The Prodigy - Classic or Dud ?

And the Crispy Mills one still sounds surprisingly decent.

FOTL is a great EP ("Smack My Bitch Up", "Diesel Power", "Mindfields", "Narayan", "Climbatize") with some decent filler ("Firestarter", "Breathe") and some total horseshit (the rest, although "Fuel My Fire" is at least bad in an entertaining way)

That's solidly OTM.

Can't remember Climbatize though!

The instrumental towards the end.

I quite like Naryan. Climbatize is good in a "let's do Weather Experience again" way. The two lead singles are great but I never need to hear then again. Don't care much for the rest really.

"Diesel Power" rules

wow, i completely forgot "Fuel My Fire" existed... in my head it sounds pretty good.... but i think this might be an album where glancing at the tracklist and thinking about the hooks it seems like an all-killer-no-filler album, but i'm actually forgetting some exhausting digressions because WOW it's 56 minutes long?!

“Serial Thrilla” is 200% enervating

Yeah it’s too long for such a monochromatic album, but drop Firestarter (I never need to hear that ever again), Funky Shit and Fuel My Fire and you’re done.

"Smack My Bitch Up" is the single I've really tired of. "Breathe" got the most play on the alternative station I listened to in the 90s but I never hear it anymore and enjoy it nowadays. "Mindfields" and "Narayan" quietly the best tracks on the album

yeah now that you mention it, "Breathe" has not really been super overplayed, for how big it was that year. i don't think any of the more "electronica" side of 90s alt rock has crossed over to the "alt rock is now classic rock" thing. or even the relevant xm genre stations.

DJP, do a best prodigy tracks from 1998 onward

1. Girls (Rex The Dog Remix)

sic otm

Yeah that one is excellent. My DJ trick at the time was to mix the acappella from Breathe'n'Stop over it

The beat drop on Narayan in incredible.

Spitfire (05 Version), Girls, Take Me To The Hospital, Warrior's Dance, The Day Is My Enemy (Liam Howlett Remix), Timebomb Zone that's my other picks.

I've listened to so much Prodge in the last 24 hrs. Strange to listen to No Tourists and then go straight back to Experience.
There was definitely a point in their career where they stopped caring about coming up with new ideas and decided to keep using the same template - even down to the drum/break sounds Liam uses from Invaders onwards.

I'm definitely someone who got off after hearing FOTL, but I've heard Always Outnumbered and Invaders a few times out in the wild. Gonna give Always Outnumbered a spin now - my guess is that it's going to be marginally more listenable than FOTL at this point.

Also, the Sub Focus remix of Smack My Bitch Up (from 2005) goes in hard.

All these years later mind a bit blown by Jeff Mills having a credit on 'Warriors Dance' because of the 'Take Me Away' sample. I never realised he was part of Final Cut.

best post-98 Prodigy: excluding the Dirtchamber mix, Howlett's own remix of You Will Be Under My Wheels

Breezeblock mix was ‘98 so that counts imo

forgot about this (pre-98 but still great)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lEtgbT8v4k

Man, Climbatize is easily one of the best tracks on FOTL. Serial Thrilla is the worst.

I had a listen to 3 Kilos off of Jilted earlier - so good, and nothing like how they usually sound. They were great at doing those more chilled, funky tracks and it's strange they didn't do more of them

DJP, do a best prodigy tracks from 1998 onward

off the top of my head without relistening and without digging into remixes (because tbh I haven't heard a bunch of them yet, I've mostly just rattled around the albums)

Girls
Get Up Get Off
Hotride
You'll Be Under My Wheels
Omen
Take Me To The Hospital
Warrior's Dance
World's On Fire
The Day Is My Enemy
(there was another track off of The Day Is My Enemy that I REALLY liked but of course I can't remember it now)

I don't know No Tourists well enough to pick any tracks off of it

Cheers, I've whacked those into a playlist with a couple of No Tourists tracks

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6EVnNNVYCizndzOBXdMn7c?si=8fa33b4a3b034dfc

btw I left Stand Up off my list; really Invaders Must Die is a great album, a lot better overall than Fat Of The Land

oh also Wake Up Call goes pretty hard

i love the prodigy vs dubstep era.
the productions levels finally met their needs.
the 2nd cd that came with the special edition of 'invaders must die', proved the point for me.
for all the classics, i have always chosen the recent material when in the mood purely cos of the insane sonics.
and 'no tourists' is so much fun.
even though it totally sonically references their history (pretty sure that liam acknowledged this at the time of its release).

I agree, individually these newer songs are all pretty impressive sound-wise, but over a whole album it gets really hard to listen to. Then again, I’m too old.

yeah, cos of this thread just listened to 'no tourists' again, and absolutely love it.
a definite case of 'all killer no filler'.
the fact it's a short album means you don't get time to become bored.
yeah, its a retread of well worn prodigy tropes, but it totally works for me.