FEATURE:
Under the Influence
The Chemical Brothers’ Surrender at Twenty-Five
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A chart-topping album…
that was one of the best of the late-1990s, The Chemical Brothers’ Surrender turns twenty-five on 21st June. Singles like Hey Boy Hey Girl and Let Forever Be stand alongside the best songs ever released by the duo of Ed Simons and Tom Rowlands. Their third studio album arrived in 1999. It came two years after the hugely successful Dig Your Own Hole. If Surrender did not quite get the same acclaim as its predecessor, it is clear this album is a classic. It is interesting seeing how music changed and evolved by the end of the 1990s. Great Dance and Electronic albums from Basement Jaxx and The Chemical Brother stood alongside Blur, TLC and Fiona Apple. It was a fascinating time. The final albums released in the past millennium. Quite historic in a way. Ranking with the best of 1999 is The Chemical Brothers’ Surrender. I want to come to some reviews for the album. In 2019, for its twentieth anniversary, Stereogum looked at the lead-up to Surrender. The fact that The Chemical Brothers has achieved success and commercial popularity by 1999. Where could they possible head from here? It was a fascinating time for them:
“What more did they have to prove by the summer of 1999? Exit Planet Dust had commanded the attention of the dance music world, and its follow up would turn many a mainstream head beyond that. In 1996 they had an international breakthrough single with “Setting Sun,” and in 1997 they unleashed Dig Your Own Hole and, along with others like the Prodigy, Daft Punk and Fatboy Slim, convinced quite a lot of people that electronica was the new mainstream alternative music.
It certainly didn’t hurt their chances that so much major label alt rock had dully dug its own hole at that point, but the Brothers got people moving on their own merit. Doubling down on the debut’s big beats and furious loops, Dig Your Own Hole can in places come across a touch thin and jittery compared to its predecessor, but not to a degree that’s to its detriment — unlike a certain overstretched rock album from that same year released by their pal, and “Setting Sun” guest vocalist, Noel Gallagher. Dig Your Own Hole was regarded by many as a bigger and brasher version of the Chemical Brothers, but the impression of a sequel lingered in its live-set pace, similar sequencing, and Beth Orton arriving at the end to serenade you back down.
To this day the Chemical Brothers still haven’t lost fondness for their own traditions, but Surrender — which turns 20 today — was the first time they tried to consciously step away from some of them. “The records we made had quite a large impact on a hell of a lot of music,” Rowlands told CMJ New Music Monthly around the time of Surrender’s release. “And now, making this record, we feel much the same way: We’ve had to invent a new place for it.” The first two albums were consciously functional dance discs, arranged with technical aspects like beats per minute in mind, that also managed to infiltrate the pop sphere. Surrender, on the other hand, “was more put together by moods, the tone of the record and where it could take you,” said Rowlands.
Toiling away in the studio for longer than normal, Simons and Rowlands crafted a kind of classic-rock-minded rave record to cap off the era and their first decade together. Rolling Stone’s review of Surrender posited, perhaps with a glint of misguided hopefulness, that it “may be the first dance-music album about the end of dance music, or at least the end of the innocence,” before drawing more on-point comparisons to the Madchester scene from which the Brothers first sprang, Detroit techno, Afrika Bambaataa, post-punk and Kraftwerk. Others also celebrated Surrender’s multiple new directions and willingness to not just pause for breath, but to chill out here and there.
“It looks like there is life after big beat, after all,” observed Q magazine about Surrender, offering, like that Rolling Stone review, a compliment to the Chem Bros couched in a terminal diagnosis for their genre. Given the typical lifespan of many dance and electronic scenes over the years, such assessments weren’t entirely out of order. The duo themselves even noted at the time that they didn’t want to back themselves into the corner of pleasing the crowd until the crowd are no longer content with what used to please them. But this wasn’t the Brothers turning dance traitors and planning their escape, this was about redrawing boundaries and the need to grow. They weren’t the ones meant to be surrendering. They were saying, quite expressly in “Hey Boy Hey Girl,” the album’s first single: “Here we go.”
