When you think of the great British artists of the 1990s, Oasis and Blur are not unjustly superstars. You might even call the Spice Girls Britain’s greatest musical export. Sure, they all acted like it, with good dates and proper posing, but their success paled in comparison to that of The Prodigy. At a time when the Brit-pop generation was busy raising its media profile and lobbying for the Blair government, the Betrayed Generation was getting on with what was good, smashing it all over the planet.
Fat of the Land reached number one in 27 countries. In its first week, it sold better in the UK than the rest of the top 100, and was eight times Radiohead’s OK Computer at number two. At the very least, The Prodigy was very successful and probably did more to sell electronic music in the U.S. than any other artist. A British institution? That’s right.
Why Prodigy?
What makes The Prodigy so important in the history of electronic music? What makes them so important in the history of all popular music, from the Beatles to Nirvana, from Grandmaster Flash to Kanye West, from Craftwork to Deadmau5? It’s a combination of three things: Honesty, integrity and authenticity.
Few bands can boast that they have stayed as true to their beliefs as Prodigy. They have never chased the latest sounds in order to remain “old-fashioned.” They could have drawn a line with Fat of the Land Part 2, but they didn’t. Despite constant requests from Bowie and other rock greats, Liam Howlett only remixes artists he respects.
Likewise, they only collaborates with like-minded artists, and Liam’s productions remain experimental without becoming self-indulgent. Of course, there are ambient epics and film score producers, but Prodigy productions always have a hook and a sense of humor.
The Prodigy have always done their own thing and let others follow. Many artists like Pendulum, Chase & Status, Skrillex and Enter Shikari wouldn’t have found their sound without them.
It’s good to see others emulating us. That’s how artists grow,” Liam says in his studio about his new album “The Day is My Enemy.” This attitude is not limited to music. Despite these mega sales, The Prodigy have always taken the path of independence. To be honest, when “Fire starter” blew up, they could have left their label XL Recordings and joined a major label for a meager salary. But they didn’t. After leaving XL, they could have gone to the major record labels, but instead they decided to keep the underground vibe and start their own label, Take Me to the Hospital Records.
ANTI-STARS ALBUM
Underground may not be a word you normally associate with artists of the ilk of Liam, Keith or Maxim. However, if you look at their lives outside of The Prodigy, they haven’t always gone the route of stardom. Unlike many of their peers who play to the press stars, The Prodigy trio has remained relatively unscathed and arguably unimpressed. Keith has had a parallel career as a motorcycle racer and greenhouse builder, and has never been associated with the rock ‘n’ roll of Pete Doherty; Maxim has made a name for himself in the U.S. as a DJ and trap producer (We Are Noise), but he’s also a champagne star who likes to drink champagne and chat with models.
And Liam? He just does his job, spends time with his family, goes to his favorite clubs and collaborates with producers and musicians like Flux Pavilion, Seaford Mods and Tim Hutton. In many ways, The Prodigy are the anti-stardom.
Moreover, they reject any formula, fame, or any other formula as their own. So it’s no wonder that late last year Liam Howlett complained bitterly about EDM, the more formulaic form of dance music produced by The Prodigy’s fans.
The Prodigy are proud of their roots, but they don’t deserve to be lumped in with the Divs,” he exclaims. You can’t respect a bunch of idiots who just stand there …. You know what I mean? They’re the ones who are a laughingstock. They’re the ones who are preventing this music from being taken as seriously as old rock. I’m trying to stop that! This is wrong and we need to denounce it.
Just like when raves were popular, when people listened to Charlie, made parodies and made them popular, these EDM guys are just parodying themselves, parodying themselves. This EDM shit is all about people going out and having fun. There’s no depth to it.
I think drum and bass is the ultimate underground dance form. Dubstep, trap, etc. come and go, come and go, they were good when they came up but they didn’t last long.
Some artists I still respect, but those sounds have disappeared. But drum & bass has stood the test of time as an art form. Probably because Americans never understood it…. Americans always fail somewhere, don’t they? That’s the reason EDM was born. I don’t care, I’m going to go crazy with this record.
We have the right to say that because we’ve been doing this for so long that we know who we are!”.
That’s the kind of sincerity that appeals to the wunderkind. Liam isn’t saying it to make an effective point or to get a few people to have a Twitter hate-fest. They’re words that come from a genuine concern for the scene he’s emotionally involved in: dance culture and everything it represents. For him, culture is about standing up to dominant decisions. His position is very political, although he always rejects political positions.
