at a glance...

Hometown: Brighton, England
Year Formed: 1995

Personnel:
Norman Cook

Related Artists :
The Housemartins, The Beautiful South, Mighty Dub Katz, Beats International, Freak Power, Fried Funk Food, Wild Child, Cornershop, Beastie Boys, Underworld, The Chemical Brothers, and countless others...

Notes:
Norman Cook, originally with The Housemartins, began dabbling with a series of dance-music alter egos in the early '90s. In 1995 he was commissioned by Damien Harris to record the inaugural tune for Brighton dance label Skint, and Fatboy Slim was born with the "Santa Cruz" single. Cook took up a DJ residency at the soon-to-be-legendary Big Beat Boutique in Brighton, and his "Everybody Needs A 303" broke the Top 10 in Britain. A series of high profile remix jobs and the release of Better Living Through Chemistry saw Fatboy Slim join the Chemical Brothers and Bentley Rhythm Ace as leading lights of the British "big beat" boom. 1998's "The Rockafeller Skank" blew up as the undisputed single of the summer in Britain, and even broke through the defenses of America's technophobic radio programmers, proving to be the crowning achievement of Cook's career so far.

All other music is boring. Buy this album now.

It's really that simple. Dwell on his "artistic" shortcomings -- a taste for cheese, an allergy to subtlety -- at your peril, for Norman Cook has made the album of the year.

Who knows how long the incredibly obvious charms of You've Come A Long Way, Baby will linger? It's certainly possible that combining monstrous breakbeats, soul guitars and loopy acid madness will seem like a silly idea by this time next year. Right now, though, Fatboy Slim's music is making everyone else sound uptight, dated, and dull.

Take "Rockafeller Skank," the undisputed single of the year. Even on this album of relentlessly in-your-face music, it still sounds faster, louder, and funkier than it has any right to. Second single "Gangster Trippin'" is, if anything, an even finer groove. Based on self-referential samples and blasts of Memphis horns, it is the secret cure for winter and should be played loudly on the steps of Congress.

What else do you need to know? There are rockin' guitar riffs on "Build it Up - Tear It Down." "Soul Surfing" is Wilson Pickett meets Shabba Ranks on a big fat E. "Love Island" is a bangin' house number featuring a voice helpfully droning "house...house...house." And "Praise You," a mash-up of a Camille Yarborough torch song, should bring up the house lights a few times in the next year. It's all got a good beat. You can dance to it. What are you waiting for?