Hercules and Love Affair (album)
Encyclopedia
Hercules and Love Affair is the debut album by American
house
group Hercules and Love Affair
. The album, which was released by DFA Records
in the United Kingdom
on March 10, 2008 and a day later in North America
, was produced by Andy Butler and Tim Goldsworthy
. The album was recorded at the Plantain Studios in Manhattan. Andrew Raposo (of fellow DFA band Automato) and Tyler Pope (of !!!
) contributed bass to the album, while Antony Hegarty
co-wrote and contributed vocals on some songs.
and Norway
.
The album received an almost exclusively positive response from the critical community. Fact Magazine called it "a unique, deeply satisfying and insanely catchy piece of work." Pitchfork Media
's Philip Sherburne
awarded the album 9.1/10, and described it as "Lush, melancholic, gregarious, generous, both precise and a little bit unhinged" before going on to proclaim "this is the most original American dance album in a long while.". Pitchfork's warm reception continued by placing "Blind" as the best song of 2008, and at #18 on Pitchfork's top 500 songs of the 2000s.; the album itself was placed at #132 on their list of top 200 albums of the 2000s.Observer
critic Paul Flynn bestowed on the album similarly lavish praise, awarding it a maximum five stars, commenting that the album "concentrates on the musicality of the [disco] genre and leaves the cliches for dust," adding "it is as sweaty, raw and meaningful as the first 12-inch singles that were spun at NY lofts."
Guardian
critic Alexis Petridis
was slightly more skeptical, finding the album's first side to be "tremendous fun," but - as a result of its being confined to genre revivalism - to possess "an air of pointlessness." However, he deemed the inclusion of Hegarty's melancholic vocals in the disco setting to be "inspired," and praised the album's "far more inventive second half [,as] its atmosphere shifts from touchy-feely warmth to queasy unease to deep melancholy, as if the authors keep being jolted from their nostalgic musical reverie by the thought of how horribly it all ended."
The single "Blind" ranked at number 2 on the "10 Best Singles of 2008" list by American magazine Entertainment Weekly
.
and classic house music
. Fact Magazine dubbed the album's style "a pulsating, glamorous, elegiac mix of classic disco influences, live instrumentation and modernist, mind-spangling electronic production." Similarly, Daily Telegraph
critic Bernadette McNulty dubs the music "d-i-s-c-o in its seventies glory" into which "Butler weaves [...] fractured Chicago house
beats and pulsing synths," going on to refer to the overall style of the album as "a tableau of beautiful, dysphoric
disco visions." The Guardian also describes the music in the same terms, commenting "it sounds like proper late-70s disco. Not the camp glitterball retro electro-pop of Kylie
circa "Spinning Round
", but actual underground disco, like something long-lost from the vaults of The Loft
or the Paradise Garage
, real 1977-78 vintage stuff." However, while most focus on the obvious musical debt to disco, some critics highlight the album's eclectic range of styles, such as Eddy Lawrence, for whome the album "has dark, psychedelic moments, such as the downbeat, mildly menacing, almost Congotronic 'Easy' alongside outright funky party stuff like 'You Belong'." Butler himself describes the album's musical approach thus:
The album's first single
"Blind", co-written and featuring vocals by Antony Hegarty
, was released on March 3, 2008 and reached number forty on the UK Singles Chart
. NME
called it a "stone-cold classic," going on to describe it as "the best kind of dance record: physical and emotional, euphorically happy and deeply, irredeemably sad. It clips along weightlessly; all disco bass, trumpets and rippling synthesiser, as Antony, his voice like tears rolling down the cheeks of a beautiful 40-year-old woman, muses intoxicatingly on lost innocence and ageing." However it criticised the song "You Belong" by stating it as "essentially just an old Chicago house tune given a digital spit'n'polish." The song and its video were also received well at Pitchfork Media
. The song has been used to open Chanel Fall/Winter 2008 fashion show.
("Golden Skans
," "Gravity's Rainbow
" and "Magick") and Lightspeed Champion
("Tell Me What it's Worth"). The video, which features actress Jamie Winstone
walking through clouds of smoke, a "bacchanalia
n orgy tak[ing] place all around her, hearkening back to the pre-AIDS
days of disco and places like the Continental Baths, where Larry Levan
DJed and which advertisers promoted as recalling "the glory of ancient Rome".
