Prodigy* ‎– Smack My Bitch Up

Quite strange, if this is a limited edition of 5 copies how is it possible that 17 people have it!!!!!!! Probably some fakes or in fact there are more than 5 copies.

It was all very well for Liam Howlett, in the comfort of his country house, to release this irresponsible piece of crap to the world in the late nineties, when everything was post-post-ironic. The facts that the title phrase was sampled (from Ultramagnetic MCs), and that the fistbitingly embarrassing video portrayed the violence as if committed by a girl, excuse nothing. I wonder how many stupid, lager-filled morons heard this back in ’97 and decided it'd be cool to commit a little domestic violence on the side. The whole exercise was a pathetic attempt to further The Prodigy's negligible notoriety.

Even putting aside the misguided ethics, this remains one of The Prodigy's poorest releases sonically. Even minus the sample, this would barely have cut it as an album track, let alone a single.

DON'T FORGET ABOUT THE WICKED BREAKDOWN, INCORPORATING AN INDIAN FEMALE VOCAL CHANT & HIP-HOP BREAK.

This is what I call a real value for money maxi single.Four belting tracks;the superb original version of 'Smack My Bitch Up' from one of the finest dance albums of all time-'The Fat Of The Land'. A collaberation made in heaven between Liam Howlett and Tom Morello of Rage Against The Machine, then a brillant remix of another album track-'Minefields' which oozes quality and finally a wicked drum and bass version of 'SMBU' by DJ Hype. No cop out radio edits or filler here, just brilliant music. Say no more.

The bassline and the intro of "Smack My Bitch Up" is completely inspired from Jazz-artist Randy Weston's track "In Memory Of", first recorded in 1963. The track can be found on "HIGHLIFE, Music from the New African Nations". In my opinion this is yet another example of Howlett's extraordinary capability to blend musical styles and pay a little hommage to great music of the past. The infamous vocal sample "Smack My Bitch Up" was taken from the Utramagnetic MCs' "Give the Drummer Some".

I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned already, but this mix, along with a new Slacker breaks mix was released back in June 2004. The 12" was not an official XL release, but looks to be a cheeky Slacker release (SMACK001)...the pressing quality is perfect. The actual remix hasn't aged particularly well, but it is at least available should people still want it. The 97 remix is also available on one of the CD Pool classic series releases.

The reason this mix never got released was due to Slacker leaving XL Recordings - XL were unable to release the record due to copyright reasons. This is the same reason Virus 'Hypnotise' was never released when Paul Oakenfold left Warner Music.

Great shame as it is an awesome take on the original tune with that thundering bassline. Whenever I've heard this played to a crowd the place always errupts.

There are two versions of No Man Army. The one on this record is the full-length instrumental version. I personally prefer the other version, which is called One Man Army and found on the Spawn movie soundtrack. It's a bit shorter and has additional vocals.