Even more interesting is that even two decades after its release, Music for the Jilted Generation is still scary. “Break & Enter” holds its bleeping hook until 2/3s of the song has elapsed and when it shows up it rains like manna from heaven. These songs are laden with hooks, the keystone synth hooks of “Their Law” and “Voodoo People” are so potent you can almost see the pleasure centers of your brain lighting up on an MRI machine when they hit. Liam Howlett’s ADHD programming means you never have to touch a dance floor to be amply entertained by the songs on display here. While it may not contain any subwoofer blowing drops, almost all obnoxious strains of EDM have their roots in Music for the Jilted Generation. It’s a bold rejection of London’s anti-rave Criminal Justice and Public Order Act as just about every second has been designed to incite noise complaints. Almost every instrument here, whether its the shattering of glass or a pitched up vocal or a sampled car alarm for god sakes, is designed to annoy and command attention. Taking cues from rap music’s chaotic sampling (a la Public Enemy’s Bomb Squad) and raw statements (“*** em and their law”), Music for the Jilted Generation retains its explosive power by being proudly obnoxious. The Prodigy stepped into their role as teenage angst conduit with the aptly titled Music for the Jilted Generation. As a consequence, loud guitars would no longer be enough to satiate the disaffected masses, now they needed something that their parents couldn't even recognize as music. But with the arrival of rap music in the popular conscious - more specifically the release of NWA’s Straight Outta Compton in 1988 - nearly all guitar music was rendered downright quaint by comparison almost immediately. For a period stretching from the first time The Kinks took razor blades to speaker cones to create “You Really Got Me” in 1964 to Guns ‘n’ Roses eager endorsements of drunk driving on Appetite for Destruction in 1986, guitar rock has fulfilled this role. Something the bored loner can blare through his headphones between passing periods or crank up in his mom’s Subaru. Due to this anger/misunderstanding complex inherent in teens, music has always risen to the challenge of creating a sound as angry and misunderstood as those teeangers. And as certain as the setting of that same sun, those teenagers will be misunderstood. Review Summary: For Tomorrow: A Guide to Contemporary British Music, 1988-2013 (Part 8.5)Īs surely as the sun will rise, teenagers will be angry.
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