Music for the Jilted Generation

Content

The album is largely a response to the corruption of the rave scene in Britain by its mainstream status as well as Great Britain's Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, which criminalised raves and parts of rave culture. This is exemplified in the song "Their Law" with the spoken word intro and the predominant lyric, the "Fuck 'em and their law" sample. Many years later, after the controversy died down, Liam Howlett derided the title of the album, which he referred to as "stupid", and maintained that the album was never meant to be political in the first place.

Many of the samples featured on the album are sound clips from, or inspired by, movies. "Intro" features a sample that sounds like it's from the film The Lawnmower Man, however it is an American voice on "Intro" instead of Pierce Brosnan's English accent and the words are subtly different (on "Intro" the words are "So, I've decided to take my work back underground, to stop it falling into the wrong hands", but in "The Lawnmower Man" the line is "So I'm taking my work underground, I can't let it fall into the wrong hands again"). "Their Law" samples Smokey and the Bandit, "Full Throttle" features a reverse sample from the original Star Wars movie, and "The Heat (The Energy)" features a sample from Poltergeist III. In "Claustrophobic Sting", a voice whispers "My mind is glowing", similar to HAL 9000 saying "My mind is going" in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey.

When Liam Howlett came to the cutting room for the final phase in the album production he realised that all the tracks he had originally planned for wouldn't fit onto a CD, so "One Love" had to be edited which resulted in a cut of approximately 1 minute and 41 seconds, "The Heat (The Energy)" was slightly cut, and the track called "We Eat Rhythm" was left out. "We Eat Rhythm" was later released on a free cassette with Select magazine in October 1994 entitled Select Future Tracks. Liam Howlett later asserted that he felt the edit of "One Love" and "Full Throttle" could have been dropped from the track listing.

"The Narcotic Suite" includes live flute parts, played by Phil Bent. Originally, Howlett asked Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull to play this part or to give permission to use samples of one of his flute parts; according to Anderson, the letter from Howlett got stuck in his office and when Ian found it, the album was already released.

Artwork

The cover of the inner artwork of the record was analysed in an article published in 2008 in the techno underground Magazine Datacide. The author compares the picture with a persiflage which was published in 2003 on the Kid606 album Kill Sound Before Sound Kills You. The article not only describes the representation of raves in graphic artwork but also describes the marketing strategy of the band with the album and criticises it:

With the picture The Prodigy are taking a stance in the conflict of ravers versus the police in those days. At the same time this statement is used to market a rebellious attitude. The picture is part of the artwork of a record – which is of course a commodity. The teenage (and male) consumer ought to identify himself with the presented rebellion. With the help of the artwork a certain image of The Prodigy is established: They should be seen as anti-stars, who define themselves through refusal and opposition [...].

Reception

Music for the Jilted Generation has received critical acclaim. Rolling Stone gave it three-and-a-half stars, calling it "truly trippy" and that it "generates universal dance fever". Alternative Press said it "throws much darker shapes than its predecessor" and "slams harder and rawer and covers more ground". Robert Christgau called it "one of the rare records that's damn near everything you want cheap music to be". Mojo ranked it number 83 in their "100 Modern Classics" list.

Legacy

Spin ranked it number 60 in their "90 Greatest Albums of the '90s" list. NME ranked it number 9 in their "Top 50 Albums of 1994" list. Q readers voted it the 62nd greatest album of all time in early 1998 and ranked it as one of the best British albums of the last 50 years in 2008. On 4 December 2008, radio presenter Zane Lowe inducted it into his 'masterpieces' by playing the album in full on his BBC Radio 1 show. It is included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.

Track listing

All tracks written by Liam Howlett, unless indicated otherwise.

Personnel