I have to thank the person who, in the comments section on ‘Firestarter’, pointed me in the direction of this version of the Prodigy’s controversial classic. (Folks, please put your name in the comments!) It’s a complete reinvention – as all the best cover versions are – ‘Firestarter’ as performed by ‘White Album’ era Beatles, and sung by Scott Walker. Still, it retains the song’s ominous, bubbling nastiness, even as it lulls to you to sleep with its droning lullaby beat. It’s performed by Torre Florim, of Dutch band De Staat, and came to prominence on the soundtrack for the video game ‘Just Cause 3’.
‘Honky Tonk Women’, by The Pogues
If ever there were a band to rival the Stones for hellraising and general debauchery, it’s the Pogues. And they covered one of Jagger & Richards debauched classic ‘Honky Tonk Women’ as the ‘B’-side to their single ‘Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah’ in 1988. So this must be officially the most rock ‘n’ roll record ever made…? Unusually for a Pogues song at the time, lead vocals are taken by Spider Stacy rather than Shane MacGowan, but the raucous air remains intact. This cover version doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but then sometimes you just don’t need to.
Right in the middle of the Britpop years, we finally get a proper punk number one!
Firestarter, by The Prodigy (their 1st of two #1s)
3 weeks, from 24th March – 14th April 1996
Obviously ‘Firestarter’ is not musically ‘punk’ – more techno-metal – but everything else is pretty on point. The aggression, the repetitive, nuclear siren riff, the nastiness of the lyrics: I’m the bitch you hated, Filth infatuated, Yeah…
Within the song’s opening ten seconds, it is already one of the grittiest sounding number one singles we’ve heard. Everything about it seems designed to put you on edge, to make your hairs stand on end – the harsh drums and bass, the abrasive riff, the metal on metal grinding rhythm. It’s not often a song this raw, this unapologetically hardcore, crosses over into huge mainstream success.
I was ten when this came out, but I remember it feeling and sounding dangerous. I’m the Firestarter, Twisted Firestarter… I’m pretty sure it made the evening news, amid fears around the arson-promoting lyrics and Keith Flint’s performance in the video, in which he flings himself about an abandoned tunnel, covered in piercings, with his memorable reverse-Mohican hairdo. Watching it now, it’s amazing to think that many stations refused to play it before the watershed – there’s no violence, no swearing, nothing sexual; just Flint’s unhinged performance. But, to be fair, it is terrifying, especially when he pauses to stare, dead-eyed into the camera (and perhaps quite poignant, now, knowing that he had his demons).
The Prodigy were already a hugely successful dance act, and had been scoring Top 10 hits since the early nineties. So the lead single from their third album was bound to be big. But ‘Firestarter’ was almost a reinvention – a heavier, rockier sound, presumably brought about by the fact that guitars were ‘in’ in 1996. Which brings us back to the troubles we’ve had in defining ‘Britpop’ recently: Prodigy weren’t Britpop – they were a dance act that pre-dated the genre – but it’s hard to argue ‘Firestarter’ and the subsequent ‘The Fat of the Land’ album weren’t huge Britpop moments.
We do have to acknowledge that much of this song is a patchwork of samples: from the Breeders, and a Chicago house group called ‘Ten City’. Even the ‘Hey! Hey! Hey!’ refrain is from Art of Noise. But if ever there were an argument against sampling being lazy, it is in a banger like this, the fact that the band heard something in those three wildly disparate songs and creating something fearlessly new.
And yet, I will say that, as great and thrilling as ‘Firestarter’ is, it’s neither The Prodigy’s best single, nor their most controversial. Their best will also make #1 before the end of 1996, while their most controversial was the 3rd release from ‘The Fat of the Land’, the ever-charming ‘Smack My Bitch Up’.
The UK Number Ones Blog 