| DJ Sets ::The Prodigy (Liam Howlett,
Keith Flint, Keith Palmer & Leeroy Thornhill)
The Prodigy are an English electronic
music group formed by Liam Howlett in 1990 in Braintree, Essex.
Along with Fatboy Slim, The Chemical Brothers and The Crystal
Method, as well as other acts they are pioneers of the big
beat electronic dance genre which achieved mainstream popularity
in the 1990s and 2000s, and are known for high-quality live
performances. They have sold over 20 million records worldwide
which is unequalled in dance music history.
Various styles ranging from rave, hardcore, industrial and
breakbeat in the early 1990s to electronic rock with punk
vocal elements in later times. The current band members include
Liam Howlett (composer/keyboards), Keith Flint (dancer/vocalist)
and Maxim Reality (MC/vocalist). Leeroy Thornhill (dancer/very
occasional live keyboards) was a member of the band from 1990
to 2000, as was a female dancer/vocalist called Sharky who
left the band during their early period. The Prodigy first
emerged on the underground rave scene in the early 1990s,
and have since then achieved immense popularity and worldwide
renown. Some of their most popular songs include "Charly",
"Out of Space", "No Good (Start the Dance)",
"Voodoo People", "Poison", "Firestarter",
"Breathe", "Smack My Bitch Up", "Omen"
& "Warrior's Dance."
The name displayed on album covers changed from "The
Prodigy" to "Prodigy" between Music for the
Jilted Generation and The Fat of the Land in 1997 and back
again with the release of Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned
in 2004. However, Howlett has stated that the title has always
been "The Prodigy". The change was made only to
fit within the displayed logo, according to Howlett.
Beginnings into Fun and Fame,
and Experience
The Prodigy began with an initial 10-track demo by Liam
Howlett, put together on a Roland W-30 music workstation in
Essex, England. XL Recordings picked up the demo after Howlett
played several tracks to XL boss Nick Halkes in a meeting
and an initial 12" pressing of "What Evil Lurks"
was released in February 1991. There are some few thousand
bootlegs of this release; the original should have "the
exchange" carved in the vinyl around the centre of the
single (the matrix). The Prodigy's name was a moniker Liam
had chosen as a tribute to his first analogue synthesiser,
the Moog Prodigy.
The Prodigy's first public performance (with Howlett augmented
by dancers Keith Flint and Leeroy Thornhill) was at the Four
Aces in Dalston, London (then home to "Club Labyrinth").
"Charly", released six months later, became a huge
hit in the rave scene at the time, largely due to the popularity
of AA-side track "Your Love" which was arguably
more popular within the scene at the time. The release reached
#3 in the UK Singles Chart, catapulting the band into the
wider public attention. The Kaos Theory compilation series
featured "G Force (Energy Flow)" from their third
single "Everybody in the Place".
In the wake of "Charly"'s success the music charts
were filled with unsophisticated "hardcore" rave
tracks to which speed and ecstasy-fuelled clubbers had danced
all night, but which did not appeal to critics in the music
press. Examples were tracks such as Urban Hype's "Trip
to Trumpton", and Smart E's (as in Ecstasy) "Sesame's
Treet", instigating death-by-publicity to the underground
"hardcore rave" scene according to many critics,
ravers and followers of the scene. As a result "Charly"
(a contemporary reference to cocaine), with its memorable
sample of the "Charley Says" children's Public information
films and The Prodigy were briefly identified by critics as
"kiddie rave" or "Toytown Techno".
"Charly" was soon followed by the band's first
full length album, Experience, a landmark release in the history
of British rave music. After Experience (album track "Death
of the Prodigy Dancers" featured Ragga MC band member
Maxim Reality) and the run of singles that accompanied it,
the Prodigy moved to distance themselves from the "kiddie
rave" reputation that now dogged them. The rave scene
was beginning to move on from its hardcore phase, with the
Criminal Justice Act's "anti-rave" legislation on
the horizon. In 1993, Howlett released an anonymous white
label, bearing only the title "Earthbound I". Its
hypnotic, hard-edged sound won wide underground approval.
