Music Has The Right To Children

Was not expecting to particularly like this, only became aware of BoC a few months back when they released their first album in ages and found out they were very well regarded. Listened to a single and didn't really get it, was the sort of sparse electronica that's not for me. Listening to this album Id definitely judged them too quickly. It's much more intricate and thoughtfully put together than most music like this. Lots of interesting beats and sounds that are link together nicely. Telephasic workshop, Kaini industries, roygbiv, Pete standing alone jump out currently. That last one has this scratchy sound that by all accounts should be annoying but it works really well. Listened again and heard more stuff. Think BoC might fill a niche for me. I would say it's still not a genre I like but it's a great album. 4.5.

I'm visiting London, and decided to set a silly tube challenge - to visit a unique station on each line. After nearly 2 hours struggling through suspended services, I finally ticked one off - Bermondsey, on the Northern Line. Throughout it all, Boards of Canada were beating hard in my ears. Telephasic Workshop the best track, really hard on the bass, almost suffocating until it recedes to something more melodic. A real pleasant surprise. 4.5, but I'll whack a 5 on it for genuine glee.

Never heard of these guys and wasn't sure I would enjoy it after reading the wiki entry. Was actually pretty good. Very chilled electronic music. Kinda after party wind down vibes. I'm probably not going to be regularly listening to it, but it was much better than I was expecting. I liked turquoise hexagon sun and roygbiv 3.5

Ok to have on in the background if super focused. Not much to just listen to.

No fav song

Absolutely love this. Many memories of listening to this back in the day on a lazy Sunday.

It is well done but I fully understand, it's not everyone's taste. Today it's for rather boring than atmospheric. I like other pieces from them better. 3,1

I may never understand music like this. Fucking around with synths and a beat machine doesn’t make your music good.

Boards of Canada has been on my "listen to more" list for a long time, and I've had a couple songs of theirs in my playlists for a while, but nothing form this album. And at first I was a bit disappointed. I felt the first half of the album was a little too meandering, with "An Eagle In Your Mind" being the only real standout for me, but the back half is where it really broke through for me "Roygbiv" was probably my favorite on here, but "Aquarius" all the way through to the end was excellent in general!

Neat electric

Music does have the right to children. And despite some all right tracks on this long album, I have the right not to listen again. Alternative stolen from Norm Macdonald joke: I was Boreds of Canada. Top tracks: "Roygbiv," "Aquarius"

background music ass music. won't make the list of shit I'd listen to at work, but it's on that level. filed under stuff I should hear one (1) time before I die, maybe.

--Wildlife Analysis...sci fi intro. not sure where the wildlife is --An Eagle in Your Mind...it's peaceful, I guess. beat in the back half caused involuntary head boppage --The Color of the Fire...they're experimenting with something --Telephasic Workshop...another head bopper but it's too long to be this repetitive --Triangles & Rhombuses...more atmosphere --Sixtyten...more pleasantness, but we're getting samey and we're not yet halfway through --Turquoise Hexagon Sun...okay, we got a cool Portishead thing going on here --Kaini Industries...short but fun --Bocuma...short but not as fun --Roygbiv...some much needed heaviness has been added. Sounds similar to Radiohead's "All I Need" --Rue the Whirl...feels like Wu-Tang should be rapping over this. without a vocal distraction this is too long and too repetitive --Aquarius...bass is nice 'n' slick. synths make me feel like I'm grooving my way down to Silent Hill --Olson...sure --Pete Standing Alone...is Pete alone because he's annoyingly repetitive? --Smokes Quantity...more of the same --Open the Light..."a gathering of angels appeared above my head..." --One Very Important Thought...I appreciate the anti-censorship messages --Happy Cycling (bonus track)...of course it's eight minutes long

I think this album has to be heard in the right space. Apparently, listening while working in a busy office is not the right space. I appreciate what the artists are going for, but am not sure they got there. I'm glad this album came up and not another 70's BS folk album or other such nonsense.

pior que achei um álbum meio que ótimo pra ouvir enquanto escrevo ou leio alguma coisa, pra deixar de fundo mesmo

tem uns sons ambientes interessantes aqui mas é isso né

Akira Yamaoka ripped this the fuck off. Mix this, DJ Shadow and NIN together and it makes a Silent Hill soundtrack. It was alright, bit low energy.

I think this is pretty cool; kind of Aephex Twin adjacent but more experimental with its sample manipulation. Most of the tracks had multiple samples or production elements that mostly kept interest, despite the length. 3 stars

I tend to forget that I own this CD, so glad for the nudge to listen to it again -- which, I guess I'd say, didn't make me want to get rid of the CD, but also didn't make me think that I need to listen to it a lot. It's certainly a very pleasant listen. Tended a bit, for me, to fade into the background; wallpaper music, again, I guess - but high quality wallpaper (?). This is another one where it's interesting to ponder the effects of the passage of time on how we perceive music. Does this still sound groovy and cutting edge? Kinda yes, kinda no? But also maybe different for you guys (born around when this came out) than it is for me? (I'd hypothesize possibly less "cool" for you?) Anyway, to rate: a solid (even I think high) 3, but I don't think I can quite go to 4, though it is definitely tempting, and I could see *possibly* later regretting not doing so. But, no, I'm sticking with high 3.

I've seen artists and fans of artists that I like mention BoC as influential, so I'm glad to be listening to more of their stuff. That being said, I'm being reminded of why I don't normally seek it out; it's melodically and harmonically weak and uninteresting. The short interlude tracks are usually good because they have a bit of melody, but the longer tracks are mostly just beats. They're good beats, to be sure, with cool samples and textures, but I get tired quickly without melodic interest. I think I would have been better off listening on good speakers rather than earbuds. It's atmospheric music, with a sadness and nostalgia that I can appreciate. As it is, though, it's sitting between 3 and 4 for me

Probably need to go back to this one. It sounded fine, but still has yet to grab me. But I think it probably will eventually. Dig their 2026 album

A quite unique mix of the chaos and the calm, the beautiful and the unsettling. It takes a while to get going - the first half of the album gets repetitive to the point of boring, although Telephasic Workshop gives a hint at what is to come. Roygbiv is an album highlight, taking it's threatening opening and calming it down with it's gorgeous melody. Aquarius layers in cool funk, warm synths and random 'orange' while someone counts in an increasingly chaotic way. It's bizarrely beautiful, hypnotic and unnerving in parts, tunes manage to be repetitive, but never boring. It's another band that I'd not heard of before but I'm grateful to have been directed towards. 4 stars to an album that I needed to hear today.

lmfao okay. uhhh i'm a pretty big boards of canada fan. i have a boards of canada t-shirt. so this is interesting. i saw this was the only boards album on the list and my gut check was 'not the one i would've picked', but we'll see if i revise that, especially because this is not an album that i listened to start-to-finish much. i also tend to be really bad with song titles when music is instrumental. there are some tracks that i think are on here that do probably make it the 'archetypical' boards album, to be fair. but i think i prefer Geogaddi (and i love Tomorrow's Harvest but for whatever reason i have listened to that one as an album and think of it is a contiguous piece/concept album more in comparison to the others). i forgot that Wildlife Analysis is basically an intro track. maybe this *is* a contiguous piece more than i give it credit for i hit the vocal sampling on An Eagle In Your Mind and Boards does a specific kind of vocal sampling that is one of the things i love about it. it's often really distorted and hard to make out; sometimes (as in this case) it's less coherent speech and more speech remixed into an instrument. and when it's full speech it's generally contextless and evocative in an interesting way. i tend to really not like voice samples in music when they're too 'on the nose', for lack of a better term. eg i wasn't wild about the sampling on Inferno. i should give that album another chance but it didn't really blow my socks off. which is a shame because i spent like 8 years half-jokingly saying 'someday we'll get another Boards of Canada album' yeah okay this album has The Colour Of The Fire (and later Sixtyten); i can see how this is the one album you'd pick to represent this band's deal lol Telephasic Workshop is a personal favorite. the beat on it is weird and fun. it's even got the 'bordering canada' sample got to Triangles and Rhombuses and oh yeah this album has, like... 'interludes'. i feel like that sort of reinforces their work's vibe as being heavily inspired by/sampling old public access television but i can't really finish that thought oh wait Sixtyten is not the track i thought it was wtf. what the fuck track do they actually count and say 'sixty-ten' in, then?? fatass beat on this one though Roygbiv is another favorite and also probably another archetypical Boards track- vintage-y public access-y edutainment-y synths, weird vocal sampling, fat beat. i keep getting distracted because i've just put on the whole boards discography as background listening so many fucking times lmao Rue The Whirl has the awesome sampled, like... i keep wanting to describe it as an 'audio spiral', maybe because of the title, but i guess it's just a scale. some of this almost sounds backmasked? also it's occurring to me that i feel like a bunch of these tracks have the same or very similar beats, which i didn't notice before Aquarius is what i *thought* Sixtyten was. i can be forgiven; she literally says 'sixty-ten' in this one. if you had to give someone one track to explain what Boards of Canada is, it would probably be Aquarius. i've always assumed this is sampling sesame street but i guess i don't actually know. upon looking into it, this is apparently correct, thanks to an obsessive wiki that i'm going to have to dig through. there is some insane numerology shit in here. i know the band themselves gets into some of that but some of the stuff on this wiki feels like a fuckin stretch yeah okay Pete Stands Alone is another all-timer. i feel like this is the most Tomorrow's Harvest-ass track. i think the melody is similar to some stuff over there One Very Important Thought is where you decide if you like boards of canada or not. also it's weird to me that this isn't the final track. it feels like they're kind of doing a finale there with that after Open The Light but then we threw Happy Cycling in here the question is whether i just kneejerk give this a 5 or not. i think i do, because these ratings are non-objective, and i like this band in general and this album, and upon a relisten there's more classic good material here than i thought. sitting down and actively listening, i do think some of the tracks feel same-y in a way that tempts me to give it a 4, though i'm not sure how that compares to the other albums. i think this is a band where you *could* argue that a bunch of their songs are just the same song. however, i really like that song. so, well, you know. there's just something i think of as 'the Boards of Canada sound' that i really love and that a lot of people have imitated but i've rarely heard anyone else do it in a way i liked quite as much. sorry about me

