Dig Your Own Hole

liked the groove but don't feel compelled to ever listen again. Maybe I need more chemicals.

There's some great stuff on here, but I'm not going to lie, I found this incredibly tiresome to try and get through in one sitting.

I'm a bit conflicted about this one. In theory I like big beat electronica, but in practice this album has an uneasy crossover with the more laddish side of 90s Britpop even featuring Noel Gallagher on vocals on one track. The music is aggressive, loud beats and samples that quickly becomes wearing to listen to out of context. There's very little range or subtlety here, as a contrast to the in your face sonic assault. I listened to a recent Chemincal Brothers album on this list and putting them side by side, it proves that they haven't changed much in the quarter of a century since this release. I think I prefer my 90's electronica to be a bit weirder and more eclectic than this. It was interesting to listen to the recent official release of Orbital's seminal 1994 Glastonbury performance that builds from ambient swirls to a full on stomping freak out that had the crowd jumping and still stands up as a great live set.

First song is ok and the only one I knew which I feel was played ad nauseam back in the day. The rest of the album makes you wonder who was voting for these albums.

Techno aber anstrengend zu hören

Not a fan. First song was pretty good and then it was just boring after that.

I began the day joking that the Chemical Brothers had built an entire career out of releasing successive variations on the Beatles' *Tomorrow Never Knows*. A deliberately reductive accusation, of course, but one with enough musical truth behind it to be entertaining. By the end of *Dig Your Own Hole*, I was thinking rather more about Jimi Hendrix, George Harrison's experimental solo albums, early hip-hop turntablism, Brian Eno, electronic folk music and the remarkably porous boundary between rock and dance music. What makes this album so extraordinary isn't simply the number of influences it incorporates. It's the way those influences cease to sound like separate traditions. The Chemical Brothers don't so much cross the boundaries between genres as demonstrate how artificial those boundaries can be. I have a particular weakness for records that explore the musical possibilities of apparently incompatible sounds. I love dissonance, unexpected textures, things that don't quite fit together, and the peculiar excitement of hearing musicians make deliberately awkward choices. *Block Rockin' Beats* announces immediately that I'm going to be thoroughly indulged. There's that glorious high-register bass guitar riff, with its extraordinary swagger, and enormous drums that establish an irresistible rhythmic framework. But what fascinates me is everything happening above them. Remove the rhythm section and you're left with something approaching chaotic musique concrète: electronic shrieks, scratches, noises, fragments and discordant textures that seem to have wandered in from entirely different recordings. And I mean that as an enormous compliment. The beat doesn't rescue the dissonance from incoherence. The dissonance is part of what makes the beat so exhilarating. There's a gorgeous friction between the various elements, and that friction creates its own physical excitement. When the bass is suddenly chopped into little rhythmic fragments, the effect is delicious. The gaps become as important as the notes. The Chemical Brothers understand the dramatic potential of subtraction as well as accumulation, and the sheer range of sounds they're prepared to introduce makes the whole thing feel gloriously unruly. It also reminds me of something I've always loved about the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Hendrix's feedback, dive-bombs, distortion and increasingly abstract guitar sounds were frequently operating above a recognisable bass-and-drums framework. Of course, Mitch Mitchell's drumming could be every bit as anarchic as Hendrix's playing, whereas the Chemical Brothers often maintain a much more immovable rhythmic foundation. Nevertheless, the underlying musical imagination feels closely related. Both acts understand that the abrasive, unstable qualities of sound can be a source of excitement in themselves. They're not simply making conventional music and adding noise for decoration. The noise is part of the composition. The title track arrives at a positively ludicrous velocity. It's exhilaratingly fast, with an extraordinary sense of forward propulsion. There are so many permutations of the underlying rhythm that the music seems to expand continuously, discovering fresh possibilities without sacrificing its momentum. Or so I thought. One of the more revealing moments of today's listening came when I realised that I'd been praising the development of *Dig Your Own Hole* while actually listening to *Elektrobank*. I was a good three minutes into the latter before noticing that the former had ended. That accidental confusion says rather a lot about the album's construction. These weren't simply two tracks that happened to segue neatly into each other. They felt like roughly thirteen minutes of the same musical thought developing without interruption. The changes that