TOP 100 ALBUMS EVAR: #88 The Prodigy: The Fat Of The Land (1997) <XL/Maverick> Genre: Electroclash, Big Beat Nationality: UK (Braintree, Essex) Here’s a funny story.  So this is the first record I remember actually wanting for myself.  I may have had one or two before this, but those would have been soundtracks given to me as Christmas gifts or something.  I think I was at a bookstore with my mother and maybe my sisters (I can’t remember), and I remember going to the CD section and looking for the Prodigy.  They had been on MTV and I had seen the videos for “Firestarter” and “Breathe.”  They scared the hell out of me but I loved the songs themselves.  I found Fat Of The Land and handed it to my mother, begging and pleading.  I could only imagine the horror my mother felt as she read the first track on the CD that her eight year old son wanted: “Smack My Bitch Up.”  She did actually buy it, but gave it to my cousin and had her record it on a mixtape (no not a CD, a cassette) with that track omitted.  I then rocked out to my slightly edited album for weeks and weeks.  It still remains as one of my favorite albums, and not just for nostalgia.  This is quite possibly one of the best electronica releases ever made, full of industrial breakbeats, intense power and incredible mainstream appeal.  It came out right at the peak of the euro dance craze that hit the states in the 90’s, so it’s no surprise it sold as well as it did.  An album like the Fat Of The Land would never be popular today.  It’s amazing that a record so fierce and intense was even big in the first place.  It all works somehow, and it hits like a ton of bricks.  The sweaty pulsing numbers never relent, from the fiery electroclash of “Serial Thrilla” and “Breathe” to the hazy acid raves “Narayan” and “Mind Fields.”  Key Tracks: “Smack My Bitch Up,” “Breathe,” “Narayan,” “Mind Fields” For Fans Of: The Chemical Brothers, The Crystal Method, Fatboy Slim

TOP 100 ALBUMS EVAR: #88

The Prodigy: The Fat Of The Land (1997) <XL/Maverick>

Genre: Electroclash, Big Beat

Nationality: UK (Braintree, Essex)

Here’s a funny story.  So this is the first record I remember actually wanting for myself.  I may have had one or two before this, but those would have been soundtracks given to me as Christmas gifts or something.  I think I was at a bookstore with my mother and maybe my sisters (I can’t remember), and I remember going to the CD section and looking for the Prodigy.  They had been on MTV and I had seen the videos for “Firestarter” and “Breathe.”  They scared the hell out of me but I loved the songs themselves.  I found Fat Of The Land and handed it to my mother, begging and pleading.  I could only imagine the horror my mother felt as she read the first track on the CD that her eight year old son wanted: “Smack My Bitch Up.”  She did actually buy it, but gave it to my cousin and had her record it on a mixtape (no not a CD, a cassette) with that track omitted.  I then rocked out to my slightly edited album for weeks and weeks.  It still remains as one of my favorite albums, and not just for nostalgia.  This is quite possibly one of the best electronica releases ever made, full of industrial breakbeats, intense power and incredible mainstream appeal.  It came out right at the peak of the euro dance craze that hit the states in the 90’s, so it’s no surprise it sold as well as it did.  An album like the Fat Of The Land would never be popular today.  It’s amazing that a record so fierce and intense was even big in the first place.  It all works somehow, and it hits like a ton of bricks.  The sweaty pulsing numbers never relent, from the fiery electroclash of “Serial Thrilla” and “Breathe” to the hazy acid raves “Narayan” and “Mind Fields.” 

Key Tracks: “Smack My Bitch Up,” “Breathe,” “Narayan,” “Mind Fields”

For Fans Of: The Chemical Brothers, The Crystal Method, Fatboy Slim