In 1994-95, Norman Cook searched for a new identity. The first ten years of his music career had been eventful, moving from the bassist for Britpop band The Housemartins to the turntables of Beats International before moving towards acid jazz with the band Freak Power who entered the scene with Turn On, Tune In, Cop Out. It was when Freak Power began to break apart that Norman Cook decided to go solo under the alias Fatboy Slim, inspired by the Prodigy album Music for the Jilted Generation, released two years earlier.
His first studio album Better Living Through Chemistry released in 1996, two years before the global hit You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby, is a kind of anthology of tracks produced by Cook throughout the period. Here we can find several more downtempo tracks (First Down) and some soulful house (Song for Lindy), but the essence of what would become Fatboy Slim’s success can be found in Everybody Needs a 303, an unbridled funk bash that transforms into an acid-fuelled rave party, and the single Going Out of My Head, his first track to chart in the USA, both rhythmic and chaotic with rock guitars, a syncopated beat and Chicago synths built around an EDM prefiguration and his taste for drops. Give the Po’ Man a Break is by far the biggest track, with an array of drum sections alongside breakbeat, jungle and afro house, the genre that would continue to set dance floors alight even some 20 years on. © Smaël Bouaici/Qobuz