should have signalled a new composition registered instead as further permutations of an existing one. And because the music was already changing so continuously, crossing the boundary between tracks seemed entirely natural. *Elektrobank* eventually becomes beautifully oppressive. Its closing sections accumulate a tremendous density of sound, almost overwhelming the listener through sheer insistence. Yet there's pleasure in being subjected to it. I've always admired the Chemical Brothers' willingness to impose themselves upon their audience. They don't seem terribly concerned about whether their music is comfortable. They're prepared to sustain an idea long enough for it to become demanding, even exhausting, because the duration is part of the experience they're constructing. The eventual ritardando provides an almost physical release from that accumulated pressure. Then the percussion disappears, leaving something resembling a stuck record, a fragment of rhythm continuing after the machinery that supported it has fallen away. It's a beautifully judged transition into *Piku*, where that sense of mechanical interruption becomes increasingly important. *Piku* might be the most extraordinary example of the album's structural confidence. It's nearly five minutes long, yet feels like an extended interlude. The music never quite settles. Its rhythmic identity remains suspended, continually threatening to establish itself without becoming entirely secure. Towards the end, there's a wonderful passage where the rhythmic centre seems to disappear altogether. Eventually we're left with a single-pitched bass figure that becomes increasingly fragmented. I found that absolutely gorgeous. Here was an album that had already demonstrated the pleasures of relentless propulsion, now finding equal fascination in dismantling the very thing that had been driving it forward. And the Chemical Brothers have the confidence to leave a genuine boundary afterwards. *Setting Sun* doesn't simply emerge as another variation on the preceding musical material. It gets its own entrance. Which brings me back to an old argument involving a friend called Andy, a considerable amount of alcohol, and my entirely deliberate insistence that the true Beatles precursor to *Setting Sun* was not *Tomorrow Never Knows* but *Ticket to Ride*. I spent an entire evening defending that proposition, partly because I enjoy challenging received wisdom and partly because I fancied being an argumentative bastard. My case centred on the hypnotic, almost drone-like insistence of *Ticket to Ride*, its extraordinary drum pattern, its unusual duration for a Beatles single in 1965, and the way the song seemed determined to luxuriate in its musical ideas rather than hurry towards the next conventional pop event. Andy eventually conceded that I had a considerable point, although I suspect he was equally pleased that I'd finally gone to bed and allowed him to settle on his preferred sofa. Nearly thirty years later, I'm still inclined to defend aspects of the argument. *Tomorrow Never Knows* is obviously the closer relative in terms of tape manipulation, psychedelic textures and rhythmic repetition. But *Ticket to Ride* offers an interesting earlier example of a pop recording making the sustained experience of a musical idea as important as its conventional development. And *Setting Sun* takes an almost outrageous amount of time getting anywhere. Noel Gallagher doesn't start singing until approximately 85 seconds into the track. For a record featuring one of Britpop's biggest stars, that's a remarkably cheeky decision. The Chemical Brothers introduce motif after motif, construct their enormous rhythmic environment and establish the track's peculiar psychedelic atmosphere before finally allowing the celebrity vocalist to make an appearance. Gallagher's performance deserves much more attention than it usually receives. Beneath the electronic treatment, there's something fascinating about the way he finishes certain phrases ever so slightly sharp. Those little deviations give the vocal an otherworldly urgency. They belong to the performance rather than being mere imperfections that the production has failed to conceal. His voice is another source of the friction that makes this music so compelling. Then comes the magnificent false ending. At around three minutes, the song seems to dissolve into chaos, apparently having completed its duties as a vaguely conventional pop single. Only for the Chemical Brothers to decide that they're not remotely finished and launch back into the proceedings. It's a practical joke played on the conventions of pop songwriting. The introduction takes too long, the ending takes too long, and both are essential to the record's character. There's tremendous humour throughout *Dig Your Own Hole*, although not necessarily in the obvious places. Much of it comes from musical timing, deliberate awkwardness and the sheer absurdity of particular sonic choices. *It Doesn't Matter* is perhaps the most immediately amusing example. The repeated declaration of indifference becomes progressively more obsessive as the phrase is chopped, stretched and distorted. The sheer insistence of inconsequence is its own joke. The more frequently the machinery tells