Cool synth work, feels like ambient music for clubgoers. I liked this year's release of Inferno and I'm glad their earlier work didnt disappoint. 8/10.

2.5

Chamber pop and orchestral pop built from lush strings, brass, piano, and Neil Hannon's rich baritone feels completely subdued to me, like being submerged underwater, where the surface noise is muffled into silence at first, then I struggle to breathe as my lungs slowly fill with water, until eventually I stop fighting, go limp, and surrender to the darkness. The album's elegant arrangements and romantic grandeur never gave me a sense of release but instead left me feeling almost physically drained.

I have heard this album a million times. When I’m on hold with the bank, the insurance company, anyone with shitty music playing while you wait to talk to a real person. Considering how YouTube has impacted society it makes sense that I would need to listen to shitty royalty free music that plays while someone makes something. Why there are multiple boards of Canada albums on this list will remain a mystery to me.

Hypnotic

This was a good slice of ambient music. The sort of music I'd not often put on, but it's nice to have options when I do. The album felt quite computer game soundtracky. I could imagine it playing while a pixelated puzzle game went by.

Pretty boring, and when it wasn’t it was just okay, and when it wasn’t it was kinda of annoying.

Weird, a little too spacey/high

Watching paint dry is more entertaining

Top 10 album for me

Pretty good ambient. Enjoyable.

Listening to this felt sort of unpleasant, like I was trapped inside a washing machine. Maybe that's the point, I don't know. Every song sounds identical and some of them go on for so long. It feels like background music for a film or video game, and maybe in those contexts I would like it more. That's not to say I hated listening to this. I don't know, it's just confusing. I want to be open minded to new types of music but I just don't really care about this.

Two Scottish brothers built a studio called Hexagon Sun in a bunker in the Pentland Hills outside Edinburgh, named their project after the National Film Board of Canada, sampled bird noises from a 1976 French documentary, buried a recording from a 1982 adult film in one of their tracks, and accidentally left their closing song Happy Cycling off 500 copies of the initial North American release despite printing it on the artwork. Nobody noticed for a while. This tells you something about the kind of attention the album rewards and the kind it does not. One reviewer described the experience of listening as the musical equivalent of lying in a field of flowers on a warm spring day. Another described it as a full blown story that takes you down winding paths of tension and emotion, or alternatively, very legitimate background noise, the only difference being whatever you wanted it to be. That is either the most generous critical framework ever applied to an album or an elegant way of saying it works either way, which is itself a kind of achievement. Deadmau5, an actual Canadian, builds toward a drop, and has the decency to deliver it. Boards of Canada named themselves after Canada, are not Canadian, built a bunker in Scotland, and deliver nothing resembling a drop. The actual Canadians gave us the payoff. The fake Canadians gave us texture and withheld everything else, which is either meditative or deeply ironic depending on how you feel about truth in advertising. For ears calibrated on physical impact this was firmly the latter. 3 out of 5. Three stars for an album that is exactly what it intends to be, unhurried, textural, and completely indifferent to whether you are tapping your feet. Sometimes that is enough for a 3 had they any sense of a drop maybe I could have found another star.

More background noise, in a good way.

This band and this album are legendary in my 9th grade memory.

While the thoughtful construction and rich sound design are evident, "Music Has The Right To Children" ultimately feels too insular, distant, and repetitive to be engaging. It's not to my taste. Two stars. 1 "Wildlife Analysis" (3/5) 2 "An Eagle in Your Mind" (2/5) 3 "The Color of the Fire" (2/5) 4 "Telephasic Workshop" (2/5) 5 "Triangles & Rhombuses" (2/5) 6 "Sixtyten" (2/5) 7 "Turquoise Hexagon Sun" (2/5) 8 "Kaini Industries" (2/5) 9 "Bocuma" (2/5) 10 "Roygbiv" (3/5) 11 "Rue the Whirl" (2/5) 12 "Aquarius" (2/5) 13 "Olson" (2/5) 14 "Pete Standing Alone" (2/5) 15 "Smokes Quantity" (2/5) 16 "Open the Light" (2/5) 17 "One Very Important Thought" (2/5) Total - 36 Average - 2.1 413/1001 214/413 albums reviewed were new to me

whatever, dude

It’s all just a bit too boring. Tracks like ‘Kaini Industries’ and ‘Bocuma’ dont even develop beyond the initial opening. Just an album of background music

It made me fall asleep, which I suppose proves just how boring it was.

While I must applaud them for the immensely creepy album name, yesterday's album (that I hated) was only 30 minutes. This is an hour and 11 minutes! I wish people would embrace brevity with album run times... Telephasic Workshop was REALLY annoying. I sort of enjoyed Turquoise Hexagon Sun. Ditto Rue The Whirl. If I was just sat listening to this with the intent of focusing entirely on the music, I'd be having a bad time. As I listened to it while scrolling music posts on Reddit and drinking a cuppa it allowed me to tune it in and out. And I honestly started to enjoy it a little. At least enough that it easily avoids the indignity of a 1 star rating. I think this might be a 2.5 star album in a half star world, but I'm being generous and giving a 3 (which means I expect I will drag up my group's score significantly): 3/5

Väldigt experimentellt. Super wacky. Lite coolt men inget jag kommer lyssna på igen

i love ambient music

Lo sentí como música de fondo

Can't really rate fairly. I listen to very little instrumental electronic music, and what I do listen to is more song oriented than atmospheric.

Nothing worth registering to here

Jamais écouté avant. Pas grand chose à dire sur cet album, je ne suis clairement pas le public, et je ne connais pas suffisamment la musique électronique pour me rendre compte de son importance. Tout repose sur le mélange entre textures ambient souvent difformes et beats hip-hop midtempo lancinants. C'est très long et répétitif sur la longueur de l'album, mais entre la dimension organique, la chaleur humaine, apportée par les synthés analogiques et une espèce de malaise constant, de tension permanente mais jamais vraiment résolue, notre attention est sans cesse sollicitée, et on ne s'ennuie que rarement. Reste que je ne vois pas vraiment dans quel contexte je pourrais réécouter Music Has the Right to Children, qui a clairement l'ambition d'être un album de musique électronique "à écouter" plutôt qu'à diffuser sur les pistes de danse. Top : Roygbiv Flop : Smokes Quantity

Elektronisk. For ensformigt til at tiltale.

It is just a Very Good Album. It does have many repetitive elements, but that's the genre, and this is a defining album.

Es klingt hier wie ein endloses, verwaschenes Kinderzimmer‑Flimmern: nostalgisch gemeint, aber am Ende nur dumpfes Gejaule im Nebel.

Some nice sound choices. Like the more chill songs and the songs with voice samples.

Makes my brain itch. I’ve historically struggled with long albums that consist largely of electronic instrumentals. Whether they’ve been for the club, DJs, or ambient enjoyment (which is how I’d categorize this one), it’s been rare that I’ve found something I’ve really enjoyed. Unfortunately, this is not one of the exceptions. I respect the craft, and the attention to detail, and there were some musical ideas I did enjoy, but I was glad when this was over.

