Joey Beltdrives’ Bumpy Backspins: Music For The Jilted Generation – The Prodigy – 1994

Music For The Jilted Generation – The Prodigy – Released July 4^th, 1994, XL Recordings

Music For The Jilted Generation is the second album from UK electronic supergroup, The Prodigy. It’s the follow-up album to 1992’s Experience and was the first Prodigy album to incorporate live instruments, including drumming and rock guitar sounds.

The 1994 Prodigy line-up consisted of MC Maxim, dancers Keith Flint and Leeroy Thornhill and composer/producer Liam Howlett.

At the time, Howlett felt complicit in the commercialisation of rave and sought an antidote. His inspiration (and you might even say salvation) came not from the UK scene but from abroad.

Following the success of Experience and subsequent touring in the US, Howlett became increasingly inspired by the rock and roll acts he often shared a stage with. He brought this newfound energy back with him to Earthbound, his home studio, eager to create tracks.

Jilted was later given further polish in a professional recording studio resulting in an album that sounds slicker than its predecessor without compromising its underground flavour.

The backbone of Jilted is Liam Howlett’s Roland W30 workstation. This floppy-disc based sequencer/sampler workstation was used for all the early Prodigy tracks, including Experience and defined the early Prodigy sound in general. It also served as the lynchpin of all early live Prodigy performances.

Due to its now-primitive specifications, workarounds were required to provide those balls-to-the-wall beats and breaks. Low memory capacity meant that samples were generally recorded at low sampling rates, adding grit and crunch to the percussion but often leaving vocal samples sounding garbled. But again, that was all part of the charm.  

The imported American angst and accompanying guitars, meanwhile, were further amplified by events in Britain as the dayglo optimism of the early rave scene had long since grown darker as more drugs resulted in more drug violence.

Ever wary of their tabloids and appeasing the party’s conservative base, John Major’s Tory government enacted the Criminal Justice Bill, which included laws deliberately targeting events which were, “wholly or predominantly categorised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats” – i.e. an anti-raver law. 

As its name suggests, Music For The Jilted Generation is an angrier album than Experience. It reflects a generation’s resentment following years of Tory governance generally and anger at Major’s Criminal Justice Bill specifically.  

The album’s iconic inlay card by fantasy artist Les Edwards reflected the mood perfectly. It’s also my favourite piece of art from any album ever.

In fact, if you want to know my entire life’s philosophy it’s perfectly summed up right here:

On the front cover, meanwhile, we have the iconic, computer-generated melting metal face complete with the new wrap-around Prodigy logo. You can take my word for it, too, that this computer generated art was also deemed cutting edge at the time. I’ve heard a few people compare the image to Han Solo when he was encased in carbonite, though I’ve always felt it was influenced by the 1992 cyber-schlockfest The Lawnmower Man.

Sure, we get a nod to Star Wars later on in the album, but the album’s spoken word intro appears to be directly inspired by Pierce Brosnan’s dialogue at the end of the movie.

No more hands-in-the-air pianos for Liam, no more “cartoon rave”, Liam was “taking his work back underground, to stop it falling into the wrong hands.” Mixmag in particular loved the shtick, having previously accused him of “killing rave.”

Sure, Jilted was a more mature album than Experience but, ironically, by including elements of rock and hiphop, Howlett ensured the group became more successful than ever, especially overseas.

It wasn’t just a turning point for the group. It was a turning point for us all.

Back Underground

The album begins with the sound of keys rapping on a typewriter while a cinematic voiceover proclaims, “so, I’ve decided to take my work back underground, to stop it falling into the wrong hands.”

The irony, of course, is that Jilted proved to be anything but underground and the trajectory this album set would go on to change the music industry completely.

And it all started with a loud crash and the sounds of shattering glass…

Break And Enter is the opening track of the album and it comes smashing through the speakers with the same unremitting force as Jericho did on Experience.

I love the clever use of samples here and how Liam fuses breakbeats with the sound of broken glass so seamlessly creating a kinematic percussive topography over which Liam lays down an equally gritty bassline.

On top of this again, some typically tweeter-slicing synth lines and garnished with a vocal sample from Baby D.

30 years on this one still sounds like the perro’s cojones.

It’s almost impossible to explain the impact Their Law had when we first heard it.

When we were growing up there was this invisible barrier between the world of electronic music and that of electric guitars. The Prodigy singlehandedly smashed that barrier with one song. (And suddenly the rockers and ravers didn’t know who to fight anymore.)

I mean sure, there were indie crossovers which have been covered here before, like Primal Scream or The Shamen, but this was something different, this was heavy fucking metal!

The track featured a headbanger riff from Pop Will Eat Itself on top of a tough slapping beat that made your head feel like it was being clattered around a squash court by a deranged, steroid-fuelled gorilla.

