1990s Electro Playlist (YouTube)
Electro is that cold, mechanical, futuristically dystopian, raw, sci-fi urban dance music that originated in the early 80s in New York with dudes like Afrika Bambaataa and then in Detroit with dudes like Juan Atkins. Both movements were more or less influenced by the same crop of acts: Kraftwerk, Yellow Magic Orchestra, Gary Numan, etc., but while electro would mesh with rap in New York and then soon get subsumed by Rick Rubin’s brand of guitar-infused production to give us Run-D.M.C., Juan Atkins and his ilk would take the Detroit brand of the stuff and develop techno music out of it.
But with the advent of that Rick Rubin style of rap, the overall popularity of electro music proceeded to take a nosedive, and it wasn’t until the late 90s that it would sustain its first serious wave of revivalism.
However, those early to mid-90s still had some great electro tracks too, even if there were hardly any public places to actually play the records themselves. Acts like Drexciya and Aux 88, both from the Motor City, provided a lifeline for this highly specific brand of perpetually 80s-sounding dance music by keeping it uptempo and maintaining an explicit Detroit techno feel, despite not really deploying the typical four-on-the-floor beat that’s so germane to techno in the first place.
So, this playlist, little by little, is going to try to accumulate some of that dope electro that these 90s had to offer, from that nearly dead period to the second wave.
On here you’ll find a good mix of the stuff too, as people were blending an electro sound—Roland TR-808 drumbeats, eerie synths, and robotic or soulless vocals—with other forms of electronic music. So, Aux 88, Drexciya, and ghettotech legend DJ Assault take care of the groovy dancefloor fare, while people like Leeds’ Feedback supply more of a loungey vibe. And my two favorite tracks of all on here, I think, are the ones that come at the end, both of which I discovered on a 1999 compilation called Electric Kingdom: Episode One. Thomas Krome’s “Electro Bitch” is a track that feels like dancing on an escalator as it descends straight down into hell, and “Skewer (You’re So Human)” by Nudge (aka Freeform) hybridizes electro with some wildly constructed IDM. In fact, I think that guy is actually maybe the most underrated IDM producer of all time.
And speaking of IDM, the first track on this playlist is by Lego Feet, which was a previous moniker of legendary IDM duo Autechre. Their 1991 tune, “Keyop,” uses a synth that sounds like an analog of what would make that guy Tobacco from Black Moth Super Rainbow indie-famous in the late 2000s and 2010s (the theme song to Silicon Valley actually comes from one of his tunes).
This playlist is ordered as chronologically as possible.
Lego Feet - “Keyop”
Drexciya - “Bubble Metropolis”
Aux 88 - “Technology”
Feedback - “Seasons”
Storm - “Timeline”
Like A Tim - “Housegirl - Homeboy”
Aux 88 - “Direct Drive”
Posatronix - “Step Into My Groove”
DJ Assault - “Shake It Baby”
Aux 88 - “Electro/Techno (Microknox Remix)”
Thomas Krome - “Electro Bitch”
Nudge - “Skewer (You’re So Human)”
And this playlist is also on YouTube Music.
More to come, eventually. Stay tuned!
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