us that nothing matters, the more absurdly important the declaration becomes. This track also brought to mind David Byrne and Brian Eno's *My Life in the Bush of Ghosts*, particularly its treatment of recorded human voices as raw musical material. Yet the Chemical Brothers are doing something much more corporeal with related ideas. Eno, the great egghead — or eg-head, if you like — approaches these constructions with an unmistakably cerebral curiosity, although it would be unfair to deny the considerable rhythmic physicality of his work with Byrne. The Chemical Brothers place that same curiosity inside music designed to move the body. And there's a further inversion in the middle of *It Doesn't Matter*. While the recognisable human voice becomes increasingly mechanical, strange disembodied half-yelps and squeaks appear within the arrangement, occupying something resembling a melodic role. These electronically manipulated noises acquire an ambiguous humanity of their own. The voice becomes machinery, while the machinery begins to sound alive. I found this more thoroughly psychedelic in its effects than *Setting Sun*. The latter uses much of the familiar vocabulary of psychedelic rock; *It Doesn't Matter* makes something recognisable increasingly alien through repetition and transformation. It changes the way we perceive the relationship between sound and meaning. The record's fascination with awkwardness becomes even more pronounced on *Don't Stop the Rock*. Its main musical motif has a curiously unresolved character, continually suggesting a destination without ever quite arriving. The repetition builds pressure, but rather than resolving that tension, the track introduces a succession of other musical ideas that also seem reluctant to complete themselves. There's an itchy irritability about the whole construction. Fragments that don't quite fit together are allowed briefly to dominate before disappearing again. But this isn't a source of dissatisfaction. It's precisely what makes the music interesting. Earlier, the friction came from incompatible sounds operating simultaneously. Here, it emerges from competing musical propositions interrupting and displacing one another. The segue into *Get Up on It Like This* then supplies another wonderfully cheeky moment, with a joke about arriving a little early before the whole thing erupts into what I can only describe as bongo mayhem. Suddenly, after all those unresolved fragments, the machinery sounds comparatively slick and disciplined. Yet its abrupt edits and exposed joins have something gloriously primitive about them. I hear an affectionate homage to the crude physical ingenuity of early hip-hop turntablism, where the act of cutting between records and repeating fragments was itself an important part of the performance. The Chemical Brothers possess sophisticated equipment and extraordinarily detailed production techniques, but they haven't forgotten the excitement of a DJ discovering that a short passage of recorded music can become something entirely new through repetition and interruption. By this stage, the album has explored so many approaches to rhythm that the relative gentleness of *Lost in the K-Hole* comes as a striking change. The title makes the connection with 1990s drug culture explicit, but what interests me is the actual musical experience. The relationship between the beat and the other musical elements becomes much more dissociative. Jangling sounds drift across the stereo field, apparently independent of the rhythmic foundation beneath them. It's the least abrasive track so far, and I found myself describing the experience as being lost inside a music box. Everything is intricate, delicate and mechanical, but the shifting spatial relationships create a strange dreamscape. The repetition that previously generated pressure now produces something closer to enchantment. The Chemical Brothers haven't abandoned their methods. They've simply demonstrated how profoundly the emotional effects of those methods can change. *Where Do I Begin* then introduces an entirely different kind of delicacy. Beth Orton's voice feels tentative, intimate and rooted in folk music. Electronic folk seems a more useful description than conventional trip-hop. The opening has an almost hesitant vulnerability, and I found myself considering what Air might have done with similar material. I suspect Air would have preserved that delicacy, surrounding it with sumptuous electronics and allowing the atmosphere to remain beautifully balanced. The Chemical Brothers are rather less concerned with balance. Eventually they introduce drums of such preposterous size that they ought to flatten the song entirely. And somehow they don't. The huge beats feel audaciously excessive yet strangely fitting. They enlarge the emotional possibilities of the music without destroying its intimacy. It's another demonstration of how apparent incompatibility can become an expressive advantage. Here the friction isn't between abrasive noises and rhythmic order, but between emotional delicacy and physical extravagance. The track's later development is equally fascinating. The enormous percussion is progressively dismantled, chopped into increasingly short fragments until the repeated attacks