The Chemical Brothers

The beat is the beast the Chems unleash; the fun is watching them try to tame it. This album was the first taste of the superstar DJs' snake-charming powers and offered hope that dance music might break into the American mainstream. (It settled for advertising and video games.) Exit is best when the beats are hard and chunky, as on "Three Little Birdies."

They won't convert you because their main interest is pleasing you--pleasing anybody who's both open-minded enough to conceive techno as a bright sun in the rock cosmos and well-adjusted enough not to start star wars over it. Starts out whomping irrepressibly, ends up schlocking imperturbably, and either way provides the noise, beats, and basslines us earthlings like in our electrically enhanced popular music. Means nothing--except that pleasure is a function of somatic and cultural givens less malleable than mutants have always claimed. (Grade - A-)