The Prodigy: Music for the Jilted Generation

When Fat of the Land came out, I was in grade 11 (what yanks call "eleventh grade") and I was all like, "This doesn't sound like Stone Temple Pilots! Techno is for e-tards!" Then I heard "Voodoo People" in my friend's car, and realized I had to get this album. I don't have an electronic music geek's taxonomic knowledge of sub-genre, but I like to think I know good music when I hear it, and this album is the shit. The songs are danceable, dark without being "bad trip" dark, and they stick to a kind of alt-pop structure so they don't get boring when you're not tripping balls. "Break and Enter" is probably my favorite (that broken glass sample is perfect), but "Speedway" and "3 Kilos" are also killer. Basically, the whole album is great from end to end. Most of Prodigy's stuff since then has tried too self-consciously to bridge the electronica/alt rock-metal gap, but Music for the Jilted Generation is timeless, even though it was released 17 years ago.

RATING: 89%

(Image from www.taringa.net.)