From the commercial heights of nu metal
to more recently hip-hop combining both emo and country,
genre fusion has come a long way.
But back in the 90s dance and rock were separate entities.
In the UK the Stone Roses, Primal Scream, the Happy Mondays and of course New Order
had been tinkering with dance music within a rock format
but for the most part dance was dance and rock was rock
and rarely did anyone listen to both.
Then came the Prodigy.
They cared not for genre divides.
Starting off as a chart-bothering rave act in 1990,
by their second album Music For The Jilted Generation
they had moved beyond pure dance into something way more interesting.
Their unique mix of electronica, hip-hop and rock led to their storming dance punk crossover:
1996's "Firestarter."
With it they proved that a song could still be danceable and metal-heavy.
Even today remains as one of the heaviest UK number-one singles of all time.
This is New British Canon and this is the story of "Firestarter."
Originally the Prodigy was only one man: producer and songwriter Liam Howlett.
He grew up in Braintree, Essex,
with The Specials, Sex Pistols and Grandmaster Flash as early musical touchstones.
After flirtations would break dancing, with his crew The Pure City Breakers,
he transcended to the British rave scene.
Founded on a love of new dance-focused electronic music,
it in a way recalled the 60s psychedelic era, built on impromptu countryside gatherings,
musical experimentation and a newly introduced psychedelic drug called ecstasy.
As much clowning around the sound as inspired by the movement,
Howlett's started creating his own tracks in his bedroom.
He has varying said those chosen stage name was either just the name of his main synthesizer,
a Moog Prodigy,
or literally a bout of extreme arrogance.
He said in Rolling Stone in 1997:
The concept of the Prodigy as the collective came slightly later.
Sometime in 1989 fellow ravers Keith Flint and Leeroy Thornhill heard the tape of Howlett's tracks,
were suitably impressed and offered their dancing services
if he should ever want to play his music live.
Soon sound system mainstay Keith Palmer aka Maxim Reality
was added to the lineup as an MC and hype man.
After producing a 10 track demo, Howlett, and Howlett only, was signed to XL Records.
The rest of the group with their solely for upping the energy for live performances.
But that in itself was an oddity,
no other act within the dance scene was performing live as a full band.
Their first proper single was 1991's "Charley,"
a rave techno track that utilized vocal samples of a cartoon cat
from a series of 1970s public safety announcements named Charley Says.
"Charley says: Always tell your mummy before you go off somewhere."
While it reach number three in the UK Charts, the band got pigeon-holed as novelty merchants
and in 1992 Mixmag even accused the track of killing rave.
"Charley" spawned its own short-lived rave movement dubbed 'toytown techno'
which produced such kids TV-themed hardcore dance gems as "A Trip to Trumpton"
"Sesame's Treet"
and "Roobarb & Custard."
The difference between the Prodigy and these chancers
was that the Prodigy would soon progress into something much more substantial.
Their first full-length, Experience, was released in 1992
but even by then Howlett had wanted to move past their rave roots.
And so to promote the album they went the more traditionally rock'n'roll route
of a headlining tour in traditional pubs and club venues.
Playing to audience that were tipsy on beer rather than 'on one' proved a challenge
and Howlett's songwriting changed to compensate,
evolving and composing harder tunes with harder sounds for their next release,
1994's Music For The Jilted Generation.
In part, the album and particularly the track "Their Law"
commented on the recent Criminal Justice and Public Order Act of 1994
which cracked down on illegal raves that were happening throughout the British countryside,
a huge blow to the underground dance scene.
Critically, the album fared well, even being nominated for the Mercury Music Prize in 1994.
But more importantly around this time the band were attracting a different type of music fan.
Not just the ravers they had built their previous name on.
This was helped by Howlett's newfound interest in and implementation of rock music in their sound.
Rage Against the Machine's debut and the Judgement Night soundtrack
having an especial impact on the new record.
"Voodoo People," one of their first tracks to truly crossover within rock clubs
even samples Nirvana's "Very Ape."
Playing with honest-to-goodness rock bands also helped their sound mutate.
Howlett cites a Danish festival where they opened for Red Hot Chili Peppers
being particularly pivotal.
And because of this their in-your-face live show was beginning to turn heads within the rock press.
Kerrang! journalist Morat was so entranced with the group's Glastonbury 95 set,
that he campaigned hard to get Prodigy featured in the previously hardline metal and punk magazine.
But it wasn't an easy sell: metal purists didn't see the appeal.
Nor did those into true techno acts like Aphex Twin and Orbital.
