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!

Although you 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 on the Matrix soundtrack, which, as you may know, I love!

The prodigy and people like Leftfield and the Chemical Brothers are known to be in the more performing dance genre also, and, seeing pictures in the inlay of them live… must be one excellent show they put on. It is this kind of music which has a following because it is not run-of-the-mill chart stuff, and people flock to see them perform at music events.

How many layers do you reckon it takes to make a dance tune in the charts? You have the base, the riff which is usually from a keyboard, and then maybe some symbol sounds which are to a beat also. Then, of course, the vocals… which are usually just to make the track more interesting. This is the kind of drivel which is popular in clubs, and, no offence to the artists and DJ’s, but it has one use, and that is to allow people to make fools of themselves when they look like walking vodka bottles. The Prodigy have much more depth.

The sounds that the Prodigy use are very varied. Take ‘Breathe’ for example. A fantastic base line, good lyrics, electronic sounds, a whipping sound (oh yes baby!) and other background noises which simply add to the meat of the song, giving it a full body, allowing your ears to pick up different levels, and never drift into some bored state of mind.

I know some of you have musical taste many miles away from this style of music, but you must be able to relate to music that allows you to get pretty hyped up. On Jo Whiley’s radio show on Radio One, she does a ‘best track to ……………… to’ i.e. best track to revise to, best song to have on before going out etc. This album would contain songs which would be entered into the ‘best track to smash your room up to’ category. Played loud and proud, the varied beats get me going, and its almost like I am listening to one of my favourite rock albums. On today’s Namone show, ‘Breathe’ was named as one of the songs you could play to get hyped up before an exam.

The variation on this album is good, with riffs from the whipping chain to a Chinese sounding noise played in ‘Mindfields’. The base lines are all the same in most of chart-dance that I hear in the clubs, either dumpf dumpf dumpf, or boom boom-boom-boom, as it were (!) but the base-lines on this album reminds me of a rap or hip-hop album, where dance music is obviously played in the background behind the lyricist. The beats vary from being very continuous and very prominent in the tracks to being slightly more in the background.

7. Narayan: 9:06
"You feel another energy
An I feel power through it"

The inlay is quite good too. It does not have the words, but it has some pictures of the boys, a nice animation of them, and has a quite a strange little commentary thing going on. Namely:
Steel?
We have no Butter,
But I ask you
Would you rather have butter or guns?
Shall we import lard or steel?
Let me tell you
Preparedness makes us powerful.
Butter merely makes us fat.
Lard?