Norman Cook = Hitler !!??!!

I think this is part of Reynolds' fatal flaw: postmodernism means that playing 'Blue Monday' isn't anything to remark upon. It gets played in any provincial 'niterie' any nite of the week, and isn't seen as being any more out of place than other 'golden oldies' (Stardust, DeLacey, etc). Whereas 'Satisfaction' would have been an oddity in '83. I heard 'Blue Monday' at a Paris street party last summer and no-one batted an eye.

Who's calling what 'real' or 'deep'? I think that the very thing that has turned SR off dance is its victory. In the UK d'n'b was, by 1996, mainstream enough to soundtrack adverts. 'Rockerfeller Skank' was a global TV spot megasmash. It's the totality of dance's victory that has sapped it of excitement. Whereas for all his talk of US hip-hop's winning streak, Ludacris still retains some subversive, not-part-of-everyday-life spark, and thus appeals more to jaded lefties like Reynolds.

You're fired.

i think it did.

"Praise You" is one of only about 5 techno records to ever make the US top 40 (no opinion on the video's influence, as I have never seen it, but I seriously doubt that it had the impact that Reynolds thinks it had).

'Halfway Between The Gutter And The Stars' is as good as 'You've Come A Long Way Baby' apart from the fact it repeats the formula as it does. 'Rockerfeller Skank' was surely a '98 single in the States, certainly released before 'Praise You' as it was here no?

Perhaps we are over-estimating the power of the videos. Maybe no-one even saw 'Rockerfeller Skank' much over there.

Yeah, "Rockafeller Skank" charted before "Praise You" in the US, I don't know why AMG says "2000".

Really, I think when I read the word "anthem" when referring to some standout song in a set you could replace it with "money shot" most of the time with no real change in meaning.

For me, by far the most interesting thing about that song is the clip. It leaves it in the shade. Spike Jonze is an amazing person really. Norman Cook is a good bloke who writes a top choon.

See the thing is, this is not "big-picture theorising"; it's, you know, making a cute analogy. I dunno, you Reynoldsites really weird me out sometimes.

Anyway, the "Praise You" video is fantastic, it works well, it was popular .. what the heck does he want? U2 Live at Red Rocks? I mean, could his terming this nice little big beat stomper a "glorious redemptive anthem" be any more corny and preposterous?

And yes, I realize it's just a blog post, and I'm not taking it that seriously.

Well yes.

Always reminds me of his comments in the '99 Pazz and Jopp, about how the American economy needed to plummet for the sake of the chart.

Norman Cook is a TWUNT!

(don't take this too personal i'm just really bored with people posting 'X is Y' and not saying why)

This was after watching the whole documentary thing on the dvd and believing every part of it. I have to say, I was devastated.

So you never saw Fire Starter by the Prodigy, That Death in Vegas track whose video I can see right now but whose track title I cannot remember for the life of me, or block rocking beats by the Chems? Those videos were totally in mtv1 rotation back in the day. I am not saying they were played every hour on the hour, but they definitely were in regular rotation. Also, what about AMP, the old show they used to play on the weekends? It was like 120 minutes for lo-budget Astralwerks promo clips and Wipeout XL for Sony PS1.

That being said, other than prodigy, I dont think any of it made an impact despite the promotion. Those records got a quite a bit of push through the business channels, but they never did any real numbers compared to rock or rap. I think a big part of the problem was that it was too low-buget, America will not accept lo-fi when it comes through major media channels. They want gloss, and none of those acts ever had it.

Also, more importantly, Caesar was a popular salad dressing and it still is. Fried chicken and ceasar salad is like the best meal in the world. If I had some cornbread or some mac and cheese I could totally give up music forever. That is why England cannot rock with the US, you don't eat enough fried chicken; I am so going to post this deep musical insight to my blog.