begin to blur into something resembling a musical tone. Rhythm becomes timbre; the physical impact of individual drumbeats gradually transforms into the continuous sound created by their rapid repetition. Eventually even that structure disappears, leaving sustained synthesiser chords that form a beautiful transition into *The Private Psychedelic Reel*. I had expected something more introspective from that title. Something secretive, perhaps, or inward-looking. Instead, the closing track becomes an extraordinary, expansive celebration. The opening synthesiser chords have an almost Mellotron-like quality, while a repeating sitar-like figure introduces a rhythmic pulse. There's a strong suggestion of the Beatles' *Norwegian Wood* in the sound, although identifying a resemblance isn't necessarily the same thing as establishing a sample. The Indian-influenced atmosphere also recalls my fondness for George Harrison's *Wonderwall Music* and *Electronic Sound*, two records I enjoy both as musical experiences and as investigations into the possibilities of sound. I've always particularly enjoyed the almost comic character of some of the little episodes in *Wonderwall Music*. Experimental music needn't be solemn to be serious. As *The Private Psychedelic Reel* develops, it becomes increasingly sun-filled and celebratory. There's an openness to the arrangement that contrasts beautifully with the oppressive density of *Elektrobank*. New elements seem to expand the musical space rather than crowd it. The experience becomes genuinely joyous, and it's a remarkable emotional destination for an album that began with such abrasive rhythmic confrontation. Then the celebration dissolves into a controlled freakout. A remarkable clarinet figure, played by Mercury Rev's Jonathan Donahue, intrudes with an almost Arabian quality. The instrument becomes progressively drenched in echo and feedback, its recognisable identity dissolving into the surrounding electronic turbulence. Eventually the whole track begins to lose its structural integrity, ending in a glorious confusion of musical noise. It is an entirely appropriate conclusion. The Chemical Brothers have spent the album exploring the unstable boundaries between rhythm and texture, melody and noise, construction and dissolution. Now they finish by allowing their expansive psychedelic celebration to spill beyond its own musical architecture. What makes *Dig Your Own Hole* so impressive is the extent to which all these ideas form a coherent experience. Its sequencing is extraordinary. The transitions aren't merely convenient ways of joining recordings. They're part of the composition, sometimes extending a musical argument across tracks, sometimes providing an essential release, sometimes supplying a joke, and occasionally establishing a deliberate boundary. And there's something else that became apparent as I listened. The Chemical Brothers aren't really fusing rock and electronic dance music in the sense of taking two separate styles and bolting them together. Their musical imagination seems to operate in a space where the distinction has become largely irrelevant. The swagger of a bass guitar riff, the physical force of a breakbeat, the sonic violence of Hendrix, the experimental textures of Harrison, the cut-and-paste techniques of hip-hop and the possibilities of electronic manipulation are all equally legitimate compositional materials. The sounds don't have to surrender their individual characters to coexist. Sometimes their incompatibility is the most exciting thing about them. That's why I find *Dig Your Own Hole* such an exhilarating record. It's experimental without being forbiddingly academic, physically overwhelming without being mindless, frequently abrasive without becoming joyless, and technically sophisticated without sacrificing humour. Above all, it has the confidence to take its time. Musical ideas can expand, mutate, fall apart or become unexpectedly tender without the Chemical Brothers seeming remotely anxious about whether they're observing conventional rules of duration or development. There is always something happening, but the interest doesn't depend on a constant parade of new ideas. Often the fascination lies in what happens to a single idea when it's subjected to sustained manipulation. And, after all that, perhaps the simplest observation is the most revealing. Sixty-three minutes of remarkably dense, frequently dissonant, occasionally oppressive and relentlessly inventive music went by in what felt like no time at all. I was never impatient for a track to end. Indeed, on one occasion I was so absorbed in the music's development that I failed to notice a track had ended several minutes earlier. For all its intellectual interest, the album remains an intensely pleasurable physical experience. Its experiments aren't merely things to admire. They're things to feel, to laugh at, to be overwhelmed by and, above all, to move to. The Chemical Brothers don't make experimental music accessible by sanding away its difficult edges. They exploit those edges, discover the pleasure in their friction, and make the body love them. And after sixty-three minutes of musical imposition, the overwhelming feeling is one of gratitude for having been subjected to it.

