Goldie (real name: Clifford Joseph Price, born 19 September 1965) is a British electronic artist best known for his work in making drum'n'bass what it is today. Goldie's early contributions included the founding of Metalheadz, a DnB record label that brought a more polished, consistent quality to compliations, and the accidental invention of timestretching on his first single, "Terminator." It wasn't until 1995, however, that he made perhaps his biggest contribution. His first album, Timeless, brought the jazzy, so-called intelligent side of drum'n'bass into the limelight with its complex breakbeats and diverse influences that drew especially from R&B. For the next three years, intelligent drum'n'bass was the sound of black inner city life, all the more fitting considering "Inner City Life" was the first single of his to really get airplay.
Goldie released a follow-up album, Saturnz Return, a Genre-Busting album that couldn't quite live up to the high expectations his fine debut made, and an opening track that ran sixty minutes long didn't help. Afterwards, he put out one more EP before pursuing a career of acting, most notably in The World Is Not Enough and EastEnders. His third solo album, The Journey Man, would eventually release in 2017, becoming both a critical success and the highest-charting album of his career. He continued to run Metalheadz until 2019 when he stepped down from the label.
Discography:
- 1995 - Timeless
- 1998 - Saturnz Return
- 2017 - The Journey Man
Tropes exemplified by Goldie and his music include...
- Adaptation Distillation: The VIP mix of "Mother" takes the aforementioned infamous sixty-minute track, cuts down pieces of the middle portion, and sets it to a new drum track, making for a much saner length of 7:24.
- Badass Boast: From the VIP mix of "Digital": "We will be here forever! Do you understand?"
- Buffy Speak: Goldie is by all accounts a thoughtful and creative man, but thanks to his chaotic upbringing he didn't really learn the Queen's English. In interviews he usually comes off as talking this way because he simply can't get the ideas out of his head fast enough.
- Epic Rocking: The first track on both of his first two albums is the longest of each. On Timeless, it was the title track, which ran 21 minutes. Satunrzreturn had "Mother", which clocked in at a solid hour. The Journey Man meanwhile breaks the pattern, placing the 18-minute "Redemption" at the start of its second half.
- Genre-Busting: Timeless took the already rave and reggae-influenced genre of drum'n'bass and added in symphonic strings and R&B vocals. Saturnzreturn went all-out, experimenting with nearly every genre Goldie could get his hands on.
- Hypocritical Humor: At the end of "Temper Temper," a song reminding the listener to calm down, Goldie yells, "Fucking temper!"
- Trope Codifier: For intelligent drum'n'bass, and arguably the genre as a whole.
