[BrotherLovesDub]

alright, i'll bite. i read the article and it's not a diss piece on UW. p.s. is clearly wrong about STITI but he does make some good points. i'll start with the bullshit and work up to the good stuff.

Sherburne calls UW a "brand" early on and i haven't got a clue what he means. more than anything, i think this shows he's ignorant of how UW operate. does he even know about Tomato? Clear case of bullshit.

P.S. says Karl's statement on RA wasn't convincing. How well does he know Karl? Why wasn't it convincing? I was convinced. I don't think Karl Hyde is in the game of deceiving interviewers to sound more respectable. The RA interview was great, but it didn't help with Sherburne's preplanned thesis on his UW piece, so he said he didn't believe the quote. Lazy and self serving.

The thesis of this piece could have easily been: UW once were on top of the world (dubno/trainspotting etc) but are now satisfied with a much quieter existence, happy to experiment and do things their own way with no regard for sales figures, the antithesis of a "brand". Sherburne off the mark again.

Then he quotes an idiot: "Their polarizing abilities are evident in the comment from an eMusic subscriber who complains about the site's categorization of their iconic album Second Toughest in the Infants as house and techno: "Do you need help classifying music? This is not house. This is ambient."
- why quote an idiot P.S.? cuz only an idiot would agree with your preplanned thesis? if you put weight on a statement from a retarded moron who thinks STITI is ambient, then you're a fucking tool, even duller than once thought.

The single most ridiculous and heinous part of Sherburne's piece was this chestnut: "Second Toughest feels more like a cut-and-paste job, a collage of pieces that don't really have anything to do with one another. "Confusion the Waitress" is the only track that retains the restraint of the earlier album; the rest feels either frantic ("Pearls Girl") or affectedly slack ("Stagger")."
- no comment necessary. this is so laughable we don't need to list the hundreds of reasons he's wrong. clueless coked up asshole, should have been my quote earlier.

Now for the good bit. He concludes pretty much on target:

"With the benefit of a whole lot of hindsight, A Hundred Days Off sounds less like the contractual obligation of a group past its prime and more like the blueprint for what could be the best work of Underworld's career. With a lightness of touch you don't often hear in main-stage techno, the album reclaims the balance of Dubnobass and redefines the terms for any "take 'em or leave 'em" scenario. With a new album reportedly due by the end of the year, let's hope Underworld's low profile continues to prove as inspiring as their fall from grace did"


this leads me to believe Sherburne is really a fan, but a fan who had to write a specific word count and couldn't be bothered to do a decent article. he does get UW, but his view of STITI is ignorant and offensive.