Song of the day for March 4, 2024
Firestarter by The Prodigy is today’s featured song.
British magazine Music Week rated “Firestarter” five out of five, picking it as Single of the Week. The reviewer added, “Powerful return for the kings of live techno.” Brad Beatnik from the magazine’s RM Dance Update described it as “a typically searing chunk of heavy techno featuring some manie vocale and an awesome synth line”. He concluded, “Straight in the Top 10, no question, and destined to be pounded in the clubs.” Gerald Martinez from New Sunday Times noted its “heavy metal meets techno-dance stylisations”. Writing for Pitchfork in 2005, Jess Harvell said, “‘Firestarter’ sounds like Trent Reznor in one of his all-too-rare moments of self-aware humor, like the Bomb Squad at +5 with a pink-haired British bulldog bellowing about how tuff he is.” David Sinclair from The Times noted, “A racing, twitchy, all-hands-on-deck rhythmic pulse, with a first beat in the bar that lands like a bodyblow, it is spiced up by a siren-wail synth sound and various shrieks that resemble an Art of Noise vocal sample.”
On this day in 2019, 49-year-old Keith Flint – best known as The Prodigy’s flamboyant frontman – took his own life. Born in London, he began as a dancer with The Prodigy before becoming their lead vocalist on their third album, 1997’s The Fat Of The Land, which featured the group’s iconic hit “Firestarter.” Away from The Prodigy, he led his own punk band, Flint, and also owned a motorcycle racing team called Team Traction Control, which won four Isle of Man TT races and participated in the British Superbike Championship.