B-Boy's Guide to Big Beat Music

Big beat is a type of electronic dance music characterised by prominent, syncopated drums, moderate or uptempo speeds, commercial style, and the eclectic combination of alternative music genres - mainly funk, rock, hip hop and acid-house. It built on hip hop's formula of loud break-beats, cut-and-paste sampling and turntablism by minimising the vocals in favour of richer instrumentation - as with trip hop but faster, and as with funky breaks but poppier.

Big beat, heavy trip hop and funky breaks frequently appear alongside each other, and were integral parts of the big breaks movement that came to prominence in the 1990s, characterised by loud b-boy breakbeats and eclectic, jazz-funk-leaning sampling in the hip hop tradition.

This list ranks and reviews some of big beat's finer moments, including 42 notable tracks from other styles (mainly the wider big breaks spectrum) that either influenced big beat or were influenced by it. Around half of the tracks here are from 1997 and 1998, the apex of this short-lived scene, and most are by British artists.

The list contains productions by Fatboy Slim (24), The Chemical Brothers (23), The Prodigy (10), Deadly Avenger (10), Depth Charge (8), Propellerheads (7), The Wiseguys (7), Bentley Rhythm Ace (6), Overseer (5), Derek Dahlarge / Ceasefire (5), DJ Shadow / UNKLE (5), Jon Carter / Monkey Mafia (4), Wax Assassins (3), Death In Vegas (3), Major Force (3), DJ Bombjack & Mr Thing (Superfreaks) (3), Clockwork Voodoo Freaks / Mex (3), Freestylers & Mad Doctor X (3), Orbital (2), Sniper (2), Smoove (2), Double Dee & Steinski (2), Röyksopp (2), Mantronix (2), Coldcut (2), Cut Chemist (2), Laidback (2), AIR (2), Freddy Fresh (2), Cut La Roc (2), Dynamo Productions (2), Krafty Kuts (2), Dave Clarke (2), and over 60 other artists.

★★★★★ excellent
★★★★☆ very good
★★★☆☆ good
★★☆☆☆ underwhelming
★☆☆☆☆ poor