Clear (Cybotron song)

Last updated
"Clear"
Single by Cybotron
from the album Enter
B-side "Industrial Lies"
Released1983
RecordedApril 1982
Genre
Length4:54 (radio edit)
Label Fantasy
Songwriter(s) Juan Atkins Richard Davis
Producer(s) Juan Atkins
Cybotron singles chronology
"Cosmic Cars"
(1982)
"Clear"
(1983)
"Techno City"
(1984)

"Clear" is a 1983 electro song performed by the American group Cybotron, and composed by Cybotron members Juan Atkins and Richard Davis.

Contents

Commercial performance and reception

Dennis Romero of Los Angeles Times in 1993 described the "Kraftwerk-sampling song" as "[i]nspired by Afrika Bambaataa's [...] 'Planet Rock'" and filled "with high-flying synthesizer loops, hard-driving beats and sparse, Chipmunk-style vocals-all elements", used in later techno songs as of September 1993. [6]

At least fifty thousand copies of the "Clear" single were sold, according to a 1997 article in The Wire , which describes the song as a "groundbreaking…first-generation piece of pure machine music." [7]

Cyclone Wehner of the Gold Coast Bulletin in 2005 described the song as precedence of Detroit techno and "Timbaland's tech-hop". [8]

Later uses

The song's instantly recognizable loop has been sampled by many rap and hip-hop artists such as Missy Elliott's "Lose Control", and Poison Clan's "Shake Whatcha Mama Gave Ya".

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References

  1. "Break Dancin' to Da Old School - Various Artists - Songs, Reviews, Credits - AllMusic". AllMusic. Retrieved 26 August 2017.
  2. "The Definitive Electro & Hip Hop Collection - Various Artists - Songs, Reviews, Credits - AllMusic". AllMusic. Retrieved 26 August 2017.
  3. "Electro Funk, Vol. 2 - Various Artists - Songs, Reviews, Credits - AllMusic". AllMusic. Retrieved 26 August 2017.
  4. Discotheque, Vol. 1: The Haçienda - Various Artists | Songs, Reviews, Credits | AllMusic
  5. "Enter - Cybotron - Songs, Reviews, Credits - AllMusic". AllMusic. Retrieved 26 August 2017.
  6. Romero, Dennis (September 5, 1993). "Ready Class? Old School Hip-Hop's Back in Session". Los Angeles Times. p. 68(?) via ProQuest. This was a Sunday issue. Probably at either one of sections or Los Angeles Times Magazine.
  7. Shallcross, Mike (July 1997), "From Detroit To Deep Space", The Wire, no. 161, p. 21
  8. "spins". Gold Coast Bulletin (G Go Magazine ed.). July 21, 2005. p. 6.