While Liam Howlett is generally responsible for the compositions and Maxim Reality is featured on two tracks, this is the first record to include contributions by Keith Flint, who provides vocals on four of the songs and co-wrote three songs, including the two biggest hits, both of which reached No. 1 on the UK singles chart. He is also the vocalist on a cover of the L7 song "Fuel My Fire". The Fat of the Land album cover featured a new logo, dropping "The" and adding an ant silhouette. The album title comes from the old English phrase 'living off the fat of the land', which means living well or being wealthy.
Release
Released in the last week of June, the album hit number one on the Billboard chart on 19 July 1997. Certified double platinum on 2 December that year, it sold 2,600,000 copies in the United States. In 1999, The Fat of the Land entered the Guinness World Records as the fastest-selling UK album. The album was also nominated for the 1998 Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album, but lost to Radiohead'sOK Computer.
Controversy
The National Organization for Women objected to the seeming misogyny of "Smack My Bitch Up", though the band maintains that its true interpretation is "doing anything intensely". Liam Howlett observed, "That record was for the fans. Only brainless people get some stupid message out of it… I'm often misquoted. Some magazine said, 'Liam Howlett says his band are dangerous.' What I said was, 'For this band to survive, it has to be dangerous for us'… I wasn't saying we were dangerous because we're firestarters and we have spiky hair."
Legacy
The album has been featured in a number of music publication lists:
In 1998, Q magazine readers voted The Fat of the Land the ninth greatest album of all time. In 2000, Q placed it at number 47 in its list of the 100 greatest British albums ever. It has also been ranked number 43 in Q's "Best 50 Albums of Q's Lifetime" list, and was included in their "90 Best Albums of the 1990s" and "50 Best Albums of 1997" lists.
Rolling Stone included in their "Essential Recordings of the 90s" list.
Spin ranked it number 20 on their list of the "Top 20 Albums of the Year " list.
NME ranked it number 17 in their 1997 Critics' Poll.
The album is included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, and was nominated for the 1997 Mercury Music Prize. Following Flint's death on March 4, 2019, fans used the hashtag 'Firestarter4Number1' on various social media platforms to replicate the song's success by getting it to the number one spot again; which was done out of respect for Keith Flint and to raise awareness of suicide among men. Shortly afterwards, "Firestarter" returned to the Billboard charts, entering number 13 on its Dance/Electronic Digital Songs Sales chart in its March 26, 2019 issue, marking the first time that this song has appeared on a dance chart of any kind.
Track listing
Personnel
The Prodigy
Keith Flint – vocals
Liam Howlett – keyboards, synthesizers, sampling, programming, production, engineering, mixing, art direction
In 2004, KISS co-founder Gene Simmons covered "Firestarter" on his second solo album, Asshole. "Firestarter" was also covered by Sepultura on their album Kairos, and by Jimmy Eat World on their EP Firestarter.
In 2007, Kula Shaker, led by Crispian Mills, incorporated elements from "Climbatize" and "Narayan" in the song "Song of Love / Narayana" from the album Strangefolk.
