The Fat Of The Land

• 30th June 1997, 2 x 12”, XL-Recordings, XLLP 121
• 30th June 1997, CD, XL-Recordings XLCD 121
• Magic Stone / Avex Trax & XL-Recordings, MED-188
• Other versions

The Prodigy 1997. Maxim, Gizz Butt (live guitars), Keith Flint, Leeroy Thornhill and Liam Howlett.

The Fat of the Land was released on June 30th 1997 and managed to reach number 1 in 22 countries in the first week including the UK where it is one fastest selling records ever. It was also nominated for a 1998 Grammy for Best Rock Album. Among the most anticipated releases of 1997, The Prodigy's third full-length album is a bulldozing rock-techno hybrid. But while the guitar/samples/hyper-beats mosaic that made "Firestarter" an MTV breakout are found in every nook and cranny of this album, the overall building blocks are far more diverse, making it a tangible melting pot of pre-millennium pop styles.

There's a definite hip-hop element here. "Diesel Power," which features quality mic control by Kool Keith (of Ultramagnetic MCs and Dr. Octagon fame), is new-style hip-hop sculpture, applying techno and acid-house textures to apocalyptic ends. Both "Funky Shit" and "Smack My Bitch Up" are throbbing dance-floor ejaculations wrapped around, respectively, Beastie Boys and De La Soul refrains. Kula Shaker's Crispin Mills adds vocals to an Eastern-influenced trance workout called "Narayan. " All this adds up to proof positive that THE FAT OF THE LAND is just the tip of the iceberg

Liam about The Fat of the Land

The initial shock was a real surprise, you know. Definitely surprised. We were really happy because it just confirmed what we always thought. We knew it would work in the U.S. It worked everywhere else. There's no reason why it shouldn't. So we were just really happy. We were shocked, to be honest. We knew it was gonna go in to the top 10 and possibly in the top 5, judging on the amount of sales we did in that week and stuff. But, I mean, to go into #1, maybe people will take us seriously.

It was about one in the morning. Richard [Russell] from XL [XL-Recordings, the English label the group is signed to] phoned me up and he told me. I think I spent like about an hour phoning people around, just saying "Yeah, what'd you think about that?"

We want to distance ourselves from it, to be honest. We're wise to hype. We've been doing this for seven years now. We know if something's hyped up too much and it hasn't got any substance then it falls flat on its face. To be honest, after being at #1, I think this helps a lot. A lot of people will take us seriously now. It's almost like we had to have that to let people realize that we're not about hype.

The Chemical Brothers did pretty well to get to #14 in the American charts. But at the end of the day when you actually look at the quantity of records sold, it isn't a great deal, to be honest. It's like 200,000 the first week. We sold twice as many in England in the first week. It's like not that many records, to be honest.

We were really pleased to be at #1. We were surprised. Everyone in England gets the impression that in the American market you need a million records to be at #1. The market isn't like what it used to be; it isn't the same. Two hundred thousand records [in one week] is not that many. You don't expect it to be #1. Number one in itself helps us, you know.
- Liam Howlett