Many former critics of the band were astounded when Howlett
finally acknowledged responsibility for the record. It was
officially released as "One Love" later that year,
and went on to chart at #8 in the UK.
Music for the Jilted Generation
In 1994, the Prodigy's second album, Music for the Jilted
Generation, was released entering the UK album charts at #1.
The album displayed a wider spectrum of musical style with
heavy techno and breakbeat-based tracks complemented by the
concept sequence The Narcotic Suite, and rock-oriented inclinations
("Their Law", featuring Pop Will Eat Itself). The
album was nominated for a Mercury Music Prize although Howlett
had reaffirmed his dedication to making The Prodigy a 'hard
dance band', commercially successful but without compromise.
The band managed to continue to prevent over-exposure in the
media by refusing to appear on Top of the Pops or other TV
shows in the UK. To this day their only studio appearance
on British television came when they appeared on the BBC2
series Dance Energy in 1991 performing "Everybody in
the Place". In the ensuing years their videos received
a strong level of support by MTV Europe which boosted their
popularity across the continent. Keith Flint himself hosted
an episode of the MTV show 120 Minutes in 1995.
Following the international success of Music for the Jilted
Generation the band augmented their line-up with guitarist
Jim Davies (who, later, joined the group Pitchshifter) in
1995 for tracks such as "Their Law", "Break
and Enter 95", and various live-only interludes and versions.
He was soon to be replaced by Gizz Butt of the band Janus
Stark who remained with the band for the next three years.
The 1996 release of "Firestarter", featuring vocals
for the first time courtesy of a new-look Keith Flint, helped
the band break into the U.S. and other overseas markets, and
reached number one in the UK. In this year the Prodigy also
headlined the prestigious Lollapalooza festival.
The Fat of the Land
The long-awaited third Prodigy album, The Fat of the Land,
was released in 1997 just as the band headlined the Glastonbury
festival on its opening night. Like its predecessors, the
album represented a milestone in the development of both the
band and the wider mainstream dance scene. Featuring simplified
melodies, sparser sampling, and more sneering, punk-like vocals
(supplied by a shockingly madeover Flint), the album nevertheless
retained the bone-jarring breaks and buzzsaw synths so idiomatic
of the band. The album cemented the band's position as one
of the most internationally successful acts in the dance genre,
entering the British and American charts at number one.
The Prodigy were getting considerable airplay on rock stations
with their controversial track "Smack My Bitch Up"
— and also a negative backlash for the song. Time-Warner,
Prodigy's parent company, was feeling the heat from the National
Organization for Women (NOW) over the track. Although the
song's lyrics are few but repetitive (in their entirety, the
lyrics are "Change my pitch up, smack my bitch up"),
NOW stated that the lyrics are a "...dangerous and offensive
message advocating violence against women." Howlett responded
to the attacks by claiming that the song's lyrics are being
misinterpreted: (the song means) "...doing anything intensely,
like being on stage – going for extreme manic energy."
The band did not write the lyric, but rather sampled it from
the classic Ultramagnetic MCs' track "Give The Drummer
Some" which also appears on the Dirtchamber Sessions
(they had also sampled another Ultramagnetic MCs song "Critical
Beatdown" on their earlier "Out of Space" single).
There are also those who believe that the lyrics are in reference
to administering heroin (smack) to another person. Several
radio stations defended the song, yet only played the track
at night. The music video (directed by Jonas Åkerlund)
featured a first-person point of view of someone going clubbing,
indulging in large amounts of drugs and alcohol, getting into
fist fights with men, abusing women and picking up a lap dancer
and having sex with her as well, all of which is depicted
explicitly. At the end of the video the camera pans over to
a mirror, revealing the subject to be a woman. MTV only aired
the video between 1 and 5 a.m. The director got the inspiration
for the contents of the video after a night of drinking and
partying in Copenhagen.