I haven’t heard of them before. They are not Canadian but I am glad they have Canada in their name. The name of the band is inspired by the National Film Board of Canada. Electronic music. Not a big fan. It is supposed to be dance music. Most of the songs you can’t dance. Vocals buried or nonexistent. Most of the songs are a self-indulgent mess. Pretentious. Some tracks are okay. Actually have a beat to it. At least, they are against censorship. A not very good album at all. Two stars.

Love these slightly spooky beats

Listens: 2 Standout Tracks: An Eagle In Your Mind, Aquarius File this album under weird. Not the good weird. Not the bad weird. Just weird. Found sounds, but not necessarily interesting sounds. Just childen playing or saying "orange" sounds. Ethereal soundscapes, but not particularly groundbreaking or exciting. I was thinking I could have heard some of these tracks being used as samples in other electronica music I've listened to; there are plenty of uses of the tracks by other artists, but none I am familiar with. I think if the album had been shorter, maybe 45 minutes, I would have enjoyed it more.

Very reminiscent of Linkin Park's Reanimation remix album, but years before. I am sure Mike Shinoda loves them

2/10 Not my thinb

Once again not my kind of music, but I see how it influenced lots of modern sounds.

Oh man I don’t think I paid even a bit of mind to this album. There is nothing to it.

Enough electronic music already.

This one took me by surprise! initially I was worried I would find the glitchy and repetitive sounds and words frustrating. The first couple of tracks sounded like some sort of mental illness! However, once I settled into it, I absolutely loved it! I'm coming back for sure!

This was perfect for ‘get work done’ mode today! Finished 2 jobs and billed them both within the time of this album!

It took a couple tracks for this one to click for me, but once it did I was hooked, it turns out this was exactly the album I needed this morning following a bit of a tough week. Such a peaceful, vintage atmosphere is created here, it's almost like an album of "lo-fi beats to relax/study to" but there is just an extra unknowable layer of care in the structure and more ambient/electronic aspects of these tracks that elevates them so much further than the standard fare you'd find in those sorts of playlists. I really can't find any fault here, it's full marks from me Fav Track: 4 - Telephasic Workshop

I hadn’t never listened to this album before & I found it so enjoyable to listen to. Will definitely keep listening!

Boring over all, but I found myself digging my head to several songs so I guess it's a weak 3...

Boring

To call it boring would be giving it too much credit.

I want to love boards of Canada but I just kinda like them.

Bad did not like

I'd only recently heard of this band due to the overwhelming positive reviews of their most recent album, Inferno. I tried listening to that a few weeks ago but couldn't really get into it. I had no idea there'd be another opportunity to listen to their music so soon. This album ended up being one I wanted to like more than I did. I thought it was interesting, especially the use of sound bites intermixed in many of the songs. I thought that some of the tracks had a good vibe to them, but then would either be too short or too long and not feel very satisfying. A few songs stood out. Wildlife Analysis was a good start. And I liked Roygbiv and Aquarius quite a bit. The rest fell into the too long or too short categories.

The best way I can describe the sound of this project is “backrooms elevator / hold music”. It maintains a constant eerie factor throughout the whole album where something just feels slightly off. I don’t understand it. It’s like an itch you can’t scratch. I considered one-starring this one, but because of the band’s ability to make me question what I’m listening to the entire time, it earns a coveted second star. It’s not bad. Just unnerving for the most part.

Yeah, I like this, but it's hard to pick out pieces because it's a lot of just good vibes. I missed track changes several times, so I'll "have to" listen to it again (oh no!) to pick out any more *specific* songs I may like. If I had a critique, it's that several tracks have huge shifts in like the last 30 seconds which makes it hard to pull them out as individual tracks to put on a playlist. But, technically, the rating is about an *album*! Since I docked Gorillaz points for being "more a collection of songs than an album", I have to give those points to this album instead. As a whole experience, it is a fantastic journey. This is so much the music I listen to at work. I already see myself just putting this whole album on again some days. Also: One Very Important Thought - HELL YES WHAT A MESSAGE TO END ON Overall rating 9.5/10 (5 stars)

I expected surreal. And that's certainly one word that works well to describe this. But finding more words to describe my time, that's something that I think I might find a difficult task. This album deals mainly in vibes and emotions, not so much stories and words. And I can't write a vibe. To open, there's absolutely a vibe here, in the first third or so, that gives late 80s/ early 90s educational tv. It's nostalgic. Reminds me of primary school, where my class would wander up to the library, to watch some kind of educational video. Afterwards, there's several tracks here which I feel tip-toe up to a line. The line being a boundary between childhood innocence, and creepiness - like the kid's laughter is somewhere it most definitely does not belong. I think that it generally stays on the nice side of that line. _The colour of the Fire_ might put a toe on the other side though. There's a remarkable block of stars running all through the middle third of this album. Five consecutive songs, all going into the playlist. That's impressive. The key to that section is emotion. Instead of just being a collection of cool noises, these tracks make you feel something, while only using minimal words to do it. Rating: it's gotta be a pretty good number. I certainly enjoyed the bulk of this album from a purely auditory perspective: the trip hop sounds, something which I now understand to be a hybrid of hip hop effects and electronic music, are highly enjoyable. But there's something deeper going on here. There's themes which are explored without so much as a single meaningful sentence. Childhood innocence, new life, the passing of a storm bringing light and rainbows. It goes to the heart.

snoozefest

Weird

I enjoyed that more than I expected. It rather wandered around the genres between downbeat, ambient, electronica and trancey, and reminded me of Aphex Twin and early Human League, but ... it satisfied a certain itch.

This wasn’t it. Most songs feel like a 30 second loop stretched out to 6 minutes with child voices randomly interspersed. Much better electronic albums out there

My second full listen, and it's just as great at the first. 5.5 bumped down to 5.

It’s definitely a 5. I always like to point out the sense of progression that always feels necessary in electronic music like this; if you’re too stagnant for too long, you risk losing the trance you’re trying to put the listener in, and once they’re out of that trance, a track may not hit quite the same even if they get back into it. This is an album that challenges that for me, at least in terms of how often I’d prefer tracks to progress. These tracks move slowly, perhaps meant to be comprehended & explored with the same deliberate over-explanation that some children need. I was definitely a curious enough kid that I’d ask too many questions about things. That probably annoyed adults who were desperate to move on. Music has the right to children, at least as much as it does to adults. This album, to me, feels like an exploration of trying to rediscover that same imaginative spark in your adulthood, weaving through a melted wave of childhood memories (hence, all of the samples of classic TV) & digging through them with the same slow deliberation befitting a child’s desire to learn. I’m often an advocate for tracks progressing more quickly, and while I found myself initially bothered by some of these soundscapes lasting for 2 or 3 minutes at a time without doing much, I later came to appreciate it, especially as the progressions themselves grew more complex & more engaging throughout the album. By the end, via the bonus track “Happy Cycling”, that repetition just felt like an essential part of what’s trying to be evoked here. It feels like a lesson in patience; if you continue to cultivate someone’s desires while making them earn it as opposed to just giving it to them, they’ll end up with a greater appreciation for what they’ve gained. That feels like this album’s ethos to me. Of course, mileage will vary on other people’s interpretations of these soundscapes, or their appreciation for electronic music in general. I find it disheartening that this has a 2.92 on the site, because it just tells me people aren’t engaging with this at the deeper level that’s intended, and that’s a shame. For my tastes, it’s one of the most complete electronica albums we’ve gotten on the list, and while that repetition I’ve come to appreciate is stopping me from going any higher than a 5 on a first pass, it’s very possible that with enough time, this could go as high as a 10. It seems like it can be that sonically fulfilling, and I truly hope it eventually will be for me. For now, it’s a very easy 5, and it feels like it should be mandatory for it to be on the list, even if you somehow get nothing out of it. It’s challenging, yes, but if you can accept that challenge, it might open up a greater appreciation for this style of music & what it’s trying to do.

I feel like i'm not sophisticated enough to enjoy this, music for pretentious pseudo-intellectuals with incredible attentions spans. 2/10 with 1 star from me.

First Listen: Feb 28 2024 this freaky ass album. eerie but kinda groovy. really weird vibe but i like it regardless

Enoish, w/ the same caretaking sentiments of ambiance & abstraction, yet I don't think quite as intelligent b/c not quite as lovable, Boards of Canada are classic to the extent that they're influential, but not much more for me. It's not a matter of being too long - Music Has the Right to Children is indeed too long tho - it's that by track 4 I was wondering how much longer. I like it as a sampled work of art, & it does pay its homages to hip-hop, which I not only appreciate but hold onto as a buoy of both sense + realism, but it also has its allegiances to trip-hop, a genre that, in its atmospherics, faceplants in pretentiousness (often not always). In other words, too Portishead to be anything I'd listen to again, it's a record I don't like but I understand aloofly.