And then there’s that infamous vocal hook, “fuck em, and their law!”

As anyone who’s ever experienced this track live can attest, this one can get a little rambunctious. I swear, there’s nothing quite like seeing a splangly gaggle of saucer-eyed raver kiddies suddenly turn into a roughneck squad of mosh monsters, all spring-loaded necks and elbows but still grinning ear to ear.

“Crackdown at sundown”, again a reference to the CJB law cracking down on raves – a rallying call for ravers to stop putting their hands in the air and dig their heels into the ground instead.

This track really made us feel like we were going to win.

Full Throttle takes its name from the Star Wars sample used on the original version.  

The sample, incidentally, comes from the Death Star run scene, while Vader picks off the other X Wings it’s up to Luke to save the day, who says over the radio, “we’re going in, we’re going in full throttle.”

To which one of the rebels asks, “Luke at that speed will you be able to pull out in time?”

Which is a viable question every man has to grapple with at some point. That’s why sometimes you have to close your eyes, calm your mind and use the Force.

Anyways, George Lucas being George Lucas, he sent a Death Star full of lawyers to ensure the sample wasn’t used on the album. Well before Disney bought the rights, Lucas exerted Prince-estate level control over his IP so, long story short, the original sample was warped and spliced and mangled to the point where it was completely unrecognisable.

Full Throttle is a perfect example of where dance music was in 1994, especially in the UK, teetering right on the edge between techno on one side and breakbeats on the other. And really, it’s that very same edge I like to dance on.

Few producers at the time, with the exception of CJ Bolland, managed to retain the best of both. Alas the fork on the road was already visible, breaks and jungle to the left, four to the flour techno to the right, and so increasingly DJs and producers picked their lanes.

It’s only now, decades later, that younger producers are realising how exciting the middle path can be.

I have to say, also, how much I love that salsa-style piano riff, it really drives this track along.

Finally, just to piss off ole Jar Jar head, here’s the One Love EP version with the original Star Wars sample intact – the Force is strong with this one.

Voodoo People is probably the one Prodigy track I’m sick of the most, but that’s probably because we all overplayed it back in the day.

At the time I didn’t realise the main riff was from Nirvana, it wasn’t until a year later when a friend played In Utero in his gaff and I heard Very Ape and went… hey waita minute!

But yeah, successive replays and multiple Prodigy gigs have taken the edge off this one for me though my original Voodoo People 12” remains one of my most prized possessions. In addition to having one of the first ever Chemical Brothers remixes (then still called Dust Brothers) I ever heard, it also features the track Goa, which is, for me, one of the best Prodigy tracks ever made. Check that EP out, it’s gold.

Speedway (Theme From Fastlane) – ah yeah this one.

This one was always my least fav track on the album. Not sure why but it was the only one that felt like filler. But then filler for an early Prodigy album still feels superior to most other stuff you’ll ever hear.

Listening back to it again now as I type I can’t exactly put my finger on why. It’s a decent enough tune, it has some nice bubbly acid, it’s got F1 noises – vrrrrrm!!!! – and it’s very techno. Still, I did tend to fast forward past this one, that’s if my Walkman battery life could afford it.

Perhaps the reason was impatience, because The Heat (The Energy) was, is and, barring some ground-breaking new Prodigy album, always will be, one of my fav Prodigy tracks of all time.

It’s also one of the most underrated.

And it’s a prime example of why I wish Liam Howlett would make a solo album with some more thoughtful electronic pieces like this which don’t fit the prodigy mould.

I mean listen to that intro, it’s fucking ambient!

Ambient, on a Prodigy album. You know me, you know I’m too ADHD for ambient generally. But if Liam Howlett announced tomorrow that he’s releasing an ambient album I’ll finally crack and do that pre-order shit on Bandcamp.

Nearly three minutes before we get any beat whatsoever. Unprecedented.

This was certainly Liam’s most experimental album, he took a LOT of chances here, which is why I love it so much. And I put this track as among the best tracks Liam’s ever done. (If you agree make sure to listen to its follow-up Goa, on the aforementioned Voodoo People EP, which picks up where this left off but adds some frantic acid.)

Poison starts on what I’ve always considered to be “side 2” of the album, given that I first owned the album on tape.

Flipping over to hear this for the first time was a revelation. In retrospect, given Liam’s background as a hiphop DJ and the influences he’s always worn on his sleeve, Poison should not have come as a huge surprise.

But the first time we heard this one battering out the speakers of my old hand-me-down Marantz hifi – we weren’t so much blown away as blasted from one side of the room and smashed against the adjoining wall.

It had a similar effect across the Atlantic, as the album’s fourth single this one definitely helped put the one-time Essex boy ravers on the star-spangled map.

(Have to say, also, how much I loved the accompanying Poison EP, in particular, the headbanging breakbeat mayhem of Rat Poison, another one of my top-ten Prodigy tracks.)