Perhaps my point of view is skewed by the fact that I was full on into dance music at the time, but it certainly did not seem obscure to me at the time. When record pluggers call up 20 year old mt at his almost(but not quite) cool indie record store and try to get him to order dance comps and mix cd's you know something is brewing in the back-end of the record business. Sony totally was not calling me up on a regular basis to pump up the latest SuperdragLP.

anyway, yeah! that's the one i saw, where her head keeps getting bigger or smaller or something. i remember seeing the video for reprazent's "brown paper bag" on 120 minutes, once. i kinda miss when mtv used to play videos. i am now officially old.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=twunt&f=1

And of course my opinions don't have back-up, that's what opinions are!

(But if you want some, All Fatboy Slim music is RUBBISH because it SOUNDS rubbish. QED)

He's one of the people where I think, "really, how can ANYONE like this pap???", and what's more he's fantastically successful! Maybe that's the one similarity between him and Hitler).

Because it's NOT awful, merely really, really warm headache average it IS awful.

Don't all the people who bought his stuff know there's so much better stuff out there? How can they be satisfied with 'meh' when they could have 'FUCKING HELL AWESOME!!!' ???

I guess it's not even Fatboy I dislike so much (though I DO hate his music). but all the people who are satisfied by his music, in my mind they're the same people who eat at Mcdonalds, nike trainers make them happy, never try their hardest etc etc etc

WHERE does this happen?

but all the people who are satisfied by his music, in my mind they're the same people who eat at Mcdonalds, nike trainers make them happy, never try their hardest etc etc etc

people who buy Top 40 basically...oh curse them for not being as culturally superior as you!

i don't think Cook is a genius or on the same level as the Chems even, but the guy made some great fun dance tracks (sure there are some crap ones as well) and i've heard some blinding DJ sets by him over the years that do their job just as they should.

What a piece of snobbish crap. Never try their hardest to do what exactly?

Now straight away I thought of that guy on the cover of, what was it, 'You've Come A Long Way Babe'? The big round guy in the sunnies, holding a ciggie, with a t-shirt that said, "I'm already number one so why try harder?"

(That said, I started hating Fatboy Slim because he started to really, really, really suck. I can't think of a single post-_You've Come A Long Way, Baby_ track that appeals to me.)

Mei reminds me of a friend of mine speaking on Fatboy. I ended up mocking him when he complained about his sampling techniques.

All the other songs strongo lists are brill obv.

Perhaps the truth of the matter is that Fatboy Slim's success in the US wasn't about dance music or Spike Jonze but rather this song's odd assimilation into the swing dance craze.

All of these videos were in one point in rotation on MTV in the states from '96-'99. Some more than others, but all at least a bit. There might've been others, too, but this is what's coming to me at the moment.

"History Repeating" was like a faux live performance on a TV show or something. Featured Shirley Bassey. Sounded like "Goldfinger."

"The Box" was fabulous--chick walks around the city which zips by her at like 100X, reads on television MONSTERS EXIST (so chilling) and kicks around some prosthetics.

And yeah, "Dirt" sucked. But "Brown Paper Bag" was awesome--had the time glitch thing going on.

please allow me to disagree and hate you for reminding me of that scene. must go puke now.

To my knowledge, the only one of these I've heard is "Demons", a track that instantly turned me off due to Macy Gray.

Calling "Block Rockin' Beats" undanceable boggles my mind because I always forget that most people can't actually dance/feel rhythm.

if you're accusing me of being one of them you can fuck right off.

"Setting Sun" - great video, best bit being the camera pan around from girl's living room to the field rave

"Let Forever Be" - glorious Gondry wank-fest

"Dirt"-Death in Vegas - this was 'banned' from being shown before 10pm in the UK iirc because of the scary faced people in Nazi costumes.

"Come to Daddy" - still makes me go 'how/why the fuck did they do that?'

