Electronic
Here you'll find album stories, birthdays, and anniversaries from electronic artists, producers, and labels, plus vinyl reissue news as it appears. Electronic music and the 12-inch single grew up together: it was the format built for DJs, with extended mixes and white-label pressings that spread new tracks through clubs before anyone else heard them, and reissue labels keep working through that early club history. The stories here follow how specific tracks and albums were built — studio setups, drum machines, the rooms they were made for — and why a given pressing matters to collectors.
98 STORIES
How Charly García's Clics modernos rewired Argentine rock
Charly García released Clics modernos on November 5, 1983, five days after Argentina's first post-dictatorship presidential election. The New York-recorded album sounded nothing like his earlier rock.
· 4 min read
How Radiohead Reunited Kid A and Amnesiac
Radiohead's Kid A and Amnesiac came from the same sessions but lived as separate albums. On November 5, 2021, Kid A Mnesia reunited them with a third disc of unheard material.
· 3 min read
How Aphex Twin Made Richard D. James Album
Aphex Twin's Richard D. James Album arrived on November 4, 1996, built from a car-boot violin, a single Macintosh and breakbeats pushed to new speeds.
· 4 min read
How Alanis Morissette Followed Jagged Little Pill
Marilyn Manson's former label Nothing Records released the album in 1998. The record followed a tour that left the singer with post-traumatic stress disorder.
· 4 min read
Why Did We Came as Romans Call Their Debut To Plant a Seed?
We Came as Romans released To Plant a Seed on November 3, 2009, a ten-track debut on Equal Records that carried the band onto several Billboard charts.
· 3 min read
Why Did Grace Jones Wait 19 Years for Hurricane?
Grace Jones released Hurricane on Wall of Sound in November 2008, her first album of new material in 19 years. She made it with Brian Eno and the Compass Point Allstars.
· 4 min read
Why No Tourists Still Feels Like a Farewell
A London bus rolls across the cover of No Tourists, heading toward the Dalston club where The Prodigy played their first show in 1990. The route is number 7, an…
· 3 min read
How Michael Gray's 'The Weekend' Rewrote a 1983 Hook
Michael Gray's 'The Weekend' turned an Oliver Cheatham hook into a global club hit. Shena sang on the single, released on Eye Industries and Universal in November 2004.
· 3 min read
How Justin Bieber Bet His Second Album on Christmas
Justin Bieber released his first holiday album, Under the Mistletoe, on November 1, 2011, and it debuted at number one on the Billboard 200.
· 3 min read
How Manic Street Preachers Broke Their Own Sound on Lifeblood
Manic Street Preachers released Lifeblood on November 1, 2004, a quieter, more synthetic album. Nicky Wire called the record 'elegiac pop' and later an 'album of detachment.'
· 3 min read
Why Did Swans End With Soundtracks for the Blind?
Swans released Soundtracks for the Blind in 1996 as a 141-minute double album built from an archive going back to 1981. The group disbanded after a 1997 farewell tour.
· 3 min read
What Made Darude's "Sandstorm" a Global Phenomenon?
Darude's "Sandstorm" came out on 16 Inch Records on October 26, 1999. It grew from a week of studio work with Jaakko "JS16" Salovaara into a two-million-selling single.
· 4 min read
How Sade's Love Deluxe Traded Warmth for Darkness
Sade's Love Deluxe, released by Epic Records on October 26, 1992, replaced the band's easy warmth with programmed beats and a darker, more expensive sound.
· 4 min read
How Calvin Harris Stopped Singing and Broke a Chart Record
Calvin Harris released 18 Months on October 26, 2012, stepping back from the mic and letting guest vocalists carry a run of nine UK top-ten singles.
· 4 min read
How Did Justin Bieber's 'Beauty and a Beat' Become a Hit?
Justin Bieber's 'Beauty and a Beat' debuted at number 72 on the Billboard Hot 100. It climbed to number 5 after a stolen-footage video shot at a San Dimas water park.
· 3 min read
How Nelly Furtado's Whoa, Nelly! Took Flight
Nelly Furtado's debut Whoa, Nelly! arrived on DreamWorks Records on October 24, 2000, mixing English and Portuguese across twelve tracks and launching the single 'I'm Like a Bird.'
· 4 min read
Pet Shop Boys Behaviour: The Analog Turn That Changed Them
On October 22, 1990, Pet Shop Boys released Behaviour on Parlophone, hiring producer Harold Faltermeyer to swap digital sheen for warm analog synthesizers.
· 4 min read
Why Did Kylie Minogue Risk Everything on Impossible Princess?
Kylie Minogue kept the raw demos of Limbo and Too Far as finished songs and took creative control for Impossible Princess. The album, her sixth, was released on October 22, 1997.
· 4 min read
Lana Del Rey's Blue Banisters, the Album She Didn't Want You to Hear
Lana Del Rey released Blue Banisters on October 22, 2021, with almost no promotion after deleting her social media accounts a month earlier.
· 4 min read
Drukqs: The Aphex Twin Album That Was Never Meant to Exist
Aphex Twin's Drukqs began as 180 unreleased tracks on an MP3 player left on a plane, and Richard D. James rushed it out on Warp Records in October 2001.
· 3 min read
Erotica: Madonna's Risky First Album on Maverick
Madonna's Erotica, released 34 years ago as the first album on her own Maverick label, sold six million copies. It was written off as a flop in its own time.
· 4 min read
M83's Hurry Up, We're Dreaming and the Risk That Paid Off
M83's sixth studio album, Hurry Up, We're Dreaming, became the French band's highest-charting release and a Grammy nominee despite its double-disc gamble.
· 3 min read
How Dave Gahan Finally Wrote for Depeche Mode
Playing the Angel, released by Depeche Mode on 17 October 2005, was the first album where singer Dave Gahan was credited as a lyricist.
· 4 min read
Why Boards of Canada Picked Up Guitars for The Campfire Headphase
For two years, the Scottish electronic duo Boards of Canada had been circling a dangerous idea: what if the machines stepped back and guitars took the lead? The…
· 3 min read