Beaucoup Fish

Beaucoup Fish
Studio album by Underworld
Released 1 March 1999
Recorded 1997–1998 at Lemonworld Studios in London
Genre Techno, progressive house, progressive trance, breakbeat, industrial, ambient
Length 73:77
Label Junior Boy's Own
Producer Underworld
Underworld chronology
Second Toughest in the Infants
(1996)		 Beaucoup Fish
(1999)		 Everything, Everything
(2000)
Singles from Beaucoup Fish
  1. "Moaner"
    Released: 21 July 1997
  2. "Push Upstairs"
    Released: 15 March 1999
  3. "Jumbo"
    Released: 24 May 1999
  4. "King of Snake"
    Released: 16 August 1999
  5. "Bruce Lee"
    Released: 15 November 1999
  6. "Beaucoup Fish Singles"
    Released: 7 December 1999
Alternative cover
Vinyl edition

Beaucoup Fish is the fifth album by Underworld, released in 1999. Following the huge success of the single "Born Slippery .NUXX" from its use in the film Trainspotting, Beaucoup Fish was Underworld's most anticipated release. It spawned several successful singles, including "Push Upstairs", "Jumbo" and "Moaner", which was previously used in the film Batman & Robin.

It is the last studio album to feature Darren Emerson who departed in 2001 and third album by the techno/house orientated version of Underworld which became active in about 1991/1992 (tracks were being released around this time under the names Lemon Interupt and Underworld).

The album's working title was Tonight Matthew, I'm Going to be Underworld, inspired by the famous catchphrase "Tonight [host name], I'm going to be...", used on the British celebrity impersonation TV programme Stars in Their Eyes.[1] The title was changed to Beaucoup Fish ("beaucoup" being French for "much"), on the basis that the tongue-in-cheek title would be incomprehensible to listeners outside of the United Kingdom. The current title comes from a sampled voice used in "Jumbo".

Overview

Beaucoup Fish was released after the successful single "Born Slippery .NUXX"; a single that began to define Underworld's signature sound of stream of consciousness lyrics, anthemic melodies and abrasive beats and rhythms. Lead single "Push Upstairs", with its aggressive piano melody, exemplified this new sound. Much of the album featured experimentation not heard on previous albums: several tracks incorporated samples of dialogue recorded by the band itself, while the progressive aspect of previous albums was mostly slashed in favour of shorter, tighter arrangements.

"King of Snake" features a tape-edited guitar intro titled "Shudder", leading into a lively house track, before fading into sampled dialogue about the blood sport of snake baiting. "Skym" is a minimal ballad, inspired by This Mortal Coil and featuring little more than a solo keyboard and light piano chords over Karl Hyde's vocals, while "Bruce Lee" has more akin to rock music than trance. Beaucoup Fish also features a downtempo re-imagining of "Push Upstairs", cleverly titled "Push Downstairs"; only the vocal track is kept between the two. "Moaner", a song featured in the film Batman & Robin, is presented on Beaucoup Fish with its final three minutes removed by a fade out.

"Push Upstairs" and second single "Jumbo" were both hits on the dance charts and in clubs. Beaucoup Fish was well-received critically (one review calling it "electronica's The Dark Side of the Moon") and remains Underworld's most successful album, with over one million copies sold.

Artwork

The art for Beaucoup Fish was once again designed by Tomato, the art firm that Underworld is a part of. Each page of the liner notes featured a stylized shape in a large blue field. The shapes used are a circle for CD; a square for vinyl; and an elongated rectangle for MiniDisc and cassette formats.

Due to delays, the packaging incorrectly lists 1998 as the release year.

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
SourceRating
Metacritic79/100[2]
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[3]
Entertainment WeeklyA[4]
E! OnlineA−[5]
Mixmag[6]
Pitchfork Media6.8/10[7]
Spin7/10[8]
Q[9]
Rolling Stone[10]
NME8/10[11]
Release Magazine8/10[12]
The A.V. Clubfavourable[13]
The Village Voicevery favourable[14]

Beaucoup Fish was well received by music critics and it continues to be Underworld's best selling album to date. It has a score of 79/100 on Metacritic based on 20 reviews, which indicates "generally favorable reviews".[2]

John Bush from AllMusic gave the album 4 out of 5 stars saying "the trio is still the best at welding obtuse songcraft onto an uncompromising techno framework and making both sound great".[3]

David Browne from Entertainment Weekly gave the album an A rating stating that Beaucoup Fish "gently tweaks the naysayers by demonstrating how many more places this music can wander, how it can grow and reinvent itself. Albums like this (and Fatboy Slim's kaleidoscopic You've Come a Long Way, Baby) are comparable to Lauryn Hill's recent work in the way they make an overly familiar style of music seem vital again. In its own lush, detached manner, Beaucoup Fish is the rebirth of the cool."[4]

John Wojtowicz from The Village Voice gave it a very favourable review saying it is "A shiny little appliance that fragments its 11 tracks into nearly as many subgenres, doing away with the seamless sprawl of their earlier records".[14]

Rolling Stone gave it 3.5 stars out of 5 saying that "Their specialty is an undulating trance throb that shimmers with shades of rock, contemporary symphonics, dub, disco, house, spoken word, whatever. The result still sounds like Underworld, and the fiftieth play sounds better than the fifth".[15]

NME gave the album 8/10 saying that "Beaucoup Fish is a pure, seamless flow, pinned together with trance-techno beats that hark back to classic Detroit house and early Underworld singles like 'Cowgirl' and 'Spikee'" and also adding that "There are rare moments when even the longest albums feel like they should go on forever: this, emphatically, is one of them".[11]

Track listing

All tracks written by Darren Emerson, Karl Hyde, and Rick Smith. 