Wednesday, 22 July, 2026 Great album. Doesn’t need the extra 25 minutes. But still great. Saw Kaki King in Ann Arbor tonight. Good music…way too much bad banter.

meh

Kinda listened to this at night at low volume in the background. I've tried to listen to some BoC before so I know what their sound is but I am not the biggest fan of them.

I love ambient music, but not for the sake of it. This is okay. Sometimes, it just doesn't flow very well. Glad to finally sit down and listen to it but I won't be rushing back to it.

Boards of Canada? Never heard. Tylsäää… Tässä kuitenkin olisi ollut potentiaalia hyväksi albumiksi, jos joku tuottaja olisi sanonut, että ”tehtäisiinkö vähän tanssittavampi biitti tms”. Tämmöisenä kuitenkin puuduttava. 2/5

Those tracks are excellent and full of experimental. But I think these songs are not linked or related to each other, this make the album sound like a songs collection of boards of canada

This was ok. A few songs were fun. Most kind of annoyed me. I

I really like the the 1001 albums list does not overlook electonica music like this. That said, wow, this is a long album with only a very few flourishes to excite interest along the way. It's cited in its inclusion for its influential nature, so perhaps I'm coming to it too late, after hearing a lot of music that has incorporated techniques and motifs found here. Someone with no prior experience with this kind of music might find this more interesting, if they listen to it with an open mind.

Listened to and fro Irvine Spectrum 70mm IMAX theater for Odyssey. Overall MEH. 2/5

Album #146: Boards of Canada – Music Has the Right to Children ⭐⭐ I studied Music Technology in college. I was very young when I did the course, and the class was made up of all sorts of different people. There were mature students who were grafters, electronic music nerds obsessed with hardware, production geeks fascinated by how dance music was made, pillheads who wanted to make dance music at any cost and complete wasters who didn’t know what they were doing with their lives and somehow ended up there. I was one of the complete wasters. Half the class seemed obsessed with Boards of Canada. They were one of those bands that inspired almost cult-like devotion. For me, though, they just never clicked. That isn’t to say I don’t like this kind of music. Aphex Twin would comfortably be in my top ten artists of all time, maybe even my top five. I absolutely adore his music. Sometimes I listen to it in complete marvel. But I think Aphex Twin has a human quality that Boards of Canada lack. Despite being entirely electronic, his music feels emotional, expressive and alive. Boards of Canada, by comparison, feel detached. I struggle to put my finger on it, but they just don’t move me. There is a lack of beauty. Years after college, I was on a long drive with my now wife, throwing random songs from a playlist through the car stereo. Happy Cycling came on, a Boards of Canada track I’d recently discovered and really liked. By the end of it, she turned to me and begged me to put on something less sleepy. I’m a sponge for other people’s opinions, and ever since then, whenever I think of Boards of Canada, that word immediately comes to mind: sleepy. Now, sleepy could be a good thing! In Boards of Canada’s case, it’s not. I feel bad saying it because it’s such a common and lazy criticism, but I find them boring. A rare feat, because on paper it’s very interesting music. From a production standpoint, the album sounds excellent. The beats are strong, the electronic textures are great, and there’s plenty to admire from a sound design perspective. One of the reasons so many in my class in college gravitated towards them. But the songs themselves rarely go anywhere. There’s very little movement or momentum, and it rarely takes flight. Rarely gets out of first gear. It’s unique, but not engaging. Do you know what it reminds me of? A bad acid trip. My main goal in college was mostly to take as many drugs as possible, and I did exactly that. I had my fair share of bad trips too. Listening to this album reminded me of those experiences, with all these little warped voices and distant samples sounding like paranoid conversations happening just outside your field of vision. It’s an uncomfortable atmosphere, but not in an exciting or frightening way. It’s just unpleasant. I like eerie music. I like unsettling music. I love music that scares me. But this is uncomfortable in a really boring way. It reminds me of working a job you hate, overhearing endless conversations you don’t want to listen to. It’s just oppressive without ever becoming engaging. I struggle to understand the context in which I’d ever choose to listen to this. There are things I genuinely appreciate. There are moments where the album is fantastic. I still think Happy Cycling is a brilliant track, despite what my wife thought. But she was absolutely right when she called it sleepy. And Roygbiv is a moment where the band gets out of their own way and makes something genuinely catchy. But it’s short lived. It feels, like a lot of these songs, like a sketch of a song, rather than a fully fledged song. Finally, I hate One Very Important Thought. Fuck off with your paranoid self-aggrandisement. No one is coming for your music Boards of Canada. A strong two stars, but two stars nonetheless.

Dull but very chill, ambient music. I want to hate on this so bad but most of this seems very happy when there is lyrics. There's children's laughter & talk of love. Part of me thought of whales having sex with modems, while other parts of me pictured the Northern Lights. Sometimes I felt like I was playing the greatest game of Simon ever. It's weird.2

Viel elektronische Musik, wenig Gesang. Für mich wenig spannend. 2/5

I think they did a great job at a type of music that is not for me

7/10

In terms of ambient music, this fits the bill, but is also a little more than that. Moments up upbeat brings this album back to the foreground in whatever I’m doing, and I enjoy it. Overall though, I rarely put it on, too many other albums edge this out.

Didn’t do anything for me

Masterpiece

Can’t get into the ambient stuff. Sounds like background music.

Boring

I've loved this album for many years. There is something about this music...the feeling of hazy childlike nostalgia, mixed with a sense of melancholy, and sprinkled with a sense of being slightly unsettling...that somehow hits me just in the right spot. Easiest 5 I can give.

My streaming sevice didn't offer yesterday's Funkadelic album. But they do have this album available? Time for me to rethink my choices. I'm old enough to remember 1998 and I can tell you it wasn't a 'must hear' back then either. Who or what is music like thismade for? People who WANT to be bored?

Different

One of the revelations of this project is how much I like electronic music. Unless it’s too ambient. This is a bit ambient in places for me to love. It was OK though and I appreciated the ideas behind it. Not sure how frequently I’ll listen though. Probably an album I need to spend a little more time with

Electronica. Unsure about this

This album was quite chill but I assume it was maybe intended as a background listen or to be used for soundtracks. Overall, not too bad but quite repetitive. Also, I guess maybe the beginning of LoFi in a way.

Influential as it may be, all I can use it for is background music or I will fall asleep.

Kom til BoC via samme dør som Aphex. Sammen med Autechre utgjør de den hellige treenigheten til Warp. Men jeg var lenge litt vippende når det kommer til BoC. Var egentlig ambivalent til downtempo i ganske lang tid. Likevel kjøpte jeg denne og Geogaddi da Warp trykka de opp på nytt 2016-ish, og spesielt denne har gått igjen og igjen. Vet ikke hva jeg skal høre på? Veien er kort til Music Has the Right to Children.

Et vanskelig album å bedømme. Jeg måtte høre det to ganger for å komme inn i det. Første del hørtes ut som en del ting som ble skrapt på og bokser med skrot som ble ristet på. Så ble det mer Air-aktige halvveis. Det er både ambient og groovete. Alle små motivene utgjør en stor reise og jeg følte jeg forsvant inn i albumet. Hadde fått toppscore om det var litt kortere.

Another loading screen album. This was at least somewhat listenable and quite nice as background music while I cooked dinner.

Man, I haven't listened to this album since the 2000s. And it's good. But shockingly, for relaxed beep boops, it's also kind of dated. Showing its age, if you will. It's such a specific listen that rating it broadly lessens it, but still, as good as I remember it, it's not that good now. Feels blasphemous.

Listened Before? N Blehhhhhhh... More wordless electronic music. This one sounds like the soundtrack to a rainy 7th day of a festival when everyone is exhausted and stinky. Added to Library? N Songs added to playlist: Wildlife Analysis (because it's short)

not for me

This was alright to have go in the background - I don't think anything in particular stood out here. With that being said, I don't think there was anything that sounded bad to my ears either.

Nice beat, sould listen to it again.

