15 essential Broadcast tracks and the records where you can find them

Broadcast
‘Come On Let’s Go’
(From The Noise Made By People, Warp, 2000)

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‘Come On Let’s Go’ remains one of Broadcast’s most beloved songs, and an unimpeachable highlight of the band’s debut album. Not only a great Broadcast song, but a great pop song in general, Cargill’s bass playing is reminiscent of Can bassist Holger Czukay’s ability to provide maximum melodic efficiency with the fewest notes possible, and Keenan’s vocal aches with ennui that recalls a Joe Meek girl group production.

There’s a classic timelessness to it – one could easily hear Cilla Black or Dionne Warwick singing the tune over a more showbiz backing, and the drum hits at the end of each chorus wink mischievously toward Phil Spector’s cavernous ‘Be My Baby’ intro. The song serves as a sweetener for what on the surface was a very cold, melancholic album, The Noise Made By People, which captures the tension of the era’s post-Y2K techno-fear as well as the group’s struggle to complete the album . Drummer Steve Perkins was out of the picture by the time of its release, and the group’s determined perfectionism at times dilutes the power of some of these songs in comparison to other versions recorded for John Peel or French radio’s Black Sessions.

Regardless, that anxiety and unease can’t overshadow the majesty of the songs included; it’s just a shame that the band’s skill at fusing pop music with austere electronic wizardry would be overshadowed just a few months later with the release of Radiohead’s Kid A, an album that explored similar concepts and moods with comparable aesthetics to much greater commercial success.

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