) release. His latest effort &lt;I&gt;In The Moment&lt;/I&gt; (2004) offers more soulful laid-back deep house for the mellow faithful.
- Nicholas Baker" category="House" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/kaskade/data.opml?rws=%2Felectronica-dance%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Armin Van Buuren" description="Armin Van Buuren spent many a young year at home in Holland glued to the radio listening to the likes of Jean Michel Jarre and Ben Librand before he was legally allowed to enter a club. Those quiet evenings alone with his mother's computer and a set of decks soon paid off: at the tender age of 19, he released &quot;Blue Fear&quot; and went on to become a global trance sensation. Early fame led to the typically hectic schedule of remixes, productions and performances, but Van Buuren still managed to finish his law degree just to have something in case the music career didn't pan out. This no doubt helped once he decided to set up his own record company, Armada, in 2003. &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt; Love it or hate it, &quot;Blue Fear&quot; is classic Euro trance -- lush layering of chords with a seductive bassline and big euphoric breakdowns. Van Buuren is quick to differentiate his style from the more clichÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂ©d end of the trance spectrum: &quot;Trance for me as a genre refers to the old Oakenfold sound, the warm melodic driving music, not the euphoric cheese with vocals, predictable breaks and drum rolls -- I was playing trance before it became diluted and commercialized, before it became a dirty word,&quot; he explains at www.arminvanbuuren.com. Keen to promote his version of the genre, Van Buuren plays all over the world and has a weekly radio show, &quot;A State of Trance,&quot; on ID&amp;T in Holland. Regularly nominated as one of the most popular DJs in the world, he is usually to be found sharing the top three slots with Paul Van Dyk and Tiesto. His debut album, &lt;I&gt;76&lt;/I&gt;, was nominated for a Dancestar Award in 2004, in the Best New Artist Album category, and he is currently working on a second release for 2005. &quot;It's not love for music, it's a passion, and it goes beyond liking, and beyond a hobby, it's about a way of living. Music is essential for my life,&quot; he says.
- Nicholas Baker" category="Trance" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/armin-van-buuren/data.opml?rws=%2Felectronica-dance%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="David Guetta" description="You could be forgiven for thinking that David Guetta is famous simply for being famous: that's the message, however ironic, of &quot;F*** Me I'm Famous,&quot; the name of both his long-running Ibiza residency and his first mix CD. But the French DJ and producer has earned his acclaim, repurposing soulful deep house with a shiny French touch and adding radio-ready vocals for a package that's pure pop panache.
&lt;P&gt;
Guetta's career as a producer began in 1992, when he released &quot;Up and Away&quot; with the Chicago vocalist Robert Owens, but it wasn't until seven years later that he returned with &quot;Just a Little More Love,&quot; a catchy tribal-house cut. The following year, his debut album proved that its title cut was no fluke: full of hooks and vocals, the record augmented charging house beats with touches of gospel and electro and even a jubilant remix of David Bowie's &quot;Heroes.&quot; In 2004 Guetta returned with &lt;I&gt;Guetta Blaster&lt;/I&gt;, featuring club hits like Depeche Mode-flavored &quot;The World Is Mine&quot; and &quot;Love Don't Let Me Go Walking Away,&quot; his smash collaboration with U.K. festival favorites the Egg; it also includes a rare downtempo remix from Paul Oakenfold. In 2009 he set his eyes firmly on the pop charts with &lt;I&gt;One Love&lt;/I&gt;, featuring guest vocals from Ne-Yo, Kid Cudi and Will.I.Am. &lt;/P&gt;
- Philip Sherburne" category="Dance Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/david-guetta/data.opml?rws=%2Felectronica-dance%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Bebel Gilberto" description="The daughter of innovative Bossa Nova guitarist Joao Gilberto and Brazilian singer Miucha, Bebel Gilberto definitely has strong musical genes. Graced with a clean, throaty voice that exudes a relaxed sexiness, she is equally comfortable singing in Portuguese and English. Early in her career, she worked with Caetano Veloso, Chico Buarque (her uncle), David Byrne and Arto Lindsay. Lately, techno-sophisticated producer Suba has helped her develop an unpretentious modern sound based around Bossa Nova. Maintaining the primacy of the acoustic guitar in a jazz/bossa style, Gilberto and Suba add cool organ sounds, tight kit drumming, Brazilian percussion, funky basslines, and tasteful Soul horn hooks. Unobtrusive electronic treatments wander in and out, marking Gilberto's recordings with a hip, modern sensibility. Exquisitely warm sensuality well-suited for dance, romance, or ambiance.
