The remixes were all horrendous. I expect people are saying Noisia's was good because it was mostly the original, just with some crap sounds thrown on top. It's what's popular though, or at least was at the time, and ultimately to get it to shift units it had to appeal to the masses.

so did you get into Prodigy because of the crab?

My Prodge collection is mostly CD, The Fat Of The Land was the first album of theirs that I got on vinyl as well as CD because I love the cover on that one. I actually got all of the single releases during that era on vinyl as well because I like the art/style during that time.

How did I get into The Prodigy?
I got into them back in late '93 when I heard their remix of Art Of Noise's Instruments of Darkness on Priority Records' Best Of Rave compilation that a friend in school brought in for me to hear... on frigging cassette lol. Actually that compilation was my first introduction into rave music.

So after hearing it, my brother and I started buying up rave compilations. We picked up this double disc one, that had both Everybody In The Place and Charly. Everybody In The Place was the opener of that compilation and I was blown away. Finally, I got to hear original tracks from them after their Art Of Noise remix. Hearing those three tracks, I knew The Prodigy were different and something special compared to the rest of the artists that were around during the early rave days. So then I began hunting just their releases.

My first official Prodigy release was the Charly/Everybody In The Place digipack. I already knew and loved the two main tracks and saw all of the extra goodies it came with. Then I got Experience and went on to get the rest of the singles/EP releases during that era. What was awesome is that all of the singles during that era were the digipack versions here in the States. I love digipacks over those thin plastic single cases to be honest. But I went on to collect both versions of each Experience single release.

Interesting. Always cool to know when North American people get into Prodigy from their Experience days.

I had a teacher tell he went to a gig, and met them, around 1993. And when FotL came out he didn't like; he thought it was too commercial.


I was too young in those days, but I really wish I knew how it was to keep an eye out for such underground stuff, at every new release. From a North American, pre-internet point of view, I mean.

I bought the Best Of Rave compilation that my friend in elementary school showed at my local Wal-Mart the very next day. Yes, Wal-Mart of all places! I remember coming home to my older brother and being like "You have to hear the music that I just heard! We need to get this now!" And we went to Wal-Mart and found the compilation, which is how it all began.

Luckily the mall had a few music stores back in the early 90's that were much better than the bigger corporate stores. I was able to find lots of stuff between them. I just had to keep going to the local music shops and would always look for The Prodigy in the rave section. If something new that I didn't have came in, I would get it. Up until Baby's Got A Temper that's how I got all of their releases. Stores here in the States carried many of their releases for a while. Baby's Got A Temper was the last single that I bought/saw in stores. With the release of Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned, I had to start ordering their singles online if I wanted to get them. Most stores didn't carry any of the singles anymore, which was a pretty sad thing to watch happen over time. I was stuck using the internet to complete my collection from then on. Of course, you can still find some of their albums here and there in stores, well whatever stores that are left since it's really only the big corporate stores with a CD section that is getting smaller and smaller, but I pretty much have to order everything that I want online now.

I used to draw The Prodigy Experience era logo all over my school books and around school wherever I can. I always had kids coming up to me asking "What the hell is The Prodigy?" It wasn't until The Fat Of The Land came out during my middle school years that they became more known here. The DJ at the final dance to celebrate the last year at middle school even played Firestarter and Breathe at the dance. Here I was standing as my favorite band for the last few years that no one in my school even knew about were now being played at my school dance with everyone dancing to it. I was kinda happy and pissed all at the same time lol. Happy because they were finally getting known here in the States and getting the respect that they deserved... and pissed because I felt everyone was just a poser dancing to them now when for years I had to hear "What the hell is The Prodigy?"

That must be hard, looking for underground stuff in the USA. Here, there's a Quebec-only music chain store that does a good job in terms of music selection, but it's not perfect (for example it lacked proper british dubstep during the dubstep heyday). And forget about the singles. HMV would come in second place, but I think HMV sucks. Else it's all the other big corporates.

I know that feel, of other people getting into what you like, though much later. That'd be some sort of hipster feeling, liking something "before it was cool".

We got a Rough Trade in Brooklyn, about 20-30 minutes from where I live.
It's good, but not great.

Tower Records was great, but now closed.

The best store of all time, hands down, definitely had to be the Virgin Megastore in Times Square... of course, now closed.
Three frigging floors worth of music.... an amazing eletronic section.
Plus they had an import section that was pretty frigging sweet.
Anytime that I went into the city, I always went to the Virgin Megastore.
I never went there without coming home without at least 4 or 5 CDs every time.

Just not the same ordering online, all the fun is gone.
One of my closests friends was from meeting at a Tower Records after he saw the stack of CDs that I was buying in the electronic section.

I worked at FYE, a small chain of music/video stores. They had a "TECHNO" section, which included all styles of electronic music. No one there knew anything about electronic music, so I was put in charge of that section with keeping it in proper order and categorizing it correctly. I really took pride in my well organized techno section. I kept the sign for the "TECHNO" section when I left.

What happened to those Maida Vale tracks? They were awesome and recorded in top album quality.

I think there was one track they did record and didn't play which I think was SMBU.
Correct me if I'm wrong but they only played: Voodoo People, Spitfire, Poison, and Firestarter.

They played SMBU with new Shahin Badar's recorded vocals merged into Firestarter.


The one which stays unaired is Hotride i think.

yep it was hotride.

somebody has a FLAC recording of this session? cant find my one anymore

only voodoo and poison are available in flac, others not.

some of the tracks are on More Music For The Jilted generation CD2