The Prodigy - Music for the Jilted Generation (1994)

If I remember my The Prodigy correctly I'm about to hear 80 minutes of video game music. It's a shame such awesome cover art has to be wasted on this techno junk.

"Break and Enter" would be an OK song if it were maybe 2 minutes long. The digital effects used to create the bass loop are really cool and the added string notes later make a somewhat haunting composition. But 8 and a half minutes is just way too long. The following song actually contains "lyrics" that go, "I am the law, and you can't beat the law. I am the law, and you can't beat the law. I am the law, and you can't beat the law. Fuck 'em and their law." It actually repeats many more times that I wrote it, but you get the idea. "Full Throttle" cruelly samples an actual piano piece and surrounds it with what sound like digital fart noises. "Voodoo People" is a clever mixture of traditional bayou country music and subtle electronic effects. Just kidding, it's the same old techno dance crap with some shrill flute overdubs and a guy with a stereotypical accent saying, "The Voodoo People."

One of two things need to be true right now. 1) The authors of 1,000 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die have a really shitty taste in music and honestly think The Prodigy created two identical albums that everyone must hear, and therefore have potentially filled their list with lots of other shitty music depriving me of knowledge of actual great music I should hear before I die. Or 2) music in general is just shitty and 2 albums by The Prodigy really does count as the cream of the crop. Holy hell, I'm not sure which one I hope is true.

The shortest song on Music For The Jilted Generation was just under 4 minutes long. And weirdly it faded out at the end, which means the song was actually longer and for some reason they decided to fade it out. There's no logic behind this decision, as it's the only song on the album that fades out and is compositionally identical to the others. The one constant thought I have while listening to this album is, "Holy crap, this song is STILL PLAYING?"

The penultimate song "Skylined" does have a neat digital string chord progression that I don't think I've ever heard before. Too little too late. This album was a waste of my time. I guess I'm not all that jilted. Who'da thunk it? 1 star.