The Prodigal Son Returns

Nothing dies faster than dance music. Like the mayfly, dance tracks flutter then splutter in the course of their brief moment in the Ibiza sun. Indeed, entire genres of dance music have come and gone in the space of an afternoon – their existence barely registered by more than four single individuals.

Musicobiologists have identified the following, all too brief, life cycle of most dance tracks;

1) White-label obscurity
2) Word on the street notoriety
3) ‘Weren’t quite sure what to do on a stage for Top of The Pops’ commercial property
4) ‘Radio Edit’ included on compilation album called something involving ‘Chilled’ or ‘Ibiza’ or ‘Anthems’, or all three …..boring uniformity.
5) Garage forecourt non-entity.
6) Historical curiosity.

Progress through the life stages can take a whole summer, however scientists working at the massive Hadron particle accelerator in Switzerland reportedly managed to get the last Chemical Brothers album to stage five in a mere nanosecond.

Dead dance music infests the entire planet – Ecomusicologists have discovered that there there is not a cubic litre of seawater that does not bear background traces of that annoying little bell sample from Doug Lazy’s ‘Let it Roll’. It infects the entire water table like Kid Shirt’s giant mushroom.

But what about music that enters stage seven? That festers and mutates in the bottom of a Woolworths bargain bucket, - seeping out into the sewers where it is re-animated by cold, inhuman, glassy-eyed reptiles abandoned after the last ninja turtles craze – rising again to walk the streets – the music of the undead, without heart, without soul – the new Prodigy Album….

This is what happens when music returns from the dead. When the ‘clever one’ with the blond spiky hair ditches the big black guy and the other one, to produce a darker, more personal album (Did they learn nothing from Massive Attack?). We get something dark and frightening. We get a sample from D-Train’s ‘You’re the One For Me’ - the cheesy Essex glamour of this track somehow…........soiled.

We get that ace track that sounded really good during the BMW kaleidoscopic tricycle ad the last time we were at the cinema.

We get….erh….that’s about it really.

The undead shamble around a bit….they raise their arms in futile gestures….we wonder if they’d have got away with it if it wasn’t for us pesky interferin’ kids…..After a while, they start to smell a bit and are faintly embarrassing…..they shuffle of to where they came from. “And this time stay dead!” we shout, as we push them blinking into the sunshine……..




(For something truly scary, find the Prodigy version of ‘Ghost Town’ here….)