"Born Slippy .NUXX" is a song by the British electronic music group Underworld. It was first released as the B-side to another track,"Born Slippy",in May 1995. The fragmented lyrics describe the perspective of an alcoholic.
After it was used in the 1996 film Trainspotting,"Born Slippy .NUXX" reached number two on the UK singles chart. It was named one of the best dance tracks and one of the best tracks of the 1990s by numerous publications. For the 2017 film T2 Trainspotting,Underworld created a new version with timestretched chords.
Composition
"Born Slippy .NUXX" features a "hammering" four-on-the-floorkick drum,distorted vocals,and "heavenly" synthesiser chords.[2] The song is in the key of B♭major,and the tempo is 140 beats per minute.[3]
The vocalist,Karl Hyde,wrote the lyrics after a night of drinking in Soho while trying to get home to Romford,and was inspired by the landscape of London.[4] He wrote about his alcoholism and hoped to capture the way a drunk "sees the world in fragments",in that only small portions of memory are retained afterwards,like a bin or "a little piece of street".[5][2] In the lyrics,he reduced himself to "a piece of meat".[4]
Hyde recorded his vocals in one take. When he lost his place,he would sing the same line repeatedly,creating the line "lager,lager,lager,lager".[5] The producer,Rick Smith,said the lyrics reflected "this energy of movement,and of time and place," likening them to an abstract painting.[6]
The lyrics have been misinterpreted as a hedonistic celebration of drinking.[2] Hyde did not intend the song to be a "drinking anthem" but rather a "cry for help",and was disturbed when audience members raised their lager cans during performances.[5] As the song was written about being drunk while Hyde was drunk,he felt its status as a "drinking anthem" was ironic.[4]
Release
Underworld released "Born Slippy .NUXX" in the UK on 1 May 1995 as the B-side to a different track,"Born Slippy."[7][8] On the 1995 CD versions of the track,.NUXX was segued with another B-side,"Born Slippy .TELEMATIC". "Born Slippy .NUXX" was used in the film Trainspotting,released in February 1996 in the UK.[7] The director,Danny Boyle,described it as the "heartbeat" of the film,capturing its "euphoric highs following intense lows."[7] Underworld initially refused permission to use it in the film,as they disliked how their music was often used in negative portrayals of clubbing,but Boyle persuaded them after showing them a clip.[6]
"Born Slippy .NUXX" was reissued as a single in the UK on 1 July 1996.[9] Boosted by the Trainspotting soundtrack,[6] it reached number two on the UK singles chart.[5] Smith was shocked when BBC Radio 1 played the track on breakfast radio,and said:"I thought,music is moving,culture is moving,it's spreading. It's meaning things outside of just the context of on an amazing sound system in a club or on a PA system in a student hall. It was very nice!"[6] The reissue was released in the United States in October 1996.[10] For the 2017 film T2 Trainspotting,Smith created a new version with timestretched chords,"Slow Slippy".[6]
Reception
Melody Maker named "Born Slippy .NUXX" the single of the year in December 1996,writing:"As a stomping club anthem,it whipped up a Shamanic,hedonistic frenzy —yet the lyrics,culminating in the "Lager,lager,lager,mega-mega-white thing" chant nailed everything about the Loaded,lads,birds 'n'booze culture of the mid-Nineties."[11]Music Week gave it five out of five in 1996,calling it "an anthem for a generation".[12] The singer Boy George reviewed the "Nuxx Mix" for Select,calling it "brilliant" and writing:"Nice lyrics in a ranting,punky style. I like techno records that swoop."[13]AllMusic wrote that it was "simply one of the best slices of electronica one will find. Musically austere in its emotional textures,the song becomes a nearly unstoppable force ... Dance music is rarely so artistic and enjoyable in the same instance."[14] In 2017,Vice described "Born Slippy .NUXX" as one of the most iconic 1990s songs,[6] writing that it "mixed sublime synths with a four-to-the-floor freakout,and represented everything that was going on;it was new".[6]
In 2004,Mixmag readers voted "Born Slippy .NUXX" the fourth-best dance track,[15] and in 2011 Slant Magazine named it the 95th-best single of the decade.[16] In 2014,NME named it the 261st-greatest song.[17] In 2010,Pitchfork named it the 31st-best track of the 1990s,[18] and in 2022 they named it the 20th-best.[19] In 2015,LA Weekly ranked it the sixth-best dance track in history.[20]The Guardian named it the "most experimental and sonically extreme hit of the 90s",alongside the Chemical Brothers' 1996 single "Setting Sun",[1] and among "the weirdest chart hits of all time".[21] In 2024,the Guardian's chief music critic,Alexis Petridis,named "Born Slippy .NUXX" the third-best Underworld song.[2] In 2022,Rolling Stone ranked it the 89th-greatest dance song,[22] and in 2025 Billboard named it the eighth-best.[23]
Smith said in 2017 "We’ve been playing 'Born Slippy' live for 20 years,and the reaction from the audience is so strong it's almost overwhelming. It's never got tiring to perform or play. It's what it triggers in people."[24]
"Born Slippy .NUXX 2003" is a version of "Born Slippy .NUXX" re-released by Underworld to promote the album 1992–2002, originally released in 2003. New remixes were commissioned for this release, along with a new video, compiled by Danny Boyle of clips from his film Trainspotting. This release reached No. 1 on the UK Dance Singles Chart during the first week of November 2003.
↑ Sexton, Paul (23 November 1996). "Junior Boy's Own Underworld Sent Overground with 'Slippy'". Billboard. Vol.108, no.47. p.13. The relentless, hard-edged club cut, originally released here in May 1995 and in the U.S. in Oct. '96...
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