The Rockafeller Skank – Fatboy Slim

-

The Rockafeller Skank – Fatboy Slim


So in 1998, Fatboy Slim alias Norman Cook released the album You’ve Come A Long Way Baby, one of the big hits from it was this song, 'The Rockefeller Skank'. By this stage of my musical journey I was going to nightclubs and dancing all night. When this album came out it was a perfect mixture of two of my musical worlds, the beats of the clubbing music with great samples of more traditional songs. The repetitive nature of such songs is simply hypnotic and very danceable. There are a number of samples going on here, even a guitar line form the theme to ‘Peter Gunn’ by Duane Eddy from a song by the Art of Noise. I love Duane Eddy, one of my guitar heroes and also the Art of Noise were so innovative and well ahead of their time.
This album was very influential, hit number one and has an iconic front cover, which seems to happen with best known albums. A couple of other tracks on there I partially like are 'Right Here, Right Now' and ‘Praise You’ which I would recommended to everyone. The only thing that lets the album down is the track 'F***ing In Heaven' which makes the whole thing a bit to adult for little ears. It was a big shock to us that mild mannered Norman Cook of the band The Housemartins was now a top dance DJ dropping huge tunes like this. I've included The Housemartins only No.1 hit 'Caravan of Love' link at the bottom here to give you a comparison from how you can belong to different genres. Really nice song.
Then to top that a DJ did a mash up of 'The Rockefeller Skank' with one of my favourite ever songs, ‘Satisfaction’ by the Stones. That nailed this song to the top of my mast for a while.
With other bands like the Chemical Brothers, Basement Jaxx and especially The Prodigy they took me off on a real tangent from my guitar based background. This song reminds me of my clubbing days in my early twenties when the whole world was still be discovered.

Favourite lyric : 'Bout, 'bout, 'bout, 'bout, 'bout, 'bout, 'bout, 'bout / Funk, funk, funk, funk, funk, funk, bro, bro, bro, bro, bro


Location: Rayleigh, UK

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Wherever You Will Go – The Calling

-
Image
    Wherever You Will Go – The Calling  No idea where this one came from, total American power ballad, it's well chessey but I love it. I'm a sucker for sentimental songs like this, all about always being with the one you love. But it's not really a happy song, apparently it was written about a husband who had lost his wife of over 50 years. The songwriter, Aaron Kamin , was at his grandmother's best friends funeral and the idea for the song came to him. How the husband who was left behind would have followed his beloved if only he could have. Can he now exist without her? The words almost say that they would come back to haunt you if that was possible, love that strong can't be broken. The need to be together is so strong. But like all good songs, you can take it's message in so many different ways. Also most listeners don't delve to deep into the meanings of songs, they just catch onto the suggested obvious tone of the chorus. The general understanding of
Read more

I Am, I Feel – Alisha's Attic

-
Image
  I Am, I Feel – Alisha's Attic I remember this one from 1996, it came back to my mind yesterday as I was on a songwriting course co-hosted by Shelly McErlaine (born Poole), one half of Alisha's Attic . The group was a duo made up of Sheely and her sister Karen Poole , who happen to come from close to where I grew up in East Essex, UK. They have a famous father, Brian Poole who had a band called Brian Poole and the Tremeloes, they had major success in the 1960s. Shelly is married to Ally McErlaine , from the band Texas , they now have an country band together called Red Sky July along with Charity Hair. Shelly is now a songwriter/producer/talent scout and is an amazing person to listen to about how to craft a song. It seems she has worked with so many huge names, but the biggest thing that came across was her absolute love of music. The song itself is a sorry tale of how a man is taking a girl he's with totally for granted. The lyrics are a very clever reply to how he
Read more

Running Bear – Johnny Preston

-
Image
    Running Bear – Johnny Preston I love this song. It's another one from my childhood, it sounds like a kids song, lots of chanting and takes a bit of imagination to get what's going on. It's actually a love song about two Indian's from different warring tribes, they're not allowed to be together.  This is a proper story song, loads of words, total tongue twister. Songs like this were big in the 50's, it's not an obvious setting to write a song about, I guess Westerns were very popular around the time and Cowboys and Indians were a real hit with the public. All sounding very exotic to us over here in the U.K. anything that shouted American was fantasy. Even as a kid listening to this song as a 45 single on a record player 30 years later, it really caught my ear. It was like listening to a bedtime story in three minutes. Running Bear is a cool Indian name, it gives such a strong image of a powerful fast huge guy and Little White Dove gives the impression of
Read more