Keith Flint, Prodigy.
Every time someone dies, the world changes a little bit. Usually not much, often hardly at all, but sometimes a lot. The death of musicians and singers usually hits a lot of fans and admirers in addition to family and friends. Four weeks ago, one such event occurred. Keith Flint took his own life. The lead singer and frontman of Prodigy. The somewhat eccentric dancer and motorcycle racer became a first-rate star rather suddenly in 1996, when he released the single Firestarter, which featured him as a solo singer. Flint then moved from the position of singing dancer to that of unequivocal frontman, original in both his physical expression and his clothes, tattoos and double punk hairstyle. That song was a precursor to an album that largely determined the quality level of a genre that could be described as electronic dance breakbeat. A year later, the album appeared on the shelves with its distinctive crab cover. And it was a smash hit. "The Fat of The Land" broke many sales records. The single reached number one in the UK and the album topped the charts in the UK and the US. The titles Smack my Bitch Up and Breathe are the other pillars of a hyped-up set that, perhaps due to its considerable controversy and inconsistency, fulfils all the attributes needed to justify the record's cult status. The albums "Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned" (2004) and "Invaders Must Die" (2008) could not, despite their undeniably decent standards, surpass the extraordinary work that captured the band (Keith Flint - vocals, Liam Howlett - keyboards, Maxim Reality - vocals, beatbox, Gizz Butt - guitar, and others) in superb form in the second half of the nineties. Moreover, in a happy moment of need for a new, dense, distorted sound, crushing rhythm and provocative lyrics full of double meanings. Despite their best efforts, a similar, somewhat grey fate befalls Prodigy's last two released albums, The Day is my Enemy (2015) and No Tourists (2018). Although Prodigy make the most of all forms of promoting the sales of their own brand, both in the form of various conceivable album release formats (CD, CD-DVD, bonus CD, vinyl, double vinyl, digital download) and in the form of posters, booklets, stickers, original artwork - see photo - they will never again make the same contribution to the development of world music as they did more than twenty years ago. So Keith Flint changed the world, and not a little at that. He was a true Firestarter.
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