This is a wonderful collection of different sounds. A fair amount of it is like ambient music with a distinguishable beat with sampled vocals, like from a old TV show. It feels very nostalgic, peaceful and gives me imagery of nature. It also makes me feel that something isn't what meets the eye, has a bit of mystery to it. It has a pretty good atmosphere to it. I'll definitely have to check out their newest album they released this year (2026.) If I had to choose a favourite element of one song, it'd probably be either the spoken word in "The Colour of the Fire" or the bass part in "Aquarius." All in all, I think this was a good refreshing album that brings something new to my table. Highlight Song/s: "An Eagle in Your Mind", "The Colour of the Fire", "Turquoise Hexagon Sun", "Roygbiv" and "Aquarius"

Not _bad_ but honestly just mostly really boring. Music this repetitive just isn't for me - you can put as many sound effects, record scratches, general fuzzy layers... whatever over the top, but if your riff is 3 notes on repeat for 7 minutes I'm not going to have a good time.

So the songs are either forgettable interludes or ambient post-electronica songs that have no right to be 6 minutes long. I think each long song has a moment that is really good but not good enough or built enough to justify each one's length. Roygbiv is the only song that managed to be a short vibe. Quality over quantity. I usually like to think about how much I'd like a live show when trying to judge music. If this was a warm up act I'd love them. This is a vibe for 30 minutes. If they were the main act I'm leaving after 45 minutes. This album is 63 minutes long, I'm tempted to leave after 30. High 2

What is more interesting, this album from one BoC or a rate hike from the other BoC. The answer isn't obvious to me.

*Experimental* elevator music.

I was talking about Boards of Canada with my Dad last night, and behold! Great album - lovely textures. Favourite track: Happy Cycling

Was between a 2 and a 3 as didn’t hate this, but would I listen again? No

Um not sure what happened here

Lovely stuff. Too review guy doesn't like Black Sabbath by Black Sabbath off the album Black Sabbath. What a jackass!

Rubbish

ambient que no me entraba del todo ayer

+1 star from the anti-censorship thing at the end

It's pretty chill electro music. Good to fall asleep to, or smoke to, maybe.

3.5/5

I feel like I'm haunted now.

This is a great album. It's got an effortless flow and spacey ambiance. It's aged really well.

p839. 1998. 1 star. Tedious, meandering and pointless 90s electronic noise that sounds like the rejected background music for a failed computer game. This is dreadful stuff. WTF is this doing on the list?

People on this website have NO whimsy, BOC is my favourite electronic artist and while this isn't as good as Geogaddi, it's so joyous and playful and has the same nostalgic tone all BOC music has. Roygbiv is at least top 2 electronic songs of all time, only maybe behind Glory Box by Portishead.

Not sure what to say about this except I'll definitely be exploring this album and group further and adding this album to my personal collection ⭐⭐⭐.51? ⭐⭐⭐⭐?

I fucking love Boards of Canada. They make absolutely perfect background music for any task, but it's also engaging to actively listen to. Haunted samples, frenetic drum patterns, and soft synths all cohere into something that feels truly timeless. Here's to hoping we at least get Geogaddi on this list as well!

This was pretty interesting. No real strong feelings either way. It went by a lot more quickly than I was expecting.

would go hard on the weather channel Standouts: Wildlife Analysis • An Eagle In Your Mind • Telephastic Workshop • Roygbiv • Rue The Whirl • Aquarius • Pete Standing Alone • Happy Cycling

Honestly hard for me to rate, but there were plenty of moments I really liked and it held my attention for its entire length which is an accomplishment.

Ambient is ambient. There's a bit of scratching going on but really the answer to this always is Brian Eno. Although I've realised that the second track is a maker or breaker with records, the second track here was a horror story.

As I write this review, Boards of Canada have just released ‘Inferno’, their first record in a dozen years, with a full-court press of record label publicity. They are all over the music news sites, viral online marketing, and I even saw billboard size posters (in Sydney, Australia!), and all I can think of is how much that must have cost and what are the honest expectations for sales? Surely BoC make most of their money from licensing tracks for film, TV and advertising. Taylor Swift-scale marketing just seems… overly ambitious for what it is. And what is it? It’s pleasant British instrumental electronica album with an interesting retro sound. I like the old synths, cut up dialogue, and tape ambience, that harkens back to 70s and 80-s library music, soundtracks, educational films, faded family photographs, BBC radio plays, and other forms of ephemera. Simon Reynolds, in his influential piece ‘HAUNTED AUDIO, a/k/a SOCIETY OF THE SPECTRAL: Ghost Box, Mordant Music and Hauntology’ (https://reynoldsretro.blogspot.com/2012/05/) credits Music Has the Right to Children as presaging the hauntology scene. He does some interesting analysis of what hauntology is and how it differs from popular music’s general tendency to recycle its own past (I am not sure I entirely buy his arguments about why this is intrinsically different from any other musical simulacrum). And frankly, any analysis that requires me to engage with the work of Jacques Derida makes my head hurt. To summarise (possibly unkindly), if you’ve seen a Scarfolk Council poster, then you really have a handle on what this is all about. I’m not convinced it is all that deep. I appreciate the aesthetic, but I have no need to deeply engage with the lore of it all (and that component of engagement with lore seems to have grown exponentially with BoC in the decades following this album).

An all-timer. Feels good to listen to. Have always loved and will always love BoC.

I saw this was ambient electronica and was dreading it, but I actually dug this quite a bit. I liked the way they manipulated the sounds. I don't think I could listen to this all the time but I can see it being played if I need something low key. I definitely think Radiohead was influenced by this on some of their later work.

not really into this kind of electronic music, so I don't hear the masterpiece everyone says it is

I always confuse this with Broken Social Scene for some reason. I guess the Canada thing? Maybe they are friends. I think I would have liked this more if I’d gotten it in the winter.

One of my most listened to albums of all time. Their whole discography belongs on this list.

Such a textural vibe. Love it

wow parece un album contemporáneo, no de mis favoritos de esta app pero super interesante el concepto y nuevo para mis oídos

Music Has The Right To Children - Music Has The Right To Children 1998 Music Has The Right To Children ultimately did not give too much, making it a distinctly passable experience. While the underlying ambient techno concepts and vintage textures are clear, the execution fails to leave a lasting impact or offer enough substance to truly captivate. It sits squarely in the middle ground not entirely terrible, but too hollow and uneventful to warrant a higher rating. 2/5

Took a while for me to warm up to it since its not typically what I listen to, but a lot of songs are nice. Especially Rue the Whirl

great background music. would forget I even had it on. not a fan of ambient music but if I were to listen, it would be this.

Background music, good though

One of the premier albums in the IDM genre, which stands for 'intelligent dance music.' Naturally, you do need a certain level of knowledge to understand and enjoy this phenomenal album, much like the other Warp Records alumni. The chilled-out tracks from this duo were pivotal for branching social and energetic electronic music out into a more reserved, yet densely textured genre for people with an above-average IQ.

this music is scary, haunting. I kept imagining being stuck in a maze of some PS1 video game. My only beam of sunlight was imagining an addition of Mike Shinoda rapping over some of these tracks. I love you Mike Shinoda. I didn't love this album. Well, not quite. Turns out, it gets more "positive" towards the middle of the album. That is if you are brave enough to listen in. Mike's lyrics would get stronger there ohh yesss. But then you have this track with women counting. Oh no. Awful lot of counting.

4.5

DNF

What a waste of studio time.

My second attempt at listening and I’m just confused. ‘The colour of the fire’ - I mean is this some brain takeover stuff or what… the weird ‘I love you’ it was like being hypnotised!! ‘Aquarius’ baby crying a woman saying numbers and a bloke calling out orange… come on man… why the fuck is this album on the 1001 albums to listen to I keep asking myself... but at the same time musically it’s different and it grabs the attention at times. Not sure I would ever come back to it but I fully appreciate what I listened to at times- just slightly confused as to what that actually was though! Best track- ‘roygbiv’ Worst track- ‘ Aquarius’ 7.5/10

Boards of Canada What a beautiful album. Somehow these guys have created electronic music full of nature and humanity and humour and love. Every second of this was a treat and the perfect example of the IDM genre. Tracks come and go each one like a mini landscape, or journey, or short story. But always engaging, listenable and novel. Genuinely don't sound like anyone else. Lots of favourites but I kept coming back to Pete Standing Alone. A haunting repeating motif that evolves over complex scratchy beats reminiscent of early Aphex Twin. Worst Track - Kaini Industries. But still enjoyable, particularly the closing few seconds that sound like the Mice on the Mouse Organ having a clog party off in the distance. 9/10

not bad

I listen to a lot of music in this space, where it is almost a wallpaper to life rather than actual albums to hone in on. I think the reason that this scores relatively low for me is that I actually occasionally got sucked into paying attention to this - for me this kind of thing works best setting a mood without actually drawing attention to itself. It was still good enough but there were a few points that drew me out of my reverie with it.

excellent

ma olen šokis, et ma sellest midagi ei teadnud

Didn't expect much, but did enjoy listening to this in the background while I worked.