Prodigy were stuck in the middle
but appealed to anyone who wanted some loud great music
who weren't too fussed about what instruments were making it.
But their next single would truly ignite interest in the band.
"Firestarter" started off as an instrumental, that Howlett created in the tail end of 1995.
Partly inspired by the loud punkish guitars on the Foo Fighters track "Weenie Beenie."
Howlett was impressed by the track's full on sonic assault
and he attempted to write something similarly impactful.
The distorted main riff was written on a keyboard
but rerecorded and played by their live guitarist and future Pitchshifter member, Jim Davies.
But as a means of creating tension in the song,
"Firestarter" samples the drone of the Breeders' song "S.O.S."
Also sampled is a 'hey' tripled up from "Close To The Edit" by the Art of Noise
and the track's drums-from-hell beat makes ample use of the Voice of Paradise mix of Ten City's "Devotion."
But even after the track was completed in instrumental form,
Howlett still felt that something was missing.
Previously Flint had solely been a dancer for the band.
Howlett's only experience of hearing Flint sing was to U2 songs as they drove home from shows.
The snobbish rock press had written him and fellow dancer Thornhill off,
comparing them to the Happy Mondays Bez as having no real musical input.
But Flint saw it differently:
The song is not the ode to immolation that the title might suggest.
It is Flint singing about his role in The Prodigy.
To get audience pumped, he is there to ignite the crowd.
To put a fire under their collective arses.
He is the Adrenaliser, the Caffeinator, he is the Firestarter.
But the song goes deeper than that.
Given that the song is written by and about Flint himself the song alludes to a self-critical personality.
Rolling Stone writer Chris Heath quizzed him about the line:
and
A key aspect to the success of "Firestarter" was its music video.
Though that might not have been the case if they'd gone with the first attempt.
Said Howlett in 2018:
As the label needed a video to promote the single,
Howlett called Walter Stern who had previously done the clips for the Jilted Generation singles.
As they had wasted the majority of the video's budget on the initial attempt,
the official "Firestarter" video was shot for only £20,000 and black and white as a cost-saving measure.
They literally can afford colour.
it was filmed in the old abandoned Aldwych tube station
and the dust was so much that the whole crew had to wear masks when filming.
With Flint being most on camera having to endure inhaling the debris.
One of the main things that made the video a classic was how Flint looked.
During the Jilted Generation cycle, Flint had looked like your average stoner type,
long scruffy hair and baggy clothes.
But by mid-1995 he'd changed up his image, applying dark Kohl rings around his eyes
and shaving and dyeing his hair into neon devil horns,
which mixed with his nose bar made him the Prodigy's live focus,
a figurehead for the band.
The last element added to his video look, the Stars and Stripes jumper, was less thought over.
"Firestarter" was released as a single in March 1996.
Because of the song's base level admission of arson, the song was banned on UK radio.
Despite this it went straight in at number one in the UK Charts.
Because the Prodigy will one the few continuously chart-successful bands
that refused to appear on Top of the Pops
the music video was played in their stead.
This provoked more outcry.
The image of Flint hollering in a disused train station like a Rave-era Johnny Rotten
proved to be too scary for 7:00pm on a Thursday evening.
More complaints, more controversy
and "Firestarter" remained at number one for another two weeks.
After its third weekend at number one it dropped to number three
but was joined in the Top 100 by all of the Prodigy's previous singles.
After a second number one in the form of "Breathe" in November,
Prodigy released the album The Fat of the Land in June 1997
to massive international success.
Due to the MTV friendly videos of their previous singles
and crossover airplay on rock and dance radio,
it would be the first electronic album to hit number one on the US Billboard album chart.
But with "Firestarter" the band had truly crossed over.
They'd always charted high in the UK, all their singles by this point having reached the top 20,
but this not only gave them international fame but they were also beyond merely a dance act.
If you ask the band about it they would thumb their nose that any genre applied to them.
Simply they made Prodigy music.
They were just as home on the cover of Mixmag, NME, Kerrang! or Rolling Stone.
And the influence is admirable, their sound further blurring the lines between rock, hip-hop and electronica.
Bands as diverse as Sepultura, Refused, Pendulum, Enter Shikari and Skrillex
all cite the group as an inspiration.
Not to mention any other act that has attempted to meld big beats with distorted guitars in their aftermath.
As Howlett has stated:
What else can be expected from a man that called himself the Prodigy?
Beyond anything else though Keith Flint became an icon.
His appearance in the "Firestarter" video one of the most enduring images of the 90s.
Though he sadly passed last March, he will live on forever in that image
and in rock clubs the world over.
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