Prodigy
"The Fat of the Land"


Maverick
An unabashed cartoon of a band, Britain's Prodigy vaulted from stateside cult act to MTV sensation with the release of its single "Firestarter." The hyperactive electronic dance tune, which boasts the peculiarly English ravings of vocalist Keith Flint (think Oliver Twist on crack), pulsed like a migraine for which aspirin could offer no relief.
You had to love it, even if you hated it, because nothing else on the radio sounded remotely like it.
After months of hype, however, the band's debut for the Madonna-owned Maverick label is anti-climactic. Turns out that "Firestarter," easily the album's best track, is the cookie-cutter for everything else.
As conceived by Liam Howlett (Prodigy's musical mastermind; the act's other three performers are merely manic spokesmodels), "The Fat of the
Land" is a brain-rattling catalog of monotonous break-beats (that relentless wallop that drives the most aggressive hip-hop) and rowdy sloganeering.
Nothing wrong with that in three-minute bursts, but after a couple of tracks, it's clear that Prodigy is enslaved to its own overworked shtick and can't imagine anything beyond it. "Breathe," the current single, reaches a bit: Flashes of Pink Floyd's "Astronomy Domine" underscore cries of "Psychosomatic addict insane!" And Flint does a pretty passable Johnny Rotten imitation.
Yet, there's nothing in this that a rap group like Cypress Hill hasn't done more convincingly, projecting druggy dementia with self-conscious humor, verbal imagination and a trickier barrage of beats.
Prodigy bases its appeal on a surprisingly limited formula that, while promising all kinds of new thrills to karaoke fans -- "No, I'm the firestarter!" -- is a crushing bore for the rest of us. --by Steve Dollar
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Radiohead
"OK Computer"




Capitol
Few expected to hear from Radiohead again after the band's 1993 smash "Creep" left its indelible stamp on Gen X culture. But these gifted Brits defied all expectations with their brilliant 1995 album, "The
Bends," a collection of tunes so resolutely downbeat it was dubbed "complaint rock" by Alicia Silverstone in her movie "Clueless." "OK Computer" continues the band's dour mood, but opens new avenues of musical experimentation. Perversely bombastic, this is an old-fashioned concept album with a heavy theme -- technology's enslavement of humanity -- and lengthy, meandering songscapes ("Subterranean Homesick Alien/Exit Music").
Pretentious? Perhaps. Effective? Utterly. by Derrick Henry
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