20 Landmark Songs Of The 90s

13. The Prodigy €“ Firestarter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmin5WkOuPw The story of The Prodigy is typical of many of the artists of the decade; start small, look like the ultimate cult band and then unleash a hit that no one saw coming and consequently become huge. €˜Firestarter€™ is a song of such power that the listener feels as if they€™ve been hit by a right hook from Mohammed Ali It may not have aged particularly well, but when it was released it felt like a bolt out of the blue. Liam Howlett was a bedroom DJ and producer who initially created his records on a small budget to modest chart success, but then something crucial happened; when he set about creating a live experience for The Prodigy, his MC€™s, Maxim and Leeroy, he proved to be a mighty addition and his dancer Keith Flint did the job that Bez managed in the Happy Mondays; bringing the songs to life through his dancing. But then something very interesting happened, they sold more records, had more money to record, and whereas previously the music was the star of the show. when Keith Flint, for want of a better word, sang on Firestarter, they had a voice that was just as aggressive as the big beats behind it. It€™s no surprise that they went on to play Heavy Metal festivals because the music was extremely visceral and hard hitting. They were a heavy metal band that used samplers instead of Marshall stacks. This wasn€™t music to chill out to, rather it was the sound of howling anger, and whereas in the 80€™s the likes of The Smiths and The Specials used subtlety to decry the world they saw, Firestarter was literally incendiary. If the Sex Pistols were formed in the 90€™s, they would have sounded like this.