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
house
House music
House music is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in Chicago, Illinois, United States in the early 1980s. It was initially popularized in mid-1980s discothèques catering to the African-American, Latino American, and gay communities; first in Chicago circa 1984, then in other...
group Hercules and Love Affair
Hercules and Love Affair
Hercules and Love Affair is a musical project from New York based DJ Andy Butler. Members include Andrew Butler, Kim Ann Foxman, Mark Pistel,Aerea Negrot, and Shaun Wright...
. The album, which was released by DFA Records
DFA Records
DFA Records is an independent record label and production team, launched in September 2001 by Mo' Wax co-founder Tim Goldsworthy, musician James Murphy, and manager Jonathan Galkin. The label has an exclusive distribution deal with major record label EMI....
in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
on March 10, 2008 and a day later in North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
, was produced by Andy Butler and Tim Goldsworthy
Tim Goldsworthy
Tim Goldsworthy is a British record producer, DJ and recording artist, living and working in New York City since 1999.Originally a musician/producer for UNKLE, Goldsworthy co-founded James Lavelle's Mo' Wax label...
. The album was recorded at the Plantain Studios in Manhattan. Andrew Raposo (of fellow DFA band Automato) and Tyler Pope (of !!!
!!!
!!! is a dance-punk band that formed in Sacramento, California, in 1996. Members of !!! came from other local bands such as The Yah Mos, Black Liquorice and Popesmashers...
) contributed bass to the album, while Antony Hegarty
Antony Hegarty
Antony Hegarty is an English singer-songwriter, best known as the lead singer of the band Antony and the Johnsons.-Early life:...
co-wrote and contributed vocals on some songs.
Reception
The album reached number thirty-one in the UK and the top twenty in BelgiumBelgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
and Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
.
The album received an almost exclusively positive response from the critical community. Fact Magazine called it "a unique, deeply satisfying and insanely catchy piece of work." Pitchfork Media
Pitchfork Media
Pitchfork Media, usually known simply as Pitchfork or P4k, is a Chicago-based daily Internet publication established in 1995 that is devoted to music criticism and commentary, music news, and artist interviews. Its focus is on underground and independent music, especially indie rock...
's Philip Sherburne
Philip Sherburne
Philip Sherburne is an American journalist, musician and DJ based in Barcelona. He coined the term "Microhouse" and appeared in the film Speaking In Code.-External links:* *...
awarded the album 9.1/10, and described it as "Lush, melancholic, gregarious, generous, both precise and a little bit unhinged" before going on to proclaim "this is the most original American dance album in a long while.". Pitchfork's warm reception continued by placing "Blind" as the best song of 2008, and at #18 on Pitchfork's top 500 songs of the 2000s.; the album itself was placed at #132 on their list of top 200 albums of the 2000s.Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
critic Paul Flynn bestowed on the album similarly lavish praise, awarding it a maximum five stars, commenting that the album "concentrates on the musicality of the [disco] genre and leaves the cliches for dust," adding "it is as sweaty, raw and meaningful as the first 12-inch singles that were spun at NY lofts."
Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
critic Alexis Petridis
Alexis Petridis
Alexis Petridis is a British journalist, head rock and pop critic for UK newspaper The Guardian, as well as a regular and contributor to the magazine GQ.Petridis began his career writing for Varsity whilst a student at the University of Cambridge...
was slightly more skeptical, finding the album's first side to be "tremendous fun," but - as a result of its being confined to genre revivalism - to possess "an air of pointlessness." However, he deemed the inclusion of Hegarty's melancholic vocals in the disco setting to be "inspired," and praised the album's "far more inventive second half [,as] its atmosphere shifts from touchy-feely warmth to queasy unease to deep melancholy, as if the authors keep being jolted from their nostalgic musical reverie by the thought of how horribly it all ended."
The single "Blind" ranked at number 2 on the "10 Best Singles of 2008" list by American magazine Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
.
Music
Most reviewers comment on the album's musical style as an homage to or re-imagining of discoDisco
Disco is a genre of dance music. Disco acts charted high during the mid-1970s, and the genre's popularity peaked during the late 1970s. It had its roots in clubs that catered to African American, gay, psychedelic, and other communities in New York City and Philadelphia during the late 1960s and...
and classic house music
House music
House music is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in Chicago, Illinois, United States in the early 1980s. It was initially popularized in mid-1980s discothèques catering to the African-American, Latino American, and gay communities; first in Chicago circa 1984, then in other...
