Prodigy - Fat of the Land - Nubblies.net Forums

Titan · 01-23-2003, 07:53 PM

Elright. I’m going to review this one here, Prodigy’s “Fat of the Land”. Sorry UB, I would have done the “Music for the Jilted Generation” sex, but like I said, I think it would appeal to the masses on here even less than this one. I’ll probably end up ranking them like in UB’s “By the Way” review, because this album is only 10 tracks long, and I’ve had it for ages. While my rankings have changed much over the years, I know what I like nowadays. I really hope Chuck ends up posting his comments especially, seeing as how I know he’s the only other Prodigy expert around the state of Indiana. And I /know/ his ranking will be quite different from mine; we like electronica for alot of the same reasons, and alot of different reasons. Chuck - I promise I won’t bash your skull in with an iron wrench, feel free to rape me if you want though. Anyone else that can offer insight or anything (pliedes, UB, whoever), please do, everyone may not own this album, but everyone knows of it. (How could they not? It was the quickest selling album EVER, sold copies faster than even Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”. I proceed.

Prodigy - Fat of the Land

<LI>Smack My Bitch Up
Alright, no doubt 95% of you have heard the lines “Change my pitch up, smack my bitch up.” This still stands as one of the most controversial songs to date. It even was chosen by good old MTSuck as the song with the #1 controversial video ever. Which is understandable with it’s drugs, vivid sex, alcohol, vomiting, destruction, violence against women, and to make matters worse, well... if you really want me to ruin the end for you I will. But I’ll save it for those of you who haven’t seen the video yet. Anyway, this is probably the perfect track to open the album. It’s hard-hitting tripplet of a bass beat kicks in gear after a short intro and later on snippets of the “Smack my bitch up” vocal start to arise. After a breakdown with some chanting by a female vocalist that I do not recall the name of, the listener is hurled back into the breakneck beat full force. This song definite makes you want to fuck something up, or just commit a hate crime against women.

<LI>Breathe
No doubt at least 90% of you out there have heard the lines “Breathe the pressure, come play my game I’ll test ya.” This, like “Smack My Bitch Up” is one of the most popular songs in the history of that which is Prodigy. Debuting (if you want to pronounce that word the British way, say “DEB - yoot - ing”) in 1997 as the second single off of “Fat of the Land” this song instantly captivated audiences with it’s frighteningly chaotic and unique vocal style consisting of Keith (spikey haired freaky guy) and Maxim (black guy with dreds) spouting threats at each other. The video consisted of a very similar idea, and was very scary - to this day, this is my favourite video ever. Anyway, featuring very cool sword samples taken from the classic Wu-Tang movies, and an enormously heavy bassdriven beat, this song pounds away at your brain and taunts you with it’s psychotic vocals. Lyrics include: “Breathe the pressure, come play my game I’ll test ya” - “Psycho-somatic, addict insane” - “Inhale, inhale, you’re the vicitm!” and things of this nature. This song has it all together, which is why it is still one of my favourite songs off of this album to this day. Oh, and on a side-note, according to pliedes, it is the best song to run to. Understandable.

<LI>Diesel Power
Easily the most hip-hoppish track the Prodigy has ever done. It’s formulaic hip-hop. The beat (indeed a phat one) stays the same throughout the whole song whilst Kool Keith (the same guy who is sampled saying “Smack my bitch up” - a rapper from the UK rap group Ultramagnetic MC’s) spits out some very cool rhymes & rhythms. I recommend this song to all you hip-hop heads out there, it’s worth a listen for the rhymes alone. Once I had mastered the rapping on this song, and rapped it over and over, it became a song I listened to only so I could rap with it (it doesn’t have the most dynamic beat, but the beat does kick ass). It is the perfect song to blair while you’re cruising down Center St. and honking at Johnny Rose’s house. Again - all you hip-hop heads should definitely download this song, it’s very fun to rap.

<LI>Funky Shit
It took a very long time, but eventually, this song became my favourite on the album. The beat just kicks ass. The song starts off with a Beastie Boys sample saying “Oh my god that’s some funky shit!” It then slowly progresses, building up, until the beat drops - and it drops hard. You won’t appreciate the true fuctup energy in this song unless you listen to it on a worthy system. My personal choice to blair in my car whenever I’m terrorizing the streets of Warcity. This song has the right amount of breaks and lead-ins (and perfect length lead-ins) to keep you energized throughout and make you want to listen to it many a time. Again, it can only be appreciated on the proper system, you need the bass for this song to kick ass to it’s potential.

