Album:    You've Come a Long Way, Baby
Artist:   Fatboy Slim
Label:    Skint
Released: 1998-10-20
Summary:  Catchy hooks.  Big beats.  Surf guitars.  Scratching.  Fun
          party music.

This album opens with an old sample of arpeggiated strings, looped
and passed through a resonant filter with an increasing cutoff point.
The end result is the feeling of getting closer and closer to the
source of the sound.  This technique is one of Fatboy Slim's trademarks,
along with the loud, bass-heavy drum beats that kick in just over a
minute later.  The recycled sounds really ought to give the album a
patchwork feel, but instead the overall sound is surprisingly coherent
and modern.

Just in case you thought Fatboy Slim would take this album seriously
(and the UK cover artwork didn't tip you off), the next cut starts
off with someone requesting the song by singing it to a radio DJ.
The mood of the album suddenly gets down to Earth, and the feeling
of getting closer to something amazing changes to the feeling of
being at a really good party.  This is the perfect album to celebrate
something with, even if it's just the fact that it's Friday night.

Assuming you won't be offended or just plain annoyed at the looped
vocal sample with swearing in it, Fucking in Heaven is a playful
piece of music that's very silly yet still gets you in the mood to
dance.

Gangster Tripping is only slightly less silly, but is extremely
catchy - albeit repetitive - and again shows off the
looped-sample-with-increasing-filter-cutoff-point effect.  By this
point it becomes obvious that the album is formulaic, but it's such
a catchy, feelgood song producing formula that it doesn't matter.
This isn't art so much as very enjoyable entertainment.

The next four songs stick to this theme, although they don't stand
out so much, with the exception of the particularly resonant filter
sweeps at Kalifornia's climax.  Fatboy Slim excels at breaking down
a mix before building it back up, and with this track he does so
particularly well, without even touching his sampler's filter.

Praise You is probably the best track on the album (The Rockafeller
Skank comes close, but the noise in the middle can get pretty
irritating).  A vast improvement on his previous song featuring the
same vocal sample, this is catchy, fun, great to dance to and just
generally upbeat and happy.  It's the perfect pick-me-up.  It also
relegates the TB-303 to background duties, which in my opinion is
where it works best, although judging by some of his other releases,
Fatboy Slim may disagree.

Love Island is mediocre, although anything after Praise You has a
lot to live up to.  Fatboy Slim has even started recycling his own
melodies at this point: the main riff is also the bassline in his
previous album's track Song for Lindy.  As is the case with the
samples, however, the context of the album's aesthetic doesn't make
anything seem like a rip-off as much as a new twist on an old piece
of pop culture.  In this respect, the album most resembles Pop Will
Eat Itself's samplefest This is the Day...  This is the Hour...  This
is This!

The last track is apparently a nod of respect to fellow Skint artist
Dr. Bone's I Came Here to Get Ripped, but I'd rather listen to this
more polished version any day.  It finishes off this great album
with a suitable acid house style climax before bringing the listener
slowly back to reality with its post climax noise.

In short: This isn't art, but it's catchy, you can dance to it, and
above all it's fun.  Great stuff.
