I’m just home from a very
overcrowded workout (seriously, it was like the entire city was working out at
the same time as me) and ready to sit back and wait for the lunar eclipse
(assuming it isn’t cloudy).
Eclipses originally awed humanity
because they were so mysterious. Even though I think I know why they happen,
they still awe me, because they are tangible reminders of the massive and
delicate dance going on in the heavens. We see the same miracle when the sun
comes up each morning, but there’s something special about the rareness of the
eclipse that makes you sit up and take notice.
Disc 611 is…. You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby
Artist: Fatboy
Slim
Year of Release: 1998
What’s up with the Cover? Records! I can only
assume this is Fatboy Slim’s record collection, which is quite a bit larger
than mine. I love the sound of vinyl, but I keep my record collecting to a
minimum, since I already take up a lot of space with my CD collection. I try to
limit myself to seventies rock or country that I really want to hear in the
original format.
The
original British cover has a picture of some very fat dude wearing a tight
t-shirt that reads, “I’m #1 – So Why Try
Harder.” It is a pretty funny photo, but also kind of sad to see a dude let
himself go so badly. I prefer the records.
How I Came To Know It: I don’t remember – probably through videos. I
remember really loving that nerdy guy dancing in front of a movie theatre in
the “Praise You” video. That said, it
was Sheila who bought this album.
How It Stacks Up: Fatboy Slim has five studio albums, but “You’ve Come
A Long Way, Baby” is the only one we own, so I can’t really stack it up.
Rating: 3 stars but almost 4
“You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby”
cements for me how I will never truly be inspired by electronic music, if for
no other reason than it is so damned good.
Fatboy Slim – real name Norman Cook
– is just a middle-aged unassuming white guy like me (note: I have better hair).
If you didn’t know his alter ego and saw him walking down the street, you’d
probably think he was a lawyer or a teacher or something. Unlike me, he is an
exceptionally talented DJ (I still have better hair, though).
This record was a huge hit, so
much so that it successfully crossed out of rave culture and into the
mainstream. Raves themselves were doing the same thing in the late nineties, so
Mr. Cook was aided a bit by the zeitgeist of the time, but he was also at the
forefront of creating that zeitgeist.
Usually I find electronic music dull
and repetitive. However, the songs on “You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby” are so
catchy they could never be called dull. The funky dance riff on “Fucking In Heaven” the sing-a-long
quality of “The Rockerfeller Skank” (“right about now, the funk soul brother/check
it out now, the funk soul brother” etc.) and the infectious horn sample on “Gangster Tripping” are as good as
anything I’ve heard on any soul or disco recording I like rate higher. Despite
my general aversion to techno, Fatboy Slim just feels damn good to groove to.
As Mr. Slim nicely sums up on “Acid8000”:
“If this don’t shake your booty, your booty must be dead.”
Cook’s ear for how long to repeat
one concept before introducing another is amazing. He’s like an audio juggler,
adding layer after layer of sample without ever dropping the ball or missing a
beat. He knows how to put in bass lines that move your hips and melodic
concepts that make you throw your arms around in crazy ways and surrender to
the music. Well, at least I do that, but that’s how I roll on the dance floor.
Yet even amidst such electronic
perfection, the repetition eventually still gets to me. I am a traditionalist
in song structure and I like my songs to begin a concept, develop it, and then
resolve it. It doesn’t have to have a fascinating lyrical narrative (although
that’s nice) so long as it has a beginning a middle and an end.
“You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby” gets
two out of three. Fatboy Slim introduces and develops a concept well enough,
but once it is up and running he has a hard time closing it out, usually
resorting to some kind of repeating sample, cut off slightly earlier each time
until it wears itself out. That’s the nature of electronic music though – it isn’t
supposed to end, it’s just supposed to roll into a new song that never ends. I’m
looking for something that’s not even supposed to be there.
Just like my rave experiences, the
energy starts out great but eventually the feeling becomes kind of overly
familiar and I’m ready to leave. Even when the songs are this good, I just want
a break from the same old same old.
On “You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby”
that happened about six songs in, with “Kalifornia”
which starts out telling you that California is very very…druggie? Then it descends
into repeating “druggie, druggie, druggie.”
Later “Love Island” further works the
“plot development” theme, repeating over and over again, “I’m at a house. I’m at a house.” I assume this is our narrator
trying to call his buddies and tell them where he is but too wasted to provide
specifics.
“You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby” is
about as good as techno gets, and if you like this kind of music at all, it
would be easy to rate this record 4 stars at the very least, and maybe even 5.
It is a bellwether in the electronica music scene, and the songs sound as fresh
today as they did fifteen years ago when I first heard them. I even like
hearing individual tracks when they come on in a larger mix. As a full album
listening experience, though, it is just too much of the same thing for my
tastes.
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