Dear listener, I’ve got three more musical entries this year, this being the first of three. Just so you know, the next two entries will be classical ditties (Mozart and Beethoven), but today I’m going to put the microscope on an English big beat group that I should have displayed eons ago, The Prodigy. If you’re anything like me, you’ve been at least subconsciously listening to music by this band for decades, and you’re probably better off for it. I’d normally request you turn the volume all the way up, but this is a rare group that makes music SO DAMN LOUD that listening to their bangers at max volume may very well blow your testicles and/or ovaries clean off your body. So, start low and adjust. Just above is Spitfire from their 2004 album Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned. Join me below for a bit more if you dig it!
Generally speaking, I’ll always try to put a focus on groups that don’t get as much attention as big mainstream acts. The one and ONLY exception is when I’m posting tunes by groups that have literally changed music on planet Earth. Since I was sixteen, this band has been making me feel uncomfortable, but in a good way. They tend to set tones with music that are very disturbing, urgent, menacing or unpleasant. For their time, generating controversy and being pioneers of big beat music was simply Prodigy’s bread and butter. If you like electronic rock, breakbeat or rave… their catalog will have you on your back, legs akimbo, ready and willing to conceive their dance-child. Probably the most immortal banger by this band was 1996’s Firestarter, but I find the most joy in their lesser known, more repetitive and more experimental works. This is not a group that had a dedicated lead singer, just a front man (Keith Flint, R.I.P.) that would bow out of full albums to let another, or several others, take the vocal reigns. At the peak of their commercial success in the mid-90’s, they earned themselves the title “the Godfathers of Rave”. I don’t know what the hell they’re putting in the water in England, but ol’ Brittania has managed to crank out some of the best and most influential electronic music on Earth in the last few decades, Prodigy clearly being at the tippy top of the apex. This band had a punk mystique that was unique and unforgettable, and their music boasted BIG hooks that, even if they rubbed you the wrong way, were irresistibly catchy. Love them or hate them, this band established a completely original sound that was impossible to duplicate without being called a hack. They also went from underground to mainstream because of their combined talent, creative drive and underlying intelligence. This is a story with a very sad ending however, as frontman Keith Flint took his own life by hanging in 2019, leaving future works by this group in a perpetual state of flux and their best days long behind them. Below, you’ll find The Day Is My Enemy from their 2015 album of the same name. Smash play, and as usual, enjoy dear listener.
Although I would not say that The Prodigy is one of my favorite bands of all-time, one must appreciate how they were probably one of the premier acts that brought electronic music, rock music and heavy experimentation under one undeniably well-constructed roof. Not bad for a bunch of dancers and audio engineers from Braintree, Essex. Image source: The Prodigy : un documentaire en préparation - OUI FM
