With all this ‘nu-rave’ squeaking it was about time the glo-stick masturbators were shown where it all came from. The first two prodigy albums are being reissued, both with extra CDs packed with out-takes, mixes and sundry live and radio sessions. During the early 90s these albums were as important as Never Mind The Bollocks or the first Clash album. They had to be: after the Prodigy sprang out of the Essex rave scene they hit the charts suffering abuse for starting the ‘toytown’ techno trend with the cartoon cat-hoover-romp of ‘Charly’. Sheer slog around the country’s raves and clubs built a following which kept growing, especially after these two landmarks albums. The Prodigy now spearheaded a movement as seismic as punk, embracing that attitude in their fight to keep the party going as loudly as possible in the face of industry and establishment opposition when the CJB tried to squash the party [first time music itself had been outlawed].
In 1992, Experience careered like a runaway E-train train peppered with chipmunk voices, proto-jungle breakbeats, euphoric piano riffs, fairground keyboards and manic vocal samples: all forged by studio mastermind Liam Howlett. Tracks like the hands-in-the-air whoopee of ‘Your Love’ and stratospheric dub-encounter ‘Out Of Space’ will evoke special memories for those who were there and show the nu-ravers where it started. Music For The Jilted Generation took a mercilessly-hard stand against the Criminal Justice Bill and rave’s commercialisation but under the booming breakbeats, inflammatory soundbites and creeping hiphop sensibility, Howlett’s supernova talent was on overdrive, even melding jungle with prog on ‘The Narcotic Suite’, now taking the rave template onwards and upwards. With their incendiary live show The Prodigy would soon become the biggest band in the country, set to cause controversy. Their recent T In The Park set showed they can still tear the roof off like no other. This is where their quite remarkable story began.
5 Out Of 5
Reviewed By: Kris Needs