<LI>Serial Thrilla
Here’s the thing, this song is somehow, for some reason given the worst reviews out of the whole album by almost everyone. In my ranking, I put it as #5, I like it that much. I don’t know if people pick on this one simply because it was the last one Liam worked on before the album came out, or whether it just doesn’t have enough stuff to captivate them or what. For me, the rhythm of this song purely kicks ass. And I think that Keith’s vocals fit the song very well, giving it that nasty edge. Lyrics include “Damage distructah, crowd distruptah, youth corruptah, everytimah.” - “Serial thrillah, serious killah” of course, this is all said with a British accent, so there are no “er” sounds. While the bridge is not the most intermaresting, the beat of this song, continuous and very rhythmically hard-hitting, are enough to keep me engaged in this song.

<LI>Mindfields
Now I know Chuck is going to hate me after this one, if I remember correctly this is one of his favourite songs, that or he at least likes it alot. This is one of the Prodigy songs I have worn out the most, and it got boring to me rather quickly. Don’t get me wrong, it is a VERY good song, but just for me, it lost interesting sooner than the others, and that’s why it’s last in my ranking, I would still give it like at least a 7.5 out of 10, that just tells you how good the album is. It’s got a very cool beat, like a drum’n’bass beat slowed down 100 BPM. The vocals are actually some of my favourite from the album. Lyrics include: “This is dangerous, open up your head, feel the shellshock” - “This is dangerous, I walk through mind fields and watch your head rock.” This song is featured on the “Matrix” soundtrack and was originally going to be the 2nd or 3rd single, so it’s good, just not one of my favourites anymore.

<LI>Narayan
Now this song on the other hand, holds probably the largest amount of replay value for me from this album. I have owned this album for about 4 years now and have always liked it a decent amount up untill about 6 months ago when it became one of my favourites. This is easily the most progressive song on the album, weighing in at a total of 9:06 minutes (a 9 minutes long song??? you’ve got to be kidding me!!! not really, download some autechre or orbital some time). With actually very cool vocals by Crispin Mills of Kalua Shaker (I didn’t look that up, I think that’s right... and then Saffron does vocals on “Fuel My Fire”... whatever). This song really has a mystic psychosis about it the whole way through. After about 4.5 minutes of a deep flip-flop beat and the neat vocals it goes into an interlude with strange chanting vocals and then goes back into the beat at about 6.0 minutes elapsed. The best part however is at 7.0 minutes when it complete breaks down and regergitates itself into a new kickass break-beat. By this time you’re rockin’ out totally. Again, excellent replay value in my book.

<LI>Firestarter
Uh huh, no doubt at least 85% of you have heard the lines “I’m a firestarter, twisted firestarter”. This was the band’s first single off of this album, and still one probably their most popular globally. This song features a heavy simple beat powering over continuous guitar licks and snatches of echoing vocal samples. Keith is also the vocal star on this track, delivering what many mummies in Britain determined to be the most frightening thing they’ve ever heard. It really isn’t frightening, not by today’s standards, especially since we live in America. The lyrics are actually quite good - “I’m the bitch you hated, filth infatuated” - “I’m the one-invented, twisted animator” - “I’m the self-inflicted, mind detinator” and blah blah blah. Quite insightful for someone who doesn’t claim to be able to write lyrics or sing. This is a classic track, not the most dynamic on the 806th listen, but still good.

<LI>Climbatize
A beautiful track. Another progressive masterpiece from “Fat of the Land”. On every album Liam (keyboard god and writer of prodigy tunes) has one completely instrumental progressive track, that would be this one. This one actually has relaxing, yes disturbed, yet journey-ful feelings all wrapped into one song. This is a good one to just sit back and play. It doesn’t have anything that instantly grabs at your throat or anything like many of the others, it’s just an all around good track.

