Better Living Through Chemistry
Fatboy Slim
1996
Album Summary
WikipediaYou can almost feel where each song is going before it goes there. Haters may call this "predictable" but I call it a "goddamn good time". [Looks directly at camera to address Haters] Lighten up, Haters, this guy's name is Fatboy. He named himself Fatboy. Were you expecting restraint? Did you think Fatboy was gonna sit down at the control table and slowly, tastefully nibble and sample. This is a feast of repetition. A-
I’m not chewing my face off in a club in the 90s, where this music fits in. It’s not really my bag in general and is very out of place in my ‘working from home on a wed morning’ playlist.
I should go back to Fatboy Slim more often. Really takes me back and reminds me of the Jet Set Radio soundtrack
Most of us lack the privilege of enjoying this in a party context but what I can say as an armchair listener is that Fatboy Slim possesses a lot of youthful energy and creativity and knows what he wants out of a record but I'd enjoy this more if it were 20 minutes shorter. But again, this wasn't made for me to enjoy as an album, it was made to provide an hours worth of ass shaking for DJs. Also sounds like you could flip some dope samples off this.
Really interesting album. This album is convincing me that I should give more of their stuff more listens. I'm giving this one 4 stars.
Fun! Catchy, energetic dance music. Good for working and staying energized.
The weekend starts here Give po man a break 10th and crenshaw Punk to funk
Really enjoyed this. Made me feel like an extra in a rave scene. Good working music. Fun. Easy. Not my genre at all but it clicked with me today for some reason.
never heard this one before. I'ts great even though its not full of hits as YCALWB.
Klassisk electronica-album dette. Jeg var kanskje hakket mer team chemical brothers enn fatboy slim i gamledager, men er jo noen flotte låter her med big beat souffle, everybody loves a filter, song for lindy og going out of my head.
energetic, diverse, and very 90s. really enjoyed it. some of these will be in rotation on workout playlists
Saved Prior: None Off Rip: Song For Lindy, Santa Cruz, Going Out Of My Head, Everybody Needs A 303, Give The Po' Man A Break, First Down Cutting Edge: None Overall Notes: I had prior exposure to his bigger hits, but this was fun head-bopping dance music. The repetition hits perfectly and this would be super fun to dance to at a party. Not what I would call essential listening, but a fun listen nonetheless.
So far I only knew Fatboy Slim by name. I'm not entirely sure what I expected his music to sound like, but it wasn't this. I sort of liked it though, I think. I'll need to listen to this one more than once to be able to deliver a final verdict, but for now a 4 will do.
Various electronic music in the one album. A pleasant combination of a lot of sounds in each track. But this isn't Fatboy Slim best album.
Fat boy slim albums back to back…enjoyed this one better than you’ve come a long way baby
Starting of great.... much better than his famous album... trailed off with a lot one paced stuff!
Pretty good for the genre. Definitely fun to listen to, would return to. 7/10.
Listened to some of it, and it was very cool, but I was in a slower paced mood.
Started with Fatboy Slim and listened to prodigy after. The difference for me is so huge that I can't give more than 3/5. I like the genre and listen to it regularly but fatboy is often a bit too boring for me.
These 90s dance albums are always so good as individual songs, but they're always like an hour long, so that takes away from them in my eye
This doesn't quite do it for me, I'm not sure why. I like his later albums more. Fave track - "Santa Cruz"
Conocida Going Out of My Head. Me ralla un poco el disco. Guay Sunset 303.
I would say I liked this a bit more than You've Come a Long Way Baby, but only by a hair as the sound broadly was slightly more enticing.
Ja ok. Wirkt insgesamt bisschen beliebig, mit schlimmen Fillern dazwischen (The Weekend Starts Here). Everybody Love's A 303 hab ich aber geliebt damals, Give The Po' Man ... und Santa Cruz gefallen mir sehr gut, und Michael Jackson war zwar auf dem Original nicht drauf, erinnert mich aber trotzdem daran wie super ich Mr. Cook und seinen Hang zu Smiley-Paraphernalia und MDMA damals fand. Und klar, El Sympatico isser ja auch immer noch. 2,7. Kennt ihr die Geschichte, wie damals nach der Trennung der Housemartins (Bassist Norman Cook/Fatboy Slim hatte die Band verlassen um erstmal als Mighty Dub Katz und Pizzaman die Solokarriere zu starten), wütende/beleidigte Fans sein Haus belagerten und dabei immer wieder Panic/"Hang the DJ" von den Smiths sangen? Ich fands lustig.