"The Box" - blah blah Tilda Swinton, the time-lapse technique was quite radical at the time really

"Breathe"/"Firestarter" - latter filmed in (disused) Holborn tube station, most interesting thing about it

"Da Funk" - doesn't actually work for me that much, one of Jonze's poorer efforts imo - the 'sequel' featuring the same dogman for the video to 'Fresh' (on the D.A.F.T. DVD) is better

"The Saint"-Orbital
there were two videos for this - the aforementioned split screen one and the second UK TV edit featuring the Hartnolls as security guards or whatever, and stalwart grandmactress Liz Smith gleefully doddering around thus CLASSIC

"Praise You"/"The Rockafella Skank"
i still want one of those trucks with the spinning chassis/hydraulics

"Brown Paper Bag"-Roni Size
running around the city streets reversing time...such a tune tho

"History Repeating"-Propellerheads
fairly tedious 'performance clip' - not brilliant, unlike Portishead's 'All Mine; - SHirley Bassey bonus tho

"Battleflag"-Lo-Fidelity All-Stars f/ Pigeonhead
pretty boring vid to a fantastic dance track...ended up on the Coyote Ugly soundtrack thus minor hit no?

That would be the...Chemical Brothers remix.

his remix of lazy by x-press 2 was cool!

Has no one heard his Missy Elliott, Röyksopp, Electric Six and Ludacris remixes last year? I liked all of those.

Battleflag was the only decent thing they ever did, though. And possibly Disco Machine Gun.

Were the UK rock kids listening to dance music before the US rock kids?

The key word here being 'casual'... please don't flame me Ronan!

stevem in abject poverty

In general, Timbaland has a lot more detail in his beats than most hip-hop, and you could claim that that has something to do with dance. Otherwise, the comparison is overplayed.

Yeah, "Block Rockin' Beats" wasn't fabulous. The worst of their DYOH vids--too bad "Elektrobank" never got any play, that was one of their best. "Setting Sun" was creepy as fuck--the part with the two (twins? personalities? roommates?) staring each other down still kinda chills.

"Da Funk">>>>>"Fresh". Although that one's not bad.

The nine-squared "The Saint" was excellent--could watch that video a hundred times and catch something new each time.

Steve's comment about executive production is interesting, but the fact is Fatboy doesn't make his own records by himself anyway! I forget the dudes name but he has some magic assistant who plays a fairly big role in things, and this is NOT just as regards remixes like say Felix or other people.

apologies for some appalling metaphor-mixing there

Steve, The 45 King produced 'Stan' so I don't know what kind of credit Dre's supposed to have there (if there's one at all).

Here in Canada we got an exclusive music video by the Chems that got way more play than any of these (well, maybe not "Let Forever Be"). It was for "Hey Boy Hey Girl" and it involved a young girl breaking her arm and after seeing the x-ray, she could see everybody skeleton. The rest of the video takes place when she's an adult and in a club and she sees skeletons dancing on the dancefloor, having sex in the bathroom, etc. It ends with the Chemical Brothers getting out of a taxi and her getting in. Anyway, it got a lot of play until they released "Let Forever Be", which is a really shitty video if you ever see it more than twice.

Steve, 'Addictive' at least sounded like something Dre'd produce have produced under his name.

To riff on what Dan says upthread, I reckon the Markus Nikolai track is very un-Fatboy like (digression: I prefer Derrick Carter's mix). It may have something to do with it being a 'Norman Cook Remix', but this doesn't quite cover 'Gossip Folks' or Jess and Crabbe - 'Boo Ya'.

I'd ask where Flat Eric fits into this but that would only make matters worse.

Everything I hate about the '90s is represented by Woodstock '99. Thank you.

OTM.

I remember when I got Dig Your Own Hole when it came out I was quite disappointed relative to my love for Exit Planet Dust, and now my love is totally the other way round.

block rocking beats, for me, alongside pulp fiction, sums up all that is bad about the 90s

My mind is still trying to wrap around this. Isn't going to happen, I don't think.

Apollo 440's post 'Krupa' output is HORRENDOUS

I wouldn't even be surprised if he never heard Block Rockin' Beats.

Exit Planet Dust is still fairly good, but pretty dated now. Also, I'm a bit more into Dave Clarke's 'Chemical Beats' remix over the original - the 'Loops Of Fury' EP is frigging classic.

i still love 'Exit Planet Dust', tho never did make my mind up between the original or the remix re 'Chemical Beats' - i listened to the 'I'll Kling To You (If You Klong To Me)' again the other day as well

case closed.

