Music for the Jilted Generation is the second studio album by English electronic music group the Prodigy. It was first released on 4 July 1994 by XL Recordings in the United Kingdom and by Mute Records in the United States. As with the group's debut album, Experience (1992), Maxim Reality and Liam Howlett were the only official members of the group to contribute to the album. The other two members, Keith Flint and Leeroy Thornhill, were not credited on any tracks (although all four individuals were pictured in the liner notes).[1]
A remastered and expanded edition of the album, titled More Music for the Jilted Generation, was released in 2008.[2]
The album is largely a response to the corruption of the rave scene in Britain by its mainstream success, as well as the United Kingdom's Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, which criminalised raves and aspects of rave culture.[3] This is exemplified in the song "Their Law", with the spoken-word intro and the predominant lyric: the "Fuck 'em and their law" sample. Many years later, after the controversy had subsided, Liam Howlett criticised the album's title, referring to it as "stupid", and insisted that the album was never intended to be political.[6]
Many of the samples featured on the album are sound clips from, or inspired by, films. "Full Throttle" contains a reversed sample from the original Star Wars film, and "The Heat (The Energy)" features a sample from Poltergeist III,[6] while "Claustrophobic Sting" includes a recreation of dialogue from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
When Liam Howlett arrived at the cutting room for the final stage of the album's production, he realised that all the tracks he had planned would not fit onto a CD. As a result, "One Love" was edited down to approximately 3 minutes and 53 seconds, "The Heat (The Energy)" was slightly shortened, and "We Eat Rhythm" was omitted. "We Eat Rhythm" was later released on a free cassette with Select magazine in October 1994, titled Select Future Tracks. Howlett later stated that he felt the edited versions of "One Love" and "Full Throttle" could have been omitted from the track listing altogether.[6]
The album artwork for Music for the Jilted Generation was designed by Stewart Haygarth (cover) and Les Edwards (inner). The inner artwork, which alludes to the conflicts between ravers and the police during the era of the 1994 Criminal Justice Act, is particularly well-regarded.[7][8]
Music for the Jilted Generation received critical acclaim. In his review for NME, Dele Fadele called the album "a stormy requiem for those under siege by the heavy-handed, almost fascistic Criminal Justice Bill", adding that the Prodigy "show that you don't need elaborate texts to send a message across, just hints by way of titles, sampled voices and dialogue, and a wide-ranging musical mood that fires the imagination."[11]Andrew Harrison of Select deemed it "possibly the best electronic pop record you'll hear this year, the instant headrush of hardcore techno studded over with irresistible hooks and harnessed to a series of merciless grooves."[14] In the United States, Robert Christgau praised it as "one of the rare records that's damn near everything you want cheap music to be",[10] while Rolling Stone reviewer Paul Evans noted that although its political subtext may be overlooked by American listeners, the "truly trippy" album "generates universal dance fever."[5] Comparing it with the Prodigy's 1992 debut Experience, Alternative Press found that Music for the Jilted Generation "throws much darker shapes" and "slams harder and rawer and covers more ground".[16] At the end of 1994, Music for the Jilted Generation was named the year's ninth-best album by NME,[17] and it was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize.[18]
In a retrospective review for AllMusic, John Bush lauded Music for the Jilted Generation as "an effective statement of intent" in response to the Criminal Justice Act and noted the Prodigy's move towards a "grubbier" and less sample-reliant sound, "away from the American-influenced rave and acid house of the past and toward a uniquely British vision of breakbeat techno that was increasingly allied to the limey invention of drum'n'bass."[3]The Guardian's Alexis Petridis said that the record "broke free of Experience's rave conventions into a style that was entirely the Prodigy's own."[4] "Under the booming breakbeats, thrash guitars and inflammatory soundbites," commented Record Collector, "Howlett's supernova talent was on overdrive".[13] In 2003, David Bowie named it among his favourite music from the 1990s, remarking that it "was just an amazing record. It impressed me quite a lot."[19]
Music for the Jilted Generation was listed by Spin as the 60th-best album of the 1990s.[20] The album was ranked number 83 on Mojo's list of 100 "modern classics" released from 1993 to 2006.[21] It is also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.[6] In 2008, radio presenter Zane Lowe profiled the album on an episode of his BBC Radio 1Masterpieces series.[22]
Track listing
All tracks are written by Liam Howlett, unless indicated otherwise. Tracks 5-9 from the second CD are previously released
In addition to the film samples mentioned above, Liam Howlett incorporated a significant amount of musical material from other artists:[23]
"Break and Enter" contains a sample from Baby D's "Casanova," which was also remixed by Liam.
"Their Law" includes a sample from "Drop That Bassline" by Techno Grooves.
"Voodoo People" contains a sample from "You're Starting Too Fast" by Johnny Pate. The guitar riff is based on "Very Ape" by Nirvana and is played by Lance Riddler.[24][25]
"The Heat (The Energy)" samples "Why'd U Fall" by Lil Louis, "Thousand" by Moby, and 2-Mad's "Don't Hold Back The Feeling."
"One Love" features the "Arabic Muezzin" sample from the ethnic vocals section of a Zero G sample CD by Time + Space Records. The same sample was also used in "Everybody Say Love" by The Magi & Emanation, which was remixed by Liam Howlett.[26]
"3 Kilos," Part One of The Narcotic Suite, is based on a riff sampled from Bernard "Pretty" Purdie's "Good Livin' (Good Lovin')."
"Skylined," Part Two of The Narcotic Suite, features a Proteus/3 preset also used in the musical score by Mark Snow for the The X-Files episode "Deep Throat" (season 1, episode 2).[27]
Liam Howlett – performing, synthesizers, keyboards, sampling, drum machines, production (on tracks 1, 2, 3, 6, 8, 11, 12, and 13) at Earthbound Studios; co-production (on tracks 4, 5, 7, 9, and 10) at The Strongroom; mixing; engineering
