Original video located here. Accessed 3rd May 2019
Song title: No Good (Start the Dance)
Artist: The Prodigy
Year: 1994
Why I like this song:
Spike vs The Prodigy: Round 2
Album: Music for the Jilted Generation
Year: 1994
Nothing sells a product quite like having a story attached and the one this album is a doozy: Incensed by the government crackdown on raves, Liam Howlett decided to take his music into a more angrier and intense direction. And seeing as it expanded the Prodigy's audience and silenced critics who dismissed them as a lightweight, it's clear the move paid off in spades.
This album always marks the point where I had my first experience with The Prodigy: it was sometime in the mid-nineties and I turned on my TV to early morning rage and caught the video to Voodoo People. At first I didn't know what to think of the (admittedly freaky) video but it prove helpful when I realised that the guys who did Firestarter were the same guys who did that song with the distorted flutes, frenzied violin and that keyboard sample that goes URNK URNK.
Much like Experience, this album sounds like the work of a different band when compared to their future triumphs. It's fast, inventive, exciting and, when compared to Experience, a sizable bearing of teeth. And yet it still manages to retain the fun (read: approachable) aspect of it's predecessor - This album may be flexing some muscle but it still has the DNA that traces it to previous album.
So in the end, this is a damn good album and a prime example of mid-nineties rave music.
One final thought: Considering the year of this album's release, I wonder who many people used it to soundtrack a game of Doom?
No comments:
Post a Comment