YouTube
It's slightly hard to imagine now that there was ever a time when this record seemed unfamiliar enough to necessitate that little sticker on the cover associating it with the lyric "Right about now, funk soul brother". This wasn't quite the first Fatboy Slim single to hit the Top 40 (a rerelease of 'Everybody Needs A 303' had done that late in 1997) but as the sleevenote points out, this built on the "incredible success of his Cornershop and Wildchild remixes" (both of which turned up on Now 39) to become "one of the summer's hottest tunes". Even the peak position of 6 seems to understate its popularity somewhat, as it was released in the same week when the football songs in the previous two posts and the official tournament song by Dario G were all new entries to the Top 5.
Indeed, this was one of the most ubiquitous tracks in the second half of 1998, not only because it was able to survive England's exit from the tournament but also because it managed to attract so many audiences; catchy enough for kids, energetic enough for clubbers, funky enough for hip-hop fans and melodic enough for the general pop audience. The so-called big beat scene was a massive crossover to the indie market too, possibly because so many of the people involved were ex-members of indie bands anyway... Norman Cook certainly was, and yet for all his past success in so many forms, this set the stage for Fatboy Slim to become arguably his most consistently successful alias; it was only the first of four Top 10 singles from the album You've Come A Long Way Baby, which is trailed on the single cover under the presumed working title Let's Hear It For The Little Guy. If you're wondering why all the backgound digressions here, it's because I wasn't exactly chomping at the bit to listen to it again. That's not say that I don't like the record, indeed I think it's excellent and I'm still slightly in awe of the imagination that it took to make it. But it's a record that most of anywhere near my age have heard A LOT and given its inherantly repetitive nature it's not as easy to enjoy as it should be. Sorry Norm.
Also appearing on: Now 41, 42, 43
Available on: Why Try Harder: the Greatest Hits
No comments:
Post a Comment