Music for the Jilted Generation

Liam Howlett made Music for the Jilted Generation as The Prodigy’s second album, and XL released it on 4 July 1994. It went to number one in Britain. Experience, in 1992, had been the rave hits. This one is the answer to what the government did next. The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 gave police powers against raves, including the famous clause about music characterised by a succession of repetitive beats. Their Law, with Pop Will Eat Itself, says so in the title and in the lyric. The inner artwork carried a passage about the bill. The music did not turn into a speech. It turned into harder, longer, more rock-shaped rave: Voodoo People, No Good (Start the Dance), One Love, Poison, and The Narcotic Suite in three parts.

Keith Flint and Maxim are voices here in a way the first album only hinted at. Flint was not yet the frontman of Firestarter. He was becoming one. Howlett was still the author, sequencing breaks until they felt like a band. The Narcotic Suite is the part a hits compilation leaves off, and it is where you hear the album’s length as a decision: a group that could have stopped at the singles and instead wrote a side that behaves like a journey. Voodoo People is the one that still opens rooms. The flute sample, the break, the growl. No Good is the one that proves they could write a hook without apologising to the bill they were angry at.

British dance records of 1994 are full of coded anger. This is the one that put the anger on the cover and then went to number one anyway. The Act became law that year. The album is dated 4 July, XL, Howlett’s record with a group that was about to become much more famous and much more fought-over. Jilted Generation is the chapter before that fame, when the enemy was specific and written into the sleeve.

Sources

• Music for the Jilted Generation: XL, 4 July 1994, UK number one, Their Law, and the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act.