The Prodigy – Experience (1992)

March 4, 2024

I was three years old when this came out so I won’t pretend to understand the cultural impact that The Prodigy Experience had upon its release. I do however, remember just how much of an institution The Prodigy were by the latter end of the 90s, I vividly remember “Firestarter” coming out and being on the TV and so on, but Prodigy’s deeper electronic roots always interested me more, even as a kid. Experience is just one of those albums that is absolutely flawless all the way through. There’s not many albums like that, even from my very favourite artists, but everything about Experience is just perfect. The only downside is, is that I don’t really feel like raving 24/7 so I don’t come to this all that often.

When we strip back the layers of the onion around The Prodigy and find Liam Howlett sat at its core (lol) its easy to see that the moniker “The Prodigy” is so easily earned. Not to detract from Maxim et al, but the production, the programming, the sound design, the sheer brilliance of the whole concoction is enough to have me sitting there with my mouth agape at the fact that a single human being can make such a beautiful and energetic series of sounds using what is essentially just computers. I get the same feeling from early Aphex Twin. Like we are staring into the future.

Stand-out tracks: fucking all of them.