- Robert Leaver" category="Bossa Nova" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/bebel-gilberto/data.opml?rws=%2Felectronica-dance%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Fatboy Slim" description="Recording under the alias Fatboy Slim, British DJ/producer Norman Cook was one of the major pioneers of big beat; he ranks second only to the Chemical Brothers in terms of breaking the genre in the States. Cook samples from a wide range of music—house, funk, even rock—to create electronic music specifically designed for dancing. This emphasis on hedonism over experimentalism caused many techno purists to scorn Fatboy Slim, though it granted him immense success both at home and in America.
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
Cook, who was christened Quentin, started DJ'ing at age 15. In 1985 he changed his name to Norman and joined the British pop band the Housemartins, replacing departing bassist and founding member Ted Key. The Housemartins were known for their socially conscious, no-frills image and scathing sarcasm. Their 1986 and 1987 albums yielded several Top 20 pop hits, including &quot;Caravan of Love&quot; (Number One U.K., 1986) and &quot;Happy Hour&quot; (Number Three U.K., 1986).
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
Following the band's split in 1988, Housemartins frontman Paul Heaton and drummer Dave Hemingway formed the Beautiful South; Cook, meanwhile, returned to his dance-music roots with Beats International, which scored a Number One hit in the U.K. with its 1990 single &quot;Dub Be Good to Me.&quot; Cook also recorded under numerous other monikers, including Pizzaman, Freakpower, and Mighty Dub Katz &amp;#8212; who all charted in the U.K. &amp;#8212; before embarking on his Fatboy Slim project. He made a minor splash in America with 1996's &lt;i&gt;Better Living Through Chemistry&lt;/i&gt; and its single, &quot;Going Out of My Head,&quot; which drew its defining guitar sample from Yvonne Elliman's remake of the Who's &quot;I Can't Explain.&quot; But it was 1998's &lt;i&gt;You've Come a Long Way, Baby&lt;/i&gt; that transformed Cook into an international star with its inescapable hits &quot;The Rockafeller Skank&quot; and &quot;Praise You,&quot; the latter of which stayed on the U.S. pop chart for 20 weeks in 1999. Cook veered away from big beat for his next venture, &lt;i&gt;Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars,&lt;/i&gt; on which he worked with live vocalists (including R&amp;B singer Macy Gray) for the first time. The single &quot;Weapon of Choice&quot; went on to hit Number 33 on the Modern Rock charts, and drew attention for its music video featuring a dancing (and flying) Christopher Walken, which won six MTV video awards in 2001.
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
&lt;I&gt;Palookaville&lt;/I&gt; followed in 2004, and two years later he issued a best-of. In 2008, Cook announced he was looking for a new moniker with which to release his next album, which is mostly finished and features tracks with Iggy Pop. " category="Big Beat" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/fatboy-slim/data.opml?rws=%2Felectronica-dance%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Frou Frou" description="Multi-talented musicians Imogen Heap and Guy Sigsworth make up the trip-hop duo Frou Frou. Heap's elastic, resonant voice recalls Beth Orton, while Sigsworth's production finds the organic warmth in the machine -- no small feat. After years of supporting artists like Madonna and Bjork, Sigsworth can claim Frou Frou as his first individual effort, and the creative freedom pays off: their label debut, 2002's &lt;i&gt;Details&lt;/i&gt;, is a gem of expansive electronic pop. The duo got a big boost when its song &quot;Let Go&quot; was featured on the soundtrack of the 2004 film &lt;i&gt;Garden State&lt;/i&gt;.
