Fatboy Slim
Palookaville

The Saturday night disco music, with young teenagers going "oh oh oh oh" is simply the most annoying thing that exists! But the electronic disco club music with the label of the dry fat man Fatboy Slim is damn fun! Besides being of quality and well-crafted, unlike those records that go boom boom boom all the time without a trace of craftsmanship, in Fatboy Slim there is musicality, indeed craftsmanship, a party mix of Funky, Hip Hop, and Techno, an absolute joy. A DJ who plays with records flawlessly. A true point of reference in the genre.

Absorbing the Big Beat lesson that became all the rage in 1995 with The Chemical Brothers and the Prodigy above all, Norman Cook keeps the trademark but mixes the ingredients, producing records that are less acidic and more melodic and fun, peaking with the masterpiece and cornerstone of '90s electronic dance genre "You've Come a Long Way, Baby", a mix of genres combined with Big Beat. A mass phenomenon in 1998 and 2000 (from which emerged the craziest song in the world "Ya mama").

In this latest album of originals from 2004, our Norman Cook changes the game, marking a point of arrival between his past, filled with wild dance songs and his current state, a more mature artist (and grown) who prefers lighter rhythms with funky and pop bases. A record that fans did not expect.

There are indeed too many "slow" songs compared to the past, the cover "The Joker" is really nice, but too soft pop for a madman like Norman, something has changed, but perhaps not for the worse.

The record opens with a very disco blues soundscape, a female voice sings the chorus over a dance base that flows at a few beats, it almost seems live-played, and this is where Fatboy surprises, he creates tracks that seem played, but are actually just a series of samples and mixed passages from his immense record collection, it's all a DJ game creating new things from existing ones, I would say genius, even if not novel. Of course, compared to DJs who in clubs only change records... well... Norman can truly be defined a dance music genius.

The first track "Don't let the man get you down" therefore shows us a more mature and less noisy Fatboy Slim, but right after comes out the nostalgic operation, the wild and deliberately annoying "Slash dot dash", the style is that of "The Rockafeller Skank" but with a vocal sample mixed and repeated continuously! Repetitive but... you can't stop dancing for a second! The video that raged on MTV was spot on too, two graffiti artists in a public restroom scribbling senseless doodles performing acrobatics in zero gravity a la Matrix, in short... you get hyped like in the old days!

However, the disappointment for the fan comes with the following tracks, the record changes face and veers toward the most unrestrained pop, fun little songs, sung from start to finish, with few repetitions and DJ antics, instruments played (taken here and there from his records) like, piano, drums, percussion, in short... it seems that Norman Cook now produces albums as a real musician... well... they are certainly not unpleasant as pieces, but we prefer the old DJ manipulator of dance sounds. But I, not being a fan, just an admirer, have not despised some of his new melodic lines at all, a great track like "The Journey" really hit me! It has nothing of dance but is wonderfully rhythmic! In short... I like this album. But during the listening you always wonder what happened to the old Norman... and here is for those fans of his dance tracks, our favorite gives us a track that shows that the old Fatboy Slim is alive and kicking... "Jingo" the real dance surprise of the album, pounding rhythm, vocal mixes repeated at full blast, platter plays, mixes, sound passages, and lots of boom boom. A club track that rocks!

After the dance chapter of good memories... the album concludes with further fairly calm pop pieces, with the aforementioned cover of "The Joker" concluding the whole.

Also noteworthy is the indirect tribute to the Chemical Brothers with the very chemically Beat track "El bebe Masoquista" in which however Norman knows how to put a personal touch in the vocal sampling part.

An album half successful for fans, a great album for those who wanted a change. I place myself in between, meaning I would like old-style records but... I really appreciated this new effort.

Awaiting the next album where as in the past we got drunk and danced with our butts in the wind to the notes of "Soul Surfing".