<LI>Fuel My Fire
One of the fastest and most energetically charged Prodigy songs to date. This was Liam’s attempt to create the perfect electro-punk track. While he’s still attempting that, this song was a good try. The vocals (Keith on main, Saffron from Republica in the background) are superb. This track offers a pretty good punk beat, sparse feedbacky guitar licks, and deep bass, it's just all around good energy. But again, to me, it doesn’t have much replay value, which is the only reason I ranked it lower. It used to be my absolute favourite track. It’s psychotic how much opinions can change just from how much you listen to an album. This would definitely be the favourite of die-hard real (British) Punk fans out there. It has been said to sound Sex Pistolsish, but not nearly as much as the Prodigy’s new and unreleased-as-of-yet “Nuclear”. Through interludes you can hear some neat little organistic sounding piano lines, funny thing. This song is actually a cover of (The Ping-Pong Bitches’ [i think] song). Keith’s vocals on this song really do just make you want to kill someone I would say. If there is anyone who has ever done you wrong, just play this song and you’ll feel better (and angrier). “I got a word of thanks, thanks that I’d like to say. For the rage that I feel, the rage that I feel today. Got stacks, got stacks, stacks of chips on my shoulders, in everything I do. ‘Cuz I made, I made, I made the mistake, of trusting you!” - “Yeah people like you just fuel my fire!” - “Yeah my layers are thick and I’ve got a bad attitude. Yeah that knife in my back has fingerprints that belong to you! Got a grudge, got a grudge, got a grudge that I’m holding for as long as I live, ‘cuz you lied, you lied, you lied to my face, and that’s something that I can’t forgive!”

<LI>My Ranking:
1. Funky Shit
2. Breathe *
3. Smack My Bitch Up *
4. Narayan
5. Serial Thrilla
6. Climbatize
7. Fuel My Fire
8. Firestarter *
9. Diesel Power
10. Mindfields
* - Singles released

<LI>My Rating - 90%
Definitely a good album. Also definitely (in my opinion - and many, many Prodigy fans actually) not as good as it’s prior “Music for the Jilted Generation”. If want, me or Chuck or both can review this album as well. Wow... one giant dual-author written review... that would be a milestone. This one is worth buying if you want an album with energy, and something that is just the definition of HARD.

Prodigy - Fat of the Land

[This message has been edited by Titan (edited January 24, 2003).]

