'What we're dealing with here is a total lack of respect for the law...' (Music for the Jilted Generation - Prodigy)

Member Name: Sugar Matty O

Product:	Music for the Jilted Generation - Prodigy
Date:	29/08/01 (71 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Tons of techno xperimentation, Anti-establishment attitude prevails, An album to prove their versatility

Disadvantages: Not for the cheesy quaver following from The Experience, Not for those thinking house and guitars is a bad idea

Think The Prodigy and you probably come up with scary videos and energy bordering on racket. Then again you are probably amongst those who ignored Music for the Jilted Generation, probably more an important, insightful release than many people would care to consider. Apart from slowly morphing The Prodigy into the what it is recognised as today, Liam Howlett had a lot to answer for in bringing underground music to overground ears on The Experience, being berated for putting rave/hardcore beats into the public sector when really all he was doing was showcasing the sound of the time. Make no mistake, The Experience remains to this day a cracking album laden with the usual rave-breakbeat components – the album version of Everybody In The Place still deserves regular rotation - but the sound on Jilted Generation is so far removed from its original incarnation that Howlett’s versatility can only be described as unchallenged. For those thinking The Prodigy were merely jumping on rave’s bandwagon and dismounting as soon as it became popular, Howlett upped sticks at exactly the right time seeing as the rave dawn he had heralded was being traditionally milked for all its worth. No sign of any cartoon cats telling kids to be wary of the streets as producers sampling the likes of Sesame Street and Roobarb & Custard took the music in the opposite direction; this is the soundtrack that while still in charge of its rave roots, judging by some of the sleeve notes, paved the way for Keith Flint to adopt the mantle of human pincushion and for The Prodigy to become a spectacular dance outfit.

Think of The Prodigy nowadays and you’re bound to come up with screechy guitars and reverberating breaks trying to keep up with Flint’s sneers and Maxim’s scariness. Music for the Jilted Generation is a less an airing of their vocal harmony but certainly is the precursor to the new and improved punk techno spawning singles from The Fat of the Land. Tr
acks such as Their Law, assisted by the long-haired guitar-wielding Pop Will Eat Itself, is an unexplored metal-techno soundclash that probably raised as many eyebrows as it did hands in the air, and Voodoo People, the peculiar runaway sound of hard house meeting pan pipes and guitar loops bound to incur many bouts of head-banging, despite a linchpin of techno and breakbeat undertones. Still unafraid of getting bodies into disused aircraft hangers, The Heat (The Energy) and Full Throttle tap into the adrenaline that made The Experience such a blast, 100-mile-an-hour anti-pop production paying homage to its mentor while making an individual attempt to drag dance music kicking and screaming back up to speed. The Heat in particular is awesome, technoid waillings and loops, cinematic strings, beats loaded with lung-deflating bass and a general raw attitude that The Prodigy sell so effectively.

No Good (Start The Dance) quickly heads for the charts. Although not normally their style of having nicked an already borrowed vocal from Hithouse’s Jack To The Sound Of The Underground, the throbbing drum patterns weaving through those inimitable backing keys and a hard-headed mentality still pokes one in the eye of the pop purist. Howlett’s experimental wanderings come into their own on the more downtempo but bristling with annoyance Poison, Maxim’s grimy hollerings perfectly complimenting a downright dirty breakbeat bashing. Similarly with the very un-Prodigy 3 Kilos, with Howlett almost in jazz session cocktail bar mode hinting at an imminent trip hop sound discovery, and Skylined, familiar Experience atmospherics binding chilled out percussions that as ever retains its new found punky element. Claustrophobic Sting quickly reinstalls menace and multiple drum machine manipulation, cackling laughs unnerving listeners before unloading them into a vortex of acid-techno-breakbeat hell likely to take the brain ‘to another dimension’ but withou
t the threat of having squeaky vocals ringing around your head.

Think The Prodigy and you should bracket the Essex foursome as one of the most, if not the most, important UK dance acts to have peppered our listening gear for as long as they have. Music for the Jilted Generation’s anti-social appeal will probably leave fans of The Experience either relishing the challenge of accessing this newer sound or disappointed in hearing times and tunes have changed. However, Howlett’s genius musical fusions showcased here explain exactly why The Prodigy became the all-conquering worldwide monster no one can ignore, serving the Jilted Generation as well and defying those who thought they were simply selling out beforehand. If pop music were poison, The Prodigy certainly had the remedy…

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