Exit Planet Dust

Hip-hop drums arrive at rave volume on the Chemical Brothers' debut. 'Leave Home' and 'Chemical Beats' turn breakbeats and enormous low end into block-rocking momentum, while the debut's rough edges make them sound hungry rather than polished. The drums still have splinters in them. Dig Your Own Hole refined all of it. This one did the announcing.

The debut, rawer and more hip-hop than what came after, and the record that established the template everyone else worked from. Leave Home is still the clearest statement of what the genre was for.