Friday Night Rock-Out: “Firestarter”

Back in the late 1990s, every guy I knew under the age of thirty had a copy of The Prodigy‘s Fat of the Land album. This was the case even though there was nothing particularly new about the record itself; Big Beat had been around for years, and some of the songs on the album itself had come out on previous albums. Nevertheless, each song is more than the sum of its parts. Each one comes together into a delierously wicked electro-dance mash-up that remains unrivaled.

Back in the day, my favorite song off the album was the problematically entitled “Smack My Bitch Up”. (As far as I’m concerned, the title is camp, if not actual satire in the Spinal Tap mode.) But these days, my favorite The Prodigy song is probably this little gem, “Firestarter”.

Rock on…

Friday Night Rock-Out: “Brimful of Asha”

The 1990s gave us two great, new genres in popular music. The first was Grunge, and the second was Big Beat. I’ve written a lot about the first but hardly anything on the second, even though it represented some of my favorite electronic bands like The Prodigy and The Chemical Brothers.

So, as a small acknowledgement of this fact, I’m doing this week’s Friday Night Rock-Out on Fatboy Slim. Specifically, his remix of “Brimful of Asha” by Cornershop. I’ll admit that I’ve never heard the original release, but the remix is pure genius.

Rock on…