Not that the Chemical Brothers had a problem with going back to the same well when there was plenty of water left. “We like working with people whose music we’re great fans of,” Rowlands told Billboard about Surrender, “and we established nice relationships working with Noel Gallagher and Jonathan Donahue on ‘Dig Your Own Hole,’ so there’s that continuity….” Mercury Rev’s Donahue had contributed to “The Private Psychedelic Reel” on Dig and was called back to blissfully strum Surrender to a close with “Dream On.” Meanwhile, “Let Forever Be” found the Chem Bros landing on the right side of repeating themselves, with Gallagher lending a more full-chested vocal this time around to a more organic-hued cousin of “Setting Sun.”
That was just the tip of the guest list. On the album’s looser second half, Hope Sandoval drifts through “Asleep From Day,” a midpoint comedown that for its gentleness was perhaps the most startling new development on Surrender. The house shapeshifter “Out of Control” brought in both Bernard Sumner of New Order and a title-exhaling cameo from Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie (a man for whom the term ‘dance traitor’ had once been essentially invented after the Scream followed Screamadelica with Give Out But Don’t Give Up). Halfway though, “Out of Control” spins into a distinct pairing of open guitar chords and high bassline, and Sumner’s presence accomplishes something more meaningful than just filling a ‘featuring’ slot. “Out of Control,” like other moments on Surrender, combines homage and collaboration in a way more familiar to, but at the same time more capable than, rock music.
Make no mistake, the Chemical Brothers were up for being rock stars. “We’re not into avant-garde excursions, the sort of abstract ideas that you’ll hear on a Mo’ Wax record,” Rowlands told Muzik magazine in 1995. “We’re more like party steamrollers.” They had been throwing loud guitar samples in their tracks as far back as early single “Leave Home.” When electronica was deemed the new rock ‘n’ roll they rose to the occasion and became two of its most identifiable faces. Then, just like any rock band worth more than a mere good time, they got ambitious, and decided that steamrolling the party was no longer enough.
“Surrender feels like an old style rock record, and that’s a compliment,” wrote England’s Dreaming author Jon Savage in Mojo. “It has variation, depth and emotion, and addresses an audience outside its own immediate concerns and genre.” Though his appearance on Surrender passes almost unnoticed, the presence of Bobby Gillespie is a notable connection. Primal Scream had reset themselves again with Vanishing Point in 1997 and were putting together XTRMNTR when Surrender dropped. At this point, the Scream and the Chemical Brothers were pushing toward the same middle ground from different points along the spectrum, with the former wielding righteous modern anger and the latter focusing on good times past and present. Between the two of them at that moment, rock ‘n’ roll and electronic music were the closest they had ever been to being the same thing.
Successfully crossing over didn’t come without at least a little consternation. “I don’t like the way big beat is seen as a more acceptable form of dance music for people who aren’t really into dance music,” Simons admitted in an early 1999 interview. What he did like was seeing rock culture at that time reflecting dance culture. “Usually, it’s going to clubs that’s all about meeting up early and you all go down together, but Oasis gave you that sort of thing with rock gigs,” he said. Dig Your Own Hole had dug into the heads of legions of listeners who could probably count the number of other dance acts they liked on one hand, and it had done so with making few if any real concessions. Surrender reached even further across the imaginary aisle, and it did so on its own terms.
It also set a new precedent for Chemical Brothers albums to come. The next two in particular, Come With Us in 2002 and Push The Button in 2005, present the duo at their most pop-thinking. The singles brightly stand out, the pacing ebbs and flows, the vocalist lineups remain illustrious. The Chem Bros certainly didn’t get big turning their backs on a good formula, and the pattern-breaking they achieved on Surrender ultimately gave them a new one to work with”.
