The Prodigy – ‘Their Law: The Singles 1990 -2005’ (XL) Released 17/10/05

If ever one was making a musical time capsule of the nineties, there would have to be room for the Prodigy. This superb collection allows us to reflect that at one point this group of Essex proto-hoodies who started with no ambition more than to headline Raindance, had somehow reached number 1 in 27 countries simultaneously. This never happened to Altern-8.  

At the turn of the nineties the rave scene was facing meltdown. The second Summer of Love was long gone and the increasingly draconian measures of the Tory’s Criminal Justice Act left dance facing up to an increasingly marginalised existence. Commercially the 12” dominated scene seemed left with the occasional novelty hit and weak cash-in album. Into these unsure times stepped the Prodigy, a rag tag group of dancers and wannabe MC’s led by Liam Howlett. Howlett was not only a talented and eclectic DJ and musician, but crucially he seemed to have an ambition that went beyond the usual 15 minutes of mimed PA fame that consisted the length of most dance acts careers.

Listening to the early rave anthems include here like ‘Charly’ and ‘Everybody In The Place’, the sheer visceral thrill of hearing those distorted hoover suck synths melded to those ball-bearings in a biscuit tin breakbeats is breathtaking. Like punk 15 years previously here was a music which sounded dangerous and sonically challenging. It was clear that Howlett’s musical radar was happy to intercept whatever sounds it liked: reggae on the excellent ‘Out Of Space’, psychedelia on the sadly absent ‘Fire’ and indie dance on the Pop Will Eat Itself assisted ‘Their Law’. Meanwhile his increasingly diverse remix work took in acts like Front 242 and Dream Frequency. This dark sweep of influences was taken into the next album ‘Music For the Jilted Generation’ and reflected in the militaristic stomp of ‘Poison’ and the thundering assault of ‘No Good Start The Dance’. The album reached number one with the band crossing over in true style to ravers and indie kids alike helped by their now legendary and incendiary live shows. 

It was at these live shows that the increasingly punk influenced Prodigy debuted an incendiary new song ‘Firestarter’. With ‘vocals’ by the now Mohican clad Keith, ‘Firestarter’ saw the Prodigy cement their place in British culture for ever when this mixture of cartoonish Cockney threats and sledgehammer beats reached number one offending tabloids and Tories along the way. It still sounds like one of the most down right weird number ones ever. ‘Breathe’ was to follow and again climbed to the top of the charts, the cross-cultural impact of the group confirmed by their place on the bill at Oasis’ enormous Knebworth  concert. The world conquering ‘Fat of the Land’ album followed in 1997, and despite it’s slaying of the competition was something of a let down. The controversial and rather brilliant ‘Smack My Bitch Up’ continued their appetite for trouble and displayed their original hip hop roots, yet it was the increasingly metal derived clichés that were beginning to define the group and seemed to be holding them back from their role of genuine innovators. 

It was this point the Prodigy juggernaut seemed to stall and in fairness they have never recaptured the exhilarating momentum they displayed in the mid-nineties. 2002’s Comeback single ‘Baby’s Got a Temper’ was so underwhelming it led to Howlett scrapping the new album and attempting a complete rethink. The results were certainly mixed and 2004’s ‘Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned’ set saw them producing by numbers dance / rock like ‘Hot Ride’ and derivative electro in ‘Spitfire’.

Like contemporaries the Chemical Brothers, Underworld and Leftfield you suspect their time in the sun is probably over, yet as a catalogue of so much that was exhilarating about the nineties, this collection fits like a white glove.