It’s no exit planet dust but some bangers on here. Opening track smacks you in the face with fire and fury but i am not aure the whole album quite manages to maintain it. Comes close but.

Chemical Brothers are an English group, and this album is electronica. The tracks primarily are instrumental, with some limited vocals. The music is suitable as background to hear while involved in another activity. Forgettable and generally ho-hum.

Wow! We had a different chemical brothers album just recently (or what feels like recently). Yet another Beth Orton guest spot here; this must be like her 8th appearance on the list by now. Each one much better than her solo effort. This is really not a lyrics-forward album. I was about to say "welp, this was way less enjoyable than I expected" until the 1-2-3 punch of 'Lost in the K-Hole' (dig your own k-hole?), 'Where Do I Begin' (🥹), & 'The Private Psychedelic Reel'. Ratings whiplash! Highlight: 'Where Do I Begin' (5 star song.... 3 star album?)

This rocks. But its a but to long to fit during my normal routine of vacuuming, which dampens the fun a little.

A bit dated compared to its contemporaries but solid nonetheless. Clearly influential. I could see this going hard at the rave. Rating: 6/10

I've liked this album since it came out. It's definitely not for everyone, and I can see why folks would find it not to their liking. Definitely not a perfect album, but still pretty good. Every time I come back to listen, I'm glad that I did.

Their prior album was selected yesterday, so their work was fresh in my ears. This album is a little easier to listen to probably since I’m primed for it. I remember the first track as a single, and another track has Noel Gallagher from Oasis. I can understand this album’s appeal, even if it’s not necessarily my bag.

Songs To Run From Dystopian Cyberpunk Cops To

Dreadful

Pretty awesome album to jam to on the day that I return to work after a trip. Really put some wind in my sails in a great way.

felt dubious going into this, I don't really "party" and I don't like to "dance" !! but this was pretty groovy, I put it on this morning while doing some graphic design work for the Montgomery Adobe and I was surprised when i got back to the beginning that it felt like the hour long album passed pretty quick and I was willing to listen thru it another time. got into a flow state. i liked It Doesn't Matter, I agree with that do i think they lezzed out though? nah 2/5

definitely a time and place sort of thing. not really the vibe for my chill woodworking job but I'll definitely ride my bike fast as fuck to this later. loved the beth orton and noel gallagher joints. i wish nightclubs still played music like this, I'd probably go out a lot more

sasvim neloša tuctucara. može postati malo zamorno repetitivnošću, ali loše? nipošto. dosta kvalitetno. za tulum? svakako. da sam bio nabomboniran ko svinja za slušanja, bila bi sigurno petica [odslušao i napisao 26/10/26]

Not on enough chemicals to enjoy. I'm not a fan of whatever genre this is. When clubbing, I enjoy things like house, and that's about as far as my enjoyment of repetitive electronic music goes. I can't really connect with the chaotic beats and electronic noises throughout this album. I know it's some people's cup of tea, but definitely not mine. Let it be known that I enjoy repetition in rock as well, so repetition itself isn't the problem. This is just too techno for me. I sound old.

I remember when this album came out. Block Rockin’ Beats was a banger in the clubs and used heavily on movie soundtracks. There are some other good hits on here such as my key track Piku, and Get Up On It. I actually really liked the jazzy Lost In the K-Hole, which felt pleasantly displaced on this album. Overall, the album sequentially roused all those ecstasy soaked nights watching chemtrails for a thousand glow sticks and soul-crushing bass that rattled the skull and palpated the heart at all the raves I never went to. As a middle aged dude, this feels like an artifact than a revisitation. I get why it’s here. It’s just not my thing anymore.

Random thoughts: * I like this one more than I thought I would! * There are 3 really great tracks on this album: Block Rockin' Beats, Setting Sun, and Where Do I Begin. * Setting Sun kind of ripped off The Beatles "Tomorrow Never Knows" but if you are going to be influenced/copy someone, might as well be one of the most psychedelic Beatles songs. * Where Do I Begin is a great hangover song. * I'm not sure I ever picked this up before but Chemical Brothers doesn't have that low bass sound that is typical for electronic music. They tend to go for a more acoustic drum sound that has a lot more tom/snare in the mix. It is different and give them a pretty distinctive sound. * There were a few songs that seemed to drag on or be too repetitive. However, I think the highs of this album take the whole thing to a 4-star. It might be more of a 3.5 but I'll give the bump for three great songs.

