FEATURE:
Vinyl Corner
Fatboy Slim – You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby
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I think I was aware…
IN THIS PHOTO: Norman Cook (Fatboy Slim) in 2014
of Fatboy Slim when he released Better Living Through Chemistry in 1996. I was at high school, and I was listening to quite a lot of Dance and Big Beat. You've Come a Long Way, Baby is when his music really started to speak to me! I was aware of Norman Cook a while before his Fatboy Slim days, and I was a big fan of his band, The Housemartins. Released on 19th October, 1998 through Skint Records, Cook recorded and produced the album at his home studio in Brighton. Using an Atari ST computer, Creator software and a floppy disk, it is amazing to think what he achieved. I love its eye-catching cover – taken at the 1983 Fat Peoples Festival in Danville, Virginia -, and the songs are instant classics. Right Here Right Now, The Rockafeller Skank, Gangster Trippin and Praise You were these wonderfully unifying and memorable songs that were a big part of my last year or two at high school. Not only are these songs anthemic and brilliant; the samples deployed through the material on You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby are brilliant - Right Here Right Now contains samples of Ashes, the Rain, and I, written by Dale Peters and Joe Walsh, and performed by The James Gang; The Rockafeller Skank contains samples of Sliced Tomatoes, written by Winifred Terry and performed by the Just Brothers, and Beat Girl, written and performed by John Barry. In a year that saw Madonna’s Ray of Light, Beastie Boys’ Hello Nasty, Air’s Moon Safari and Massive Attack’s Mezzanine sit alongside one another, I think You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby ranks with the very best of them.
It is hard to compare Fatboy Slim’s second studio album with anyone else but, in a way, he manages to create his own universe and genres. Running in at just over an hour, You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby is an epic album that sounds fantastic to this day. I will bring in a couple of reviews for the album, but I found an article published in 2018 – twenty years after the album was released. There are some interesting observations made, and my favourite track on the album, The Rockafeller Skank, is commented on:
“The tune that put the Fatboy sound on the mainstream map, though, was The Rockafeller Skank. Like Renegade Master, it’s based on a repeating rap hook, but this time with the cool strains of surf guitar replacing the manic needle scratching. The guitar lines sampled came from Northern Soul track Sliced Tomatoes by Just Brothers, one of the many vintage curiosities that make up the DNA of …Baby. Its memorable “Funk soul brother” mantra, meanwhile, was lifted from the vocal intro to an LP of hip-hop instrumentals. In his book The Story of Northern Soul, David Nowell marvels at how this selection of vocal line “added the seal of approval to its soulful roots and turned the single into probably the most memorable pop song of 1998.”
“It seemed to be an instant thing among everyone who heard it,” Cook recounted to Nowell. “We hoped something would happen for it, but I never thought it would be a Top 10 single up there with the likes of George Michael.”
The Rockafeller Skank, then, was where the sound of …Baby truly began, escaping the House Of Love after party and dancing into the streets. Cook became even more in demand as a DJ, something that didn’t escape the attention of GQ’s Mike Shallcross, who told the BBC in 2002 how Cook’s sets were “full of crescendo [and] highly exciting. He drew people to his brand of dance music who’d normally prefer Oasis or Madonna.”
Reverence, though, should be paid to the album, no matter how tongue-in-cheek things get. Consider its influence over the years, inspiring the likes of The Chemical Brothers to add more whimsy to their beats, and Basement Jaxx more unusual and in-your-face samples (as on 2001 single Where’s Your Head At). Newbies such as Mylo soon debuted with the cheeky house subversion of Destroy Rock & Roll, whose hit title track sampled an American preacher denouncing the 80s pop scene. Norman Cook no doubt approved.
Sample culture really did get a major boost from You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby, with fans taking as much delight in tracking down samples as from hearing them in the first place. Acts such as The Avalanches hit fame through such fervour, with their classic debut in 2000 not being a million miles away from the Fatboy sound. More recent counterparts, meanwhile, include acts such as Major Lazer, Duck Sauce and Skrillex, who raised similarly boisterous flags high on the 2010s dancefloor”.