01-23-2003, 07:53 PM	#1 (permalink)
Titan Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2002 Posts: 3,698 Internets: 10	Elright. I’m going to review this one here, Prodigy’s “Fat of the Land”. Sorry UB, I would have done the “Music for the Jilted Generation” sex, but like I said, I think it would appeal to the masses on here even less than this one. I’ll probably end up ranking them like in UB’s “By the Way” review, because this album is only 10 tracks long, and I’ve had it for ages. While my rankings have changed much over the years, I know what I like nowadays. I really hope Chuck ends up posting his comments especially, seeing as how I know he’s the only other Prodigy expert around the state of Indiana. And I /know/ his ranking will be quite different from mine; we like electronica for alot of the same reasons, and alot of different reasons. Chuck - I promise I won’t bash your skull in with an iron wrench, feel free to rape me if you want though. Anyone else that can offer insight or anything (pliedes, UB, whoever), please do, everyone may not own this album, but everyone knows of it. (How could they not? It was the quickest selling album EVER, sold copies faster than even Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”. I proceed. Prodigy - Fat of the Land <LI>Smack My Bitch Up Alright, no doubt 95% of you have heard the lines “Change my pitch up, smack my bitch up.” This still stands as one of the most controversial songs to date. It even was chosen by good old MTSuck as the song with the #1 controversial video ever. Which is understandable with it’s drugs, vivid sex, alcohol, vomiting, destruction, violence against women, and to make matters worse, well... if you really want me to ruin the end for you I will. But I’ll save it for those of you who haven’t seen the video yet. Anyway, this is probably the perfect track to open the album. It’s hard-hitting tripplet of a bass beat kicks in gear after a short intro and later on snippets of the “Smack my bitch up” vocal start to arise. After a breakdown with some chanting by a female vocalist that I do not recall the name of, the listener is hurled back into the breakneck beat full force. This song definite makes you want to fuck something up, or just commit a hate crime against women. <LI>Breathe No doubt at least 90% of you out there have heard the lines “Breathe the pressure, come play my game I’ll test ya.” This, like “Smack My Bitch Up” is one of the most popular songs in the history of that which is Prodigy. Debuting (if you want to pronounce that word the British way, say “DEB - yoot - ing”) in 1997 as the second single off of “Fat of the Land” this song instantly captivated audiences with it’s frighteningly chaotic and unique vocal style consisting of Keith (spikey haired freaky guy) and Maxim (black guy with dreds) spouting threats at each other. The video consisted of a very similar idea, and was very scary - to this day, this is my favourite video ever. Anyway, featuring very cool sword samples taken from the classic Wu-Tang movies, and an enormously heavy bassdriven beat, this song pounds away at your brain and taunts you with it’s psychotic vocals. Lyrics include: “Breathe the pressure, come play my game I’ll test ya” - “Psycho-somatic, addict insane” - “Inhale, inhale, you’re the vicitm!” and things of this nature. This song has it all together, which is why it is still one of my favourite songs off of this album to this day. Oh, and on a side-note, according to pliedes, it is the best song to run to. Understandable. <LI>Diesel Power Easily the most hip-hoppish track the Prodigy has ever done. It’s formulaic hip-hop. The beat (indeed a phat one) stays the same throughout the whole song whilst Kool Keith (the same guy who is sampled saying “Smack my bitch up” - a rapper from the UK rap group Ultramagnetic MC’s) spits out some very cool rhymes & rhythms. I recommend this song to all you hip-hop heads out there, it’s worth a listen for the rhymes alone. Once I had mastered the rapping on this song, and rapped it over and over, it became a song I listened to only so I could rap with it (it doesn’t have the most dynamic beat, but the beat does kick ass). It is the perfect song to blair while you’re cruising down Center St. and honking at Johnny Rose’s house. Again - all you hip-hop heads should definitely download this song, it’s very fun to rap. <LI>Funky Shit It took a very long time, but eventually, this song became my favourite on the album. The beat just kicks ass. The song starts off with a Beastie Boys sample saying “Oh my god that’s some funky shit!” It then slowly progresses, building up, until the beat drops - and it drops hard. You won’t appreciate the true fuctup energy in this song unless you listen to it on a worthy system. My personal choice to blair in my car whenever I’m terrorizing the streets of Warcity. This song has the right amount of breaks and lead-ins (and perfect length lead-ins) to keep you energized throughout and make you want to listen to it many a time. Again, it can only be appreciated on the proper system, you need the bass for this song to kick ass to it’s potential. <LI>Serial Thrilla Here’s the thing, this song is somehow, for some reason given the worst reviews out of the whole album by almost everyone. In my ranking, I put it as #5, I like it that much. I don’t know if people pick on this one simply because it was the last one Liam worked on before the album came out, or whether it just doesn’t have enough stuff to captivate them or what. For me, the rhythm of this song purely kicks ass. And I think that Keith’s vocals fit the song very well, giving it that nasty edge. Lyrics include “Damage distructah, crowd distruptah, youth corruptah, everytimah.” - “Serial thrillah, serious killah” of course, this is all said with a British accent, so there are no “er” sounds. While the bridge is not the most intermaresting, the beat of this song, continuous and very rhythmically hard-hitting, are enough to keep me