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Album Review
by SashaS
5-10-2004
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| Fatboy Slim goes a 'Palookaville' way... |
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Fatboy Slim: 'Palookaville'
(Skint)
Fatboy Slim in most humane disc?
At the first listen of ‘Pallikaville’ by Fatboy Slim it is not obvious… Whether he’s sold his soul or simply matured to make very appealing and somehow quirky’n’assorted but genial-sounding album? Later on, as you replay the album few times - things start to get into perspective.
Quentin Norman Cook’s fourth album under the Fatboy Slim moniker continues his journey of sampling and turnings tunes into hits for all generations. This time he’s brought to the mix an organic element - live guests. Damon Albarn is present [collaborated during the Blur sessions for ‘Think Tank’ album Cook was producing but got aborted?] on ‘Put It Back Together’ which he delivers in the usual lethargic manner against a pumping, gospel-tinged booty-shaker.
There are plenty other tracks - ‘Wonderful Night’, ‘Long Way From Home’, ‘North West Three’ - that will satisfy any fan of the man on a third chapter of his successful career; although he doesn’t throw any great surprises, ‘Push and Shove’ is bound to be a great favourite live by way of offering catchy singalong opportunity. Noises and melodies, acid-flavoured, psychedelic shaded, cyber enhanced, peculiar, funny… Among collaborators is a local Brighton band Johnny Quality. Some old tricks, some refreshed solutions, and a bit of retro.
Funk legend Bootsy Collins brings the curtain down with a surprising version of the Steve Miller Band’s AOR-staple ‘The Joker’ that is delivered in a hippy-cum-sleazy mould. The current single ‘Slash Dot Dash’ is a cyber-punker, more aggressive than Green Day and, wait for it, Good Charlotte on the forthcoming ‘The Chronicles of Life and Death’. FBS has upped the previous rock/dance hybrid of ‘The Rockafellar Skank’ and ‘Gangsta Tripping’ of yore.
‘Palookaville’ feels like FBS has stepped closer to the mainstream in his cross-fertilization of rock/pop and dance elements. It is not the organic part that gets under-utilized but the electronic. Norm’s been relying on the tried’n’tested modes that turned this album into an uneven affair.
However, ‘Pallokaville’ sounds like fun, nutty and much more accessible at the same time and, as a successor to 'Halfway Between The Gutter And The Stars' of four years ago, it is an improvement.
At the final count, the album is a return to the original Fatboy Slim formula that we know and love… Should that be a passed tense?
7/10
SashaS
13-4-2002
Fatboy Slim’s album ‘Palookaville’ is released 04 October 2004 by Skint
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