Meat Beat Manifesto ‎– 99%

Absolutely "a must have" for every listener to electronic music. The collage of samples, the beat, the overdraft, that's all the intellectual puzzle for these who like to think. He knew what he did.

Get comfortable, strap yourself in and get ready for a serious journey into hard techno music. It blows your head off to put it lightly and is guaranteed to clear your house of unwanted guests! An absolute classic of monumental standards from start to finish. I can't say the same about anything later than Satyricon (which is also superb). This LP seemed to reach the peak of what MBM had been aiming towards over the previous few years and focusing more on the harder and less funk-based tracks. Great stuff.

Surprised as hell no one has commented on this. I remember very clearly hearing this album and being absolutely stunned. The combination of breaks, industrial, acid and Jack Dangers' trademark creepy samples and textures is simply unparalleled to this day.

Not just one or two hot tracks, but a sonic journey from raw breaks to slamming beats to the almost radio friendly "10 x Faster Than the Speed of Love." Flip side features "Dog Star Man/ Helter Skelter," an epic journey through the frantic DSM into the eerie, driving breakbeats and samples of Helter Skelter (the beats were later used as the base for the UK smash "Radio Babylon"). Throw in some sonic insanity with the likes of "Hallucination Generation," finish it off with the floor friendly and driving "Think Fast" with one of the most classic lines of all time: "When the axe swings, then the fun begins..." Suitable descriptor for this album. Dangers swings his sonic axe and leaves no man standing.

This album was a landmark in so many ways. Many credit Dangers as the godfather of breaks, and a listen to earlier MBM releases indeed reveals MBM were churning out breaks in the mid 80's. As mentioned, "Radio Babylon," one of the first breaks tracks to hit the UK dance charts
used the percussion tracks from "Helter Skelter." But more importantly, the sounds of 99% are the precursor to an array of techno, house and industrial releases spanning 17 years. I still hear new releases either sampling or emulating beats, loops and sounds from this album, either knowlingly or unknowingly.

This one established a paradigm in electronic music way back when in '89, years ahead of it's time and still fresh today. PRICELESS.

Yeah not quite as immediate or flipped as the two previous entries. But still probably one of the cornerstone releases that provided the template that was later flipped and re flipped by practically anyone who liked big HUGE room shaking sound. i.e. Dust/Chemical Bros. Prodigy and anyone else who turned everything up to 11.

Track# "Hello Teenage America" samples JOY DIVISION's "Untitled" track (b-side of the Komakino flexi). Being a huge Joy Division fan, I smiled when I first heard this back in 1990! The Prodigy would lift the beat from "Helter Skelter" and make a huge hit with their "Charly" release. There is are reasons that Meat Beat Manifesto have a huge fan base and this is one of those reasons!

Meat Beat Manifesto's major label debut on Elektra doesn't pack the same sonic punch as their earlier Sweatbox/Wax Trax! releases but it still sounds like nothing else that was coming out at the time (certainly not on a major label). The '99%' release brings new listeners up to date with Dangers & Co. Eight of the ten tracks are new and the other two, 'Helter Skelter' and 'Deviate' (originally from singles or ep's), have been heavily remixed. MBM's offering shows the project in transition: some harder elements of their past releases are still clearly heard but on a few tracks like 'Hello Teenage America' and '10X Faster' there's a slower more dub-influenced groove that would begin to hold sway on subsequent releases. Indeed, while some older fans may see '99%' as a bit of a commercial compromise, new fans may still be awed by its scope of sounds. Thirteen years on (2003), it still sounds as fresh and original as the day it was released.