Martin James

Brighton/ England

Old enough to know better

What Evil Lurks

Jilted

too many - right now? BGAT, I know, but I listen to it more than anything else just now. Apart from that... 'Out of Space', 'Mindfields', 'Diesel Power'

Fuck em, and their law
 
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you all know i think its a frantastic track... to say that liam hasn't progressed is, i think, wrong. yes he still uses  paht breaks - which have long been a trademark style, and yes the vocals are by flinty again, but the ambience, the structure, the way the bass works with the beats, the fazing, the sounds - everything else is different. i like the way so many ideas are thrown in that few noises are repeated. the hint at firestarter is a joke, i think there may be a guitar lift from no man army, and its a good signifier, but from the intro keyboard refraion to the closing 'wicky wicky' scratching, this is fresh - and easily the 'biggest' sounding track to date...
love it - shame the MP3 is sooo compressed and tinny.
laters
m

i think the answer to your question about live stuff is hidden in the book when liam talks about rock'n'roll - its all lifted from ultramags.

not sure that lima would be into giving away tracks that would cost him!
and alot of the live stuff and fills are just ideas in progress, so if you listen closey to earlier fills they have turned up in official songs in some form or another (beats, bassline, keyboard line, sample- whatever). i'll bet arie can give you details on this...

oh, and you can call me mike if you want to!
m

good to see the bbc employing real talent... this guy can't write! and he hasn't even bothered checking his facts... in my day you'd get sacked for that kind of thing!!!
m

hey, i don't take any of this personally. its good to share opinions. and sometimes to spout off. but none of it is personal.
m

"I can remember martin ranting at me to go piss off and follow oasis because they never change.....now your celebrating the fact that the prodigy are doing the same by not changing....please"

ouch!   point taken (althjough I'm sure I didn't tell you to "piss off" ... what I was trying to say, and perhaps not very effectively, is that artists shouldn't change for the sake of it, just to say they've moved on. Change can also be a retrogressive step. In whioch case, I'd rather a lot of bands woul;d just split up rather than walking that homogenisation treadmill.

However I still mantain that there is a movement forward with BGAT. The beats and song structure are closer to standard (punk) rock, the chorus b-line more like  the Chili Peppers than anything the Prod have done before, the synth noises and vocal fx like nothing before. The immediate things like Keiths vox and the guitars are very FOTL, but, Keith's voice is limited so he'll nevr be able to offer much different.

If I have a criticism of BGAT, its in the fact that the song is so dense, so full of disperate sounds that much of the tension and  dynamic has been lost. Which ironically, makes you focus more heavily on the immediate (vox, beats, guitars).

BGAT does herald a change, I still mantain that the changes between albums and first new single from the next album, hasn't been that major so far. The move has always been quite gradual. The biggest change usually ideological. The changes that Liam implements are always at a deeper level than the immediate (I also don't think that there's a massove differnce between Radioheads OK Computer and Kid A for that matter, the changes are all surface level)

What I reckon is that The Prodigy have a sound which is immediately them, and they shouldn't be attacked for that. Now, if they were just putting out track after track that sounds exactly like the last one (Oasis, Travis, Chemical Brothers, the list is a long one) then yes, I would agree that the Prod should be consigned to history books. And I for one would be happy if the next album never comes out.

But I'm still not sure what kind of change people are after on these boards!!! And whether it s just change for the sake of it.

Maybe this is a new topic.
m

all good points... but what exactly does everyone want? A radicallly differnt sound, or the Prodigy 2002 version. I'm still not sure that there was such a huge change of style between albums, rather a gradual developement. Much of Jilted would have fitted with FOTL with out any notiocable joins. Firestarter's productions wasn't radically diffrent from previous but the vocals were. This time round the baets, guitar and vocals are straight out of FOTL, but the production isn't. Its moved on in the overall approach (even if a lot of people know how Liam got those sounds, but there's never been a great science to his stuff). What goes on behind the beats is far more liquid than before.
But its still the Prodigy.. no one else.