Ahead of its twenty-fifth anniversary, I would advise people to pick up a copy of Surrender. Last year, this website explored a millennial classic. When The Chemical Brothers were at the peak of their powers, they could have folded or played it safe. One does not get that with Surrender. It is a bold and brilliant album that saw them move and evolve. Not repeating what we heard on Dig Your Own Hole:
“Following 1995’s Exit Planet Dust and 1997’s Dig Your Own Hole, all eyes were on crossover UK dance act The Chemical Brothers. Surrender, released on June 21, 1999, sealed their reputation for good, building on their sterling previous collaborations and instrumental work with another walloping hour of electronica, peaking on some of their best-loved numbers and picking up critical acclaim and international chart success along the way.
It’s all on top, right from the quivering electro-vibery which kick-starts the pulsating, playfully glitchy Morse code opener “Music: Response,” its twisting filters going straight for the physical reaction it desires. The early 90s, bleepy warehouse feel of the skittery yet thumping “Under The Influence” follows, the track’s swooping and churning bassline having debuted the year before (in a different mix) as part of the duo’s dancefloor-testing Electronic Battle Weapon series.
This opening double act is something of a dramatic set-up for the most high-profile collaboration on the album, which features New Order’s Bernard Sumner, with Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie on backing vocals. Sumner pieces are always an event, and the landmark, sweeping, swankily rippling, and aggressively blaring “Out Of Control” soups up Bobby Orlando’s 80s hi-NRG track “She Has A Way” for a new generation. Capturing the Chems in total mastery of the tools at their disposal, and with Sumner summing up the manic energy of the impending millennial celebrations, the single release of the song also attracted a remix from legendary UK DJ Sasha.
Revamped once more
Leading on from the pitchbent, funkily scratched diversions of “Orange Wedge,” the woozy, psych-drenched “Let Forever Be” features the return of Oasis’ Noel Gallagher. It followed his hit collaboration with the Brothers on Dig Your Own Hole’s “Setting Sun”, and proved that they could penetrate the mainstream alongside all that credible club fare. The Beatles influences then drains away into the suitably languid opening section of Surrender’s centerpiece, “The Sunshine Underground.” Sampling its gently cosmic guitar riff from a library music piece by James Asher, the track eventually blasts off into a constantly changing, lightly drum’n’bass-fuelled epic sprinkled with a dusting of energetic percussion, dainty finger cymbals, and circling keys. The previous album’s updated psychedelia had made a slight return, but revamped once more.
The beautiful, classy vocals of Mazzy Star’s Hope Sandoval feature on the calm balm of the country-flecked “Asleep From Day.” Sandal proved to be a wise choice of collaborator from the indie-conversant duo, another effective singer for electronic material who later also collaborated with Massive Attack on “Paradise Circus,” from their 2010 album, Heligoland.
Soundtracking the age of the superstar DJ
The rolling bassline and questing Tomorrow’s World-esque hook of “Got Glint?” fade into the towering, totemic, buzzing smash single “Hey Boy Hey Girl,” which builds on the duo’s previous raging big-beat successes and transfers that energy into a new mold, definitively soundtracking the age of the superstar DJ with its irresistible, crisply hip-hop-laced breaks. (The Surrender B-sides were mainly new tracks rather than remixes, but Soulwax later successfully updated this classic for the 00s.) “Dream On” then utilizes instrumental and vocodered contributions from Jonathan Donahue of rising American alt.rock stars Mercury Rev to bring the album down to a welling, acoustic-tinged lullaby ending”.
I am going to finish with a couple of interviews for Surrender. NME shared their take on a classic. Even if some fans of The Chemical Brothers prefer other albums from them, I think that Surrender is their best work. It is definitely one of the best and most important albums from 1999:
“The epiphany for The Chemical Brothers arrived last year and it arrived with a blinding flash. They were up at Gatecrasher in Sheffield, they have said, surveying the Day-Glo wreckage and savouring that Mitsubishi moment - Paul Van Dyk and Judge Jules at the controls. And as the massive trance pumped around them, the revelation was complete. This might not be the future, they reckoned, but it works. And blimey, it feels marvellous.
