Lords of Acid

If you remember Lords of Acid at all, it is most likely their classic new-beat anthem "I Sit on Acid" with its driving, ominous beat and memorable refrain: "I want to sit on your face." Their 1991 album, Lust, is remembered similarly, with its unrelenting barrage of playful and sex-obsessed techno. More than a decade later, the Belgian group released its first proper "best of" album, the fabulously titled Greatest Tits, whose cover art features exactly that: a bare-chested woman and, on the inside sleeve, a series of close-ups of breasts in various forms of manipulation, both photographic and fetishistic. The title, though, is one of necessity; Lords of Acid couldn't have gotten away with calling this a collection of "hits," as only a handful of songs could be given that distinction.

The project of founder Praga Khan and featuring a revolving line up of collaborators, Lords of Acid's existence is bound together not by any cohesive musical aesthetic; it just has to be about sex, and because of this the music suffers. After such early-'90s classics as "Rough Sex," "Crablouse" and "Take Control," the rest of the group's singles are unmemorable and unremarkable. By 1994, when dance music began to splinter off into subdivisions of sometimes maddening minutia, the group reached a crisis from which it never recovered. The hard-charging anthems that had so consistently come to them up until that time were lost as they began to experiment in other inappropriate genres: the heavy metal-influenced "Scrood Bi U," the calypso-tinged "Am I Sexy," the indie-reggae "Marijauna in your Brain," the I-don't-know-what-this-is-supposed-to-be-but-I-know-it's-awful "Pussy."

In the interview accompanying the press release, Khan lays claim to inventing disco-punk, industrial, new beat, techno, and fetish wear. Spouting such bullshit can be amusing, and it might be intentionally tongue in cheek, but it diminishes the music. Lords of Acid does not, as its founder so boldly claims, "explore control and influence and the many systems whereby it is exerted." Give me a break. It is simply a group that released a few good records, and as is evident with Greatest Tits, a great deal more truly awful ones.

If Greatest Tits is supposed to offer an introduction to Lords of Acid, it's best to skip it. A proper introduction, and in fact everything you need by the group, can be found on the "I Sit on Acid" single and Lust. Anything the group did after that isn't worth it, and may in fact turn you off to the group's few worthwhile singles.