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Thursday, Oct. 14, 2010 | 20:40

The Chemical Brothers - Piku

I made a two-disc mix of songs that have made me who I am. Over the next few weeks (months) I will attempt to explain each of these songs. I am quite sure I haven't covered every song that matters to me, but I have wedged most of them onto these two CDs.

Yes, yes, yes, 'Block Rockin' Beats'. I know that's their big song, the one that blew them up, the one with the cool video of a couple running from the police, the one that blew minds across america, the song that made music critics believe, even if only for a moment, that a new sound was invading American culture. It was, but it wouldn't be The Chemicals filling America's kids with dance music. It would be the next round of pop tartlets. It would be not what many of us wanted.

I also know that my sister dated a DJ in high school and he gave her a copy of 'Exit Planet Dust'. I heard it and didn't think much of it. Either I didn't know what to make of it or I was still finding my way around rock with Pink Floyd, R.E.M., and possibly by then nine inch nails. I wasn't ready for dance music.

Before "Block Rockin' Beats" broke, I had Moby and the KLF as my footholds in dance music. "Everything Is Wrong" and "The White Room". Those are both great albums, but they hadn't really prepared me for appreciating dance music. Certainly not the big beat sound The Chemical Brothers were bringing. Not, that is, until 'Dig Your Own Hole'.

Obviously, "Block Rockin' Beats" was the song that drew people in. People who didn't know, at least. It was a sound few expected, and for a brief while it took over. People honestly thought the sound, from The Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim, The Prodigy, and others, would take over. Then the audience got bored, missed the guitars (or so some said) and went away.

Such was not the case with me. I followed the song to the album, and from there into dance music. I may have this song out of order, since I may have gotten this before Underworld. On the other hand, I'm a little fuzzy about when this song hit me.

"Piku" is the fourth track on 'Dig Your Own Hole' and is named after a skateboard one of the Brothers owned. Every song on this album is great, but "Piku" stands out for me because of an experience I had with it, similar to an experience I had with the Propellerheads' version of "On Her Majesty's Secret Service". In that one, the song stops at one point and repeats, as though the record is skipping (or the CD is glitching). In "Piku", the song has a breakdown where it repeats the same four bars about eight times. Each time through, though, a different instrument drops out. The first time this happened to me, and to a lesser extent on other occasions, it caught me completely off guard. I was reading a magazine or something, not entirely paying attention, when bam, the drum didn't hit. A hole in the music. It threw me for a loop. What was happening? I had to play the song through a few more times before I got my head around it.

Now when I hear the song I know that part is coming, so I'm ready for it, but sometimes when I'm not quite paying enough attention it breaks in and surprises me. It's this kind of surprise and unexpectedness that I love about music. "Piku" does it for me.

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