By the time Deadly Doug had no doubt reluctantly parted with £1million in 1994, Lamptey was a major part of the Ghanaian African Nations Cup Final team, top scorer in his first season at PSV Eindhoven, and while at Anderlecht became the youngest marksman in any major European Competition. Indeed, the Belgian F.A. altered its age regulation to allow Lamptey to make his league debut at 15.

Initially, he looked destined to be a Villa thriller. His solo goal against Wigan in the League Cup was sublime – a splendid body-swerve, pace, technique and trickery. He was even entertaining in the warm up, performing a double act with Dwight Yorke by running the length of the field with the ball stuck to his head, almost seal-like. So where did it all go wrong for the Ghanaian phenomenon?

An open goal miss at Loftus Road in his only full league appearance didn’t help. Injuries too played a part, while some argue he was never given a run in the team. His unpredictability was sometimes a strength but also a weakness – the defender didn’t know what was coming next but neither did Lamptey himself. When Brian Little replaced Ron Atkinson as manager, it became clear that Lamptey did not fit into a new 3-5-2 system and you know the end is near when you’re behind Tommy Johnson in the pecking order.

Atkinson provided a 20-year-old Lamptey with another chance to impress in England. Bizarrely his career at Coventry was a mirror image of time spent at Villa. - An early League Cup goal, a sitter missed at Anfield and frequent national team call-ups disrupting his chances of breaking into a struggling team. Big Ron was sacked again and despite glimpses of awe-inspiring skill, new manager Gordon Strachan deemed the flamboyance of Ndluvo sufficient, forcing Lamptey to leave Highfield Road in 1997 after failing to obtain a work permit due to lack of competitive matches.

Despite achieving cult status in Ghana, a two-year period without regular first team football affected Lamptey’s place in the national side and his last International cap ended in a red card in the 1996 African Nations cup semi-final. He tried to resurrect his career in Serie B with Venezia, but this was just the birth of a hefty collection of air miles. Brief spells in Turkey, Argentina, Portugal, Germany and China all proved fruitless. From succeeding Romario as the darling of PSV, Nii Lamptey had become a benchwarmer of worthy proportions at a series of footballing minnows in three different continents.

Lamptey has clearly pointed to the pressure of living up to huge expectations as his downfall (However, he refutes the assertion that he, like many of his colleagues from the successful 1991 Ghanaian youth team have not progressed because they cheated their way into the under-17 level by under-declaring their ages). Lamptey explained "When Pele said I could go on to become like him, it was a great honour for me. Everybody knows how great he is and to get such high praise from him was wonderful, but it had its negative side - everywhere I went I was supposed to live up to very high standards. Once I couldn't meet people's expectations, I was considered a failure".

Recently signed by Dubai club Al-Nasr, Lamptey is still only 28 years old. If he proved to be anyway near the player everyone thought he would become in the early 90s then mentioning his name in the same breath as Pele would not be unimaginable. Nowadays his only chance is a part in a re-make of “Escape To Victory” – and if Ron Atkinson casts the roles then who knows….

I'm not trying to intellectualise it at all, in fact I'm trying to do the COMPLETE opposite. I have no reason or logic by which to say it's no good, and I need none: it's just rubbish. I'm not going to try to argue _why_ it's rubbish, it just is!

One specific thing I dislike about the music is the way samples of who musical sections are overlaid - it's not that he's taking other people's work, I could care less - I think I don't like the fact that there's more than one ambience going on at the same time. It just sounds horrible.
WHERE does this happen?
Don't know the name of any of his songs, but a few years ago it was hard to escape them and that's how I remember them sounding.

but all the people who are satisfied by his music, in my mind they're the same people who eat at Mcdonalds, nike trainers make them happy, never try their hardest etc etc etc
people who buy Top 40 basically...oh curse them for not being as culturally superior as you!

Mcdonalds food is shit, Nike are even worse than God as a hollow comforter. What are you arguing with exactly?
A lot of top 40 music is very good. Fatboy Slim isn't though.