I can't describe how formative this album was to me, and how many weeks I obsessed over the single copy they had at Disc Jockey that was priced at like $19, and I had to wait til i got paid to afford it, maybe even longer cause i remember it being a long time, and I was so worried someone else would buy it first (spoiler alert: small town Iowa, so... they didn't) ... and then how I listened to it on repeat for weeks and weeks... and years later, I still pull it up whenever I need an adrenaline boost. I know every nook and cranny of this one, and while Big Beat probably wasn't sustainable as a genre (where was it to go?), I miss it a lot. The rest of their catalog has pieces I love here and there, but they've never topped this. Few have, at least in the wider EDM genre. (Also, for some indescribable, probably misguided reason, this is my all-time favorite album cover. It seemed so mysterious and hip at the time... like they had access to some hidden counterculture that I badly wanted to be a part of. Likely because I went to the mall so many times and stared at it.)

Great album to run to

I don't think this album was ever meant to be listened to as an album by someone at home, and I didn't like the experience. I loved listening to it at a rave, though.

I apparently really like Big Beat, as I've figured through this generator. Yet another good 90's Big Beat album on this list. I knew the Chemical Brothers from their few big hits but never heard an album by them. Safe to say it just feels like their hits but album length, in a good way. Just hits a right groove really. Also kind of bizarre that its taken 942 days for my first Chemical Brothers album out of 3.

One of the major records of the 90s Big Beat scene. Sounds exactly like you would expect, if you are a fan of this style of dance/electronic music there are some absolute bangers here, Block Rockin' Beats, the title track and Elektrobank are a powerful start. Piku, Get Up on It Like This and Lost in the K-Hole (which at least changes things up a little) could be easily jettisoned and are the weakest tracks here but the Private Psychedelic Reel closes the album strong For the album as a whole, there's not much change up in terms of the tone and tempo, this can get a bit repetitive over the course of a full hour, if someone doesn't like this type of music they will absolutely hate it but the best tracks here still stand up 30 years later once you are in the mood. Definitely warrants inclusion on this list as it reflects a genre and a specific era in music, and in a slight tangent this is a great album for listening to while running!!! 7/10

Block Rocking Beats is a great song. A majority of the rest of this is super annoying really repetitive beats. Some songs were ok but on the whole I did not care for this. Maybe will listen an again if I really need to lock in and focus on something. (2)

I like electronic music enough that I really wanted to like this more, but it’s missing one or two elements to push it over. Maybe it’s the “big beat” sound, I just get bored by. Still, enough cool moments and beats to get through the whole thing.

If you're in the right mood to play this, then play it you should.

gooood house music i lover the chemicals brother

It's good. Heavy use of EDM repetition. Having Noel Gallagher on your record is a flex.

4 Always great

Beetje te nerveus voor mij. maar kan aan het moment van de dag liggen. 1 sterretje extra voor "Where do I begin"

Ik weet dat dat niet slecht is maar een hele cd begon wel een beetje op mijn heupen te werken.

Yeah decent album, one all time great song and some strange ones but not a bad vibe at all. 3.5 stars.

p801. 1997. 2 stars. Music for spin cycles and exercise bikes. Well done of its kind, but gets tedious and repetitive reallll soon.

this feels like such a frenetic time capsule of the energy and optimism of the last 90s and the rave scene at the time. i found myself wishing most of the songs were longer and had more build up and connection.

Much better than I was expecting.

Album #307 The Chemical Brothers: Dig Your Own Hole Why bother putting any thought towards music that doesn’t demand it. I yet again run into the same pitfall that I have with the first 100 90s big beat/electronic albums that I received, which is that I’m just too sober. Most of this is just noise to me, doesn’t move me or inspire any sort of energy, just static. I was ready to dish out a one star, but the last two songs are actually genuinely good to my surprise, which proves that The Chemical Brothers are aware of how to make a sonically interesting electronic song, but choose to pander to junkies with mindless drivel. Best Songs: Where Do I Begin?, The Private Psychedelic Reel, Setting Sun Worst Song: It Doesn’t Matter Score out of 10: 4

Typical late 90s/early 2000s break beat music. Cool drums and some innovative sounds but also just a couple dragging songs with lots of noise.

