The Chemical Brothers 'Block Rockin' Beats'

Chart Peak: 1 [1 week]

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Due for release on 24th March '97, 'Block Rockin' Beats' is the follow-up to last year's chart-topping collaboration with Noel Gallagher... It could be very large indeed!

On my copy of Now 36, and presumably on everyone else's too, the first note of this track is missing, which would be highly annoying if I didn't have a copy of this track already. It's the only example I've ever encountered of such a production error on a Now album, unless anyone else knows different.
It's particularly irritating that it interrupts the otherwise rather neat intro (better on this single edit than the album version, which starts with a sound effect). Like 'Breathe', this is dependent on a bassline, allegedely inspired by Pink Floyd's 'Let There Be More Light', which hooks in the listener as the Chems run through their familiar repertoire of siren like effects, pounding beats and out-of context vocal samples. Even more so than the previous track, it's a truly outstanding shot of drum programming, twisting and turning with remarkable feel.

Like 'Breathe', it became the act's second consecutive Number One single, although even by 1997 standards  this wasn't a particularly big one: it entered at the top (in a week when the Chart Show on ITV had anointed their old friends and collaborators The Charlatans as chart-toppers instead) but it managed to slip all the way down to 8 the next week. Despite that, it actually feels a more commercially acceptable track than the Prodigy's effort, possibly because it lacks the full-on aggression of their work: indeed, the Chemical Brothers, despite their druggy-sounding name, never seemed to have a controversial or confrontational public image. They've always preferred to come across as craftsmen more than the agitators of their more established rivals.

The other difference is that 'Block Rockin' Beats' stays much closer to the established structures of rock music, and indeed won a Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental Performance the following year. With their wide understanding of musical history, it was the Chemical Brothers, rather than 2Unlimited, who became the dance act that the Britpop fans could and did enjoy. In a way perhaps they were emblematic of the way pop's relationship with the past changed in the 1990s.

Also appearing on: Now 43, 51, 60, 67
Available on: Brotherhood [+digital booklet]