Here we go, then. But where exactly? Where else can Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons take us that we haven't been before? What new genres can they invent this time, assuming they did in the first instance? Oh, we can credit them with big beat and hold them responsible for Fatboy Slim's entire career, but to return now with an album of breakbeat-derived delirium, regardless of quality, would be insulting and unacceptable. Instead, light sticks at the ready, The Chemical Brothers have gone raving and they've dragged their celebrity mates along with them.
'Surrender' is hardly the radical move we (foolishly) anticipated, but then the Chemicals aren't a radical group. Effective and ruthlessly proficient, yes, but never the boundary-pushers or maverick sound scientists. Theirs is a psychedelia for people who've never taken acid, techno for those unfamiliar with Jeff Mills or, more recently and pertinently, Green Velvet. If you want gloriously dumb tough house, buy Impulsion's equally impressive but pretension-free 'Love Addict' album.
Plenty has happened since 'Dig Your Own Hole' and, sure, we survived without Tom and Ed. Yet somehow, with their third album, it all seems irrelevant. We're back at the beginning, eager to see what will happen after 'Surrender' has left its colossal mark. Whether it deserves to be such an inescapably enormous, all-consuming record is neither here nor there, it just is.
And as it happens, 'Surrender' is excellent. From the opening faux-naive Kraftwerk simulation of 'Music: Response' right through to the final, Jonathan Donahue-assisted fry-up 'Dream On', it's simply a joy to listen to. Tellingly, the pair are most successful when they try something new (for them, at least). Like the irrepressibly sleek techno of 'Under The Influence', or 'Out Of Control', the best collaboration Bernard Sumner has sung on. Bobby Gillespie's also there, apparently, moaning. Its rumoured Sasha remix makes perfect sense.
'Hey Boy Hey Girl' you know, suffice to say it's a great moment in acid-bongo-pop fusion, while the Brothers' take on silken Chicago house, 'Got Glint?', even slides into graceful Balearic homage. These aside, though, and we're back on familiar ground. The album's nine-minute centrepiece, 'The Sunshine Underground', is essentially 'The Private Psychedelic Reel' smeared with glitter, and 'Asleep From Day', featuring Mazzy Star's permanently 'dreamy' Hope Sandoval, replaces previous folk-scarred outings with Beth Orton. Nice, but not quite the ticket.
Noel Gallagher rasps through the dislocated funk of 'Let Forever Be', a harmless, more subdued version of 'Setting Sun', you could argue. Noel's biggest influence on Tom and Ed, however, must be in the prevalence of utterly bland song titles. 'Orange Wedge'? It's not their finest musical moment either.
Minor gripes, admittedly, and anyway, you can always skip over them. Sufficient responses triggered, 'Surrender' won't change your life. But it will make it more enjoyable. And that, for the time being, is quite enough.
8/10”.
I am going to end with a review from Rolling Stone. I do hope that, ahead of the twenty-fifth anniversary on 21st June, there is new investigation of Surrender. It is no doubt one of the finest albums of the 1990s. A work of sheer brilliance from The Chemical Brothers:
“Dance music is something usually spoken of in the future tense: the imminent hits and next hot samples; the underground remixers ripe for prime time; the changes just around the bend. Surrender, then, is a rare thing in electronic body pop: a record about yesterday. In fact, the third sterling studio album by the Chemical Brothers, the English spin-jockey duo of Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons, may be the first dance-music album about the end of dance music, or at least the end of the innocence -- the way things were before the bungled hype of electronica; before Prodigy-copycat bands and third-rate techno compilations; before Madonna reinvented herself as a digital Dolly Lama and Fatboy Slim became the DJ king of TV-commercial residuals.