- Sarah Bardeen" category="Trip-Hop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/frou-frou/data.opml?rws=%2Felectronica-dance%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Paul Van Dyk" description="Commercial trance of the brilliant variety. Packaging only the purest of emotions, Paul van Dyk's soul-awakening progressive trance uplifts clubland and critic's circles alike. Having reached certifiable legendary status, this crowd-slaying Berliner keeps company with fellow crowned floor commanders BT, Paul Oakenfold and Sasha. Exhaustive beats streak across mind-expanding mixes of heartfelt melodies and luminous celestial synths like a meteorite shower in the night sky. A masterful producer whose name is synonymous with all things progressive, Paul van Dyk is a must-have experience for any trance follower.
- Melissa Piazza" category="Trance" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/paul-van-dyk/data.opml?rws=%2Felectronica-dance%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="YACHT" description="Portland, Ore.'s Yacht began as a side project of the irrepressible electro-pop duo the Blow. But Jona Bechtolt's pleasure cruiser quickly outpaced the winds of his other act, as Yacht refined its low-slung, party-ready brand of indie dance on records for States Rights, Marriage and finally DFA. Yacht's first album, &lt;I&gt;Super Warren MMIV&lt;/I&gt;, was a collection of blippy instrumentals that suggested a kind of computer-aided needlepoint, bristling with nubby LEDs and analog synths as soft as cashmere. After &lt;I&gt;Mega&lt;/I&gt;, which contorted the material into a more tangled shape, Claire L. Evans came on board and steered Yacht into deeper, fresher waters where acoustic instruments and sung melodies intermingled with electronic dazzle. After touring with LCD Soundsystem, the band signed to DFA and released 2009's &lt;I&gt;See Mystery Lights&lt;/I&gt;, their most fully realized effort yet, fusing quirky sound design with crack songwriting and offering Hot Chip some stiff competition for the 21st century electro-pop throne.
- Philip Sherburne" category="Electropop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/yacht/data.opml?rws=%2Felectronica-dance%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="The Human League" description="One of the highlights of British Synth Pop is in fact not simple synthesizer melodies, but attention to vocal harmonies. This is especially true for the Human League. The charm of their first hit, 1981's &quot;Don't You Want Me,&quot; lies mostly in its unforgettable, highly emotional narrative delivered through deadpan vocals that harmonize like the Beach Boys. Even when the subject matter was desperate, their male and female vocal exchanges always maintained either a New Romantic cool or the emotional distance of a Godard character. But this is not to give their instrumentation short shrift: at their peak, their driving basslines, post-Disco beats and keyboard symphonics were unmatched and a perfect match for their vocal depth.
- Marc Kate" category="New Romantic" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/humanleague/data.opml?rws=%2Felectronica-dance%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Jamie Lidell" description="Justin Timberlake can cut a rug like nobody's business, and Maroon 5 know their Chic inside and out. Yet arguably the funkiest blue-eyed soul man since Daryl Hall lives across the pond. Much like the legendary Arthur Russell and later Matthew Dear, Lidell is a pop singer with a background in esoteric dance music; he and Cristian Vogel, under the name Super Collider, released two albums of quasi-ambient electronica in the late '90s. The Brit approaches soul music more like a producer meticulously constructing sonic collages than a traditional frontman. Although his debut &lt;i&gt;Muddlin Gear&lt;/i&gt; was a continuation of his interest in pure sound, Lidell turned into a straight-up crooner for 2005's &lt;i&gt;Multiply&lt;/i&gt;. In addition to a host of standard, non-electronic instruments, the album features him making a clutch of sounds -- from the punchy percussion to the falsetto backup singers -- with just his voice (a feat he wowed audiences with when he toured in support of the album). But while that's a novel trick, Lidell clearly understands soul's vast history. He is as well versed in the post-'70s era (Prince, D'Angelo) as he is in the classics of both Northern and Southern soul. Then again, soul is a shadowy quality that lives somewhere beyond knowledge and skill. Some folks have it; some don't. And Lidell certainly does.
- Justin Farrar" category="Blue-Eyed Soul" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/jamie-lidell/data.opml?rws=%2Felectronica-dance%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="ATB" description="European club favorite ATB, born Andre Tannenberger, is best known for scoring high on the charts with his 1999 Sound of Ministry release &quot;9pm (Til I Come).&quot; Fashioned from soul-lifting synths, seductive vocal snippets and physically-fit beats, this trend-setting Teutonic Trancemaster's anthems have proven to be some of the most memorable moments in dance music's developing history.
