The Prodigy are an English electronic music band formed in Braintree in 1990 by producer, keyboardist, and songwriter Liam Howlett and dancers Keith Flint and Leeroy Thornhill, who respectively went on to contribute vocals and live keyboards on occasion. They were joined by MC and lead vocalist Maxim. AllMusic described the Prodigy as "the premiere dance act for the alternative masses" and "the Godfathers of Rave". They are considered to be pioneers of big beat and in a number of breakbeat led musical genres including breaks and breakbeat hardcore. Liam Howlett describes their style as electronic punk.
The band emerged during the underground rave scene and achieved early success in 1991 with their debut singles "Charly" and "Everybody in the Place", which reached the UK top five. After their debut album Experience (1992), the band moved from their rave roots and incorporated techno and breakbeat influences on their follow-up, the critically acclaimed Music for the Jilted Generation (1994). They reached their commercial and critical peak with their third studio album The Fat of the Land (1997), which went to No. 1 in 16 countries, including the UK and the US, and spawned the UK number one singles "Firestarter" and "Breathe" in 1996. The third single, "Smack My Bitch Up", was a UK top ten hit and generated considerable controversy over its suggestive lyrics and music video. Thornhill left the band in 2000 and Flint died in 2019, leaving Howlett and Maxim as the remaining members. After a hiatus, the band returned to stage back on tour.
The Prodigy are one of the most successful electronic groups of all time, selling an estimated 25 million records worldwide including over 4.7 million albums in the UK. They have scored seven consecutive UK number one albums. The band have won many awards during their career, including two Brit Awards for Best British Dance Act, three MTV Video Music Awards, five MTV Europe Music Awards, and two Grammy Award nominations.
History Formation and early singles success (1989–1991) In 1989, 18-year-old DJ, musician, and songwriter Liam Howlett returned to his hometown of Braintree, Essex after quitting his gig as DJ in the hip-hop group Cut 2 Kill. He had started to make his own music three years prior, beginning with hip-hop and house music before he focused on the rave scene that was gaining popularity at the time. He preferred the non-confrontational atmosphere that raves brought, and began to work DJ sets in the local area while working on original music at home.
It was in Braintree where Howlett met dancers Keith Flint and Leeroy Thornhill at one of his gigs at The Barn nightclub. Flint requested Howlett make a mix tape for him, to which Howlett obliged and returned a cassette several days later with some of his own songs on the other side. Howlett had scratched the word "Prodigy" onto the cassette, referring to the Moog Prodigy synthesizer which he used to make some of the music. The tape was well received by Flint and Thornhill, who developed new dance sequences to the music and suggested to Howlett they begin a group together. The three settled on the Prodigy as their name and enlisted a fourth live member, female dancer and vocalist Sharky (real name Sheila Burke), a friend of Flint's; the group officially formed on 5 October 1990. Their first gig took place in February 1991 at The Four Aces Club (then called Labrynth) in Dalston. It was organised by Ziggy (Ziad Sabir Chowdry), a local promoter who became their first manager. Howlett described the venue as the roughest in London at the time. Shortly before the gig, the group met rapper and MC Maxim, then known as Maxim Reality. Flint pitched for Maxim to join the group on the strength of his connections with the reggae scene and the music contacts he had developed. Maxim failed to turn up at a scheduled meeting, but joined the Prodigy unexpectedly at their first gig, where he improvised lyrics on stage.
Shortly after their live debut, Howlett completed a 10-track demo tape on a Roland W-30 sampling keyboard and approached Tam Tam Records with the hope of securing a record deal, but was declined. He turned to XL Recordings, headed by Tim Palmer and Nick Halkes, who agreed to a meeting and subsequently signed the group to a contract that involved the release of four singles. This culminated in their first official release, the EP What Evil Lurks, in February 1991, containing four tracks that Howlett had produced on the demo. Shortly after signing to XL Records, the Prodigy were reduced to a four-piece when Sharky could no longer commit to the band and left.
In August 1991, the Prodigy released their debut single "Charly", which samples dialogue from the Charley Says series of animated films produced by the Central Office of Information. It became a hit in the rave scene, and reached No. 1 on the UK Dance Singles Chart and No. 3 on the UK Singles Chart, thus catapulting the band into the wider public attention. The success of "Charly" began a trend of mixing dance and rave tracks with cartoon samples, such as "A Trip to Trumpton" by Urban Hype and "Sesame's Treet" by Smart E's, which were a hit with clubbers but not to the critics, who dismissed it as "kiddie rave" or "toytown techno". Howlett realised that a follow-up single in the same style "would have been the downfall of us" and wanted to avoid such labels. He spent earnings from "Charly" on new instruments and studio equipment, expanding the group's sound with a Roland U-220 sound module and TR-909 drum machine. Their second single, "Everybody in the Place (Fairground Edit)", was released in December 1991. It reached No. 2 in the UK, beaten to the top spot by a re-release of "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen following the death of their singer Freddie Mercury.