"Under the Influence," "Out of Control," "The Sunshine Underground," "Dream On": Most of the song titles here are blatant valentines to the first great age of E's and raves, Britain's fabled acid-house summers of 1988 and '89. Rowlands and Simons were there as young, thunderstruck clubbers, and they soak much of this record in literal, cheery reminiscence. "Under the Influence" is all throb and velocity -- an insistent, circular synth figure; zippy drum-machine sizzle; dive-bombing bass. At one point, the music comes to a series of gulping stops, as if Rowlands and Simons were braking the track on a turntable in real time. As the song suddenly rocks back to full speed, you have a good idea of what it was like to ride the music in a field full of loons, all off their heads on pills and shimmy.
The pneumatic roll and vocoder-filtered refrains in "Music: Response" and "Got Glint?" reference even more ancient daze: the crucial, early robo-soul of Detroit techno pioneers Kevin Saunderson and Juan Atkins; Afrika Bambaataa's early-Eighties fusion of Bronx break beats and Kraftwerk. Rowlands and Simons also evoke, brilliantly, the first stirrings of British post-punk dance culture in "Out of Control" -- a shit-hot mimicking of the 1983 New Order classic "Blue Monday" -- with, for extra cheek, lyrics and vocals by New Order's Bernard Sumner (crooning with perfect repressed-English-schoolboy menace).
If Surrender was simply meticulously rendered nostalgia, it would be just pleasant, a step down from the Chemicals' 1995 rave-tastic debut, Exit Planet Dust, and the heaving Acid Test funk of the pair's '97 chartbuster, Dig Your Own Hole. But this is a record that also moves. Dance music is primarily about the beat; without it, there is no dancing. But the best dance music is about what happens over, under, in the thick of a rhythm -- about the tidal dynamics and programmatic tension feeding the pulse. Surrender is rich in both.
Rowlands and Simons know how to get busy with the barest essentials. "Hey Boy Hey Girl" is basically a single percolating riff, a knocking beat and the starting-gun chant from Rockmaster Scott and the Dynamic Three's 1985 single "The Roof Is on Fire" ("Hey, girls, hey, boys, superstar DJs, here we go!"). Yet the mix is a hive of activity: Drums come in and out like riptides; cymbals crash with punctuative effect; wheezy keyboard licks are mounted atop each other in squishy counterpoint. The track rocks not for any one of those reasons but, ultimately, for all of them.
Replacing Beth Orton, the Chemicals' siren of choice on Exit and Dig, Hope Sandoval of Mazzy Star is suitably coquettish in her vocal cameo, "Asleep From Day." More fun is the episodic music around her: the racing-bongo segment and the toy-town folk rock culled, at least in spirit, from old Judy Collins records. In "The Sunshine Underground," a chip off the swollen-arpeggio trance rock of "The Private Psychedelic Reel" on Dig, the Chemicals tweak the core riff (played by what sounds like the love child of a sitar and a hammer dulcimer) with sly rhythmic shifts and nutty percussive touches (a bicycle bell, for instance) that fatten the piece's subtle muscularity.
As fine as Surrender is, it may be time for Rowlands and Simons to revamp their approach to making studio albums. There is a creeping sense of formula to the celebrity-vocal packages. "Let Forever Be," the Chemicals' second Revolver pastiche featuring Oasis' Noel Gallagher, lacks the crisp novelty of the Dig template, "Setting Sun." In fact, this album's best moments come without lyrics or singing. Rowlands and Simons have memorialized their gloriously wasted youth by making a record that kicks like living history. Put it on, crank it up, bust a move. (RS 815)”.
On 21st June, the magnificent Surrender turns twenty-five. I think it is still full of layers and revelations, even though I have been listening to songs from it since it was released in 1999. If you have not heard the album – or not heard it in a while -, then go and put on Surrender and let it…
TAKE you somewhere incredible.