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
Massive Attack Protection: Why Bristol Never Sounded Darker
Massive Attack released Protection on 26 September 1994. The second album pulled the curtains shut and let the night in, reshaping trip-hop with darker textures.
· 4 min read
James Blake: Why the Mercury Prize Years Still Define Him
A single piano note hangs in a London studio, then splits into four harmonized versions of itself. That was the moment James Blake stopped being a dubstep produ…
· 4 min read
Mike Oldfield's Two-Faced Album Turns 21
Mike Oldfield's 2005 double-disc album Light + Shade split his music into nine tracks of quiet light and nine of shadow. It marked his first release for Mercury Records.
· 4 min read
Childish Gambino: Why His Records Defy Every Category
Donald Glover, born September 25, 1983, built a career from comedy writing to chart-topping music. His albums under the name Childish Gambino defy easy categorization.
· 4 min read
Why Did Kylie Minogue Need Light Years to Survive?
After Impossible Princess sold just 18,000 copies in Britain, Kylie Minogue's 2000 album Light Years marked her return to pop.
· 3 min read
The Association: How Cherish Defined a Band's Legacy
The Association's 1966 single "Cherish" reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100. It established the Los Angeles group as a soft-rock force with dense, jazz-informed harmonies.
· 4 min read
David Bowie Heroes: How a Berlin Wall Song Was Recorded
In 1977, David Bowie recorded 'Heroes' at Hansa Studio 2. Tony Visconti's multi-latch microphone system defined a song about lovers by the Berlin Wall.
· 3 min read
How Fatboy Slim Made Big Beat's First Global Statement
Fatboy Slim's 1996 debut album Better Living Through Chemistry carried the confidence of a producer joining a known lineage. Its floppy-disk cover still reads as a compact manifesto.
· 3 min read
Natalie Horler: From Jazz Daughter to Trance Voice
Natalie Horler, born in Bonn in 1981, went from singing in cocktail bars to fronting Cascada, the act that turned trance and house into radio anthems.
· 4 min read
Björk Homogenic: Why Volcanoes and Strings Collided
Björk's third studio album Homogenic fused electronic rupture with volcanic stillness. Released September 22, 1997, it was born from a year of stalker terror and personal collapse.
· 4 min read
Kylie Minogue: How Tension Became Her Most Playful Reboot
Kylie Minogue's Tension, released on 22 September 2023 via BMG and Darenote, became her most playful reboot. It abandoned its initial 1980s concept entirely.
· 3 min read
Emilie Autumn Learned Sheet Music Before the Alphabet
Emilie Autumn Liddell, born September 22, 1979, was reading sheet music before the alphabet. This skill shaped her path from classical training to her self-coined Victoriandustrial sound.
· 3 min read
Lindsey Stirling: The Violinist Who Danced Past Every 'No'
Lindsey Stirling, born September 21, 1986, turned a 2007 YouTube channel into a career fusing classical violin with dance, pop, and EDM. She faced early rejection on America's Got Talent.
· 4 min read
Rick Woolstenhulme: Why Lifehouse's Drummer Defined Their Sound
Rick Woolstenhulme, born into a family of musicians, became the rhythmic anchor of Lifehouse. The American rock group sold over 15 million albums worldwide.
· 4 min read
David Hemmingway: Why the Housemartins bassist never stopped
David Hemmingway, born on 20 September 1960, built a four-decade career on melodic bass lines. From The Housemartins through The Beautiful South to ongoing solo work.
· 4 min read
Björk's Homogenic and the 29-Year-Old Iceland She Built
Björk's 1997 album Homogenic, recorded after a stalker's attack forced her to leave London. It fused electronic beats with strings and defined Iceland in musical terms.
· 3 min read
Why Nils Frahm's piano sounds unlike anyone else's
Nils Frahm, born 20 September 1982, turns 44 today. His Berlin studio setup reveals why his piano sound blends classical discipline with synthesizer engineering.
· 3 min read
Asia Argento: the name the law refused to accept
Born in 1975 under a name Italian law refused to accept, Asia Argento became an actress, director, and a visible #MeToo figure. She later faced her own accusation in 2018.
· 4 min read
Kylie Minogue: The Album That Broke Her Pop Machine
Kylie Minogue's fifth album broke from Stock, Aitken and Waterman. Released on September 19, 1994, it marked her deliberate reinvention with a new label and collaborators.
· 4 min read
How Goldie turned a brutal childhood into jungle's Timeless
Goldie turns 61 on September 19, 2026, a journey from spray-painted Wolverhampton walls to jungle's Timeless and beyond.
· 4 min read
Joanne Catherall: How a Sheffield Teen Defined Human League
Joanne Catherall, born in Sheffield in 1970, joined The Human League in 1980 and helped reshape British electronic pop with her voice and image.
· 4 min read
DJ Shadow: A Beat Built From Other Records
Two years in a Davis, California bedroom with an Akai MPC60 MKII and a wall of vinyl produced DJ Shadow's Endtroducing....., a debut album made entirely from other people's records.
· 4 min read
The Album That Detonated Linkin Park's Old Sound
In 2010, Linkin Park released A Thousand Suns, a sprawling concept album about nuclear fear that deliberately broke with the sound that made them famous.
· 4 min read
Moby: How a Baby Named After a Whale Built Play
Richard Melville Hall, born in 1965 and nicknamed Moby, travelled from food stamps and punk to the 1999 album Play. The record pushed his sales toward twenty million.
· 5 min read