Smokers Delight

This is music your Nintendo Wii plays while it's loading the Weather Channel.

This is really nice chill out or background music… something you would expect to hear in a trendy bar or hotel. Very nice to hang out with - I found it quite pleasant for background music while I worked. I can think of many occasions where this is the sort of music I would really want to play. This isn't the kind of album that will reach out and grab you, but instead the music sidles up and puts its arm around you. I didn't spend a lot of time distinguishing between the songs. Instead I just grooved along and let it flow around me. The album coheres very well while still having some clear individuality between the songs. The (Digital Deluxe) edition I listened to adds 4 extra tracks at the end. All four were worth hearing and didn’t detract from the flow of the original in any way I noticed. Good stuff!

I dig the mood that this album evokes, but it not likely to be one that I would pick out on the regular. It is good background music for work or a hip cocktail party (at least I imagine it might be, as I don’t frequent hip cocktail parties). I will add this to my library in the hopes that someday I am hip enough to cocktail to these beats.

Like being on hold to the bank's customer service helpline for an hour and a quarter. 1.5

Smokers Delight is an inoffensive blend of reggae, hip hop, Latin, soul, and downtempo that glides through the neural pathways unimpeded by any novel or challenging sonic concepts. It's mellow restaurant or club music. That said, it's all very skillfully done. Every sample, the way it's mixed, the sequencing, etc, is all calculated to make you relax and just groove with the music in the background. I find it depressing though that this album is on the 1001 list. I have no reason to doubt that Smoker's Delight is influential...on other artists who make inconsequential aural wallpaper. It would seem more appropriate to review an album like this in an industry magazine, like Restaurants Today. How to rate? I'll give it three stars for the obvious skill with which was made, but to me this falls in the same basic category as nu-jazz. It's music for people who don't really like music, who just want something in the background while they study or vacuum or take a dump.

2.6 - I hate two things about this record. First and foremost, it's boring. At best, this record feels appropriate as background music for a hotel lobby. Second, this record is 100% mis-packaged. Looking at the artist name, the album name and all the reggae colors and stoner-y fonts on the record cover, you expect some crunk-y intersection of Cypress Hill and 311, perhaps as interpreted by dreadlocked Euro-wankers. Instead, you get this linear, color-by-numbers, 1983-Casio-keyboard drivel. And, no, throwing in a few bongo beats, and including an echo-y vocal sample of your black friend saying "man" doesn't do enough to unite Kingston and Kinshasa with fucking Sheffield.

On the plus side, Smokers Delight does have a nice chilled vibe that serves well as background music. But as an album to listen to attentively it is a bit boring and repetitive. Don't get me wrong, repetition can be used to good effect. Problem is there is no organic sounds; there is no real emotion. Like a lot of modern music it's loop based, sequenced, time stretched, processed etc (even the "solos"). There's no art to it - a computer could have been programmed to make it.

Wow, I didn't know that I needed this, but now it's a keeper.

Makes me feel exactly how I feel every time I grossly overpay for a watery vodka soda from a Russian bartender wearing too much Hai Karate in a lightly peopled lounge in the meatpacking district in the late afternoon of a sunny late fall day with sticky floors and a slight Lysol smell that make me nervous about availing myself of the enormous black velvet chaise longue in 1997.

Not my style. Tried to appreciate it, but I was extremely bored. This is background music for some place I don’t want to be at.

Yo, so this isn't NEARLY as Carboot Soul, but it's a great album. I am very mad it took so long for me to find Nightmares on Wax.

Carboot Soul was the first NoW album I listened to, so it will always hold a special place, but this one is fantastic top to bottom. I was so glad to be reminded of it and it fit perfectly with the heads down work I needed to do that day.

7/2 Holy fire. Standout Tracks: Pipes Honour, Groove St., Bless My Soul, Rise, Gambia via Vagator Beach

Innocuous ambient music to work by. Not sure why it's on this list but nothing awful. The title and the performer name are a little misleading for this work--I was expecting something a little more hiphop-y and dystopian. Instead it was like "music for cleaning out your email."

