Niki N. Phaser

         The Prodigy have decided on a winner for their Run With the Wolves video contest. It hasn’t been easy on the boys, since there were more than 300 videos submitted: “there is a lot of twisted minds out there… we ignored number of views, ratings and chose what we liked and have all agreed that the winner is Rob Wicksteed”. Our congratulations to Mr. Wicksteed (and Pew36) for his visually challenging video and the twist ending. After Warrior’s Dance this is the second animated video used by The Prodigy for Invaders Must Die promotion. They’ll be touring Australia starting February 27, till then:

RUN WITH THE WOLVES here

After more than a month ago we had an article about The Prodigy’s future single, Take Me To The Hospital. Well, the video is finally here, for the actual release of the single you’ll have to wait till August 31. The video was made available through the band’s official website on August 5, after premiering on the PlayStation 3 application, VidZone (like U2’s latest single). The video for Take Me To The Hospital was directed by Paul Dugdale, who fans might know as the author of the frequently updated mini-movies documenting The Prodigy’s tour. Surprinsingly, it was filmed at the Pinewood Studios and not some old, abandoned… something. To achieve a more grainy picture, Dugdale went for VHS and the result really does look like some old video you had stashed somewhere in the garage. After a Noel Clarke video, a live video and an animated video, it was about time for the band to make an effort and shake it a little bit for the camera. With some shots reminiscing of the Firestarter video, Take Me To The Hospital it’s pretty simple and dirty and also ant-logo-free. However, whenever the chipmunk voices kick in with the chorus, we do see an army of little vandals wearing… chipmunk masks.

SEE THE VIDEO HERE

We all know (or do we?) the story of The Prodigy’s The Fat of the Land album and how, because of it, the rave elders of the tribe ruled the world for about two years, before taking a long break. The three singles released from this album, Breathe, Firestarter and Smack My Bitch Up have all made history: the videos included in almost every countdown of controversial mv’s, the tracks covered and remixed by legions of dj’s, they haven’t missed from any live set of the band ever since. But an album does not achieve such success and notoriety on singles alone. Amongst non-single masterpieces like Funky Shit, Mindfields or Climbatize, we also encounter the first official collaboration between Liam Howlett and rapper Kool Keith of Ultramagnetic MCs fame. The hip-hop crew is one of Howlett’s favourite to sample, but this is the first time Kool was actually invited to do the vocals and the lyrics. Before being included on the album, the track used to be played live, known as Blow Ya Mind with Maxim doing some freestylin’ over the beat. The Kool version retained the chorus “Blows your mind drastically, fantastically” and most importantly, the sick d’n'b line, punctuated by a base hit that will test ya speakers and blow ya mind, all in one. It’s interesting that despite hip-hop being one of Howlett’s primal preferences, this is about the only Prodigy tune that would qualify in this genre. It is one of their most powerful tracks, displaying once again Howlett’s ability and pleasure of creating beats that no matter at what volume you play them, they still sound too loud for the neighbours.

LIVE PERFORMANCE OF Blow Ya Mind IN 1996