I never said I was better than anyone, because I'm not. Doesn't stop me trying my best though.

I guess it's not even Fatboy I dislike so much (though I DO hate his music). but all the people who are satisfied by his music, in my mind they're the same people who eat at Mcdonalds, nike trainers make them happy, never try their hardest etc etc etc
What a piece of snobbish crap. Never try their hardest to do what exactly?
-- Dadaismus (kcoyne3...), March 22nd, 2004.

Find good music? Why do they make do with Fatboy?

Now straight away I thought of that guy on the cover of, what was it, 'You've Come A Long Way Babe'? The big round guy in the sunnies, holding a ciggie, with a t-shirt that said, "I'm already number one so why try harder?"
-- the music mole (colinsbarro...), March 22nd, 2004.

The real reason I dislike FS is not because I simply dislike the music or anything. No, I'm bitter because HE NEVER PAID ME FOR BEING IN THAT PIC! CHEAPSKATE!

Mei reminds me of a friend of mine speaking on Fatboy. I ended up mocking him when he complained about his sampling techniques.
-- Barima (barima_...), March 22nd, 2004.

I've no problem with how it was made, just the results.

Surely there are bands/acts you don't like and you kind of wish people would listen to good stuff instead of that?

In all my years of reading ignorant comments about electronic music, it's stunning I've never heard this stupendous and magnificent not at all puerile or basic FAST FOOD/MUSIC suggestion thrown out before.

In fact I'm just dying to read all about it.

I don't want to tell people what to listen to or what 'should' they like. All I want is for them to spend a bit more time and effort to find something that's better for them than Fatboy Slim.

Just because he's there, in your lap, on your plate, on the radio and TV you don't have to eat him!

If only I'd got into Belle and Sebastian back in 97, my phone wouldn't stop ringing and the fridge would be full of diet coke.

I'm not talking about electronic music, just Fatboy Slim, there's more to it than him you know!

You can generalise 'Fatboy Slim' to 'bad but popuplar music' if you want. (But NOT to electronic music as a whole.)

********************

All I want is for them to spend a bit more time and effort to find something that's better for them than Fatboy Slim/McDonalds/Neighbours/Travis/Celebrity Blind Date/etc.

That seems so obvious it's almost a tautology, so I can't be explaining myself right.

(I don't like Belle and Sebastian BTW so I don't get your diet coke reference. What's that about?)

It is isn't it. Who said that?

And you said it, quite clearly, for the last few posts. Do we really have to have to turn this into a boring semantics debate about what you really meant, inevitably something not worth the 40 posts, or can you just accept that you dislike Fatboy Slim and there is no grand intelligent theory behind your dislike.

I'm just trying to read between the lines of what Mei said. Which as far as I read it.. was basically a generalisation along the famous "12 CD people" with Fatboy Slim as posterboy for that demographic.

Also the 12 cd thing applied across the board into tv etc as proof of something or other is a bit offputting, I mean I can think of people I know who fit that bill and have phds and could flip the same argument back onto our knowledge of something else.

*vanishes into ILM wormhole*

nah.. nothing wrong with 12 CD people, not what i was saying at all. i think everyone here spends a lot of time seeking out new music and it's not about *looking down* on 12 CD people - maybe just a deluded belief that they'd REALLY DIG the new Doormouse CD if they'd JUST TURN OFF THAT BLOODY NORAH JONES ALBUM.

[insert whatever smiley indicates non-seriousness]

[x-post]

I think the best way to develop a good ear is not to force yourself to listen to music that doesn't appeal to you, but rather to listen more closely to the music that does appeal to you and try to figure out *why* it appeals to you.

Why are you presuming that people who like Fatboy Slim do so only because they haven't heard anything better? Furthermore, why should someone stop listening to Fatboy Slim if they find someone who does his particular bag of tricks better?

And anyway, ALL reasons for liking and disliking ANYTHING are reducible to "it pleases me/it doesn't please me".

The notion that music can't be bad for you seems equally as ridiculous as the notion that it can.