With his synapse-stimulating productions, he challenges people to take control of their existence and step out of the everyday, especially in the increasingly formulaic environment of club culture.
We have our own dance music and it’s not in my nature to do what others do.
Even if I could play guitar, I couldn’t copy someone else’s work, and I wouldn’t be expected to. I just make records with the sound I want to make…. It’s not a parody. So this new album is similar to ‘Jilted.’ It was a reaction to the dance scene at the time, and it’s the same thing. It’s a fucking statement about the dance scene today.
NEW VIGOR ALBUM
The newest album The Day is My Enemy is his statement on EDM dance culture. The album growls, bites, screams and howls like a rabid urban fox. It is the sound of a completely nocturnal and clandestine activity that defies the sanitized and clean life of the day.
It’s everything that EDM is all about. The album is also overshadowed by the huge success of 2007’s Invaders Must Die, which they released on their own label and sold over 1.4 million copies worldwide and around 700,000 in the UK. It was a phenomenal sales success at a time when it was thought that no one would buy their music anymore.
One of the reasons for the album’s success was that it attracted a crowd of new fans. That was especially the case at the Warriors Dance Rave at Milton Keynes Bowl in 2012, where newcomers rocked out hard to cheesy old-school squawks to the band’s biggest hits.
I think people see our sincerity and identify with it.
The last album was uplifting, like we were coming back together and energizing each other. The new album is more. It sounds angry.
In many ways, the great lost album Always Outnumbered provided the template for everything that followed. The fusion of avant-garde soundscapes, improved old-school beats and strong hooks has evolved to the point where the Prodigy sound is always present, no matter how experimental the production. Ironically, it was the suppression of “everything I make sounds like The Prodigy” that led Liam to throw away the keys to his old studio, delete the tracks from the Fat of the Land episode, and write the first Outnumbered track on his laptop.
At the time, he hadn’t found a sound that represented The Prodigy that he was happy with. Now, however, he knows his sound and is excited about its possibilities.
The Night is My Enemy is the sound of The Prodigy.
I will not give an award to anyone who recognizes this song. Gritty electro-punk like the lead single ‘Nasty’ and album closer ‘Wall of Death’, the chaotic ‘Beyond the Death ray’ and ‘Invisible Sun’ (soundtrack to ‘Aliens in London’) and old school like ‘Medicine’ and ‘Rhythm Bomb’. Unlike its predecessor, however, the mood that inspired the production of this album was that of Prodigy’s touring shows. At least in this respect, it comes close to Fat of the Land…. close. We are light years away from this album, and now it sounds bland. Anyone who saw the band on their last tour will have noticed how aggressive and dark it has become.
The Prodigy defined a movement, a generation.
I think we should be a British icon. People talk about 90s bands like Blur and Oasis, but we’re still doing our thing, still doing what we do without compromise. We just don’t get the recognition we deserve”.
That’s what Liam Howlett said exactly six years ago when they were preparing to release “Invaders Must Die.” There was a certain nervousness before the album’s release, even if he didn’t want to admit it, because the single “This Baby’s Got a Temper” and the album “Always Outnumbered Never Outgunned” were poorly received.
Today, the latter release could be called a “lost classic,” but at the time “Always Outnumbered” was overshadowed by the phenomenal success of the internationally successful “Fat of the Land,” an album that took seven years to produce and lacked the band’s classic vocalists, Keith Flint and Maxim, leaving many Prodigy fans waiting for “Fat of the Land Part 2.” Many Prodigy fans who had been looking forward to the album found it a bit of a disappointment. At the time, Howlett told DJ, “I had pushed the Prodigy formula to its limits, and I knew something had to change.
So I went back to what I originally set out to do: the beats. The first album was about where we came from, raves and stuff, and ‘Jilted Generation’ was inspired by a rock band we saw at a festival. ‘Fat of the Land’ was about us as a live band, and it was good that the media focused on Keith’s personality at that stage. Now we are trying to get back to what we were originally.”
The album is a pressure valve for Howlett, who has returned to what he believes in: no more “Fire starters,” but a set of old-school classics for the dance floor…. They’re built on layers of noise. But what exactly has created this pressure? Simply put, it’s a big success. A big success. Success is written in big letters that span the globe.
