Fatboy Slim
Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars
[Skint/Astralwerks]
Rating: 4.2
After enjoying a few years of relative popularity, it seems big-beat's appeal
and relevance are waning. Like a designer club drug that delivers heady waves
of euphoria before cutting out, leaving the brain depressed and deprived of
seratonin, this hip-hop/breakbeat/techno (with a dash of rock n' roll) hybrid
is rapidly fading. True, big-beat by the likes of the Chemical Brothers, the
Propellerheads, and our subject at hand, Fatboy Slim has gone strong for a
good two and a half years-- far longer than your average hit of ecstasy.
After listening to Slim's latest, Halfway Between the Gutter and the
Stars, it seems we've reached come-down time. And surprise! It's no
fun at all.
Like technology, the nature of electronic music remains in an eternal state of
flux: constantly changing, evolving, and effortlessly remaining hip. Kitschy
disco throwbacks and penchants for analog keyboards aside, subgenres like
drum-n-bass and big-beat that combine, rather than defy, previous influences
have a relatively short shelf-life. The dank, yellow-fluorescent glow of
stagnation that emanates from Halfway is emblematic of the decline.
I'm tempted to give Norman Cook the benefit of the doubt and assume that he's
at least slightly aware of this. After all, this is the guy who, on his solo
debut, Better Living Through Chemistry, sampled the Who's "I Can't
Explain" and transformed it into the hyper break-filled dancefloor throwdown
"Going Out of My Head." This is the guy who carved funk out of the light
jangle of Cornershop's "Brimful of Asha." These previous recordings and a
slew of others, dependent on Slim's often impeccable taste for hooks and
samples, have proven him able to reach virtuoso status when it comes to
filling the dancefloor. In short, he's proven himself as a shrewd producer
whose intelligence is not to be discounted.
It's perhaps because of these past successes that Slim seems a divided man on
Halfway, his undeniably difficult third LP. At times, he continues his
role of happy-go-lucky party music mastermind, as on the acid-house-tinged
anthem "Star 69" or the similar "Retox." Both tracks feature incessant vocal
samples of only a few words over throbbing, gooey beats. Slim's playing it
safe here, doing what he knows he does best: mindless music meant for little
more than dancing. Of course, with the current state of big-beat, these
tracks sound all but redundant, but you can't fault a guy for preserving what
he helped popularize, right?
Slim, though, apparently feels some pull from his previous Top 40 hits and
tries a few stabs at reclaiming that popularity from the masses. If his
big-beat tracks on Halfway are somewhat of a musical stagnant pond,
the more commercial-minded tracks here are like the resident fish flailing
and gasping for oxygen once the pond has dried up. The record's first single,
"Sunset (Bird of Prey)," with its techno-lite arrangement and spooky Jim
Morrison sample, is a glaring example. It's a mere quarter-inch away from
Enigma territory and would have fit nicely on Pure Moods 3 had it been
released in time.
Even worse than "Sunset" are the collaborations with neo-soul poseur, Macy
Gray. "Love Life," in particular, allows Gray to ramble aimlessly for almost
seven minutes over a quasi-funk/R&B; beat, rather than adhering to standard
verse-chorus-verse conventions. At the song's conclusion, she breaks it down
"Sesame Street"-style: "Said I'm gonna A ya/ And I'm gonna B ya/ And I'm gonna
C ya, gonna D ya/ If I E ya, 'cause I wanna F ya/ Yeah, I wanna F ya/ Yeah, I
wanna F ya." It's all really too embarrassing.
So, Slim gave it a third shot and ended up with a lackluster-- spotty at best--
finished product. Can't blame him for trying, as the problem lies more with
the everchanging landscape of electronic music and the dying big-beat genre
than it does with his technical skill. To paraphrase a character from last
year's British slice-of-club-life film, Human Traffic, "When the
comedown outweighs the fun, the party's over." This is exactly the problem
with Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars, and most of the popular
big-beat currently being offered. I hear two-step garage is gonna be massive,
though. Can't wait.
-Richard M. Juzwiak