I'm relieved that this band is not Canadian. I was dismayed that the country that gave us Joni Mitchell and Neil Young would also give us this drivel.

Weird but not in an enjoyable way, just kinda boring weird.

Electronic, groundbreaking fit, best of genre

I was about to label this whole project as moot if I didn't see this record included, but, here we are. Boards of Canada is one of the most interesting musical concepts in existence. There is literally nothing else like them and they are their own distinct sound. I was first introduced to them, and this record, in the early 2000s and I have always adored this record. The compositions, the patterns, the melodies, the effects that they conjure and sequence so artfully and experimentally. It's music that really makes me understand that there are no boundaries when creating music and we as humans have the capacity to make such beautiful sounds, all without following a template or expectation. This record encompasses all of that for me. The moods are eery, nostalgic, lighthearted, contemplative, and emotional. It's a sound that I have not heard or felt from anyone other artist like I do with BOC. Music Has The Right To Children is BOC's easier records to listen to, and the one I always encourage my friends to first listen to when being introduced to them. For anyone still reading this, if you want a darker, more complex experience from BOC, listen to their record "Geogaddi." I was first introduced to BOC and Music Has The Right while on a decent amount of mushrooms, so I always suggest folks listen to BOC while indulging in psilocybin - what an experience, though not necessary to simply enjoy what this group manifests.

Practically synonymous with hauntology, and revered for good reason. Radiates an eerie yet contemplative aura. The beats hit hard and the synths surround you and shift like slow-moving clouds, the kind you could almost see images in if you squint, is that a face? a rabbit? I love the way samples are used on here, far removed from any normalcy or context, never quite feeling legible or safe. Great music to sink into.

boards of "canada" but is scottish... much to consider

Замечательный альбом. Вроде как, он легендарный, база ИДМ и электроники 90-х в принципе, но, так уж вышло, послушал я его только сейчас. Обычно ИДМ и прочее электронное звучит довольно хаотично, но тут очень равномерный, и очень атмосферный альбом, в основном на мотив расслабленного трип-хопа, но в таком, более мрачном и немного тревожном настроении. Слушая его, я понял, откуда брали идеи некоторые из моих любимых музыкантов. В общем, я рад что я его услышал.

Not my genre of choice but I didn’t hate it.

Hey, this album. I've been assembling pre-written reviews for the albums over an hour in length lately. In my long list of to-hear albums, this one has always stuck out to me for how fucking stupid the title is. Anyways, I don't want to come out swinging with the negativity, so I'll instead say that I'm interested in hearing what a Boards of Canada album sounds like. If I'm not mistaken these guys are an experimental rock/electronic band, so I'm happy to be challenged with what I'm about to listen to. Here goes. Well, well, well. Forgive me for judging an album by it's title. This was cool. It's much too fucking long mind you, but it's cool nonetheless. I can definitely see this album getting better with subsequent listens and the runtime is fitting for this album's standing as an atmospheric electronic album. Speaking more on the music itself, it's solid. I can never get enough of these Moog-sounding synths. They have a pretty nice, sleek sound to them and are put to good use across the album's runtime. The compositions of this album are commendable as well, being generally deliberate, purposeful and distinctive. Other embellishments like the jittery, garbled vocal samples are welcome additions and add an interesting rhythm of the music. Overall, this was solid. Whether it claws its way up to a four-star rating remains to be seen, though this stands as one of the better albums I've listened to through this site. Book time. "Some artists make music so unique, they challenge not just your taste but your understanding of music." This album created "...a seismic shift in the electronica scene" by pivoting electronic music towards a soft, melodic sound underscored by darker synths. It "...proved [...] that electronic music was not just intellectually stimulating, it could achieve real emotional depth as well." The album cover is iconic and "...captures the essence of the music with its themes of nostalgia, the natural and the artificial, the sinister and the serene." Wikipedia says this album is an eclectic mix of old synths, a lo-f analogue production, found sounds, samples and hip-hop rhythms. It was beloved by critics at the time of release and has received enduring acclaim in the years since. It only cracked No. 193 on the UK charts and charted nowhere else. Yeah. This album has certainly earned its stripes. I'm honestly favourable to Boards of Canada having a second list album because of illustrious their reputation is and how influential their music has been, though for the time being, I'm content with letting this one through. I cosign this inclusion.

Classic

I'm sure if I was more into electronic music I would understand the significance of this album and how influential it was. As it stands I thought it was just ok and a bit boring. The kind of music you can throw on in the background while working. Too long at times but thats about it. 2.5 rounded down to a 2

I kept expecting the music to pick up for a while until I realized that this was an ambient album. I was going to give a bad review because I wasn't enjoying it in the beginning, but as it went on I think I started liking the overall sound. Not my favourite, but it's okay. Some parts really reminded me of the Minecraft soundtrack. 3/5

Acid trip. Mom come pick me up I’m scared

Soms grappig, maar echt mijn ding niet

Word er een beetje nervous van

The more I listen to it, the better it gets.

Very chill and spacey

This was solid background electronic music. Not bad.

I can kind of see why someone would this, but it got pretty repetitive right at the beginning and there wasn’t enough variation to help

I don’t mind a bit of electro, and ambient music has its place. However… this appears to be ambient electro but written in the most annoying way possible. Repetitive, irritating samples. Out of time and off kilter beats. I don’t get the appeal at all. This was not a relaxing commute.

This is an album I could keep listening too, it's symphonic treat for the ears

How in the world is this on this list.

What even is this. Sounds like the soundtrack to a psychological horror film. And what does that title even mean?

Actually not a bad soundtrack for a drive up the coast, but I can't imagine actually paying attention to it

2.5. i get the appeal i guess. maybe ill fully get it one day

Really interesting contrast to yesterday's album, Ágætis byrjun by Sigur Rós (And yeah, weird that this sometimes happens. I got the Adam and the Ants album right after Fear of Music by Talking Heads. Two very similar albums that I had wildly different experiences with). Now, the difference between these two isn't as large as that with Adam and the Ants and Talking Heads (Liked Adam, hated Fear of Music). Where Ágætis byrjun left me wanting a bit, I'm enjoying Music Has the Right to Children more. There's a little more to latch onto with this one for me, and it's definitely more of a vibe. Especially the slight creepiness to a track like Sixtyten. One thing I noticed perusing the RYM genres on this album, is that it's listed as Hauntology as a secondary genre, which I think is helping a lot with my enjoyment of it too. It's quite a bit different from the only other artist I've heard that delved into that genre (The Caretaker), but I'm enjoying it nonetheless. It's definitely got that kinda melancholic, creepy nostalgia to it. I will say, some of the filler tracks like The Color of Fire I'm not big on, with the vocal samples just being weird to me. Also, this album is definitely giving me Mirror's Edge vibes a little bit, especially on a few of the earlier tracks. Just that pristine, white, slightly happy but dystopian feel. Also, another comparison that I think I'm hearing in this is Ulver's Perdition City. That one's on the darker side, but still getting similar vibes. (And not to keep on piling the comparisons, but all these comparisons are stuff I really like, and a track like Aquarius is reminding me a bit of the Silent Hill 2 soundtrack, although the vocal lines I'm really disliking on this track. Overall MHtRtC would be better IMO had they cut all the vocal lines out) But yeah, overall this is a hell of a record. Not one I'd go back to that often, but definitely when I want this specific vibe. Reading that their follow-up, Geogaddi, has more of a darker sound, I'm definitely going to have to listen to that soon. Feel like as much as I like this one, the darker sound on the follow up will be more my feel.

I just can't phantom under what circumstances someone would want to listen to this. Not suitable for the car, the gym, a party, or listening alone at home. Maybe serviceable as background noise while studying or performing chores.

Although there wasn't anything here to make me sit up and take note, and there's no way I would go out of my way to listen to this again, it wasn't awful. After the first ten minutes or so it slipped into the background, never to return. But the hour or so it lasted wasn't unpleasant. I kind of liked the retro feel, but it just never went anywhere interesting. Two stars.

What the hell is this album doing on this list? It ain't just Canada that's board! Utter drivel. It's like the big bang theory cast got keyboards from Argos during lock down and this is what they came up with.

One of the best ambient albums I’ve listened to. Also weirdly unsettling

A classic of my college years.

Repetitive, weird and boring. A bad album.

I get it, but I would not seek this out as a listening experience.

Good vibing tunes

too long

I love this band for sometime, but I don’t think I’ve ever like sat down and really dissected a full album by them. It’s always just been tracks. Holy shit. This album is amazing. Listen to it twice last night. Definitely need to listen to it. More lot going on there’s definitely some hidden lore in here. Real cool experience thanks generator.