I’ve always thought that many DJ/Producers were better DJs than producers. FBS definitely broke that rule on his next (1998) release, but we can talk about that later. This LP has a more stripped-down sound. The singles are energetic, the sampling is clever, the use of breaks keeps the momentum going. Back in the day this was pretty cutting edge.
This album came out around the time I started at university and was the soundtrack to plenty of student house parties (okay, mostly nights spent on my own in my university room). Despite that element of nostalgia, listening back now it all feels a bit thin. You can see glimpses of where he started to take the whole Big Beat thing mainstream, but I think, for my money, others were probably doing it in more interesting ways. At the time I preferred label mates ‘Lo Fidelity Allstars’ but now I’m a bit nervous of going back and finding out they weren’t as good as I thought they were at the time. Maybe it’s best to leave some albums in the past. It’s a two and a half stars album for me, but I’ll give it an extra half for the sake of nostalgia.
Production: 12/20 Songwriting: 7/20 Innovation: 15/20 Bangers: 5/20 Emotional response: 10/20 =49 Give po man a break =
The start, Song for Lindy, had my attention but he lost me for the next two songs. I was starting to write some negative shit based on where I thought this was headed but then Going out of my Head also worked for me. I'm such a big "Can't Explain" fan I had to take myself with a grain of salt. The next couple of songs on the album kept moving in good directions. One thing that piqued my curiosity was the song title "Everyone Needs a 303". FBS is a brit and certainly doesn't look like the type to make songs about rifles. It turns out a 303 is also a bass synthesizer and presumably provides the excellent bass lines on the track. 10th and Crenshaw was a low point on the album; it was noisy and lasted for way too long. The album didn't recover from that. I found most of the distorted voices on various tracks to be largely boring. I was pleasantly surprised by the bits I liked but a higher rating was never contemplated.
Decent. One of the first dance albums I bought. A lot of it seems to have predicted what would come over the next few years. First half better than second half.
Fun jams and fat beats, but they tend to drag on a little. I wish this was a more concise record.
Pretty good. Definitely not an expert on dance music, but I think it's well mixed, good sampling. Each of the tracks is a little bit long, but nothing major. May or may not listen to it again
Decent. One of the first dance albums I bought. A lot of it seems to have predicted what would come over the next few years. First half better than second half.
I listened to Fatboy Slim a fair amount decades ago, but I realized I recognized these songs more from commercials. It might be considered unfair that his music is commodified, but it's a good guess that he's been fairly compensated.
Great first half love that part, kind of goofy back half that hasn't aged well
Dated, but some nostalgia with "Santa Cruz" "Going Out of My Head" "The Weekend Starts Here"
Disfruton sin duda, seguramente ganaría con más escuchas. Casi todo me gustó pero diría que nada me flipo. Pongo 3 pero deberían ser 3,5.
Me molan las canciones que se acercan más al d&b en general, me recuerda a cuando jugaba a la Wii a algún juego de estos de carreras de monster trucks, todo lo que sea algo de percusión acelerada que recuerde a videojuego pa dentro. Por otro lado hay otras canciones que me recuerdan a alguna intro de serie de animación cutre de Jetix o algo así pseudo-edgy y eso es más palmada. En mi opinión: La mejor es "Everybody needs a 303" y la peor Going out of my head. Yo que se peña, pues palante, chico gordo slim. Bobby Out.
I only know of Fatboy Slim through his bigger singles (Weapon of Choice, The Rockafeller Skank), but this is still very listenable.
3.5 really. A lotta fun and very enjoyable but not something that I am likely to return to.
