I have to confess that it took me a long, long time to appreciate Richard D. James (aka Aphex Twin). I had read many reviews of his music and they had almost unanimously agreed that his electronic music was "the next big thing" in that genre. Being a fan of "old school" electronica (such as Kraftwerk and Bill Nelson's electronic projects as well as the really pioneering stuff bu Iannis Xennakis and Charles Dodge), I was very interested in checking this Aphex Twin guy out...
If I recall correctly, that chance came in 1991, when I ordered a copy of I Care Because You Do from a record club.
I remember putting it on and trying to "get into" it, but alas, it was just TOO different for me (and that's saying something about how unique the album is, because I usually enjoy total originality)...
Or maybe I should say that it didn't sound like what I expected an "electronic" album to sound like...and it didn't. It was very percussion-heavy, much more so than the electronic music I'd championed previously. The instrumentation didn't sound like the synthesizers I had come to expect. In fact, they often didn't sound like anything I'd ever heard before in my life.
Time has passed and I've developed a true love for the genre known as "Braindance/IDM/Glitch". The credit for that goes to Autechre. From there I decided to give Aphex Twin another chance and ever since then I've been a hardcore fan of his music.
Even so, I Care Because You Do has remained a fairly difficult record for me to get into. That said, I do enjoy it tremendously these days.
I can't really proclaim any tracks as "favorites", as I like most all of them. The only one I don't really care for is the intentionally annoying "Ventolin (Video Version)".
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