I like it when I don't pay attention to it.

❤️‍🩹

So beautifully atmospheric and pushing the boundaries of electronic music. So no surprise the userbase here isn't a fan. There's so much more to this album than just people are making there out to be, just dismissing it as an annoyinly long and pointless experience. This isn't the kind of album you can just sit down and listen to and put 100% of your focus into it, in fact there are very few albums that are best experienced like that. Have this on in the background while you do other things and let it transport you to a whole new world, the atmosphere is like nothing else, there's something almost dreamlike about this album.

Boring

This is an album you need to be in the mood for. It’s not something I’d throw on a playlist, but rather an album to put on and just disappear into.

Eh…

3.5/10 This album is so sterile it can't even get children.

Что можно ожидать от альбома, где треки называются "Урок Телефазии", "ШестьдесятДесять", "Бирюзовое Шестиугольное Солнце" и "Пит Стоит Один" (примеч. автора — наверное, Пит стоит "очень угрожающе")? Вероятно, что угодно, но я точно, бля, не ожидал услышать "настоящую музыку" только к 32ой минуте. Альбом первопроходцев IDM (интеллектуальной танцевальной музыки, т.е. когда ты дрыгаешься под эмбиент с редкой ударкой, попивая безалкогольное вино в берете) на бОльшую часть состоит из беспорядочного бибикания расстроенных синтезаторов, сэмплов рандомных фраз (особенно позабавил счёт вразнобой случайных цифр, перемежающийся постоянно проигрываемым словом "orange!", в треке Aquarius) и общей атмосферы заунывной шизофрении. Есть и прикольные треки вроде качественного абстрактного хип-хоп бита на Rue The Whirl и достаточно светлой и "музыкальной" композиции Roygbiv, но их можно посчитать по пальцам одной руки токаря из глубокой глуши Алабамы, где практикуется кровосмешение. Хер знает, что прорывного было в этом альбоме, если Aphex Twin уже был на хайпе к 1998ому году и делал вполне себе безумную экспериментальную электронику, но в которой одновременно был скилл, прикол и структурность. Лучше уж Selected Ambient Works послушать в который раз, чем шизеть, напряжённо вслушиваясь в предтечу саундтрека главного меню Spore. Главный вывод: похоже, я всё же бидла... Поставлю 3/10 по количеству треков, с которых можно не сойти с ума на этом релизе.

First time listening to them. For some reason I thought they're a rock band and that they're actually from Canada (they're none of those things). The overall vibe of the album was cool albeit not too many tracks stood out. Still something tells me that's a 3/5 album 3/5

Shame on me for never having paid attention to this album. It’s fresh and interesting—far more interesting, IMHO, than the “usual” electronica album. Cool (hip-hop?) beats, cool sounds.

It was just Ok. Barely Ok background music.

I gotta admit, it took me 3 whole days to go through the album. But it was a good experience! I don’t love electronics, but the vibes and beats were fun and chill for some morning writing, which I appreciate :)

More like Bored of Canada. This repetitive go-nowhere music did nothing for me.

Mmmmmm. More soothing bleepy bloop please

Thoughts before listening: Another one of those albums that I have consistently seen highlighted on best of lists, but that I have never really tried to listen to. I feel like it's techno of some sort, and likely better served as background music. Review: You know what, I just bought some new headphones, and this is probably the perfect album to try these bad boys out. This thing sounds amazing. I get bored with this type of music very easily, but it's hard to deny just how effectve this is when played in high fidelity. The music is heavy on the mid-tempo hip hop bass beats with twitchy samples peppered in throughout. It's not dissimilar to music I enjoy from Kid A-era Radiohead, but I need vocals and organic instrumentation for music to really resonate with me. That is missing here. I'll give this 3-stars while acknowledging it is obviously a huge achievement in the world of electronic music.

One of the all-time best 'get your head down and concentrate' records. Aural manifestation of a flow state.

Heady, trip hop, psychedelic and vibey electronic album. Boring at times, inspiring and moving at others. There are probably superfans of this album but mostly casuals as it remains kinda niche. Aside from two tracks mostly blase not for me.

Fornuftigt elektronisk lyt, simpelt, og ambient. Jeg hyggede mig især med at undre mig over hvorfor jeg har hørt så meget af det før. - Jeg kom frem til at det bliver brugt som lyd tapet til uendeligt mange P3 podcasts som eksempelvis "Hvem er..." serien.

Fucking kedelige elektroniske lyde

Who turned on my recorder?

Really enjoyed this. Love an ambient album that still has some interesting melodies and ideas scattered about. This is definitely an album you want to be doing stuff when listening though, as I can see this becoming tedious if you listen and only that. Only song I disliked was the one with lyrics lol. Just goes on too long and feels disconnected from the album. Face Track: Turquoise Hexagon Sun

Not my thing. But interesting.

Recuerdo la primera vez que escuché este álbum de Boards of Canada. Me lo recomendó mi hermano, quien es mucho más fan de la música electrónica que yo. Ya había escuchado demasiado rock y el formato tradicional me estaba comenzando a aburrir. No tenía idea de lo que era el IDM, en mi cabeza la electrónica era aplicable solamente a contextos de discotecas o de baile. "Music Has The Right to Children" abrió un nuevo mundo para mí, haciéndome escuchar a otros artistas seminales como Royksöpp o AFX. Vi cuál era la clasificación general de este disco en las reviews y la encuentro criminalmente baja; las texturas, la psicodelia y los ritmos lentos son sumemnte complejos y atrapantes, transportándote a paisajes fríos y mecánicos, que no dejen de sorprender con su belleza cromática y brillante. Destacaría pistas de este LP como suelo hacerlo, pero encuentro que es un disco que uno tiene que escuchar completo. La única anécdota que puedo dejar es que "roygvib" fue empleada como el tema principal de los comerciales de una institución educativa de mi país, Chile. Un LP realmente perfecto en mi opinión.

I enjoyed parts of this album immensely, but every time any sort of 'vocalization' came around - ANY type - I was immediately turned off. And by the end I was just ready for something else. Though, the 'bonus track', Happy Cycling, might have been my favorite of the bunch. I want to give it a 4; I just can't.

No, this just feels lazy and pretentious and didn’t need to be recorded. I don’t understand why anybody would sit down and listen to this unless they were dead already.

There were some cheesy 90s moments but much less than I was expecting.

Headphones required! Landmark electronica, sounding as good today as it did in the 90s.

I think they played this in the lobby of the last hotel I stayed at

II only knew of Boards of Canada from remises they'd done of other bands, so I was quite keen to hear what they sounded like. Kind of downtempo electronica - I liked what I heard.

I would have said 4, but I'm giving this a 5 to balance out the haters

ORANGE One of my favourite electronic albums, such an uncomfortable almost creepy vibe (true discomfort is found in their later Geogaddi), weirdly nostalgic sound, but with thudding beats that i’m happy to get lost in nonetheless. Roygbiv feels like the distilled core of the album that the rest all whirls around. Lovely synthy reverby melody. If you dont get it, listen to that until you do I think being a big half life fan primed me for liking this album somewhat, the HL2 soundtrack draws from this a lot imo Feels like every time I listen to it there’s some weird new vocal sample that wasn't there last time ORANGE

Just not my type of music, I tried but there’s just nothing here that particularly interested me. I thought Roygbqpgv was going to be alright when it started but it just sort of fizzled into nothing 1.5

Classic of IDM.

3.5

the goats are The Board

Music for head shop franchisees. Electronic music more or less all sounds the same to me at least the "earlier" made electronic music. Not offensive but bland and boring.

Tedious

Chill beats ro study and relax too X aphex twin

I really tried

I actually liked some of the tracks, especially Roygbiv. But this will just never be my genre.

Boards or bored? Didn't like this at all. Nothing different or exciting.

Great for not paying attention to

Noise pollution

This is a very pleasant sounding album. The sonic textures are rich and calming. It's something I might put on as background music while I write or while my students are working on a project. But what makes the album so chill and unobtrusive also makes it largely forgettable.

This is a nice chill album and fit my mood today. It was like one hour long song. The Orange/Counting song (Aquarius) was odd, but I kinda liked it. I dig the album cover too, it's appealing in a way I can't describe.

It was fine. It reminded me of Orbital, Dorian Concept, and Liminal a little bit. Very vibey, cool, and impressive musically. Overall, I would give it a 3.1/5!

This is one of the most disturbing albums I’ve ever listened to. It sounds what I imagine a bad acid trip would feel like.

