PRODIGY – FIRESTARTER

28 years ago today, The Prodigy started a three-week run at number 1 with "Firestarter".
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On this date in 1996, The Prodigy started a three-week run at number 1 on the UK singles chart with “Firestarter”.

“Firestarter” is the first single from the UK electropunk unit’s third album, The Fat of the Land. It’s their first big international hit, topping the charts in the Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, and Norway. In 2020, The Guardian ranked the song number eight on their list of “The 100 Greatest UK No 1 Singles”.

The wah-wah guitar riff in “Firestarter” was sampled from The Breeders’ track “S.O.S.”. The “hey” sample is from Art of Noise’s 1984 song “Close (to the Edit)”.

Photo: The Hollywood Reporter

RM Dance Update described “Firestarter” as “a typically searing of chunk of heavy techno featuring some manic vocals and an awesome synth line”. New Sunday Times noted its “heavy metal meets techno-dance stylizations.” Pitchfork in 2005 said, “‘Firestarter’ sounds like Trent Reznor in one of his all-too-rare moments of self-aware humor, like the Bomb Squad at +5 with a pink-haired British bulldog bellowing about how tuff he is.”

Rest in Molotov-Techno, Keith Flint.

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Featured image via PARLANTE.

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Picture of Rudolf Dethu

Rudolf Dethu

Music journalist, writer, radio DJ, socio-political activist, creative industry leader, and a qualified librarian, Rudolf Dethu is heavily under the influence of the punk rock philosophy. Often tagged as this country’s version of Malcolm McLaren—or as Rolling Stone Indonesia put it ‘the grand master of music propaganda’—a name based on his successes when managing Bali’s two favourite bands, Superman Is Dead and Navicula, both who have become two of the nation’s biggest rock bands.
Picture of Rudolf Dethu

Rudolf Dethu

Music journalist, writer, radio DJ, socio-political activist, creative industry leader, and a qualified librarian, Rudolf Dethu is heavily under the influence of the punk rock philosophy. Often tagged as this country’s version of Malcolm McLaren—or as Rolling Stone Indonesia put it ‘the grand master of music propaganda’—a name based on his successes when managing Bali’s two favourite bands, Superman Is Dead and Navicula, both who have become two of the nation’s biggest rock bands.

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