About Jilted and Liams fast/slow song writing

[Fierze]

About Liam writing the early tunes fast: As for the first album, I agree. Although great, The tunes does sound kind of similar in construction, sound and shape. Also, the bpm is at 140-145 on about every track on Experience. Liam had a specific formula on how to write a song, and he got very fast at it, thus releasing an album and a bunch of singles within a year of their breakthrough. And don't forget, the band was touring heavily at the same time!

As for 'Jilted', I just don't understand. They were STILL touring heavily around 1993-94, as well as doing a BUNCH of Remixes. How on earth could Liam find the time to write such a vast amount of INCREDIBLE tracks, which to my ears are *very* varied in sound, tempo, structure and even genre.. That has got to be the clearest example of God-given inspiration ever! Just think about the fact that tracks like 'We eat Rhythm', the amazing mix of 'One Love' and their heaviest song ever, 'Rhythm of Life', didn't fit on the album. Any other dance/club artist would have killed for any of these tracks, but on Jilted, they did not even fit as album fillers as there was already 78 minutes of even better music on there.

Without a doubt, this was the Prodigy at their finest hour, and
since then, the pace and quality of Liams songwriting have returned to normal as they are bound to do after such an explosive outlet of amazing material. We will probably never see the Prodigy working at this level again, I guess only Liam knows how he managed to pull it off. If anyone else has a clue, please post it here.

[Ekko]

This is the EXACT reason, why I love Liam Howlett.
Well, okay, I don't, but it's quite near... ;-)

I have never seen an example for the mentioned talent being shown in this way again.

Maybe the early Chems. But that passed now - plus, they work together and not alone.
Which is mostly easier.

The reason why Liams workflow slowed down that much might be his manic need for perfection. Jilted was so good, and for a '93 record it had the most incredible production work in it.
It sounded up to date, fresh and rough, all at once.
It was like discovering new ways of mixing.
No one ever thought you could write an album with nearly every bassdrum having reverb on it, and no one ever did it again.

I don't really remember when Dangerous from Michael Jackson came out, and I was sort of a little boy back then ('91?... '92?), but I always thought it sounded very good and better and more clever then the rest being played on the daytime radio.
And of course Dangerous was produced by the best of the best (Quincy Jones and Bruce Swedien, for those who care), it blew me away. The first track, Jam, had that amazing glass-breaking sound in it, and those cool beats and scratching and everything... Whheee...
It was my top record, technical- and soundwise.
And then came Jilted.
And everything changed...
I looked for other records in this audible shape, but I failed to find any, still until today, by the way.
Experience was cool, and sounded good.
But of course, it stands a good piece back behind Jilted.

Yeah, so what was the question?

[Fierze]

Umm.. Don't remember

Not really a question, just wanted to express my opinion about the amount of amazing work Liam did in 1993-94 and how it differes from The (so called) Prodigy of today.

[Stuff.]

I TOTALLY agree with both of you lads above.
What happened with The Prodigy's music in 1993-94 is remarkable! (In my opinion) the most exciting time in the history of electronic music..

One thing I respect about this collection of tunes is the undeniable underground flavour to it.
If only all chart music ("Jilted" went straight into the album charts at number one) was this good , the world would be a better place!

Now I'm going to mention some other great albums.
Thanks Ekko for reminding me about "Dangerous" with Michael Jackson. It's an awesome record, mindblowing really.
As you may have understand, my opinion is that "Music For The Jilted Generation" is the outstanding No. 1 album of all time! Tough fucking one to beat without a doubt..
But I have some other favorites from the last ~ decade in "electronic music" that I would like to share:

(this kind of list may not suit in a Prodigy discussion but what the heck)

* Beastie Boys "Pauls Botique" -- They (artists in general) just don't make albums like this anymore! It's produced by the Dust Brothers. Without a doubt this is the best samples, beats, and lyrics that Beastie Boys have ever put together (keep in my mind that I totally love everything else with the Beasties).

* Chemical Brothers "Exit Planet Dust" -- the Chem's masterpiece. Their distorted beats and rock mentality were years ahead of their time. (And It's cool to listen to how the tracks change, how the songs flow into one another - I just love when tracks does that, just like on "Jilted" and "In Sides" etc.)

* Orbital "In Sides" -- this is it, the moment this duo reached the top of thier form, producing music. That in my opinion, has not been recreated before or after by the two brothers in Orbital.
Also one of the most challenging and intellectual piece of work ever to be introduced to the techno genre.
A cold injection of chilling melodies and dark emotions, sci-fi bliss, soundscapes that move and twist over etherial vocals and broken beats, beautiful and mysterious.

* Goldie "Timeless" -- nicely filled both with soft and heavy parts, well produced by Rob Playford. Though, not so floor-oriented Drum&Bass. Shamefully, Goldies follow-up albums was nowhere near the levels of "Timeless" (one reason is beacuse of Goldie ended his collaboration with Rob).

* Adam F "Colours" -- high quality production. As it is named - filled with colours, and very organic. This record is addictive.

* Bj

[Fierze]

You forgot that guy.. umm...  Circlepuller. Or was it Squarebasher

[Stuff]

I'm so f-U-cking glad that I'm able to log in on JPN Forum again! I'm telling ya . My account has been f*cked up the last couple of moths (since december) so I couldn't stay logged in to write messages and shite like that. Tho, every single message from the guest 'stuff' here is me anyway..
*..ok, calm down Stuff..*

Yes, I forgot to mention Squarepusher. Though everything he does is not so brilliant, for an example only 2 tracks were REALLY good on the last album.

There's another great artist I forgot to mention - Rasmus, remember the old bigbeat Rasmus? (not the crappy pop/rock-band that are  calling themselves "The Rasmus" or "Rasmus").
The one I'm banging my head to is the Rasmus who made the awesome album "Mass Hysteria" (UK, 1998, Bolshi Records).
He's on the Dirtchamber Session vol 1 for an example.

Though Rasmus lives in the UK right now, he was born on the same island in the Baltic Sea as me.
The general feeling on "Mass Hysteria" is quite similar to "Experience", a lot of crazy samples and there's always something going on. Tight beats and wicked melodies. I can understand why especially Liam likes Rasmus 'older' bigbeat tunes.

If you haven't heard the "Mass Hysteria"-album and are into acts like Crystal Method and Fatboy Slim - you just have to check out Rasmus.

Greetings

[juGe]

There's another great artist I forgot to mention - Rasmus, remember the old bigbeat Rasmus? (not the crappy pop/rock-band that are