Don't be quick to dismiss this as another faceless major label compilation cash-in; this one's actually had some love put into it. EMI have enlisted Heaven 17's Martyn Ware to traipse through their vast catalogue (which now counts the Mute and Astralwerks labels as assimilations) to present Electrospective as an online, CD and event-based celebration of the evolution of electronic music. The CD features 38 artists (and David Guetta) who've made notable contributions.
The original 1963 Dr. Who theme is a splendid kick-off with the first disc being almost flawless. Favourites like Together In Electric Dreams and West End Girls sit bucolically with Brian Eno's Here Come The Warm Jets and The Normal's Warm Leatherette. They've got the mix of anthems and education spot on here.
Disc 2 starts with Inner City's 1988 house classic, Big Fun, and moves through dub (Renegade Soundwave), ambient (FSOL; Moby), techno-house (Daft Punk; Chemical Brothers) and so forth. But this is where the cracks begin to show. How can one include Radiohead (Everything In It's Right Place) but not Autechre, who arguably had the biggest influence on that sound? Where is Joe Meek's Telstar? What of acid-house, Warp and dubstep? And how come nearly everything is from the UK? Were there no decent electronic records released at all after 2005? The exclusions can be debated as much as the inclusions celebrated but the answers must inevitably lie in the limitations of the EMI catalogue. Taken on surface value, Electrospective gives you a lot of essentials that will inspire you to compile your own third disc to fill in the gaps. I did.