- Melissa Piazza" category="Trance" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/atb/data.opml?rws=%2Felectronica-dance%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Madlib" description="Though he'd made guest appearances with West Coast indie stalwarts Tha Alkoholics, most people first noticed Madlib when his group Lootpack released &lt;I&gt;Soundpieces: Da Antidote&lt;/I&gt; in 1999. Madlib's rickety lo-fi productions were looser and funkier variations on the jazzy hip-hop pioneered by his NYC producers, but it wasn't until &lt;I&gt;The Unseen&lt;/I&gt; dropped in 2000 that Madlib's M.O. became apparent. Released under the Quasimoto moniker, &lt;I&gt;The Unseen&lt;/I&gt; was a concept album based on a helium-voiced hedonist who enjoyed &quot;astro traveling.&quot; It was equal parts Prince Paul, Sun Ra and Cheech Marin, and remains among the most inventive hip-hop albums ever made. Madlib would continue to follow his weird muse unbridled by either commercial interest or fan expectations. In the past eight years, he recorded numerous jazz albums under different aliases, collaborated with J Dilla on &lt;I&gt;Champion Sound&lt;/I&gt;, recorded a broken-beat album under the moniker DJ Rels, reworked both the Blue Note and Trojan catalogs, linked up with MF Doom for &lt;I&gt;Madvillainy&lt;/I&gt; and recorded two widely acclaimed instrumental hip-hop albums. Madlib continues to push boundaries.
- Sam Chennault" category="Indie Rap/Hip-Hop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/madlib/data.opml?rws=%2Felectronica-dance%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Stereolab" description="Clean, soapy bliss like a new bottle of bubbles. The looped wand waves through the wind and casts out dreamy, melancholic analog waves. A picnic on a sunny day with estranged French relatives; both familiar and foreign, you recognize the references, but you cannot help but notice they are out of context. The chanteuse's optimism creates absurd words of revolution and the empty promise of future days.
- Marc Kate" category="Dream Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/stereolab/data.opml?rws=%2Felectronica-dance%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Paul Oakenfold" description="House heavyweight Paul Oakenfold leads the growing community of globe-trotting DJs with his constantly evolving, trendsetting dance style. A genre pioneer, a shrewd businessman, and an undefeated club king, Oakenfold's influence over the dance music industry can be felt worldwide.
- Melissa Piazza" category="Trance" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/paul-oakenfold/data.opml?rws=%2Felectronica-dance%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Ministry" description="Despite the fact that they started out as a more pop-oriented goth band, Ministry's unspeakably abrasive, endlessly negative music remains pretty much definitive industrial metal. On top of that, we have singer Al Jourgensen to thank for the whole post-apocalyptic biker-cowboy look that led to sales of millions upon millions of full length black leather coats in the early 1990s. But more importantly was when Ministry released their 1988 album, &lt;I&gt;The Land of Rape and Honey&lt;/I&gt;, it was clear that the music was genuinely unique in the mainstream and that they had created a sound as powerful and heavy (if not more so) than any alternative or metal band of the period. The band crossed those alternative and metal lines, drawing hordes of fans from each camp and helping along the eventual blurring of those traditionally opposite styles that occurred in the late '80s and early '90s with the onset of grunge rock and alternative metal. Ministry's influence (which can be felt even today in the industrial scene) was both musical and stylistic and the albums they put out during their peak (&lt;I&gt;Land Of Rape And Honey,&lt;/I&gt; &lt;I&gt;The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste&lt;/I&gt; and &lt;I&gt;Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed &amp; the Way to Suck Eggs&lt;/I&gt;) actually stand up over a decade later. The band continues to release albums today and, to its credit, remains as Satanic and sex-obsessed as ever -- an aesthetic Nine Inch Nails may have taken to the top but Ministry invented.
- Mike McGuirk" category="Industrial Metal" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/ministry/data.opml?rws=%2Felectronica-dance%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
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