. Fact Magazine dubbed the album's style "a pulsating, glamorous, elegiac mix of classic disco influences, live instrumentation and modernist, mind-spangling electronic production." Similarly, Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
critic Bernadette McNulty dubs the music "d-i-s-c-o in its seventies glory" into which "Butler weaves [...] fractured Chicago house
Chicago house
Chicago house is a style of house music, a genre of electronic dance music which emerged in Chicago in the mid-1980s. Stylistically, Chicago house has no widely accepted definition, but generally includes the first house music productions by Chicago-based artists throughout the 1980s, and any later...
beats and pulsing synths," going on to refer to the overall style of the album as "a tableau of beautiful, dysphoric
Dysphoria
Dysphoria is medically recognized as a mental and emotional condition in which a person experiences intense feelings of depression, discontent and indifference to the world around them.Mood disorders can induce dysphoria, often with a heightened risk of suicide, especially in...
disco visions." The Guardian also describes the music in the same terms, commenting "it sounds like proper late-70s disco. Not the camp glitterball retro electro-pop of Kylie
Kylie Minogue
Kylie Ann Minogue, OBE - often known simply as Kylie - is an Australian singer, recording artist, songwriter, and actress. After beginning her career as a child actress on Australian television, she achieved recognition through her role in the television soap opera Neighbours, before commencing...
circa "Spinning Round
Spinning Around
"Spinning Around" is a song by Australian recording artist Kylie Minogue. It was written by Ira Shickman, Osborne Bingham, Kara DioGuardi, and Paula Abdul, and produced by Mike Spencer. It was originally intended for Paula Abdul's "comeback" album. However, as the album never came into fruition, it...
", but actual underground disco, like something long-lost from the vaults of The Loft
The Loft
The Loft is the location for the first underground dance party that was created by David Mancuso on February 14, 1970 in New York. Since then, the term The Loft has come to represent Mancuso's own version of a non-commercial party where no alcohol, food, or beverages are sold...
or the Paradise Garage
Paradise Garage
The Paradise Garage was a discotheque notable in the history of modern gay and nightclub cultures and in dance and pop music. It was founded by Michael Brody, its sole proprietor, and was located at 84 King Street, in the Hudson Square neighborhood of New York City. It operated from 1976 to 1987...
, real 1977-78 vintage stuff." However, while most focus on the obvious musical debt to disco, some critics highlight the album's eclectic range of styles, such as Eddy Lawrence, for whome the album "has dark, psychedelic moments, such as the downbeat, mildly menacing, almost Congotronic 'Easy' alongside outright funky party stuff like 'You Belong'." Butler himself describes the album's musical approach thus:
I always say it's a rhythmic, artsy kind of pop music that was made with classic dance and electronic music in mind. It has a lot of vocals and is rooted in my childhood.
The album's first single
Single (music)
In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...
"Blind", co-written and featuring vocals by Antony Hegarty
Antony Hegarty
Antony Hegarty is an English singer-songwriter, best known as the lead singer of the band Antony and the Johnsons.-Early life:...
, was released on March 3, 2008 and reached number forty on the UK Singles Chart
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...
. NME
NME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...
called it a "stone-cold classic," going on to describe it as "the best kind of dance record: physical and emotional, euphorically happy and deeply, irredeemably sad. It clips along weightlessly; all disco bass, trumpets and rippling synthesiser, as Antony, his voice like tears rolling down the cheeks of a beautiful 40-year-old woman, muses intoxicatingly on lost innocence and ageing." However it criticised the song "You Belong" by stating it as "essentially just an old Chicago house tune given a digital spit'n'polish." The song and its video were also received well at Pitchfork Media
Pitchfork Media
Pitchfork Media, usually known simply as Pitchfork or P4k, is a Chicago-based daily Internet publication established in 1995 that is devoted to music criticism and commentary, music news, and artist interviews. Its focus is on underground and independent music, especially indie rock...
. The song has been used to open Chanel Fall/Winter 2008 fashion show.
Promotional videos
The promotional video for the album's first single "Blind" was directed by London-based Saam, who had previously produced music videos for artists such as KlaxonsKlaxons
Klaxons are a British indie rock band, based in London. Following the release of numerous 7-inch singles on different independent record labels, as well as the success of previous singles "Magick" and "Golden Skans", the band released their debut album, Myths of the Near Future on 29 January 2007....
("Golden Skans
Golden Skans
"Golden Skans" is a song released by London band Klaxons on 22 January 2007. It reached #16 in the UK Singles Chart on download sales on 14 January and climbed to #14 the next week, eventually reaching #7 after the CD release...
," "Gravity's Rainbow
Gravity's Rainbow (song)
"Gravity's Rainbow" is a song by British act Klaxons which appears on their album Myths of the Near Future. It is named after Thomas Pynchon's novel of the same name. The song was first released on Angular Records as a Double A-side with "The Bouncer" in March 2006 and was limited to 500 copies on...
