For a brief time when I was in grad school I had a weekly show on the campus radio station called Big Dumb Beats. It was at a time in the mid-90s when “electronica” was the next big thing and there was a flood of it aimed shamelessly at mainstream appeal — dance music designed for booze instead of ecstasy, with fat break beats instead of the hypnotic 4/4 of techno and house. I think the Fatboy Slim Era peaked around ’95-’96 — since then the supply of this kind of stuff has tapered off almost entirely.
God knows why I have such a weakness for it. It couldn’t be dumber, or less credible among music critics. But you know when you’re young, you’re at a party — an outdoor party, a kegger, with big speakers in the back of somebody’s pickup truck — and it’s going on 3 a.m. and you’re just getting that second wind, you feel like you’ll never be tired or unhappy again, and you’re dancing like a fool? This kind of music takes me back to that place.
This song’s by a U.K. DJ named Sonny J, off his debut album Disastro. Looks like it’s only available as in import right now — maybe it will come out in the U.S. some time.
Also, as an homage to my old DJ days, here’s perhaps my favorite song from that era, Fatboy Slim’s shameless “Gangsta Trippin'” (unfortunately, YouTube only has the shorter radio edit, not the epic original):
