THE 1000 BEST SONGS IN THE WORLD EVER.

925-Prodigy-No Good (Start the Dance.)

1994-Number 4 single.

Best Bit-At 0.28. I suppose if you are one of the main innovators of new musical genres that are embraced by millions, then you are quite entitled to call yourselves, ‘Prodigy.’

The Prodigy (see also best songs 151) were formed in Braintree, Essex, England, in 1990, through a chance encounter the previous year, when Keith Flint (1969-2019) met Liam Howlett at a ‘Rave’ that Howlett was DJing. Flint was so impressed with Howlett’s performance, and after requesting, and receiving a ‘mixtape’ from Howlett, on a cassette, they decided to get together and form the band along with Flint’s friend, the keyboardist, and dancer Leeroy Thornhill, and the vocalist Maxim Reality. The original line up was completed by the female dancer and vocalist ‘Sharky. At the time of writing only Howlett and Maxim Reality remain as the current members of the Prodigy, as Sharky left the group in February 1991, just four months after becoming a member. Leeroy Thornhill stayed until 2000, appearing on the first three Prodigy Albums, and Keith Flint was still a member of the group when he was found dead on March 4th, 2019, at the age of 49. The Prodigy who have sold in excess of 25 million records worldwide took their name from the ‘Moog Prodigy’ synthesizer, which Howlett in his early youth had initially used to make music on.

The Prodigy released their debut single ‘Charly’ (UK Number 3) in August, 1991, which sampled dialogue from the ‘Charley Says’ series of animated films aimed at children, and produced and released by the ‘Central Office of Information,’ The song became a hit on the ‘Rave’ scene, leading to a spate of tracks mixing Dance and Rave tracks with cartoon samples, such as ‘A Trip to Trumpton,’ by Urban Hype (UK Number 6-1992) and ‘Sesame’s Treet,’ by Smart E’s,’ (UK Number 2-1992.) Although these songs were a hit with clubbers, and the general public, the fad was dismissed by music critics who called these songs ‘Kiddie Rave,’ and ‘Toytown Techno.’

The music produced by the Prodigy can be described as a mixture of ‘Techno,”Breakbeat Hardcore,”Hardcore Techno,’ and ‘Rave,’ The Prodigy, and mainly because of Liam Howlett, are considered to have pushed forward the boundaries of ‘Electronic Dance Music’ in it’s development, alongside other 1990’s Dance acts, including the Chemical Brothers, (see also best songs 300 and 53) and Fatboy Slim (see also best songs 950-760-387 and 95.) These three artists and others made ‘Big Beat’ Electronic Music.’Big Beat’ features heavy and distorted drum beats at tempos between 100, and 140 beats per minute, These tracks are often accompanied by ‘Punk’ style vocals, and sounds such as spoken word samples, and dialogue from film and television. ‘Big Beat’ tracks have distorted synthesizer basslines, with conventional Pop, House and Techno song structures, and sounds that includes ‘crescendos,’ ‘builds’, ‘drops,’ and extended ‘drum rolls.’

‘No Good (Start the Dance’) was the second of four singles released from the Prodigy’s second studio Album ‘Music for the Jilted Generation,’ from July 1994. ‘No Good (Start the Dance’) was written and produced by Liam Howlett, and features two prominent samples. One is the 1971 song ‘Funky Nassau’ from the Nassau, Bahamas based Funk group ‘The Beginning of the End,’ and the other is a vocal lift from the 1987 ‘House/Garage House’ track ‘You’re No Good for Me,’ by the American singer Kelly Charles. The vocal sample of ‘You’re No Good for Me’ has been used on numerous other songs over the years, including on hits for ‘Hithouse,’ with ‘Jack to the sound of the Underground,’ (UK Number 14-1988) and Oxide & Neutrino’ with ‘No Good 4 Me,’ (UK Number 6-2000.)

‘Come on, who can, who can, can hear the bass drum? You’re no good for me, I don’t need nobody, don’t need no one, that’s no good for me.’