‘Twas ok. No bangers but I bet I would like it if I was in the right frame of mind/location
It happens that I was given two Fatboy Slim albums over the course of two days, this album and You've Come a Long Way Baby. I'd like to judge this one solely on its own merits and not overly in comparison to the other. But that's kind of unavoidable. Of the two, I think You've Come a Long Way probably played better in the clubs, while I think Better Living Through Chemistry plays better for everyday listening. Some of the songs are just incredibly pretty to listen to, like "Song for Lindy" and "Santa Cruz." The sampling is a little less sophisticated on this album. I can recognize a lot of the samples FS used. But I actually enjoy being able to catch them, so I don't hold it against him. My main critique would be that FS tends to make some of his songs overly long without really adding anything to them to justify the 5+ minute length and they just draaaag ("The Weekend Starts Here" and "Everybody Needs a 303" are examples of this). If a song is really in the groove, I'm not going to be looking for the escape hatch three minutes in. Fave songs: Song for Lindy, Santa Cruz, The Sound of Milwaukee, Punk to Funk
Fun album, not as fun as some slightly later stuff, but certainly set the stage for a lot that followed in the 90s and 00s
YAWN. Electronic rarely does it for me. I will admit there were a few toe tappers, but where were the samples that really shine like his hits weapon of choice, praise you and funk soul brother, not in this album, that’s for sure. This album started out too housy and industrial, at its best Matrix fight scene, it was a 2, but then it got a little more poppy and won me over to a 3. PS could Fatboy Slim be cancelled today for appropriating the word “fat?”
I recognize that people like this, but it's just not for me. Some good beats and all, but will likely never listen to this album again.
Eh this kind of skanky UK techno stuff doesn't do it for me, it never really goes anywhere and drags on too much. I'm sure if I was 10 years older I would love it and have cool memories of doing drugs in dirty dive bar toilets while it played, but it just sounds grimy and annoying really. 2/5.
1.5/5. I don't understand how people enjoy this type of music, very unenjoyable, makes me a little insane listing to this stuff.
I liked it, but I can't really just listen to 45 minutes of dance music. I didn't listen to the whole project. It seemed like it pulled from some serious hip hop influences and I liked give the po man a break. Good album, just not for me, 4/8.
I don’t believe this has aged very well although I was never really a fan even in the 90s.
Not really my style -- funky and metallic, without much lyrical substance or 'groove'. It just felt empty to me and a bit boring. Some cool moments, but overall not my thing.
Long, repetitive, a bit grating by the end. Wish it had more lyrics. 2.5
Not the best Fatboy Slim album and hasn't aged as well as others from the big beat genre IMO. "Going Out Of My Head" is the big song that I remembered from this album, and it's decent at best. "Song For Lindy" sounded familiar for another reason, turns out was sampled in the much better Love Island on his next album.
This was probably a very important album for its time, and electronic music, but didn't connect with me.
You really need to be at a rave, sweating and high on acid to be into this music. Sitting at home reading the paper it was a bit too high NRG and it got really repetitive. It’s better than Chemical Bros but not as good as say Daft Punk or the OGs Kraftwerk
Enjoyable enough but not a type of music I would ever really choose to listen to. I need a little bit more going on
Säkert bra om man lyssnar på fest eller vid något mer lättsamt tillställning. Funkar inte alls till jobb dock
A couple of decent tracks on this. 'Song For Lindy' is great, as well as 'Everybody Needs A 303'. 'First Down' is also fun. Rest of this album is repetitive filler and hasn't aged all that well.
I think I may be missing the gene to truly enjoy EDM. Absolutely sure it would sound better in a club than it did while walking my dog in the woods.
Da un poco las vibes de que si lo escuchas, ella es demasiado madura para su edad no? Me siento como si tuviese 50 años y bebiese burn
Overreliant on one to two vocal samples to drive each track, this album fails to impress in terms of originality and variation no matter how catchy some of the underlying DnB is. The sampling and arrangement brilliance of the last two songs show how the others could have been so much better.
Gets a bit samey and doesn't seem to have the layers that Slim's next album possesses.
Not for me. Perhaps I'd like it more if I were playing laser tag instead of working.
Maybe if I was at a rave with Molly, but doesn't work with headphones while working
Boring ! Wenigstens erscheint vorm inneren Auge eine Montage mit Szenen aus romcoms feat. Cameron Diaz
The title is a dead giveaway. This might be OK if you are full of E's but otherwise it's just someone messing about in the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Utter tripe.
I dunno, this album just feels pretty "basic" to me. Not my thing so I won't judge too harshly. It seems like goofy fun spring break music for white college kids who like to drink beer. Probably not a fair comparison but given the music coming out around this time from Boards of Canada, Aphex Twin, Kruder + Dorfmeister, Third Eye Foundation, or Nightmares on Wax this just feels really Half-assed.