Show your support with The Prodigy Stickers

Order here

The Prodigy - Firestarter music video


Director: Walter Stern
Producer: ?

I'm sure that everyone knows that iconic black-and-white video but... The scene is an abandoned London Underground tunnel at Aldwych. The main focus of attention is on Keith, who runs around with an angle grinder trying to wreck the train tracks, while the rest of the band look on in approval. After this we see Keith hanging on to his life by a few bicycle tubes in a lift shaft, 60 feet off the ground. When you watch the video you can actually see Leeroy hurling towards the TV screen swaying around. The reason is that he got drunk whilst recording the set for Firestarter because he had nothing to do except drinking. Keith wears Tommy Hilfiger "stars and stripes" jumper and that's why many new fans thought that Prodigy was an american band. This also boosted they success in america. Anyway that jumper is real rarity nowadays and many fans are trying to get one from eBay.

The video caused big uproar in the UK. Questions in the House of Commons, bad pressand a record number of complaints to 'Top of the Pops' for showing the video. When the video for Firestarter was aired on 'Top of the Pops' for the first time, the BBC received more complaints than they had received for any other act. 'Top of the Pops' actually asked the band to remake the video, offering to pay the expenses, but were told quit bluntly to "f*** off". Great stuff. Interestingly enough, there are two videos for Firestarter. The original one was directed by the bloke who made the Diesel Jeans advertisement. But it turned out to be a real modern arty type video and the band were hardly in it so they scrapped it and hired their long time friend Walter Stern to direct new one. The budget was really low only 20k pounds. That's why they had to use cheap black and white film.

The original video for "Firestarter" was directed by a team chosen for their work on a Diesel Jeans TV advert that the band had though was amazing. Their vision for the track had Keith bound up in ropes; the focus was on a huge tyre that had been filmed in negative, and every time the bass dropped, the tyre bounced. However, although the promo proved to be quite slick, the band decided it just didn't represent them as a band. Keith was far too restricted - instead of the images unleashing his personality, as the music had done, his performance was held back

On a show on MTV titled "Top Ten: Scariest Videos of All Time", Firestarter came in as third scariest video of all time! Suprising how many people consider this video scary.

Related articles

| NME
The Prodigy announce 2023 UK tour and tell us what the future holds

| The Guardian
The 100 greatest UK No 1s: No 8, The Prodigy – Firestarter

| Kerrang!
Playing With The Prodigy To Partying With Pantera: Jim Davies Is Most Notorious Guitarist You’ve Never Heard Of

| Madness To Creation
JIM DAVIES (THE PRODIGY, PITCHSHIFTER) Converses with Mark Dean on “Headwars” and his Illustrious Career”

| Kerrang!
My Friend Keith Flint, The Voice Of A Jilted Generation

| Kerrang!
Their Law: How The Prodigy Breathed New Life Into Rock

| The Independent
Keith Flint death: The story behind 'Firestarter' – The Prodigy's first number one and their most famous song

| Kerrang!
The Prodigy Thirty years of firestarting; one must-read interview

| BBC
The Prodigy: 'We don't need to reinvent ourselves'

| MusicTech magazine
Landmark Productions: The Prodigy – The Fat of the Land

| ABC
The J Files: The Prodigy

| Dazed
Liam Howlett: Lord of the Dance

| MTV Hive
Dissecting the Prodigy: 25 Samples Behind 'The Fat of the Land'

| The Guardian
The Prodigy didn't kill rave, they reanimated rock'n'roll

| NME
The Prodigy – The Stories Behind 10 Of Their Best-Loved Dancefloor Anthems To Date

| The Independent
The Prodigy and their prodigious talent

| Spin Magazine
The 90 greatest albums of the 90's

| Spin Magazine
It's only rock'n' roll

| Select
This is dangerous

| Melody Maker
Shrink Rap

| VOX
Crash and Burn!

| The Independent
The Prodigy: How we plan to destroy ourselves

| Kerrang!
Crop Killers

| NME
Selected LP, The Fat of The Land

| Now
Prodigy jump off electronica bandwagon

| The Mix
Playing with fire!

| Melody Maker
Setting America Alight!

| PointCast
Talent: The Prodigy

| Kerrang!
Public Enemies Number One

| The Times
Please don't call us techno

| Future Music
Favourite 50 - 1 Korg Prophecy

| Sound On Sound
Liam Howlett • The Prodigy & Firestarter

| Aftenposten
Platina til Prodigy

| The Face
Burning Down the House

| Select
24 March: Firestarter at the top of the hit parade

| NME
House Of The Razing Arson

| MTV Blah Blah Blah
White Heat, White Noise, White Out

|
The Prodigy Alternative Dance Supergroup

| The Face
The Future Sound of Essex

See also

Charly

Charly

1991

The Prodigy's first official promo video was shot in the rave.
Fire

Fire

1992

Pretty cool half animated video, but picture quality is poor.
Out Of Space

Out Of Space

1992

Keith in the boiler suit gas mask. Ostriches, and some dancing.
Wind It Up

Wind It Up

1993

Shot in America at Venice Beach California.
One Love

One Love

1993

At the time high budget fully computer animated video.
Poison

Poison

1995

Very good and expensive video, Maxim sings, Leeroy dances, Liam plays the drums.
Breathe

Breathe

1996

Lots of bugs, and a alligator. Shot in an abandoned apartment.
Smack My Bitch Up

Smack My Bitch Up

1997

Smack My Bitch Up-video has been banned on most TV channels. MTV Europe has showed it at night a couple of times.
Hotride

Hotride

2004

They made a video for Hotride but Liam didn't like it at all so it was binned and never released.
Girls

Girls

2004

First single/video from the Always Outnumbered album.
Spitfire

Spitfire

2005

Awesome live video with stunning effects. This really captures what Prodigy is about.
Omen

Omen

2009

Omen was actually the first official single from Invaders Must Die album.
Warriors Dance

Warriors Dance

2009

An animation resembling stop motion of a secretive fantasy dance party.
Nasty

Nasty

2015

First music video from The Day is My Enemy album.
Ibiza

Ibiza

2015

The Prodigy themselves and Jason Williamson on Sleaford Mods appear in the video for ‘Ibiza’.
Need Some1

Need Some1

2018

Directed by Filipino filmmaker Paco Raterta, the visual was shot entirely in the Philippines.
Timebomb Zone

Timebomb Zone

2018

Music video for "Timebomb Zone" by The Prodigy off the new album No Tourists.
Jump to videography main | Prodigy main
The Prodigy 34 pcs sticker set

Big set of The Prodigy stickers. 15 different designs (2 of each) and total of 30 stickers. Sticker sizes vary from 9 cm to 3,5 cm. Order here >