This is textbook Liam Howlett here, everything from the sequencing, the breaks, the intricate rhythmical textures, the ear-worm synth melodies, brooding chords and that god-level ability to pick JUST the right vocal hook (this time via Kelly Charles) to make the whole thing gel together.

No Good (Start The Dance), oh man, what a fucking tune!

If you’ll excuse me, I’m off to shuffledance around in a dusty room for a moment. 

One Love is up next. It was the first single we all heard from the album and, despite sounding very Prodigy, apparently this one done the rounds as a white label getting huge play on the underground before Liam eventually admitted he made the track. He done it to prove a point. Again, to say I’m underground. Or so I heard from a guy who knows a guy.

One theory I also want to float out there is that this track was inspired by Moby’s Morning Dove from 1993’s Move EP. They both have that same fast-stomping tribal edge. Of course, Moby was himself hugely influenced by the Prodigy by his own admission. These things tend to be cyclical.

Incidentally, if you want to know exactly how old I am, I’m old enough to remember a time when the computer graphics from the video were considered cutting edge.

Yeah I know right?

I tried several times to get this one recorded in full on VHS because what we used to do is watch Prodigy videos incessantly and attempt to memorise the moves.

So that’s how old I am.

Next up is The Narcotic Suite, a three-part series of tracks based on narcotics.

Hurrah!

Even something as simple as this seemed revolutionary at the time.

The Narcotic Suite begins with 3 Kilos, a delightfully upbeat flutey track which borrows heavily from Bernard Purdie, who I presume, was in the jacks with Liam Howlett doing a cheeky line at the time.

First time I heard the original 1972 track it’s based on (Purdie’s “Good Livin, Good Lovin”)  it blew my mind, though not as much as hearing 3 Kilos back in the summer of 1994.

Again, this is Liam Howlett extending his musical tendrils into areas none of us thought possible…

Onto Skylined, my favourite track on the album and one of my top Prodigy tracks of all time, second only to Weather Experience.

Except while Weather Experience was a musical representation of British weather, this is Liam’s attempt to convey the pure ecstasy experience, complete with lush peaks and percussive troughs.

And when those melodic peaks hit, with their expansive reaching chords you do believe you can spread your arms out and fly… but of course you don’t, you raise them to the heavens instead as the lasers scatter and sweat falls from the sky…

Claustrophobic Sting – what a way to end an album! He could have ended it with the euphoric rush of Skylined but instead, for the finale, we get a dark, uncompromising breakbeat acid nightmare, in every sense of the word.

Never before or since has a piece of music so perfectly conveyed the mind-imploding terror best expressed by the phrase, “shit I took too much!”

Some interesting sound choices here too, including pink Floyd – deliberately buried, alongside a none-too-subtle nod to Hal 9000.

But it’s that incessantly looping Joker-esque laugh that gives this track its creepy edge, while the ferocious one-two combo of breaks and 303 acid help to make this one of the darkest, most compelling and ultimately most memorable Prodigy tracks ever made.

Full Throttle

While Experience is the album I return to the most, nobody can deny that Jilted is peak Prodigy and, in many respects, peak rave. It arrived at a time when everything still felt possible despite the increasing pushback from the establishment.

Musically, Jilted broadened the pallet of the Prodigy well beyond any of our expectations. I’d go so far as to say it’s the most musically diverse album the group has ever created and honestly, I wish they’d retained more of that ethos rather than going forward.

The thunderous kickdrums, lashing snares and relentless powerhouse breaks, the furious clash between post-rave hardcore sensibilities, underground techno, hiphop and loud rock guitars…

It was the best of all youth culture distilled into one incredible album.

Mostly, though, Jilted was an album of possibilities. In it we can clearly see the route the group would later take, though we can also see other potential parallel universe Prodigys where Liam took the group in different directions.

It’s easy to imagine Liam doubling down on the underground aspect to forge a more ferocious breakbeat techno sound or doing a complete 180 and going softer.

Because, aside from the singalong rave bangers and the guitar-infused head bangers, we also have the soft tidal ambience of The Heat, The Energy, the jazzy funk of 3 Kilos, the deep experimentalism on tracks like Skylined and Claustrophobic Sting…

I do wish this kinda stuff could had continued in tandem as then I wouldn’t have lost interest in the three decades which followed.

Still, this album really did feel like a revolution in the making, coming at a time when so many things seemed new and exciting, especially where art and technology was concerned.

30 years on, my generation feels more Jilted than ever and subsequent generations seem to be faring even worse. All the while that album cover artwork still represents everything I stand for, staring across the chasm at the blackened smog of angry Babylon…

Come on you smelly hippy, cut the fucking ropes already! We’ve only been waiting 30 years… FINE! I’ll cut the fucking rope myself then shall I?