TONIGHT... Scribble - New Single

[Dunwho]

Originally Posted by khouri

The Good

The lush and upbeat production style is a welcome change from the more spacious and decidedly quiet sound Underworld have been playing with since the RiverRuns. "Scribble" is also further evidence of a more pop-oriented direction, following "Between Stars" and "Diamond Jigsaw", which I quite like. It remains to be seen if Underworld will be successful in this direction, but it's an exciting change nevertheless. Imagine an album full of tracks as intricately written and produced (perhaps overproduced?) as "Scribble", as opposed to the more leisurely (but still brilliant, obviously) stuff like "Beautiful Burnout" or "Best Magmu Ever", I think that's exciting.

I also love the "Scribble" artwork, really nice change of pace for Underworld/Tomato to create something so feminine.

The Bad

"Scribble" isn't very good. To be fair, it's difficult to give the song its due as we've been living with the fairly brilliant "You Do Scribble" for five years. My initial reaction to "Scribble" was like my reaction to "Holding the Moth", which was also a somewhat dubious rework of a better live track ("Globe"). I would have preferred a studio version of YDS with the "Small Conker with a Twix" intro, it's possibly one of the best things Underworld's ever done.

I think the biggest problem with the song is the new melody, it just seems very non-Underworld, which is possibly a consequence of the collaboration with High Contrast (who I like). It sounds too cheesy, too candy raver-esque, and it exits to the virtual exclusion of the great synths from YDS.

The Ugly

"Scribble" seems like an aggressive move by Underworld to engage an audience beyond Dirties, which is absolutely reasonable and perhaps it's that audience's reaction by which the single's success should be judged. But speaking for myself, a hardcore Underworld fan since the mid-'90s, I have to call it like I hear it and I don't think this was a wise choice for a lead single. Regardless of its relative quality, why risk disappointing the built-in audience with a rework of a track they've been literally begging for years to pay money for in its original form?

I agree completely...


but still think its actually just a High Contrast track..

"Wooops sorry guys i put the wrong record on the radio... here is the actual Underworld song you've all been waiting for!"