Dig Your Own Hole is a banger and a half of an album. This album really makes me realize just how fitting The Chemical Brothers is as a name for this duo since these songs are just incredibly trippy. And in all the best ways too. These songs all have samples that are used in so trippy ways while still being immensely danceable and fun to listen to especially in the background while you are gaming or working. I will say that there are moments when the album gets a bit more noisy than it should and can easily turn away people who are not into that. However, i was not turned away and i was able to enjoy this album enough to give it a full 5 stars. Best Song: Dig Your Own Hole Worst Song: Setting Sun

I feel badly for the Chemical Bros, at least with respect to this project and collection: while this album is substantially better and more interesting than debut "Exit Planet Dust", their best was yet to come, and it's hard to imagine that this album would necessarily do any better to lure anyone into exploring their later catalog. Regardless, "Dig Your Own Hole" has lots of great energy and creative beats, and it was fun revisiting the album. My favorites continue to be the impressive trio of "Elektrobank"/"Piku"/"Setting sun" as well as the ending trio "Lost in the K-hole"/"Where do I begin"/"The private psychedelic reel". Some of the harder-edged tracks like the opening "Block rockin' beats" and the title track made me (idly) wonder if they ever shared a show with Prodigy--what a trip *that* would have been. (P.S. The four-star rating is more of a lifetime achievement award than for this particular album...)

Dance

I don't do enough ketamine to be into this.

Some cool beats and interesting moments, but lacked depth for me. It's not my style of music at all, so I was slightly surprised that I enjoyed it more than I thought, but my expectations were pretty low. It felt frantic, but in a way that didn't stir up any real emotion. At some moments, it felt like it was trying to rouse me without first checking if I was awake. That made sense in my mind, sorry if it doesn't to anyone else. So yeah. Some good moments, some not so good. A bit like life really. Maybe that's the deeper meaning of this album.

Swaggy (het album Further is een van mijn favs oat maar staat niet in deze lijst denk ik :/ die zou ik 5 geven nmlk)

It's great in many ways but it's almost as if it builds up to/for nothing? Like there is no climax?

So many albums on this list with no musical merit whatsoever, I seem to have been fed a whole week of them lately, and this ranks right down there.

You know, it's easy to say chemical brothers aren't good music. I may have said it on here myself. HOWEVER. This is good workout music, it is good driving music, it is good concentrating music, and it is good dancing music. So.....

#495/1001. One of the few electronic music / idm albums which I (still) play both at home and as a dj at a party. There are a few weaker songs here, but the flow from one song to another is great and the bangers are great, rougher than the later ones (e.g hey boy, hey girl or starguitar). Hail fir music made out of sounds instead of melodies or chords played on traditional instruments!

Another banger of a 90s EDM album. The Chemical Brothers surely made two great records during this time and the entire thing was clean and a very fun listen. The guest appearances, especially Noel Gallagher, were very good, and this is certaintly something I'd listen to again.

4.5/5

Great record! The first of three or four chemical brothers records I loved in my younger days

DNF wasn't feeling the vibe

Some creative arrangements and rock instrumentation upend the usual approach of the genre, but by the middle of the record, clubbing malaise has descended and one has to imagine they are rolling in a 90’s warehouse in order to enjoy themselves.

Good electronic album. Solid stuff.

I love techno music, EDM, and all things electronic generally, yet the Chemical Brothers have never done it for me. I think it's the vocalizations that piss me off, as well as the street corner bucket drumming sounds, and it sounds to me like the Beastie Boys of electronic. Too much yelling so I find it abrasive and not in a good way. I did like Piku as a track.

This is cool DJ stuff I guess? I just could not really care much less. Not really a big dance-y clubby boy...

This was the perfect album to listen to whilst lying down in bed completely motionless in my pyjamas.

Used to smoke a doobster and listen to the chemical brothers while walking my dog. They sounded a lot better on those walks than they do while I’m stone cold sober grinding at work. Still, the best tracks on this album are incredible. The rest is chaos to the un-inebriated mind

No thanks. I've never been able to get into this sort of thing.

