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.

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 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

More like 3.5 for me

Definitely better than Moby. I could see it growing on me.

This all sounded like that one song from The Matrix but blue-balls you right before the hypest part of it. For a full hour.

The goths under the bridge dance to this…& so do I! These were some block rockin’ beats!

I’m torn between a 1 or a 3. It was mostly bad but the sound they were going for was likely achieved and there’s some hidden nostalgia for me, even though I’ve never heard this shit before.

Initially hooks you but then pummels you and then you wait for it to end.

garbage

I think this is more of a 3.5, because a lot of it is just too repetitive. But it rounds to 4.

It’s kind of amazing that they were able to make electronic tracks with minimal vocals into major hits in a competitive alternative rock radio landscape. All these years later they don’t sound dated, largely due due to the organic-sounding drum loops.

Pretty good. In my playlist now

Meh, this got a bit tedious after a while

brings me right back, maybe a bit dated but goddamn do i love that date

Some really interesting tracks. Love the one with Noel and gives a break in an otherwise fairly repetitive few tracks back to back in the album. Couple I'd love to sample and opening track is great.

Wall to wall bangers!

ok

This is #day767 of my #1001albumsyoumusthearbeforeyoudie challenge, and... The Chemical Brothers is one of those names from my childhood. I wasn't really familiar with them before 2005's Push the Button, which is when "Galvanize" and "Believe" were some of the biggest tunes in the world at the time, particularly "Galvanize." Dig Your Own Hole, though, is surely a '90s electronic classic, alongside The Prodigy's The Fat of the Land: big beat, techno, psychedelic rock, and all that jazz. Excellent stuff. This is a 4 out of 5. Looking forward to #day768.

From the first bars of Block Rockin’ Beats, to the soaring epicness of Private Psychedelic Reel, this sophomore outing for The Chemical Brothers saw the pair reaching for the stars and going nova. It’s a classic electronica album, one that has aged well, and remains a high water mark. And I won’t hear a word against it.

This absolutely rips. I'd already given it five stars when I was accidentally listening to "Come With Us" instead of this album because I didn't bother looking at the CD's spine, but it still stood up when I listened to the correct album.

A collection of club-ready tracks still, where you could practically just play the album straight through, but it actually also works way more than the debut on a holistic and song-by-song basis. You get way more distinctive sounds, change-ups through the album, they’re pressing in cooler ways into neo-psychedelia among other spaces and you get all that while being able to more easily point to one track or another - magic. Big Beat probably isn’t liable to be my favourite school of electronic music any time soon, but this is a great sell of it either way.