engaged in this song. <LI>Mindfields Now I know Chuck is going to hate me after this one, if I remember correctly this is one of his favourite songs, that or he at least likes it alot. This is one of the Prodigy songs I have worn out the most, and it got boring to me rather quickly. Don’t get me wrong, it is a VERY good song, but just for me, it lost interesting sooner than the others, and that’s why it’s last in my ranking, I would still give it like at least a 7.5 out of 10, that just tells you how good the album is. It’s got a very cool beat, like a drum’n’bass beat slowed down 100 BPM. The vocals are actually some of my favourite from the album. Lyrics include: “This is dangerous, open up your head, feel the shellshock” - “This is dangerous, I walk through mind fields and watch your head rock.” This song is featured on the “Matrix” soundtrack and was originally going to be the 2nd or 3rd single, so it’s good, just not one of my favourites anymore. <LI>Narayan Now this song on the other hand, holds probably the largest amount of replay value for me from this album. I have owned this album for about 4 years now and have always liked it a decent amount up untill about 6 months ago when it became one of my favourites. This is easily the most progressive song on the album, weighing in at a total of 9:06 minutes (a 9 minutes long song??? you’ve got to be kidding me!!! not really, download some autechre or orbital some time). With actually very cool vocals by Crispin Mills of Kalua Shaker (I didn’t look that up, I think that’s right... and then Saffron does vocals on “Fuel My Fire”... whatever). This song really has a mystic psychosis about it the whole way through. After about 4.5 minutes of a deep flip-flop beat and the neat vocals it goes into an interlude with strange chanting vocals and then goes back into the beat at about 6.0 minutes elapsed. The best part however is at 7.0 minutes when it complete breaks down and regergitates itself into a new kickass break-beat. By this time you’re rockin’ out totally. Again, excellent replay value in my book. <LI>Firestarter Uh huh, no doubt at least 85% of you have heard the lines “I’m a firestarter, twisted firestarter”. This was the band’s first single off of this album, and still one probably their most popular globally. This song features a heavy simple beat powering over continuous guitar licks and snatches of echoing vocal samples. Keith is also the vocal star on this track, delivering what many mummies in Britain determined to be the most frightening thing they’ve ever heard. It really isn’t frightening, not by today’s standards, especially since we live in America. The lyrics are actually quite good - “I’m the bitch you hated, filth infatuated” - “I’m the one-invented, twisted animator” - “I’m the self-inflicted, mind detinator” and blah blah blah. Quite insightful for someone who doesn’t claim to be able to write lyrics or sing. This is a classic track, not the most dynamic on the 806th listen, but still good. <LI>Climbatize A beautiful track. Another progressive masterpiece from “Fat of the Land”. On every album Liam (keyboard god and writer of prodigy tunes) has one completely instrumental progressive track, that would be this one. This one actually has relaxing, yes disturbed, yet journey-ful feelings all wrapped into one song. This is a good one to just sit back and play. It doesn’t have anything that instantly grabs at your throat or anything like many of the others, it’s just an all around good track. <LI>Fuel My Fire One of the fastest and most energetically charged Prodigy songs to date. This was Liam’s attempt to create the perfect electro-punk track. While he’s still attempting that, this song was a good try. The vocals (Keith on main, Saffron from Republica in the background) are superb. This track offers a pretty good punk beat, sparse feedbacky guitar licks, and deep bass, it's just all around good energy. But again, to me, it doesn’t have much replay value, which is the only reason I ranked it lower. It used to be my absolute favourite track. It’s psychotic how much opinions can change just from how much you listen to an album. This would definitely be the favourite of die-hard real (British) Punk fans out there. It has been said to sound Sex Pistolsish, but not nearly as much as the Prodigy’s new and unreleased-as-of-yet “Nuclear”. Through interludes you can hear some neat little organistic sounding piano lines, funny thing. This song is actually a cover of (The Ping-Pong Bitches’ [i think] song). Keith’s vocals on this song really do just make you want to kill someone I would say. If there is anyone who has ever done you wrong, just play this song and you’ll feel better (and angrier). “I got a word of thanks, thanks that I’d like to say. For the rage that I feel, the rage that I feel today. Got stacks, got stacks, stacks of chips on my shoulders, in everything I do. ‘Cuz I made, I made, I made the mistake, of trusting you!” - “Yeah people like you just fuel my fire!” - “Yeah my layers are thick and I’ve got a bad attitude. Yeah that knife in my back has fingerprints that belong to you! Got a grudge, got a grudge, got a grudge that I’m holding for as long as I live, ‘cuz you lied, you lied, you lied to my face, and that’s something that I can’t forgive!” <LI>My Ranking: 1. Funky Shit 2. Breathe * 3. Smack My Bitch Up * 4. Narayan 5. Serial Thrilla 6. Climbatize 7. Fuel My Fire 8. Firestarter * 9. Diesel Power 10. Mindfields * - Singles released <LI>My Rating - 90% Definitely a good album. Also definitely (in my opinion - and many, many Prodigy fans actually) not as good as it’s prior “Music for the Jilted Generation”. If want, me or Chuck or both can review this album as well. Wow... one giant dual-author written review... that would be a milestone. This one is worth buying if you want an album with energy, and something that is just the definition of HARD. Prodigy - Fat of the Land [This message has been edited by Titan (edited January 24, 2003).]