“90” by 808 State

An acid house classic that has endured for 35 years.

Hello! 😊👋

Welcome to a new edition of the Best Music of All Time newsletter!

Today’s music pick throws it back to one of the first true acid house albums to take the rave scene by storm, both in the UK and abroad.

Genre: Electronic, Acid House, Techno

Label: ZTT

Release Date: December 4, 1989

Vibe: 🙌🙌

Acid house is one of those genres that defies a written description. I could anchor my explanation around terms like “minimalist,” “spacy,” or “expansive.” I could talk about how producers play around with filters and gating certain frequencies to give the bass sound a richer, more varied texture. I could tie the entire genre to one piece of technology, the Roland TB-303 sequencer, a glorious device that gives synth patterns that signature suppleness. I could mention how this strain of house music often goes without vocals at all, save for random-seeing stabs and inserts that serve as a way to put exclamation points on the groove rather than drive it narratively. But, if I did some or all of those, we still wouldn’t be any closer to defining acid house’s essence. What it does to your body—how thoroughly it penetrates your psyche—can’t be said. It must be felt.

The same can be said for 90, the second proper studio album from the electronic music group 808 State. Constructed like an expertly paced DJ set, it packs an all-nighter's aural and emotional experience on the dancefloor into 40 minutes. It starts inconspicuously with “Magical Dream,” a great tablesetter that can get you up and dancing but isn’t an epic rager of a track. From there, it builds the atmosphere brick by brick. You have the slower, stuttering “Ancodia,” the locked-and-loaded “Cobra Bora,” which sounds like it influenced about 500 early-90s house cuts, and the delightfully squelchy “Donkey Doctor,” a title that befits such a ridiculous instrumental. Once the meat of the album is over and done, 808 State gives you ample room to marinade in the post-euphoria bliss that comes with an early-morning last call.

Founded in 1987 in Manchester, England, by Graham Massey, Martin Price, and Gerald Simpson enjoyed almost immediate success. Their debut, Newbuild, was recorded in a weekend in early 1988. It has enjoyed multiple cultural reappraisals over the years, none of the least from another house music giant, Aphex Twin. In a 2005 interview with Mojo, the DJ/producer called the LP “the next step after Chicago acid […] It seemed colder and more human at the same time.” Shortly after, the group’s following exploded following the release of their “Blue Monday” remix, a house track that was almost completely lost to time (I’ll say it again: there are some positives to having various music streaming options out there). Then came 808 State’s first global triumph: “Pacific State.”

As I wrote in my look at the best house music 12-inch singles of all time, this song is one of the most influential electronic compositions of the 80s and, by influence alone, the 90s too. Sonically, there’s a lot going on, including (but not limited to) Massey’s smooth, caressing saxophone, samples of loon calls, and percussion loops reminiscent of indigenous Caribbean or African rhythms. All of those swirl around a tight, synth-heavy groove, a four-to-the-floor engine that doesn’t quit, not even when most of the instrumentation fades away and hones in on one or two particular elements. On 90, a similar version is presented as “Pacific 202,” truncating the journey to six minutes and change while amplifying the bass more over the spacier elements. It’s a fine distillation of what 808 State’s sonic calling card was, but, as mandatory additional listening (that’s what I’ll call it, anyway), make sure you check out the original, too.

The group’s music was one of the main catalysts for the significant uptick in acid house’s popularity and, not unrelated, the explosion of rave culture across Europe, particularly among disaffected youth. In the BBC documentary The Summer of Rave, British teens and twentysomethings saw it as a way to rebel against the draconian norms enforced by Margaret Thatcher’s regime. Thousands would gather at illegal parties, fearful of police raids and bad ecstasy trips from questionable drugs from even more questionable dealers, all with the common goal of achieving the purest sensory nirvana music could provide. Despite those communal vestiges, everyone’s experience was unique and deeply personal. Everyone’s memory of peak rave culture is slightly different because of their heightened emotional states.

"That's why acid house spread so quickly," DJ Terry Farley told author Luke Bainbridge. "Whenever it hit a new town, the first people [there] felt like they had the best secret ever. But it was a very evangelical secret, so they had this desperate itch [to] spread the word." In Bainbridge’s excellent accompanying article for the Guardian, he notes how the acid house became a force for good, returning the British nightclub scenes back to their roots and, more importantly, their initial purpose. “Before acid house, nightclubs in Britain were mostly depressing places where revelers went to get drunk and perhaps meet someone of the opposite sex or fight someone of the same sex,” he explained. “Acid house, aided by the introduction of ecstasy, turned nightclubs back into what they were supposed to be all along: a place to dance.”

Listening to 90 again after several years inched me back to that unforgettable feeling of unfiltered shared joy I tasted a handful of times when I was still a working DJ. Most nights, you’ll have a few moments where partiers are totally enraptured. The hot song or two of the moment will hit in the middle of your peak hour and push the crowd into a frenzy. The dancing intensifies, and the singalong isn’t far away. Those are fond memories. But, more than those, I long for the moments where the euphoria is elevated several notches. Where the communal energy crests higher than standard-issue, more easily conjured joy. I remember looking out into the dancefloor from inside my cramped DJ booth and not only seeing everyone moving in time but existing and loving each other as one symbiote. The stress of the day or week washed away and was replaced by those people giving themselves over to that musical nirvana that ravers and, undoubtedly, the boys in 808 State were chasing, to begin with. I miss that feeling dearly.

It’s a one-of-a-kind sensation that can’t be replicated with drugs, booze, or money. Music, my friends, is truly the most powerful substance known to humankind.

👉 Don’t forget to click the album image to stream the album on your favorite platform 👈