Fatboy Slim & Last Night a DJ Saved My Life (Book) - Are DJs ARTISTS? | MUSIC is not a GENRE - Season 4 Episode #7

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There’s nothing that gets me going like a good Housemartins song. When you hear one of their mega hits on the radio, it takes you back to a time when…

Okay you get it. Practically no one has heard of the Housemartins, the 1980s British jangle pop band whose biggest hit was an a cappella cover of the Isley, Jasper, Isley song “Caravan of Love”. If you were into the Smiths, you should go check them out.

And while you’re listening, keep in mind that their bass player was Norman Cook. Another forgotten name, right? Sure, except that in 1996 he adopted the stage name Fatboy Slim and helped to change the face of dance music.

Like so many successful DJs, his roots were in music other than dance. In Cook’s case, punk & the aforementioned jangle pop. Throughout all that he was DJing – often as DJ Quentox, but it didn’t come to the forefront for him until the late 1980s when he formed the loose collective Beats International. This was back when sampling was becoming huge, but before any laws were passed to regulate it.

Naturally, sampling lawsuits were becoming huge too. And one hit Cook so hard he had to pivot, which in turn helped to infuse his music with even more original ideas & exploration beyond the recontextualizing of sampling & remixing he had mostly been doing. During this time, he worked under the band names Freak Power, Pizzaman & the Mighty Dub Katz, before finally settling on Fatboy Slim, a name he says is “goofy & ironic” like much of his music.

As Fatboy Slim, he blew up, particularly his second album, 1998’s You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby. With “Right Here, Right Now”, “The Rockafeller Skank” & “Praise You”, he broke through internationally and never looked back. Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars continued the success, particularly with “Weapon of Choice” & that awesome Christopher Walken video.

Since then Cook kept at it in various ways, as Fatboy Slim, the Brighton Port Authority, again as Mighty Dub Katz, and doing remixes for all kinds of artists including Cornershop, A Tribe Called Quest & the Beastie Boys. No matter what Cook does, he’s always exploring & expanding, never settling for rote dance music of ANY kind. He always infuses his music with a variety of sources – samples, funk, electronica, rock, glitch, world, ambient, spoken word – and structures his songs like SONGS and not just seven minutes of danceable music.

He’s a DJ. An artist. A musician. And to some that’s controversial. I’ve been a DJ off & on since I was a pre-teen. Even back then I understood that there are many kinds of DJs & many ways TO DJ. Play only the hits. Play the hits but throw in some surprises. Play obscure tunes altogether. Play a mix of genres or play all one kind of music. Play stand-alone songs, or crossfade & beat match. Create remixes of existing songs as new styles. Create entirely new mixes & remixes, both as recordings and completely on the spot live.

LISTEN TO HEAR MY DISCUSSION OF THE EXCELLENT BOOK ON THE HISTORY OF DJs & DJing, Last Night a DJ Saved My Life.

REC - “The Power of Repetition (Everlasting)” (from the album Syncopy for the Weird)

REC - “If It Feels All Right” (from the album Parts and Labour)

Discuss dammit!

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