" and "Magick") and Lightspeed Champion
Lightspeed Champion
Devonté Hynes , better known as Lightspeed Champion or Blood Orange, is a British composer, songwriter, producer and author, who has written for artists such as Florence and the Machine, Diana Vickers and The Chemical Brothers on their 2007 Grammy award winning album We Are The Night...
("Tell Me What it's Worth"). The video, which features actress Jamie Winstone
Jamie Winstone
Jaime Margaret Winstone is an English actress, known for playing Becky in the film Kidulthood, and playing Kelly in the E4 horror series Dead Set.-Early life:...
walking through clouds of smoke, a "bacchanalia
Bacchanalia
The bacchanalia were wild and mystic festivals of the Greco-Roman god Bacchus , the wine god. The term has since come to describe any form of drunken revelry.-History:...
n orgy tak[ing] place all around her, hearkening back to the pre-AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
days of disco and places like the Continental Baths, where Larry Levan
Larry Levan
Larry Levan was a DJ best known for his decade-long residency at the New York City night club Paradise Garage, which has been described as the prototype of the modern dance club. He developed a cult following who referred to his sets as "Saturday Mass"...
DJed and which advertisers promoted as recalling "the glory of ancient Rome".
Track listing
- "Time Will" – 4:34
- "Hercules Theme" – 4:30
- "You BelongYou Belong"You Belong" is the second single from the eponymous debut album by Hercules and Love Affair. It features Nomi Ruiz with backing vocals by Antony Hegarty.-Critical reception:...
" – 4:12 - "Athene" – 4:00
- "BlindBlind (Hercules and Love Affair song)-Writing and inspiration:"Blind" was written by Antony Hegarty and Andrew Butler. The song began as a poem by Butler before it was recorded by Hegarty.-Critical reception:...
" – 6:18 - "Iris" – 4:16
- "Easy" – 5:22
- "This Is My Love" – 4:58
- "Raise Me Up" – 3:52
- "True/False, Fake/Real" – 4:33
- "Classique #2 (Edit)" – 6:11 (US bonus track)
- "Roar" – 5:33 (US bonus track)
- "I'm Telling You" – 3:41 (iTunes bonus track)
Charts
| Charts (2008) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Belgian Albums Chart (Flanders) Ultratop Ultratop is an organization which generates and publishes the official record charts in Belgium, and it is also the name of most of those charts... |
12 |
| Belgian Alternative Albums Chart (Flanders) Ultratop Ultratop is an organization which generates and publishes the official record charts in Belgium, and it is also the name of most of those charts... |
8 |
| French Albums Chart Syndicat National de l'Edition Phonographique The Syndicat national de l'édition phonographique is the inter-professional organization which protects the interests of the French record industry... |
144 |
| Irish Albums Chart Irish Albums Chart The Irish Albums Chart is the Irish music industry standard albums popularity chart issued weekly by the Irish Recorded Music Association and compiled on its behalf by Chart-Track. Chart rankings are based on sales, which are compiled through over-the-counter retail data captured electronically... |
44 |
| Italian Albums Chart Federation of the Italian Music Industry The Federation of the Italian Music Industry is an umbrella organization that keeps track of virtually all aspects of the music recording industry in Italy.... |
33 |
| Norwegian Albums Chart VG-lista VG-listen is a Norwegian record chart. It is weekly presented in the newspaper VG and the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation program Topp 20. It is considered the primary Norwegian record chart, charting albums and singles from countries and continent around the world. The data is collected by... |
18 |
| Spanish Albums Chart | 84 |
| Swedish Albums Chart Sverigetopplistan Sverigetopplistan, earlier known as Topplistan and Hitlistan and other names, is since October 2007 the Swedish national record chart, based on sales data from Swedish Recording Industry Association .... |
23 |
| UK Albums Chart UK Albums Chart The UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled every week by The Official Charts Company and broadcast on a Sunday on BBC Radio 1 , and published in Music Week magazine and on the OCC website .To qualify for the UK albums chart... |
31 |
| U.S. Billboard 200 Billboard 200 The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists... |
191 |
| U.S. Dance/Electronic Albums | 5 |
| U.S. Top Heatseekers Top Heatseekers Top Heatseekers refers to either of two separate "Breaking and Entering" music charts issued weekly by Billboard Magazine: the Heatseekers Albums chart or the Heatseekers Songs chart. They were introduced by Billboard in 1993 with the purpose of highlighting the sales by new and developing musical... |
7 |