Fatboy Slim – You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby (1998)

Fatboy Slim became a household name with this release. It’s a decent listen for sure, and is a nice mixture between big beat and other electronic sounds. Let’s dive in and have a listen, track by track.

We begin with the eerie sounding Right Here Right Now which is an EDM classic. It takes a while to build up, but when it hits you, it hits very well. It’s a great dance number with many different sections to boot. It has a great midsection and climax, short story of the tune is that is a great tune to listen to, despite the fact it goes well over five minutes. It finishes with some interesting radio chatter, before leading into the next tune.

The next one perhaps is even better. The Rockafeller Skank is an optimistic and cheerful tune with some country-esque Telecaster sounding licks and some other great samples. It never bores once through the listen, and has an ear busting (in a good way) climax with more multi-sectioned goodies sound wise. A good listen.

Fucking In Heaven is ridiculous sounding for THAT sampled quote. This one seems a little overkill for that reason, it’s a good piece without sounding great. It still has its moments, sounding rather comical. It’s throwaway, but decent for a South Park sort of tune. It does have some, once again, good midsection based sounds. Nice.

Gangster Trippin is a much more listenable tune than the previous one. It sounds really good, with alternating sections as well with some alternating samples and melodies. This sort of music isn’t played much at parties or in regular day-to-day life, so it is worth a listen for that purpose. Much like the other songs on this album, it is fairly repetitive, mind you.

The next piece is fairly meh. Build It Up, Tear It Down is merely an exercise in doing that to a dance track, with mixed results. No doubt a fan favourite, but it just lacks quality. Better examples of dance tracks out there have done this sort of thing. Just very, meh.

Following that is a vast improvement. Kalifornia has some weird sound effects and samples to boot. But it’s quite enjoyable. Suitable for a road trip or something similar, it’s a good listen throughout. The beats are quite heavy for sure, propelling this piece along very well. The outro is pretty different.

Soul Surfing is a crowd pleaser. It’s sort of a mixture between a soul and funk pastiche. It’s an adventurous and nice listen. There are many different guitar based samples and some unusual breakdowns. A nice listen, but like much of the album, good, but not great.

You’re Not From Brighton is quirky. It’s likely considered by many to be a filler track, but sounds so cartoon like and different that it does necessitate listening. Sounds not like out of a Donald Duck cartoon or something similar, it sure is interesting. Guessing the tune here, not a lot of us are from Brighton, UK, either. A basic, slowed down outro leads into the next piece.

Probably the defining Fatboy Slim piece is here, Praise You is a good-vibe and uplifting piece with a piano riff, a variety of samples and many different tasty sounds. It kind of blows away a lot of the other songs on the album. It segues to and from the piano riff to an organ led midsection. It’s a good listen. There is some beatboxing here if you listen closely as well.

Following up is Love Island. This could be a reference to Ibiza, the club paradise of the world, off the coast of Spain. Google that one, if you don’t know about it. The song has a very moving intro, before launching into a static sounding acid-like piece with some interesting peaks and troughs. By this point, we recognise the album as a good, yet not great listen. It’s still worth the time if you can put that into the recording itself.

Acid 8000 finishes the album. It’s a beatastic and extended piece for a long period of dancing, in or out of home. Some pulsating sounds make up this one. “It’s so easy to get acid, you can get it anywhere,” launches the more danceable section of this one. The baby screaming is unnecessary and annoying.

This album is okay, but only okay. The main thing letting it down is the length of the album, which is excessively long. If 10-15 minutes were chopped off some of the songs, this would be a much better listen. Still, it’s better than most EDM compilations out there right now, which gives it a sort of place in history. But still, it could be bettered here.

6/10