Block rocking beats is a tremendous soundtrack to the 90s. However on the 3rd listen it is tiresome. The rest of the album is twiddly plinky nonsense. The beatles pastiche which is setting sun is infuriating as well

talvez, com a quantidade certa de sintético no sangue, esse seja um bom álbum como eu to preso na sobriedade, achei chato

mais música pra hacker. os anos 90 eram bons demais pro TI. mas pprt, dependendo da ocasião e do nível de maluco, dá pra bater cabeça legal, hein. enfim, funcionaria melhor se fosse background music enquanto eu estivesse trabalhando. o foda eh que essa semana estou muito #atoa, daí foi só cansativo de ouvir memo

When you’re listening to an album for the first time, your impression of it highly depends on the context you find yourself in. Probably a rainy Saturday morning was not the best time to listen to this - surely I’d enjoyed it more with headphones at night or in a club. I’d appreciated the beats and the production more and not have found it as repetitive as I did. Perhaps this is also why I found myself enjoying the more “different” sounding songs, like Setting Sun and Where Do I begin, the most. The later almost had a Cranberries vibe to it. I also liked the last track.

*1997. English electronic duo. *Sounds like Prodigy but less cool. *I'm so much more tolerant of electronica after 1.5 years of this website... *Perfectly fine background music. RATING - 6.5/10

Not for me at all. Too loud, too long, too repetitive. I was enjoying Beth Orton’s singing on Where Do I Begin but, unfortunately, it went on too long, becoming monotonous.

After the first 3 minutes, you pretty much much have figured out the rest of the album

Suffers from being too long.

One of the more formative EDM records in my life. Setting Sun screeches through my brain. There is a lot of sampling going on, but the sound is uniquely theirs.

Quite aggressive early in the morning. But after the sun set, I really came round to it

Cognitively I know this was probably groundbreaking at the time but I cannot extract it from the thousands of electronica tracks I've listened to over the years, there doesn't seem to be anything special about this album to me. Apologies to the chemical brothers but their style has been copied so much it is no longer unique

It was ok to good. I can't listen to it for too long without getting anxious. Cool sounds and beats though

To have lived this version of the 90s would have been special

bueeeeeno

Not for me but vibey and a fine listen

It's a fairly typical EDM record. There are some good "heavy" parts with that good bass/drum beat and there are some songs I don't particularly care for. The heavier bass/drum songs are good as are the guest spots by Noel Gallagher and Beth Orton. When they put lyrics and actual singing instead of looped chanting, I like the songs better. This likely appeals a lot more to fans of this type of music. I occasionally dabble in EDM/techno/dance/drum&bass, whatever you call this, but not too often and I'm way more of a fan of rock music than this style.

I'm not a firestarter. I'm not twisted.

las canciones son bastante largas, cansan al final

Quite fun as background music, but never felt like it elevated beyond that for me. Also this album is longer than it really needs to be

Becomes droning and indistinguishable after a while.

Like most breakbeat techno, I respect it but I'm not at the right club or on the correct cocktail of drugs to enjoy it as it was meant to be enjoyed. I do think the last two songs on this album are fantastic though

I will never voluntarily listen to this album again. 4 out of 5.

Just enough to tip it up rather than down

I'm not sure lyrics matter to these guys, but the beats are good.

Pretty tight production earns this a 4th star.

I liked some parts of some tracks, but it never really managed to grab or hold my attention for a full track Standouts - 3/5

Not bad but just think it’s not exceptional.

A classic Uber Eats listen

Some of these songs made me feel like I was hacking computers or driving a getaway car in a mid 90s movie montage. Not that that's a bad thing at all.

Oh hey I have a copy of this record on iTunes, which I got quite a while ago. I can’t remember the last time I listened to the whole thing at once, though. I usually just enjoy hearing the odd track when it pops up on shuffle. This was a fun listen today, with lots of frenetic, buzzy electronica. It caused me to be in violation of District of Columbia speed limits for most of it. I will blame Dimery if I get a ticket.

Love a bit of edm.

Studio time totally wasted.

pff

It's fine. Some catchy hooks, occasionally invokes a shot of adrenaline, can be a bit repetitive to my ears, but that tends to go with the territory in this genre imo.

holds up better than I thought it would in 2026. Provides a driving rhythm that meshes well as background music while doing normal/everyday/boring things, turning said things into something that is a little funner.

Some great tunes here Block Rocking Beats setting sun with NG. The last track is awesome too but most tracks sound like the fill you put up when mixing two tunes together. Just beats and squeaks no real substance to it just repetitive maybe ok to zone out to running but otherwise a little boring

Of course fucking Noel Gallagher is on this