During a performance at the Reading Festival (29 August 1998)
The Prodigy and the Beastie Boys had an onstage disagreement
over the track – with the Beastie Boys requesting the
song should be pulled from their set as it could be considered
offensive to those who had suffered domestic abuse. Choosing
to ignore the Beastie Boys plea, Maxim introduced "Smack
My Bitch Up" with the declaration "They didn’t
want us to play this fucking tune. But the way things go,
I do what the fuck I want". The incident has since become
part of festival folklore, and was voted one of the greatest
ever live moments by the now defunct Select Magazine.
Wal-Mart and Kmart later announced they would pull The Fat
of the Land off their shelves. Despite the fact that the LP
had resided on their store shelves for over 20 weeks, and
the fact that they had sold 150,000 copies of the album in
total, the two stores found the marketing campaign for the
new single release offensive.
In mid-2002, the complete, unedited video was aired on MTV2
as part of a special countdown showing the most controversial
videos ever to air on MTV. This countdown was only shown late
at night because of the graphic imagery of "Smack My
Bitch Up" and several other videos on the countdown.
This video in particular was deemed the "Most Controversial
Video" by MTV and showed at the #1 spot on the countdown.
1999 saw the release of The Prodigy's The Dirtchamber Sessions
Volume One, a DJ mix album by Howlett, produced as an official
record of a successful guest appearance on the British Radio
1. In June of this year when the band had questionably reached
their commercial peak they parted company with guitarist Gizz
Butt .
In 2002, after a break from touring and recording, the single
"Baby's Got a Temper" was released to critical disappointment.
The song was written by Keith Flint's sideband, Flint, and
also featured Jim Davies. Howlett produced it. Once again,
the band courted controversy by including references to the
so-called "date rape" drug Rohypnol in the song
lyrics, although it is unclear whether or not the band "glorifies"
or presents the drug in a negative light. In the same year,
however, Q magazine named The Prodigy as one of the "50
Bands To See Before You Die".
Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned
Main article: Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned
The Prodigy's fourth studio album, Always Outnumbered, Never
Outgunned was released on 23 August 2004 (14 September 2004
in the USA.) A precursory and experimental single, "Memphis
Bells", was released in very limited numbers, followed
by the traditional release of the single "Girls".
The U.S. version of the studio album contained a bonus track;
a remix of "Girls" entitled, "More Girls".
5,000 digital copies of "Memphis Bells" were sold
over the Internet. Each copy was a combination of customer-chosen
instrumental, rhythmic, and melodic options, of which 39,600
(of 660,000 total) choices were available. Five mixes were
sold in three file formats, WAV, two audio mixes in MP3, and
a 5.1 DTS surround sound mix and all were free of Digital
rights management. The experiment was a success, with the
5,000 copies being sold in just over 36 hours in spite of
server problems from the demand.
In 2005, they released a compilation, Their Law: The Singles
1990-2005, which spawned a single containing new remixes of
the songs "Out of Space" (the "Audio Bullys
Remix") and "Voodoo People" (the "Pendulum
Remix"). The latter was also followed by a music video
filmed in Romford Market, Essex, which featured on the DVD
release of the compilation. Sharky, the group's only female
member, is shown running and winning the race depicted in
the video.
The Prodigy's first two albums (1992's "Experience"
and 1994's "Music for the Jilted Generation") were
re-released in expanded, deluxe editions on 4 August 2008.
As well as being remastered, the new packages feature a bonus
disc including mixes, rarities and live tracks. The two albums
also feature expanded artwork in addition to the new musical
content. The band also showcased 4 new songs at the Oxegen
Festival in the early hours of 13 July; among the tracks previewed
were "Worlds On Fire", "Warriors Dance",
"Mescaline" and "First Warning", which
recently featured in the gangster movie "Smokin' Aces"
and as soundtrack in game "Need For Speed: Undercover".