Première très bonne surprise au lancement de cet album : il ne s'agit pas de musique reggae. On enchaîne les premières pistes avec enthousiasme, tout se passe à merveille, jusqu'au moment où l'on se rend compte environ une heure après avoir lancé l'écoute que la troisième piste vient à peine de commencer. Rapidement, on en a marre. On a envie que ça s'arrête. On tombe alors sur le morceau Cruise (Don't stop) qui nous explique au sein de ses parenthèses que l'on y est encore pour quelques heures. Le DJ responsable de cette mascarade est un certain Nightmares On Wax. Son style de musique chill-out aurait merité d'être appelé repetitive-out, ou même not-interesting-out, ou carrément tchoupits-out. On emmerde l'artiste ainsi que ses proches même s'ils n'ont rien demandé.

Utter rubbish. I pride myself on listening to every style and genre I can, and appreciating the talent of the artists within it, even if I don't like it. No talent displayed here! I cannot imagine why this is in a 'must listen' list.

Pure shite

Awful and talentless. I just don’t understand who would buy this and for what occasion? I don’t see any talent in coming up with a 5 second long drum pattern and overlaying it with no more than 3 notes, then looping it endlessly until you lose the will to live. I always read the Wiki reviews on each album to get a deeper understanding of the artist & the album. Having read about this one, I’ve learnt nothing. I just wonder why this obscure artist and album made the 1,001 list. It wasn’t for commercial success (and neither should it just be about that), and it wasn’t for outstanding critical reviews. It doesn’t seem to have inspired other artists and doesn’t seem groundbreaking in any way. I guess the author of the list just likes it. Each to their own.

Absolutely golden. A brilliant album.

yyyyyeeeeaaaaaazzzzz 👍🏽👍🏽

Wow, that's a amazing record.

"Nights Introlude", the first song on this album, is one of the greatest trip hop master pieces of all time. Overall, Nightmares on Wax's beats are very smooth, but not in a smooth jazz way, and more on the smoothness feel on the layers of his production. The early hip hop references are very well put in songs like "Dreddoverboard", just like the spy movie soundtrack vibes of "Mission Venice" are perfectly fit. "Stars", for instance, is almost a early chillwave track. It's a very creative album from start to finish.

Home office sound track

Loved it, very relaxed

So smooth.

Grooving grooves.

Nicole likes this one too...

Perfect chilled beats

Great chill out album!

Great 'relaxing' music.

Pretty interesting jam album. Some songs drag on a bit. But mostly nice melodies. Some people might get bored but I can get into it.

The first song is great, jazzy, sophisticated sounding. Great first impression; expecting good things. Nest song a little funkier, more soulful...very nice. A couple more songs inn super smooth, organic...Trip Hop the way Trip Hop should be. Me likey. It does get a little long...a little samey for active listening , becomes more of a background listening experience but a really really good background listening experience. Put this on at a dinner party and I think you have the perfect backdrop. 4 stars

Gotta love some trip-hop. The beats and sounds on this thing are hazy and wacky, lots of cool noises that sound kind of underwater and industrial. Really creative, really interesting and really catchy

needed a spliff to listen to it, good sound tho

It’s rare that I listen to a 90’s electronic album from this list and it doesn’t sound dated. Maybe it’s because digital recording was still in its infancy then and more limited than it is today, and as a result, listeners’ expectations were tempered to not expect much variety, but that doesn’t account for a record like DJ Shadow’s Endtroducing, which doesn’t feel dated or overly repetitive and mechanical like this one does. With that said, this is not an awful album, but I think it could use some judicious editing. If you were to Guided by Voices this thing - no songs over three minutes, blend the tracks together like a seamless mix tape - it could be a pretty awesome record.

Expected more stoner music, got shitty hotel bar music

Background music.

well, Nightmares on Wax don't like to be tarred with the "trip hop" brush. And I agree with them. This is chilled instrumental hip hop, which si all well and good, but does tend a little towards wallpaper. I am also surprised that this is not nearly as crunchy and lofi as the leading luminaries of trip hop preferred in their sound design (qv. Massive Attach, Tricky, Portishead). I can also hear the seismic influences of DJ Shadow and especially J.Dilla on the world of instrumental hip hop. it's hard to believe that instrumental hip was ever this clean and almost to the grid. The whole sense of sound and timing has changed so much since the late 90s, that this sounds almost quaint. Influential in its time, but not really relevant anymore. It's just kind of easy listening jazz-lite with hip hop-ish beats. Cursed by its own ubiquity.