Not only is You’ve Come a Long Way Baby one of the best albums of the 1990s; I think it is one of the best albums every released. Whilst it is hard to find the album brand-new on vinyl, there are sellers out there. You can get a good copy here, and I recommend people do. It is a tremendous album that resonated upon its release in 1998 and is still picking up acclaim and celebration now. AllMusic had this to say when they reviewed You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby:
“Fatboy Slim's debut album, Better Living Through Chemistry, was one of the surprises of the big beat revolution of 1996 -- an eclectic blowout, all tracked to thunderous loops and masterminded by Norman Cook, a former member of the British pop band the Housemartins. It might not have been as startlingly fresh as the Chemical Brothers, but the hard-hitting beats and catchiness, not to mention consistency, of Better Living was a shock, and it raised expectations for Fatboy Slim's second album, You've Come a Long Way, Baby. And that record itself was something of a surprise, since it not only exceeded the expectations set by the debut, but came damn close to being the definitive big beat album, rivaling the Chemicals' second record, Dig Your Own Hole. The difference is, Cook is a record geek with extensive knowledge and eclectic tastes. His juxtapositions -- the album swings from hip-hop to reggae to jangle pop, and then all combines into one sound -- are wildly original, even if the music itself doesn't break through the confines of big beat. Then again, when a record is this forceful and catchy, it doesn't need to break new stylistic ground -- the pleasure is in hearing a master work. And there's no question that Cook is a master of sorts -- You've Come a Long Way, Baby is a seamless record, filled with great imagination, unexpected twists and turns, huge hooks, and great beats. It's the kind of record that gives big beat a good name”.
I have been playing You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby a lot recently, and I have been hooked on tracks that I might have passed by when I was younger. Songs like Kalifornia and Love Island have gained new light and weight, which is really interesting. The detail and nuances in every track fascinate me and, decades from now, I still feel people will be spinning this album and discovering something fresh from it. I want to quote from a Student Playlist article that dissected the album and talked about the incredible sampling. Some reviewers have dismissed You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby as being too commercial and calculated, but I think the songs balance the more commercial and stays quite faithful to Big Beat roots. I think, if the album was more obscure, it would not have connected with such a larger audience. Others say the album has not dated that well, but I feel that it has. I play it now, and there is that blast of nostalgia, but I appreciate the songs on their own terms of they stand totally stand up. Here is what The Student Playlist wrote:
“It’s Cook’s brilliant eye for sampling, picking sonic material that could be both humorous and poignant, that makes You’ve Come A Long Way Baby such a compelling and refreshing listen. Vocal snippets looped and swooped around cut-up portions of old, obscure records from hip-hop, soul, gospel, funk, surf-pop and rock to create a fun, slightly scruffier and more accessible variant on the techno of the likes of Underworld and Orbital from earlier in the decade, and one which could appeal to the rock and pop mainstream. Thereby, Cook had hit upon an album with universal attraction, one which would appear in record collections alongside Oasis or Madonna and still make sense.
Strangely, for a record compiled in end-of-the-century Brighton, You’ve Come A Long Way Baby evokes a timeless and distinctly American sense of cool. Everything you need to know about the album is referenced in its packaging. The image on the back of the CD cover is of a lonely American desert highway stretching into the horizon; the vast musical galaxy from which the album is stitched together is seen in the stacks upon stacks of dusty vinyl on the inside cover; and of course, the front cover image of the obese, carefree young man taken at the 1983 Fat People’s Festival in Danville, Virginia – whose identity has never been revealed, despite lots of enquiries”.
No matter what side of the fence you fall regarding You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby – too commercial and lacking in authenticity; a brilliant album that stands the test of time -, one cannot deny that there is an energy and colour sonic palette that is hard to resist! I am going to spend some time today with You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby today and immerse myself…
ONE of my favourite albums from my youth.