No. Title Length
1. "Cups"   11:45
2. "Push Upstairs"   4:34
3. "Jumbo"   6:58
4. "Shudder/King of Snake"   9:29
5. "Winjer"   4:29
6. "Skym"   4:07
7. "Bruce Lee"   4:42
8. "Kittens"   7:30
9. "Push Downstairs"   6:03
10. "Something Like a Mama"   6:37
11. "Moaner"   7:32
Total length:
 73:77

Charts

Weekly charts

Chart (1999) Peak
position
Australian Albums (ARIA)[17] 7
Austrian Albums (Ö3 Austria)[18] 36
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Flanders)[19] 2
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Wallonia)[20] 40
Dutch Albums (MegaCharts)[21] 32
French Albums (SNEP)[22] 34
German Albums (Offizielle Top 100)[23] 22
New Zealand Albums (RMNZ)[24] 7
Norwegian Albums (VG-lista)[25] 14
Scottish Albums (OCC)[26] 7
Swedish Albums (Sverigetopplistan)[27] 22
Swiss Albums (Schweizer Hitparade)[28] 46
UK Albums (OCC)[29] 3
US Billboard 200[30] 93

References

  1. ↑ Dirty.org. Archived 11 October 2006 at the Wayback Machine.
  2. 1 2 "Beaucoup Fish Reviews, Ratings, Credits, and More at Metacritic". Metacritic.com. Retrieved 2012-01-09.
  3. 1 2 Bush, John (1999-04-13). "Beaucoup Fish - Underworld". AllMusic. Retrieved 2012-01-09.
  4. 1 2 David Browne (13 April 1999). "Beaucoup Fish Review | Music Reviews and News". EW.com. Retrieved 2012-01-09.
  5. ↑ http://web.archive.org/web/20020311180659/http://www.eonline.com/Reviews/Facts/Music/RevID/0,1107,1225,00.html
  6. ↑ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bigscreensatellite/4429254724/
  7. ↑ http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/8349-beaucoup-fish/
  8. ↑ 4/99, pp.157-158
  9. ↑ 4/99, p.107
  10. ↑ "Rolling Stone Music | Album Reviews". Rollingstone.com. Retrieved 2012-01-09.
  11. 1 2 "NME Album Review - Beaucoup Fish". Nme.Com. 1999-02-04. Retrieved 2012-01-09.
  12. ↑ http://www.releasemagazine.net/Onrecord/orunderworldbf.htm
  13. ↑ http://www.avclub.com/articles/underworld-beaucoup-fish,21557/
  14. 1 2 John Wojtowicz (1999-04-20). "Gettin Slippery Wit It - Page 1 - Music - New York". Village Voice. Retrieved 2012-01-09.
  15. ↑ 4/29/99, p.68
  16. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 "Underworld - Beaucoup Fish CD Album". Cduniverse.com. 2009-09-15. Retrieved 2012-01-09.
  17. ↑ "Australiancharts.com – Underworld – Beaucoup Fish". Hung Medien. Retrieved 19 June 2016.
  18. ↑ "Austriancharts.at – Underworld – Beaucoup Fish" (in German). Hung Medien. Retrieved 19 June 2016.
  19. ↑ "Ultratop.be – Underworld – Beaucoup Fish" (in Dutch). Hung Medien. Retrieved 19 June 2016.
  20. ↑ "Ultratop.be – Underworld – Beaucoup Fish" (in French). Hung Medien. Retrieved 19 June 2016.
  21. ↑ "Dutchcharts.nl – Underworld – Beaucoup Fish" (in Dutch). Hung Medien. Retrieved 19 June 2016.
  22. ↑ "Lescharts.com – Underworld – Beaucoup Fish". Hung Medien. Retrieved 19 June 2016.
  23. ↑ "Longplay-Chartverfolgung at Musicline" (in German). Musicline.de. Phononet GmbH. Retrieved 19 June 2016.
  24. ↑ "Charts.org.nz – Underworld – Beaucoup Fish". Hung Medien. Retrieved 19 June 2016.
  25. ↑ "Norwegiancharts.com – Underworld – Beaucoup Fish". Hung Medien. Retrieved 19 June 2016.
  26. ↑ "Official Scottish Albums Chart Top 100". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 19 June 2016.
  27. ↑ "Swedishcharts.com – Underworld – Beaucoup Fish". Hung Medien. Retrieved 19 June 2016.
  28. ↑ "Swisscharts.com – Underworld – Beaucoup Fish". Hung Medien. Retrieved 19 June 2016.
  29. ↑ "Official Albums Chart Top 100". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 19 June 2016.
  30. ↑ "Underworld – Chart history" Billboard 200 for Underworld. Retrieved 19 June 2016.
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