The Prodigy

[uncharted]

I can not hold back from posting in this thread any longer!!!

Liam himself said that FoTL was just a continuation of Jilted and not really anything new.

FoTL is essentially the Firestarter album which is probably (despite a number of good songs - SMBU, Funky S***) my least favourite Prodigy album.  There's too many vocals on here where they're not necessary.  Prime example being Mindfields, which should have been a great instumental/sample driven track but is screwed up with Maxim's vocals.

Serial Thrilla (or Cereal Thrilla as CDDB called it in iTunes) and Fuel My Fire are two of the worst Prodigy Tracks ever released. (BGAT is of course the worst)

[Glaucus]

Ah yes, Prodigy. Great music to dance to in a dingy, industrial themed night club. Although many may disagree with me, Fat Of The Land was one of their better albums. It was more commercial, and songs like Smack My B!tch Up obviously fed off the controversy, but it was still all great fun. Great for a party or drag racing down the strip. In fact, I hear SMBU makes people drive far more aggressively then most music - which is probably why it's the first song in my own mix CD for the car.

But overall, Prodigy was more show then substance. They certainly weren't the best musically; Crystal Method has more energy, Underworld has more depth, Massive Attack is much darker and Juno Reactor is just, well, all of the above. But Prodigy had that great image that none of the others really ever had. The video for SMBU was in the late 90's what Duran Duran's video for Hungry Like The Wolf was in the early 80's - edgy yet meaningless. It got people to watch but aside from the eye candy, there really wasn't much else there. Great fun for a while, but it can only entertain for so long before you want something more. Unfortunately, Prodigy dropped the ball after FOTL and hasn't really done anything interesting since. I hope they make a comeback one day because we need more from that genre.

Breath with me!

[Hyperspeed]

Always Outnumbered - Never Outgunned: the track called 'Girls' when you first hear it makes you think "What the hell?"... the cheesy 80's hip-hop then gets some meaty bass and the vocals keep repeating. This is old skool Prodigy genius in my opinion.

Still, my favourite album is The Prodigy Experience. The videos were classic, especially Out of Space with the ostriches and fly-by of Saturn.

Liam Paris Howlett is classically trained, this is why I think Prodigy music is smarter. The rythms and melodies have intelligient patterns and humour. The samples have mischief and soul and the obligatory instrumental tracks such as Climbatize and Weather Experience are beautiful symphonies of the 20th century.

There was probably too many collaborations on Always Outnumbered and I think the choice of artists was ropey. I was slightly dissapointed that it was generally a very aggresive and angry sound, unlike 'Experience.

I prefer the Chemical Brothers album 'Come With Us' if just for the Richard Ashcroft song 'The Test' (with a nice video too). It proves you can be soulful and calm and still have a sense of rythm and cool.

Remember '97 when they put Firestarter into WipEout 2097? Possibly the defining moment for the console's image.

As for Smack My {bleep} Up, I think there is a limit to what I'd like young children exposed to at an early age. It was never intended to be broadcast on Childrens BBC. Scenes of drinking and vommitting perfectly reflect the sad nature of British weekend life however.

The later single 'Baby's Got A Temper' with the lyrics "We take rohypnol!" (the date rape drug) was blatantly disgusting and hypocritical considering Howlett scorned The Shamen's Ebeneezer Good (for the "Es are good!" lyric).

To sum up - the earlier stuff is more tuneful, the later stuff aggresive. Oh, and I don't think Firestarter sounded out of place alongside the other No.1 single 'Breathe' - not to mention 'Fuel My Fire'.

EDIT: Talking of censorship notice the {bleep}... ?

:laughing: