Music Is Rotted One Note

The production of Music Is Rotted One Note did not involve any sequencing or sampling equipment, which had featured heavily on Squarepusher's previous work.^[4] Many of the tracks instead have a "live" feel, played by Squarepusher on the drums and bass guitar. His own comments on the album include:

One of the reasons that I headed in that direction as opposed to the more computer sequence-type stuff is because I was actually beginning to feel really limited using sequencers and samplers... I was really beginning to yearn for the sort of unpredictability of the randomness of improvising with live instruments. I was just starting to choke. The sequencer is too square, too digital. I just wanted to get really fucking loose and just start again somehow.^[5]

There were also other principles at play at this time relating to harmonic content. One was that I was to abandon the overt usage of melody. This was because I had come to see it as a cheap way of getting people to like my music. It disgusted me that it was so easy to appeal to people and I thus introduced arbitrary rules to make it harder.^[4]

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[2]
NME	8/10[6]
Pitchfork	9.8/10[7]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide	[8]
Spin	7/10[9]

In 2003, Pitchfork placed Music Is Rotted One Note at number 89 on its list of the best albums of the 1990s.^[3]