Invaders Must Die
Keith Flint & guitarist Rob HollidayOn 5 November 2008,
it was announced that the band's fifth studio album would
be called Invaders Must Die and would be released on the band's
new label, Take Me to the Hospital. It is the first studio
album released by the band since 2004's Always Outnumbered,
Never Outgunned and is the first Prodigy album since 1997's
The Fat of the Land to feature all three members of the band.
in the USA on 3 March 2009
The album features drummer Dave Grohl (Nirvana, Foo Fighters,
Queens of the Stone Age, Them Crooked Vultures) on drums for
"Run with the Wolves". The top five hit "Omen"
and the "Invaders Must Die" tracks were co-produced
with Does It Offend You, Yeah frontman James Rushent. Sleeve
notes show an A&R credit for Nick Halkes who signed the
act to XL thus possibly linking with the clear references
on the album to rave culture and the presence of the 'classic'
Prodigy sound that seemed less present on the 'Always Outnumbered'
album. The band said that the album would go back to their
"old-school but cutting edge" roots. The album was
released as a CD, CD/DVD set, double vinyl, digital download
and a luxury 7-inch vinyl box set including: five 7-inches,
CD/DVD, bonus CD, poster, stickers and stencils.
Invaders Must Die was released on 21 February 2009 in Australia
and in Europe on 23 February 2009 charting at number one in
the UK with week one sales of over 97,000 – a higher
figure than for either 'Always Outnumbered..' or their singles
collection. The album also charted top 5 in Germany and Australia
and top 10 in Norway and several other European countries.
To coincide with the release of the album, the band embarked
on a nine date, UK arena tour, with support from Dizzee Rascal,
Noisia, Herve and DJ Kissy Sell Out. The single "Omen"
debuted at #1 on the Canadian Singles Chart the week of 25
February 2009.
Initial critical response to Invaders Must Die was somewhat
mixed. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out
of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has received
an average score of 60, based on 20 reviews. However, the
album has been well received by the fans.
The single "Warrior's Dance" was released on 11
May 2009. The track's chorus is a sample of "Take Me
Away" by Final Cut with True Faith. It also contains
beat samples from "Let The Warriors Dance" by Addis
Posse.
The digital single was released on 17 April in Australia,
exclusively on iTunes, although the "Edit" version
with none of the remixes is also available. When released
on iTunes Australia the song was titled incorrectly and the
download was actually a song from Placebo, this issue was
fixed later on.
3 remix versions of Warrior's Dance will be sold on the Prodigy's
own store, as digital downloads in MP3 format. An extra remix
will be exclusive to iTunes. The song peaked at #9 on the
UK Singles Chart.
The single "Take Me To The Hospital" was released
on 31 August 2009. The CD Single includes the Sub Focus Remix
and the 12" Single also includes a Rusko Remix. Liam
also collaborated with Josh Homme to create the "Wreckage"
mix of the song. The song shares its name with the band's
record label.The track features samples from 'Salami Fever'
by Pepe Deluxe and 'Ragamuffin Duo Take Charge' by Asher D
& Daddy Freddy.
The Promotional Film, for Take Me to the Hospital, was completed.
The music video became available to view exclusively on the
VidZone application for PlayStation 3 on 4 August. The video
was also posted on the official website and Youtube channel
on 5 August. It was filmed onto VHS rather than digital recording
equipment to obtain an old school 90's look
European release includes 11 tracks audio CD and a DVD disc
with the videos "Invaders Must Die", "Omen"
and live video versions of "World's On Fire" and
"Warrior's Dance" plus computer readable (HD data
for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X) HD version of the video
"Invaders Must Die".
Rumors of a fifth single from the Invaders Must Die album,
are being explained at The Prodigy.com's Forum. However, the
next one would be "Thunder", "Stand Up",
"Colours", "Piranha", "Run With The
Wolves", or "World's On Fire". If they choose
"World's On Fire", it would be the album's next
single. Instead, there is a fourth single from the album on
its Special Edition, "Invaders Must Die (Liam H Reamped
Version)", which includes a new track titled "Mescaline",
and some remixes.
