Fatboy Slim - Better Living Through Chemistry

A trainspotter-correction is required to my previous comment about the origins of the main sample used for Track 4 "The Weekend Starts Here". Our friends at Whosampled.com have come up with the original source, which dates way back to 1974 and Idris Muhammad's "Loran's Dance". I guess Jestofunk's "Fluid" can take some credit for using the sample first.
Oh, and the harmonica loop is taken from Black Sabbath's "The Wizard"...

This is Norman Cook's first album as the infamous Fatboy Slim, and possibly could also be his best. The album begins on a high with 'Song For Lindy', a funky piece of breakbeat, that can be played for all sorts of occasions, and possibly his greatest tune. There are also more commercial numbers such as 'Going Out Of My Head', that samples a Yvonne Elliman cover of The Who's 'I Can't Explain', in full effect.

There are also classic Big Beat songs too such as the siren-laden '10th and Crenshaw', The wah-wah rock-and-roll of 'The Sound Of Milwaukee', The absolute classic 'Everybody Needs a 303' that has not aged a bit. It also has a couple of slowies like 'Santa Cruz' and 'The Weekend Starts Here', that perfectly gives the album more variation.

Overall, this is the Big Beat movement at it's peek, and the lack of guest spots, crossover potential and profanity (In Heaven and Star 69, anyone?), make this album a timeless, and somehow underrated classic. This Rocks!

PS: On the vinyl release, the bonus track 'Crenshaw Siren Beats' is a reprise of track A2.

On track 4, The Weekend Starts Here, Mr Cook cheekily fails to give any credit whatsoever in the sleeve notes to the very heavily sampling of href="http://www.discogs.com/release/68677">Jestofunk's "Fluid" (track 3 on Love In A Black Dimension.

In fact, having done a bit of searching on the web, it seems that very few people are even aware of this sample.

I'd say The Weekend... sounds almost the same as Fluid. (As if Jestofunk asked Fatboy to remix it for them, and he came up with The Weekend... The deep synth melody is blatantly stolen, and I'm really surprised this doesn't seem to be more common knowledge...

This album helped set my sights on the deeper and more sophisticated world of electronic music. Until this time I was still listening to many various things, FSOL, Chemical Brothers, Atari Teenage Riot, etc. This album taught me a thing or two about well crafted deep techno (big beat). It is Cook's best album, and had a "real" sound to it, as opposed to today's dance floor friendly yucky stuff.

This is what got me started all those years ago in the world of electronica. At the time Daft Punk was too underground for me and Prodigy was too mainstream. I found this CD to be the first to make me want to dance. Santa Cruz and The Weekend Starts Here are two of the best road trip songs. Produced before the Big Beat sound was exploited, this is the true sound of Big Beat. Norman Cook took what Filla Brazillia was doing on there upbeat albums and added some serious funk. If you like the newer Fatboy sound, but want something a little more funk and soul to it it's worth your while to check this out!