And if BGAT is a bad record for a lot of you, perhaps the weakest link is the songwriter? Now there's a discussion point.
 
m

Having a lread ot of the bad reviews and general criticisms of BGAT it seems to me that the biggest problam people have with the single is that it sounds exactly like waht you would expect from the Prodigy. At the same time Oasis are hailed as heroes for their 'back in form' album that sounds exactly like Oasis pretending to be The Beatles with such effect that Lennon, Harrison and even Linda bloody Macartney could be heard filing lawsuits from their graves. Why are the Prodigy expected to sound like no one else, including themselves, with each new release. Why are they expected to 'move forward'. I suspect the fact is that Liam has now perfected the Prodigy sound and, while he's the only musician, or songwriter of any talent in te band, this is how the Prodigy will always sound. Like themselves, and no one else.
m

"I mean all critics are are wankers who think their opinion matters when it doesn't. Fact is noones opinion is more valid than anyone elses when it comes to the arts."

THANKS... and only fools generalise. All opinion is valid ofcourse. Professional critics spend years honing their craft, learning their subject and then finding the most effective way of expressing their opinions. Does this make their opinion any more or less valid? I would say 'often yes' and sometimes 'no', but then I'm a critic who spends his every working day, and many nights listening to music and theorising about it and so on... a bit like hiow a mechanic understands an engine better than a layman. Both can do the job, but one has dedicated his life to the art of the mechanic.

But there is one thing I would have to disagree on... all critics aren't wankers. some don;t deserve that kind of praise. the NME's Tedd Kessler on the other hand is one of the few journalists at that paper who has the authiority to slag something off effectively. He's championed the Prodigy until now... so his point is valid bith from a critical and a fan perspective.

But I don't agree with him. I think BGAT is a fine single,

If you're interested this Friday's Independent willl carry a Prodigy feature by... ME!!

Its not a straight interview, but a 'think piece' about why the single has been censored by the BBC, while their own license ads use a song about heroin use (Perfect day).

I also have a dig at the media's knee jerk reactions, however I do offer my own criticism of the lyrics - which might not go down too well!

I think the feature will be online aswell. I'll let you know.

martin

PS any thoughts on the new Primal Scream single?

Thought the NME piece was terrible... like the journo was scared of speaking his mind, in awe of the band or whatever. And he didn't seem to have done any real research on it so he just made the same points that have been made time and again.
Thought the Face piece was better because the journo at least tried to engage with the band on a deeper level. But again, it was pretty boring.
The best artoicle recently was the wddiong piece in NOW!
By the way Ping Pong Bitches were going to be on BGAT, but there wasn't enough room!

i've already mentioned this to neko but i thought that some of you might also find this kinda funny.
the cover to bgat has been designed by Jimmy Turrell and Richard Turvey. Richard is the art editor at 7 (i used to be managing editor at 7 - which is a UK dance mag, us version called Mixer - in case you've not heard of it). Jimmy is 7's main illustrator. 7 is published by DMC,who were responsible for Mixmag back in the days of the offending prod article. 7 was launched after they sold mixmag to emap. in many ways DMC (the publishers)were more responsible for the offensive angle that mixmag were taking at that time than the editors...
 so... ironic that the DMC team are now designing for prodigy!!!

i guess doen't like it very much then... i think its one of the strongest things liams done. out on its own, not easy to compare to anyone, or any scene.

its definately a laughing policeman - keith named one of the sounds on the chorus 'laughing policeman' and it stuck...
its also on the label of the one sided vinyl instrumental. no other info.

not the most intelligent piece of journalism - although it pretends to be.
as ever the writer (in her usual style) takes the obvious, cynical view and forms half an opinion based on ignorance. bless them all at bbc6 or whatever its called, they should nevr forget that their editor is the same man who turned Melody maker into the toilet paper it was at the end... and what he knows about music can be written on a stamp... although he was always able to seem knowledgable by being cynical about everything... hey i see a pattern here.
bgat isn't the first song to have a drug reference in it. people tend to forget about the beatkes, lou reed, chili peppers etc.