Interesting and beautiful. There are some parts that sound quite house, some hip hop, a lot of post rock feel. A rock band going electronic before kid a. I think I like the times when it's spending longer track times building up an atmosphere rather than the times where there are short interludes, but I guess these work like little pallete cleansers

Boring music combined with pretentious titles. This is what AI generated music aspires to move away from

cool sounds here but to my uneducated self sounds like an early lofi beats to study to

Yeah.. it's not bad, but it's a very hard one to review. It's chill and ambient-y, and sits nicely enough in the background. There's just not really much to grab hold of is there? Nothing about this album is going to excite you, but you might enjoy having it on in a non-committal kind of way.

No thanks.

They were doing some interesting things with fragments of voice sampling and scratchy sounds against synths. I appreciated it more on a intellectual/mathematical level rather than music for pleasure. Favorite songs: Sixtyten, Aquarius

Interesting and exploratory. A different mood, but good in that context.

Not enjoyable...just noise.

Like actually in what world did I have to hear this album? Is this a joke?

f(t)=Asin(2πωt+ϕ)

Optimal listening time at night relaxing and enjoying the deep instrumental soundscape they create.

Boards of Canada meet the Boreds of Scotland.

Pleasantly surprised by this one with no familiarity of the artist. Briefly considered putting it on again to go to sleep to last night. Will probably get added to my playlist of TTRPG background music.

I did NOT expect to enjoy this as much as I did. It's ambient trip-hop with drum machine beats, random vocal samples, and repetitive, layered synthesizer noises...but it's really well done, and I found it surprisingly pleasant to listen to. Traces of Enigma, middle-years Genesis keyboards...I dunno, man, but I would happily pop this one in when I just needed to veg for a while. And I don't even do drugs!

More electronic. Yay. This list heavely favors European bullshit and dance/electronic music. As you can tell I have low expectations. First sign is not really a song it’s just sounds. A eagle is a Classic 6 minute electronic song that’s about 3 mins too long. The color of fire sucks. Better production on telephasic, but it has the classic bullshit vocals for no reason at all. Also 2 mins too long again. Triangles and rhombuses wasnt bad. Maybe the beta so far. Pretty normal. Just not a good or necessary sample on sixtyten. Again 2 mins too long. This is another album where it sounds like it was made by a 7th grader who was introduced to Apple Music for the first time. At best this album was getting a 2.5 because it missing half of what make a perfect album right of the bat (singing). But the production is nowhere near perfect so it ain’t getting a 2.5 either. Extremly simple beats. Bad samples/vocals. I don’t understand how this album made this list. Not even halfway over and I’m ready to quit. The best songs are the one minuters. Bocuma is very relaxing. Nothing more to say abt that. Actually really like the production on roygbiv. Hate the vocals. Just no reason to add that. I actually don’t mind rue the whirl as well. Another one that is twice as long as it needs to be but good beat. Back to bullshit with Aquarius. Classic song for this album, way longer than it needs to be and bullshit vocals/samples. Why are the beta songs 1 minute long. And after hearing what feels like the exact same song for the 6th time I’m all set with this album. Maybe it’s good if you like electronic. To me it was very unimpressive, lacked uniqueness from song to song, and left me feeling like I wasted so much time. Don’t waste your time, there’s no way in hell this is a top 1000 album of all time. .7/5.

Music Has The Right To Children despite being a really goofy name is a really good electronic album. This album mostly goes with a very trip-hop-esque sound but definitely adds a lot of ideas to make it really unorthodox with one of the comments for one of the songs saying it best (i forgot which one it was) that this sounds like music for computers. This album isn't gonna be for everyone but i can tell that these guys took a risk and it ended up paying off as i really do vibe with the very hypnotic nature of this album and each song had some kind of cool element which made them very enjoyable to listen to. Its an acquired taste for sure but it's also clearly a labor of love and i can absolutely appreciate that. Best Song: Sixtyten Worst Song: The Color Of The Fire

I enjoyed this one. Nice album to have on while working or exercising. Sort of a proto-lofi beats, but with a bit more interest. Lots of fun samples, and where there are any words, there's a clear social conscience at work. This feels like electronica that stands the test of time.

Respect what they did, but it was a bit more zen meditation on the proof of concept of avant garde music than a breakthrough that deserves to be reheard many times. While I could see me not revisiting this album very often, I could see myself revisiting this album while on a long early morning walk in a new town or city while on vacation. There is something just meditative about it. With Aphex Twin, Orbital, and Leftfield, it helped further define where directions soundscape music could go. I'd Spectre VII in there as well. Favorites: "Telephonic Workshop"

Tranquilamente podrían tener un parentesco con el disco +bien de Gustavo Cerati (?

Somehow never listened to Boards of Canada despite this being one of my favorite genres. It was fantastic and I was bummed that it's the only one of their albums on the list.

It felt like the start of songs...someone was messing around making beats and showcasing them to the rest of the band to make an actual song. Instead it was just unfinished ambient noise

I have a soft spot for 90s electronica, but this felt like amateur hour. It had decent ambience here and there but mostly just felt like they were just playing around with sounds and calling them songs.

I know that this is an album that is generally well regarded and has a lot of fans, but I find it way too uneven of a listening experience to be drawn in by it. When the music is great it's really great, but when it's not I find it a chore to get through. Honestly, if I'm ever in the mood for this kind of music, I'll just listen to an Aphex Twin album.

It's interesting at least. Good background music while I'm working.

Esta banda es de mis favoritas, de las pocas que me he comprado discos en digital por no encontrarlos de otra forma. Sin embargo, este es su disco que menos me gusta. Se queda con un 2, y recomiendo escuchar otros discos suyos antes que este.

Absolute IDM classic. I come back to it regularly.

This is the album that taught me music can be weird and changed my music taste completely. Can’t give it less than 5 stars.

Good but sloggish

It was ok. Spacey synths, trippy beats, nature documentary samples, noise

Not to be shallow right but I think this is dogshit.

More like Bored of Canada. Just kidding. Mellow. No. Offensive, Chill.

I enjoyed the message on the second last song but overall not for me. Sounds like I'm sitting in a hipster bar drinking from old jars while this plays to loud to converse with friends

Electronica crossed with ambient. Eno could learn something from these guys. Kinda mellow and kinda foot tapping too. And plenty of earworms if you let them burrow into you. Not bad. Telephastic Workshop is superb.

It's not the worst electronic music I've ever heard. It's still electronic music though.

Ambient soundtracky stuff. If a surf documentary got a ahold of this… lookout! Also, would be fun to flow state to, work out, etc.

Die musig het ned nur the right to children, die musig het the right to ufe und abe glost, gnosse und vergötteret zwerde und the right zum es fast perfekts Album zsii. Da han ich ohni zwiifel au the right zum denne 5 Chindergeburtstagschueche ih ihri gesichtslose schnurre zdrucke.

ufffff feed me grapes and call me daddy boards of canada is in the house wo's recht hend hend's recht: music DOES have the right to children! vorallem wenn sie so verdammt guet isch wie das meisterwerk! en wunderschöni reis woni zum erste mal dur's ganze album han döffe erläbe – hed sich meh als glohnt <3 da werdet 5 ahornblätter uf's brett klopft

ambient, i like!

This aint it

test

Really enjoyed this one, but the weather was pretty damn perfect for it. A perfect chill album for some rainy day introspection. I think pitchfork's "timeless" certification is very apt, it doesn't show its age much imo.

eletrônico não é minha praia, mas a sonoridade mistura elementos interessantes não chega a 6/10 / 3/5, daria 2.5/5 / 5/10 vai 2 mesmo

Etwas zu psycho...

Nice great background work music. It's mostly just atmospheric. I may listen to again but not sure it moves me as much as some of the other groups in this type of vibe. I prefer Nightmares on Wax or Mark Farina, stuff with a little more funk and jazz to it. 3/5

Very weird album. You have to be in the mood to listen to it and I somehow was.

Textures and moods. I know this album has pedigree, but still trying to understand it better.

These guys aren't Canadians. Not even close! Despite feeling cheated, this is actually good news; I like Canadian musicians, and these guys suck.

Saved? ❌ Would listen again? 🤔 Would recommend to anyone? ❌ Would buy on Vinyl? ❌

This one takes a few tracks to really find its groove, but once it does, it settles into some nice background music. It’s an easy, atmospheric listen overall, even if it never fully demands your attention.

11/04/2026 The first song was the same as the next song, and the one after that. Proper boring this album. Spotify listeners: 779.7k

Very cool album. I like a lot of the songs. Roygbiv and Rule The Whirl were my favorites. I also like the important message. I dig a lot of electronic music like this so this was a good fit. 7.8/10.