Born Norman Cook in 1963, Fatboy
Slim turned the world on to trip-hop electronica dance beats
in the summer of 1998. Having released the somewhat popular
Better Living Through Chemistry album back in 1996,
Fatboy Slim was poised to do something great when his 1998
You've Come a Long Way Baby dropped like a sonic
wonder. Powered by the popularity of "the Rockafeller
Skank" which was featured in one of the popular Gap
Clothing Co. television commercials, You've Come a Long
Way Baby began selling well in the United States. Yet
it was not until Spike Jonze
put on his dancing shoes for the production of the "Praise
You" music video that Fatboy Slim would become a household
name. When MTV placed "Praise You" into heavy
rotation, many viewers mistakenly thought it was Fatboy
Slim doing the dance steps in the video.
Riding high on the success of his
album, Fatboy Slim was approached by the Beastie Boys to
remix one of their songs from Hello
Nasty (1998). The result was a remix that was so
good that the band chose it for the music video in place
of their original lp version. The track later reappeared
with a much-coveted spot on the Beastie
Boys: Sounds of Science Anthology.
When the British music magazine NME interviewed Fatboy
Slim they asked: What record do you wish that you would
have made in 1998? His answer was kind of surprising: "'Intergalactic:
The Prisoners of Technology Remix" (unreleased version).
The Prisoners of Technology's
first remix of 'Intergalactic' is excellent, but I managed
to end up with the only copy of it because the Beastie Boys
nixed it. They didn't like it. It's brilliant - the speed
is doubled up, it's a really pokey drum'n'bass mix - but
what they did is speed the Beastie Boys vocals up slightly
and, as I found out later when I remixed the next one (Body
Movin'), the Beastie Boys are a bit precious about that.
And so they released an instrumental version on the 12"
instead, because they didn't want the vocal version released.
But they made one test acetate of it, and the people from
the record company very kindly gave it to me, so I have
the only copy in existence. It's great, because whenever
I play it around the world everyone just kind of freaks
out when they hear it. It's such a shame because it's my
second favorite track this year, and it didn't even get
released."
Recently on June 20 2006, Norman Cook put out a Fatboy Slim greatest hits collection entitled "Greatest Hits: Why Try Harder." To coincide with the release, there was a five track single for "That Old Pair of Jeans" which featured an interesting remix of "Praise You" contributed by none other than Mike D and Adrock.
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