Or, White Label Wednesday, Before They Were Stars Edition
Underworld would like you believe that they were immaculately conceived in 1994 as the spooky techno band that “debuted” with dubnobasswithmyheadman, with no past or, if pressed, a Jason Bourne case of amnesia about their former life. Ah, but we know better, don’t we? Underworld indeed has a past; they were just hoping that they could pull a Ministry and leave it all behind. The incredible thing is, it worked; almost no one remembers Underworld’s days as a synth-pop band.
But we do.
Underworld formed from the ashes of the band Freur, which scored a minor hit with the Kraftwerk-esque “Doot Doot.” When they disbanded, Freur members Karl Hyde and Rick Smith recruited three more dudes and went whole hog for the brass ring, impressing Seymour Stein enough to hire Rupert Hine – he worked with Howard Jones, man, we’re gonna be huge! – to produce 1988’s Underneath the Radar, the band’s first album for Sire. The album, well, seemed really cool at the time. Hell, even the music supervisors of “Miami Vice” liked them enough to drop the title track into a big bar fight scene. The song cracked Australia’s top ten. In the States, however, it scratched and clawed its way to #74.