Made it 30 minutes through this and still didn’t get an appointment with my dentist

Christ on a stick, this is dull… Looking through the other reviews, I’m really surprised at the amount of 4s and 5s. I guess some people are easily pleased

Genuinely shocked by how good that was.

Smoking weed mood

Once upon a time I thought all the music of the future would sound this cool! It doesn’t, but that which does owes a lot to this way-ahead-of-its-time sound.

Chill stuff

Nice, a band I didn't know nothing but the name about! I actually thought this would be a reggae/dub/elektro -mashup, after reading up on it I think this is something that my mates in the 90's tried to push on to me. Only things that stuck were Children Of The Bong and some Metalheadz/Goldie things, I suppose. I really enjoyed this one. This is chillout music at it's best and I gotta look into this stuff some more.

very groovy. i listened to this while fried out my mind. felt that shit honestly.

Nightmares on Wax are on permanent rotation for me. 6/5

Smokers Delight is like a warm blanket on a cold night - a comforting, laid-back listen. It's got this cool, vintage vibe with a mix of jazzy, soulful samples and smooth beats. It's the kind of album you can put on and just zone out to. While it might not be the most groundbreaking or experimental, it's definitely got a timeless quality. If you're into chillwave, trip-hop, or just good old-fashioned chill music, this one's a must-listen.

love this

Man, it’s been ages since I last heard this. This album is jazzy, groovy, and incredibly laid-back, with hypnotic trip hop beats and ambient atmospheres. It’s the kind of middle of the road album that fits just about any situation. Whether you’re at a house party where people are getting into the groove, or casually driving with your grandparents after picking them up from the nursing home for lunch, this album just works. It’s smooth, inoffensive, and effortlessly cool.

Super catchy, easy to listen to at all times beats. Would definitely listen to while driving, reading, cleaning, etc. loved it.

I violently came listening to this album

great chill music. Really enjoyed it.

Great relaxing electronic music!

niiiiice

Vibes on top of vibes Jazzy chill hip hop techno Windows down night drive

what a great album. I'm putting this in the Zero7/Tame Impala section of the library

Never heard of the group. Liked this.

groves end to end

This album attaches itself to the mid-1990s like a limpet to a rock. That isn't a bad thing, by any stretch, because to go into a bar playing Nightmares on Wax during the 90s was about the coolest thing one could do. Sure, it isn't as good an album as Carboot Soul, but it is still really very good. If you imagine yourself chatting to a girl in a hip (probably underground) bar in Manchester, Glasgow, Bristol or London - you'd be talking to her about Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst, or maybe about how tiresome Tara Palmer-Tomkinson and Tamara Beckwith were - and this is the soundtrack to that chat-up. You'd buy her a hilariously expensive cocktail and have a g&t for yourself, and you'd feel like you owned the world. Nightmares on Wax are the soundtrack for swish bars, funky hotels and relaxed ambiance. If your chat-up worked, though, when you got her back to yours and picked a CD to put into your B&O BeoSystem, it'd be Kruder & Dorfmeister that you put on while you went down on her. Sorry Nightmares, but you're cool music, not sexytime music.

Loved this one. Great chill beats and found a few favorites

This album was amazing and not at all what i expected. Moving to the top of playlist

Bears, BEATS, Battle Star Galactica

nice

super sweet

Best one yet

This is a great record that I have no problem spinning again, and again, and again. It's complex enough that one can listen to it intently without getting bored, but given it's rhythmic and audibly balanced nature, it can also meld comfortably into the background and still shine. As a fan of music without words, this album has been a staple for many years.

Aptly titled I reckon.

this is really cool. I would love to own this.

Some chill downtempo electronica. Nothing fast-paced or frantic, just an hour and fourteen minutes of smooth-as-butter trip-hop perfection. Beautiful music to just chill to on this hot summer's day. It's background music for sure but I'm totally okay with that. Maybe there would be some days where I wouldn't be so into something so slow and mellowed out, but this just works too perfectly today. Favourite: Dreddoverboard

I love Nightmares On Wax

I didn't get all the way through this on my first round of listening but was very much enjoying the music as such that when I was making dinner I put Nightmares On Wax on and very much enjoyed some of their other tracks. Faves on this release would be Groove St., and Rise. Looking forward to spending more time with these guys.