Experience and Music for the Jilted Generation (1991–1995) In 1991 and 1992, Howlett recorded the band's debut studio album Experience at his home facility, Earthbound Studios. The project began after XL Recordings suggested the group make one, and initially Howlett wanted to produce a "rave concept album" inspired by Pink Floyd, but abandoned the idea due to the risk of limiting his musical ideas. Released in September 1992, the album peaked at No. 12 on the UK Albums Chart and was certified platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) for selling over 300,000 copies. Note: User must define search parameters as "Prodigy". Note: Reader must type "Prodigy" into the Search box and hit Go. The album contains many samples of other artists, and closes with a live track featuring Maxim on vocals. It is considered a landmark release in British rave music, and was an influential record for American DJ and musician Moby for his early studio releases. Its third single, "Fire/Jericho", was on track to become the band's third consecutive UK top ten single, but XL Recordings deleted it from its catalogue and therefore stalled at its peak of No. 11.
By early 1993, the Prodigy had completed their first major nationwide tour. Howlett said that the Prodigy had now become an established act and would continue to produce original dance music as there was still an audience for it. After Experience and the run of singles that accompanied it, the band moved to distance themselves from the "kiddie rave" reputation that had dogged them. The rave scene moved on from its hardcore phase, following the Criminal Justice Act's anti-rave legislation on the horizon. Later in 1993, Howlett released an anonymous white label vinyl, bearing only the titles "Earthbound I" and "Earthbound 2". Its hypnotic, hard-edged sound won wide underground approval. The songs were officially released as "One Love" and "Full Throttle" in September 1993, and reached No. 8 in the UK. By this time the band performed live at least once a week, and had started performing overseas including Germany, the US, and Japan.
In 1993, Howlett started work on the band's second album, Music for the Jilted Generation. Much of the new material was written in response to the Criminal Justice Act as exemplified by "Their Law", co-written and performed with alternative rock band Pop Will Eat Itself. The album opens with a spoken introduction: "So I've decided to take my work back underground to stop it falling into the wrong hands". Howlett explained that "the wrong hands" represented people who considered the Prodigy as a commercial band, and no longer wanted the group to be seen as purely a rave act. It displays a wider range of musical styles and structures with heavy breakbeat-based tracks and the conceptual three-part song "The Narcotic Suite". The Guardian called it a "complex, powerful record that propelled dance music into stadiums with rock'n'roll swagger".
Released in July 1994, the album entered the UK chart at No. 1 and received positive reactions from critics. It was nominated for a Mercury Music Prize, although Howlett had reaffirmed his dedication to making the Prodigy a "hard dance band" commercially successful but without compromise. The band avoided mainstream exposure, declining offers to appear on Top of the Pops and other national television shows in the UK. Their performance of "Everybody in the Place" on the BBC2 television series Dance Energy in 1991 remains their only one on British television. In the ensuing years, their music videos received airplay on MTV Europe which boosted their popularity across the continent.
Following the international success of Music for the Jilted Generation, the band augmented their line-up with guitarist Jim Davies (a live band member who later joined the group Pitchshifter) in 1995 for tracks such as "Their Law", "Break and Enter 95", and various live-only interludes and versions. He was soon to be replaced by Gizz Butt of the band Janus Stark, who remained with the band for the next three years.
Commercial peak with The Fat of the Land and Thornhill's departure (1995–2001) In March 1996, the Prodigy released the single "Firestarter", which marked their first song with a full vocal. Howlett had originally recorded it as an instrumental and thought to incorporate a vocal sample, but upon hearing the track Flint was keen to write and record his own lyric. This surprised Howlett at first, but he agreed to try; Flint said the result sounded "quite ... menacing". The track gained controversy in the UK for its suggestive lyrics; Flint said the father of the first female firefighter to die in a fire complained that the song was disrespectful, which prompted The Daily Mail to attack the band by carrying a front page headline calling for the song to be banned. Howlett clarified that the lyrics are not literal and direct, and Flint said the track is about "stirring people up". Nevertheless, BBC radio presenter Chris Evans refused to air the song on his show, and the Prodigy turned down money to have the music video edited so it could air on Top of the Pops, following multiple complaints.
Despite the controversy "Firestarter" marked the beginning of the band's commercial peak, becoming their first UK number one single which it topped for three consecutive weeks.Roberts, David (2006). British Hit Singles & Albums. London: Guinness World Records Limited. It was also a top-10 hit worldwide and their US breakthrough, peaking at number 30. The music video marked the debut of Flint's radically different appearance, sporting his soon-to-be iconic punk look with nose and tongue piercings, tattoos, and dyed hair, and his shift from dancer to frontman. The Prodigy followed "Firestarter" with the single "Breathe" in November 1996, which also went to number one in the UK and eight other countries. Both singles sold 1.2 million copies each in the UK.