Let's see. What do we know about Fatboy Slim? He's fat, he's a little boy, and he's slim. That's not much to go on, I know, but we'll have to work with it. One day, this slim boy of fat went to Claire's Boutique. There, he bought dangly, plastic earrings in the shape of glittery orange stars. He also bought three bottles of Hard as Nails brand nail-polish and a blue and white plaid scrunchie. Then he flew to England where he would spend the next few years. While hiking through an English forest in the early 90's, he lost one of his glittery plastic earrings. He feared it would never be seen again, and locked himself in his room for a week to mourn.

In 1996, he was visited by a tall stranger dressed in black robes. The stranger said, "I have spent many long years and traveled many long miles to seek you out, Mr. Fat. Long ago, I discovered an object of yours in the woods of Birmingshire." The strange man extended his hand and revealed the plastic earring. "I have come to return it to you, provided you do me one favor." Well, Fatboy Slim wanted this earring very badly-- having been given to him by a clerk at Claire's Boutique, it held great sentimental value. "I will do anything, anything at all," replied Fatboy Slim in earnest. "You must become internationally recognized as the leader of a new movement of a style of music I have created, and you must give it a name." Fatboy thought very hard about this for a moment. Then, he exclaimed: "I will do it!"

The stranger went to his car, retrieving an 808, and returned to Fatboy Slim's doorstep. He pressed a button on the machine, and loud dance music began to pump forth. The room was soon filled with this music-- it combined the repetition of house music with loud beats sampled from old hip-hop tracks and rock music. Fatboy Slim loved what he heard and named the genre immediately. "The beat is so big!"

And so, the beat is so big music-- or "big beat," as it came to be called-- spread through England like wildfire. After the release of his first album, Better Living Through Chemistry, rumors circulated among the press that Fatboy Slim was actually a man named Norman Cook, who used to be in a band called the Housemartins. Fatboy Slim was unable to confirm or deny this rumor due to a serious concussion that left him an amnesiac. And so, it was taken as truth.

Better Living Through Chemistry was picked up by Astralwerks in the U.S. and, riding on the success of the American electronica craze, the album became an instant hit. Shortly thereafter, Fatboy released his sophomore effort, You've Come a Long Way, Baby-- an inside reference to the stranger who had traveled so far to return the treasured earring-- which sold many thousands of copies. Fatboy was now recognized as an international superstar, and his hit songs, "The Rockefeller Skank" and "Praise You," were played daily on MTV.

But the mainstream electronica craze proved to be somewhat short-lived when the masses of teenagers turned their attention to KoRn and polished boy bands. At the turn of the new millennium, in March of the year 2000, Fatboy had not yet completed another album, but knew he had to release something, and fast! Who knew how much longer public interest might hold out? So, he decided to release a compilation of tracks in a DJ mix called On the Floor at the Boutique-- he felt that he could not name the album Claire's Boutique, because he might run into legal problems with the Beastie Boys-- and it was indeed an interesting moment in Fatboy Slim history.

On the Floor at the Boutique compiled 19 songs, released together in a non-stop continuous mix. The record opened with a telling sample of one of the Jungle Brothers saying, "I never worked a day in my life. I just laid back and let the big beat lead me," before kicking into the lead-off track. "Apache" by Michael Viner's Incredible Bongo Band, served as a great starter track-- it was an excellent, obscure 1968 number featuring lively horns and out-of-control psychedelic organ.

Highlights from the album included the Spanish horn-tinged 1988 rap cut "Because I Got It Like That" by the Jungle Brothers, the 1991 straight house number "Can You Feel It" by CLS, the insane late-60s organ spaz-out/go-go funk hybrid of Psychedeliasmith's "Give Me My Auger Back," and of course, the Fatboy Slim classic "Michael Jackson." In all, On the Floor at the Boutique proved itself a truly exceptional mix of obscure big beat tracks, and certainly, a "block rockin'" party album. Unfortunately, it came out about one year too late-- after big beat had enjoyed its moment in the sun and retired to Jacksonville, Florida.

Ultimately, Boutique did serve as a worthy document of the entire big beat genre, and fans of the style found great pleasure in Fatboy's choice of tracks and "mad mixing skillz." In Pitchfork, the record drew comparisons to earlier big beat mixes, especially Bentley Rhythm Ace's superior two-disc installment of the UK-only FSUK compilation series. It was eventually decided that the album would be enjoyed most thoroughly by Fatboy Slim's die-hard fanbase and folks that wanted to own a small library of great big beat tracks, and that everyone else should pretty much ignore the thing. And that's precisely what happened!

-Ryan Schreiber