Experience

• 28th September 1992, XL-Recordings XLLP 110 2 x 12”
• 28th September 1992, XL-Recordings XLCD 110
• 28th September 1992, Blow Up /Intercord, INT 845.566
• 1st October 1992, Torso Dance Records & XL-Recordings, TORSOCD 228
• 1st November 1998, MVM Records MVM 006 CD
• Other versions

Experience is the debut studio album by The Prodigy. It was first released on 28 September 1992 through XL Recordings. It peaked at No. 12 in the UK Albums Chart in October. Apart from Liam Howlett, who is responsible for all the compositions, out of the additional three members at that time, only Maxim Reality provides contribution by performing the vocals on the last track.

On 19 June 2001, an expanded edition of the album was released in the United States, featuring a bonus disc of remixes and B-sides. It was released in the United Kingdom seven years later on 4 August 2008 as Experience: Expanded, with a gold cover and two extra tracks.

Comments

Before music journalists were throwing around terms like "drum & bass" or "jungle", the Prodigy's Liam Howlett was creating high-energy dance music by marrying sampled, pitch-shifted beats to all manner of electronic timbres. This album has it all: complicated break beats, housey piano riffs, lush analog pads, frenetic and computeresque melodies, and subsonic bass. In fact, the mélange is so dense that the material demands full attention and repeated listenings to gain a complete understanding of the rhythmic interplay.

Another review: This being Liams first album, it reflects what he and the other memebers in the band were into at the time - pure, solid rave. It rocks, Out Of Space is excellent. Liam changes the mood of the track time and time again, with pretty raw edges to each change, but he gets away with it. Charly, trip into drum and bass version, has seen nearly all the original lyrics from the cat taken away, probably so people would stop giving the four hassle about being, "The Band That Killed Rave" - which we all know isn't true, no one said anything until the cash-in one hit wonders hit town. Liam Howlett did a great job mixing that one.

As with all Liam's albums there is a great variety in his work, from the fairly chilled Weather Experience(in Prodigy terms anyway - indie kids take note, you'll still be blown away with it's speed and power), to the hard beats and raw lyrics in Death Of The Prodigy Dancers. This track is recorded from a live gig, and changed my idea of typical rave bands forever. That should be so though because The Prodigy was not a "Typical Rave Band".