Basement Jaxx

Basement Jaxx are seen by many as the saviours of late 90s dance music, arriving at a time when the genre was in decline, nearly 20 years old and for the first time in its history struggling to find commercial originality, despite the plethora of technologies available through which to produce it.

With the likes of the Chemical Brothers and The Prodigy in hiatus, Steps and other such shite dominating the charts and more and more ‘proper clubs’ being replaced by cheesy discos, it seemed like a dark period indeed for the young clubber.

So when a pair of otherwise unknown DJs by the name of Felix Buxton and Simon Ratcliffe released a tune by the name of ‘Red Alert’ in 1999, its arrival could not have been more welcome. Three years on from the heights of Britpop and over two from the arrival of The Strokes, Basement Jaxx gave hope that new music could still be cool and not everything on the dancefloor was originally made for your little sister.

The subsequent album ‘Remedy’ is rightfully regarded as a dance classic, spawning a number of other hits such as ‘Rendezvous’, ‘Bingo Bango’ and ‘Jump N’ Shout’. However, it was the diversity of their music that showed the band to be real innovators.

2001 follow-up ‘Rooty’ continued the party ‘Remedy’ had started, with the terrace-chant-as-house-tune ‘Where’s Your Head At?’ widely seen as a career highlight (who could forget the video, another example of how you generally can’t go wrong with monkeys).

By the time they released third album 'Kish Kash', the band had established themselves as veterans. Though the album was less successful in commercial terms - being much darker and broodier - it was no less inspired, earning a Mercury Music Prize nomination along with several Brit nominations.

In 2005 the band released their ‘Singles’ compilation, a fairly standard run through of an admittedly formidable back catalogue. This does not however mean that the band is a spent force –  track ‘Oh My Gosh!’ once again demonstrated the band’s penchant for using unknown vocalists to great effect – while their Grammy success showed that they may finally be getting the acclaim they deserve.