Loved it. Very diverse sounds across the whole album, feels ahead of it's time. I'd love to hear modern remixes/sampling with most of the songs. I added 3 or 4 while listening and will definitely be back soon. I'd be interested to hear the live set from Freestyle '18 as well. Overall a great early entry in the field of downtempo. 8.5/10

Cracking album, super chilled, laid-back trip-hop. I know it's not to everyone's taste, but I just wanted to lay back, roll up a fat one, and get stoned

Fun! Really good instrumental album.

Great chill ambient album. Perfect background music imo. Saved tracks: Pipes Honour, Groove St., (Man) Tha Journey, Cruise(Don't Stop)

This was a great, mellow, listen. I was a bit surprised that this came out before Moby came along (unless there's a connection between the two). This album is going to get listened to a lot.

This is just a perfect trip-hop album, I can't believe I had not heard it before. Loved every second of it.

Loved it. Chill vibe more so than Gramatik

really nice album hard to think of any complaints other than it being a bit simplistic and repetitive at times still, I really enjoyed it - 9/10

Such a chilled album, I love it. This is now one of my go to albums for those time when I want to unwind

Очень хорошая фоновая музыка

Man oh man what an album. This takes me right back. The pure laid back sounds and grooves. I've smoked a lot to this album over the years. But 20 years late and sober as a judge still sounds awesome. You do need the bass up mind.

#/5 -

Quintessential trip hop

Des ambiances fluides et finement orchestrées. Leur subtilité pourrait nous échapper

This album was a fun listen. I'm not sure how innovative it was at the time, and it certainly sounds dated now, but I liked it overall as an album to put on and just listen to in the background while I work 4/5

I liked this a lot. Given the name and the album art I was afraid it was going to be a Cyprus Hill clone. Not the best album I've heard in this genre but I added it to my concentration playlist, will definitely be listening to again.

Love this album, chill vibe music

Tremendous ambient mixed hip hop beats! Will for sure be getting more into their stuff! Awesome!

Включил на фоне и кайфуй

This is another atmospheric instrumental album that's hard to have a strong opinion about. I dig the dub and hip-hop vibes, so I'm a little more willing to give it a 4, but it's not a strong 4. Also, why is there no dub on this list?

Some albums or groups have a resonance that goes beyond any musical merit they have (or lack!). Having missed most '90's & 00's music through being an busy old worker drone this is one of the delights I discovered after retiring. Whenever I hear anything by NoW it's 1am & I'm in a hotel room in Kampot, Cambodia, well-fed, fissed as a part & cigar in hand, stripped to my kellies & playing some of their recently discovered music on loop. Happy days!

Sophisticated and interestingly layered chill, which sounds an order of magnitude better on headphones and which gets one immediately into a great headspace and keeps one there. Carboot Soul is the stronger record – less being more and having two of the best chill cuts ever ("Morse" and "Fire In the Middle") also being more – and is probably the more just choice for this list. Maybe it goes on slightly too long but there simply aren't many better chill records and it holds up well.

Det här är en genre jag är svag för och mår bra av att lyssna på. Har hört en del av honom sen innan (You wish och Les nuits är en fantastiska), dock inte den här skivan. Gillar det repetitiva, de jazziga beatsen, det suggestiva och inslagen av trip-hop och hip-hop. Pipes honour är en riktig höjdare men även exempelvis Nights introlude, Tha Journey, Rise och Bless my soul och Gambia.

Ehh I've kinda always struggled with Nightmares On Wax. Bits of I like, bits of it I find really dull, so over an hour of it left me jumping between 3 and a 4.

Great music for working to. Reminds me of my dad, obviously. What a stoner.

uma vibe meio diferente, retro com cyber, eu curti

Layered and soft spoken, this music seems very fun to play. It evokes images of friends getting stoned together and jamming for hours. Sounds like a pleasant way to spend an afternoon, in my opinion. While I agree with others this could be considered boring, I disagree that it has no merit. It does exactly what it sets out to do. If you aren't into that, that's fine. Sometimes I think people forget that art is not always (or even often, depending on who you are) made directly for people like you.

chill af