A Fatboy Slim greatest hits album was always going to be something of a guilty pleasure. Ten years in and most of the tracks on offer here are going to be familiar to anyone with a passing interest in popular music. These are the big beat tracks that got into the charts and under your skin respectively. Think big chunky drums coupled with treacle thick bass lines and a motley assortment of brass stabs and wheezy 60’s organs sounds and you could be talking about any number of tracks from Mr Cook’s Fatboy years.
The refried Northern Soul cut ups of The Rockafeller Skank and Weapon Of Choice still delight and deliver more bounce for the ounce than many contemporary offerings. In an age where dance music has developed a worrying tendency to suck in its cheeks a lot and pose’n’pout, Its songs like this that still carry a hefty chunk of the necessary feel good factor. When they’re playing stuff like this what you look like on a dancefloor doesn’t really matter. Much of the material has been mined “You’ve Come A Long Way Baby” (was that really out in ’98?), however its nice to see some earlier cuts taken from “Better Living Through Chemistry” (Going Out Of My Head, Everybody Loves A Carnival, Santa Cruz). The recent material from the slightly patchy “Palookaville” actually fares better for sitting in this company than it did on initial release. There are also two remixes on offer, both Cornershop (Brimful of Asha) and Groove Armada (I See You Baby) were tracks that I suspect would have sank without trace had they not been given the Cook treatment.
Its not all top drawer stuff though, occasional stumbling blocks turn up in the form of “Demons” and “Bird Of Prey” (Macy Gray and Jim Morrison collaborations respectively). Still that doesn’t mean they are truly terrible, just the efforts that shore up the rear of this collection. Besides that they are redeemed by cheeky little additions like “Sho’ Nuff” which doesn’t get aired nearly as often as it should . The album draws near to a finish with “Slash Dot Com”, as punky in length as it is in content. Then finally we get two new tracks “Champion Sound”, a patchwork of country twang and what sounds like the synth stab from Inner City’s “Big Life”. It’s a grower, first time on your ears it will do little more than piss you off but given a chance it does work. “That Old Pair Of Jeans” comes on like a retread of “Praise You” with its gentle lilting Rhodes loops and gospel fuelled chorus. It’s a treading water effort and doesn’t stand well with everything else that is on offer here.
Worthy of note is the DVD edition that is on offer if you get in early enough. While the videos rarely feature anything but a brief cameo of the man himself Fatboy Slim videos have been known to provide some of the more amusing MTV cuts on offer. You get the downright bizarre “Gangsta’ Trippin” (the one with the household items exploding), “Weapon of Choice” (The one with Christopher Walken), “The Joker” (the one with the cats) and of course “Praise You” (the one with the freaky dancing) and four others. And not a bad one amongst them.
In conclusion this is a pretty solid collection of material from someone who has consistently provided the big beats for the last decade. An unashamed good time romp though the lighter side of club culture and one that should appeal to anyone with a pulse.
