The Prodigy - Their Law - The Singles 1990-2005 DVD
Without romanticising too much about how great The Prodigy is i will describe them from the bare basics for those unintiated. In short, since the very late 80s Liam Howlett's dance project pretty much revolutionised the British drug fueled rave scene at the time, exploding into the mainstream with a unique blend of punk rock, electronica and hip-hop influence over some killer breakbeats and trippy basslines.
Their Law - The Singles 1990-2005 is an audio collection of the Prodigy's greatest hits from between 1990 and 2005, this DVD is the visual equivalent covering most of their career with a live show thrown in for good measure.
I bought this on a whim off Ebay recently and just recieved it this morning. I've been a longtime fan of the Prodigy and have always seeked a video collection of their material since i was quite young. Now this is released on DVD i am stoked, just about every Prodigy film clip made is on here as well as a live show back in the
Fat Of The Land heyday. A few extras crown off a reasonably good package which Prodigy fans will enjoy, in all honesty if you aren't a fan or a casual listener steer clear however.
All the film clips are here i believe apart from
Fire and
Hot Ride. Some of them are essential watching for even a non-Prodigy fan(
Smack My Bitch Up,
Breathe,
Voodoo People), while many of them are very dated looking exercises in trippy camera effects, animation, and people dancing (
Out of Space,
Everybody In The Place,
Charly). I find the older clips fun to watch because i've loved the energetic and ethereal sounding music for a long time and i find it nostalgic to listen to, however a lot of newer fans who have a perception of the Prodigy as a hard-edged punk electronica band will be disappointed. A couple of things i was slightly unhappy about is that the clips feature MTV edits of the songs, which shortens them considerably. The clips are not in chronological order either and this makes a weird balance as we change between the far more professionally done videos such as
Smack My Bitch Up to really low budget looking fare like
Charly. Also
Charly,
Everybody In The Place and
Wind It Up are alternative mixes of the songs which were actually on the album so it's a bit strange watching them at first if you are used to the normal cuts. The DVD transfer is noticably tacky looking for the older songs on here as well, the quality is quite poor at times however it is mostly good.
The live show at Brixton academy is quite energetic and well done though flawed, featuring mostly songs off
Fat of the Land and a couple from
Music For The Jilted Generation. It opens with a stark naked guy flashing his cock and pumping up the crowd. Liam and the group make their entrance, along with a live drummer and lots of people in the crowd going off. Strobe lights, smoke and all kinds of lighting effects set the scene as
Smack My Bitch Up opens the show, with MC Maxim Reality yelling over the top in a fairly useless fashion as Keith Flint walks round the stage doing his scary looking punk thing in a british union jack shirt mouthing swear words every time the camera is on him. The audio mix is fairly average, the voices and crowd cheer are too drowned out by the music in my opinion which is disappointing. This didn't look too good to me at first, but when Voodoo People kicked in and a very stoned looking Leeroy Thornhill came out dancing during the intro it picked up amazingly. The rest of the show was unrelentless, Maxim falls into his element after a couple of songs in and does a great job of pumping up the crowd, Keith and Leeroy dance around like mad and even Liam gets jumping behind his keyboards and samplers. Some highlights include the electrifying breaks of
Voodoo Beats, a remixed extention of
Voodoo People which was played just before it bringing back what the energetic feel of the early days must of been like, and a pumped up rendition of
Their Law, when a live guitarist comes out and busts that epic riff out as electronic mayhem circles all around. Most of these songs however seemed badly mixed, perhaps a detriment to capturing what would seem like an otherwise cracker of a show. I found it a great watch however, being a fan of the Prodigy, and i had a good afternoon catching up on these songs i haven't listened to for quite a while and seeing a visual element of the band i haven't experienced fully.
The extras are fairly meager, with some live cuts of
Spitfire,
Their Law and
Break and Enter, and behind the scenes footage of the videos to
Firestarter,
Voodoo People,
Out of Space and
Poison. Keith Flint rolling around in a giant plastic bubble during a live version of
Break and Enter is rather interesting to see. The behind the scenes footage to
Voodoo People and
Out of Space is notable as well, showing a humourous side to the group as they piss around having fun on shoot in the early days. Maybe some more extras could of been added i feel, though these are quite substantial.
All up i recommend this to someone who has been a fan of the Prodigy throughout their career and knows just about everything they have released. It's a good afternoon watch. A casual Prodigy fan who is only schooled in some of their more recently stuff may not enjoy this much, as the quality in some of the videos and audio track for the live show in particular are lacking in true quality.
Note - I often get criticised for lacking detail in reviews, i tried here to remedy that here. Critique me harshly if you will i'm trying to get better :)
