Fat Of The Land, The - Prodigy (The)

Advantages: Aggression-fuelled dance/rock hybrid brilliance
Disadvantages: 'Serial Thrilla' and 'Fuel my fire'

After the magnificence of 'Music for the Jilted generation', The Prodigy reached a crossroads. Liam Howlett had created two genre-defining and timeless albums, packed with ingenuity and phat beats, but what next? Howlett decided to experiment with turning up the aggression, and taking the guitar addition a step further, incorporating Keith Flint's sneering Johnny Rotten-style vocals to the beats, fusing hard dance and rock together for an album ...
...peak of British musical acts and popular culture. The three singles lit up the British charts, with 'Firestarter' and 'Breathe' especially redefining what dance could sound like, and enticing rebellious kids in their droves. The group themselves had redefined their image, with Flint obviously shaving and colouring his bizarre hair as well as having antisocial facial piercings to create a rather intimidating vocal and visual presence. Liam Howlett ... Read review

Advantages: Fat with hard-hitting tracks
Disadvantages: Fuel My Fire

...“Breathe” with its hard-hitting beats, fat bass and aggressive vocals that I remembered that electronica had anything worth offering; “Breathe the pressure/ Come play my game – I’ll test ya”. Here was a mix of musical protein and carbohydrate, and I gorged myself silly on it. “The Fat of the Land” is nine tracks of sheer hard electronic bliss. Unfortunately, a tenth track, of such poor quality it is ...
...Reeow? Radical for its time - at least in the mainstream, “The Fat of the Land” is still worthy of attention today. Track Listing: Smack My Bitch Up, Breathe, Diesel Power, Funky Shit, Serial Thrilla, Mindfields, Narayan, Firestarter, Climbatize, Fuel My Fire More info: http://www.theprodigy.org ... Read review

Advantages: New, exciting, rash, uplifting
Disadvantages: A few weak tracks towards the end of the album

...bar, where a cheerful looking fat man hammered out the 2 chord versions of wartime classics such as Leaning On A Lamp-post on a piano that has seen better days … Now this may come as a surprise to many, but I'm afraid I'm far to young to be remembering all this caboodle, hell, I can't even claim that The Graduate was a soft porn classic when I was a lad, because quite frankly, when I was a lad, transformers and Sam Fox's breasts were everything ...
...something totally different. Then came Fat of The Land. At this time, the big beat/break beat movement was beginning to gather pace, with relatively newest acts such as The Chemical Brothers and Fatboy Slim trying to grab the limelight; but none were as successful as this 3rd studio release. With Fire Starter, the first thumping single from the album topping charts world wide, the boys were bound to be on to a winner. Right from the first 30 seconds ... Read review

Advantages: Its typical prodigy
Disadvantages: A bit too rocky in some places

...hip-hop influenced than its predecessors, Fat of the Land sets the pulse racing, fusing big beats with a raving loony attitude. A punk metal song, Fuel my Fire, is very good alongside almost straightforward hip-hop of Diesel Power, while Funky S**t is the nearest in spirit to Music For The Jilted Generation. This is an essential album for people curious about dance music in the late Nineties. This really is a superb album, and every track is good ...
...a bit loud in some places. Smack my Bitch Up – A very controversial track because of the video which contained scenes of intercourse, vomiting and drug taking. This track is a good opener and set the tone for the rest of the album. It starts of fairly slow and soft and then the bass suddenly kicks in, magnificent. Breathe – This song went to Number One, and I can see why. The introduction is menacing and awesome, then suddenly the bass ... Read review

Advantages: Nice variation in it all
Disadvantages: ... well, can be highly prices nowadays...

I do not know whether you have written an opinion on a dance CD before, but it is hard to describe all the songs separately because of the fact that it is all electronic sounds! Anyway, this is The Prodigy’s second to latest offering, released in 1997 with ‘Music for the Voodoo People’ released in 1998 according to Audiostreet. I do not know of any other releases since, but I will say they have released other albums before these ...
...may not know it, Prodigy’s music is used in quite a commercialised way. ‘Smack My Bitch Up’ has been heard over football action (minus the words for obvious reasons!) because of its fast tempo in most of the song, which is played over fast moving action such as goals being scored etc. ‘Breathe’ and ‘Firestarter’ have also been used in adverts, again, usually without the words. ‘Mindfields’ is ... Read review

Advantages: another classic from the prodigy
Disadvantages: none

...this is there third album and liam howlett is still keeping his work as original as it gets every album has a different style but he still manages to let you know that this is the prodigy dont get me wrong this is not there best album but i would still recomend buying it to anyone , this is a must have for any cd collection, there are a couple of tunes im not to keen on but on the whole this is still an awesome album with songs like smack my bitch up and funky s**t accompanied by firestarter and breathe "sounding good" buy this cd if you dont already own it you will play it over and over for many years to come... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful

Advantages: great music
Disadvantages: a couple of weak tracks

...What no one has reviewed Fat of the land by Prodigy yet!!l I am about to rectify that. Prodigy Started playing in the early 1990’s and produced “The fat of the land” in 1997.T he style of Fat of the land is quite varied, a bit techno a bit dance a bit rock. There are 10 tracks on this Album. The first Track is smack my bitch up. A good steady techno beat ,lots of rhythm little tune. The words Smack my bitch up are repeated at intervals through the Album there are some wailing vocals. This track certainly gets the adrenalin flowing the beat coursing throughout the listener’s body. Breathe is the next track starting with some guitar, “Breathe with me exhale exhale” says the vocals this is not an uplifting tune. It has a continuous thumping beat, Yes I am gently nodding my head in time. Diesel... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Just like the Prodigy of old. Welcome back.
Disadvantages: May be a bit too like the last album for everyones taste

...When the Prodigy released The Fat Of The Land in 1998 I never expected to have to wait until now for a new album. Cutting edge pioneers of dance, the Prodigy moved dance music on light years with their first 3 albums and seemingly had the world at their feet, then it all went a bit Stone Roses and they retreated to their plush homes, seemingly never to release another album. Now they have and it was well worth the wait, Keith and Maxim aren't on the album, but Juliette Lewis guests on two tracks and sounds uncannily like Keith on the opener Spitfire! That is the stand out track for me, followed by Girls which starts off sounding like a Junior Senior song and then transforms into pure Prodigy. The rest of the album is slightly hit and miss, but will evoke good memories of what we've been missing. The only criticism I'd make is that it isn... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful