Norman Quentin Cook, also known by his stage name Fatboy Slim, is an English musician, DJ, and record producer who helped to popularise the big beat genre in the 1990s. In the 1980s, Cook was the bassist for the Hull-based indie rock band the Housemartins, who achieved a UK number-one single with their a cappella cover of "Caravan of Love". After the Housemartins split up, Cook formed the electronic band Beats International in Brighton, who produced the number-one single "Dub Be Good to Me". He then played in Freak Power, Pizzaman, and the Mighty Dub Katz with moderate success.
Skint Records is a Brighton and Hove based dance music record label owned by JC Reid, Tim Jeffery and Damian Harris. It was created as a sublabel of Loaded Records, also founded by Reid and Jeffery. Along with Wall of Sound, the label was a leader in the big beat music scene of the mid to late 1990s.
Better Living Through Chemistry is the debut studio album by English electronic music producer Fatboy Slim. It was released on 23 September 1996 in the United Kingdom by Skint Records and in the United States by Astralwerks. It was Fatboy Slim's first work to chart outside of the UK, with the single "Going Out of My Head" notably charting in the US, and was certified gold by the BPI.
On the Floor at the Boutique is a live album mixed by British big beat musician Fatboy Slim. It was recorded at the Big Beat Boutique in 1997 in Brighton, England and released in 1998.
You've Come a Long Way, Baby is the second studio album by Fatboy Slim, a project of English electronic music producer Norman Cook. It was first released on 19 October 1998 in the United Kingdom by Skint Records and a day later in the United States by Astralwerks. Cook recorded and produced the album at his home studio in Brighton, known as the House of Love, using an Atari ST computer, Creator software, and floppy disks. The photo on the album cover was originally taken at the 1983 Fat Peoples Festival in Danville, Virginia; for the North American release, the album cover was changed to an image of shelves stacked with records.
Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars is the third studio album by English electronic music producer Fatboy Slim. It was first released on 6 November 2000 in the United Kingdom by Skint Records and a day later in the United States by Astralwerks. The album features contributions from Macy Gray, Ashley Slater, Bootsy Collins, Roland Clark, and Roger Sanchez, and its title, referenced in the song "Weapon of Choice", is an allusion to the Oscar Wilde quote, "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."
Live on Brighton Beach is a live album by British big beat musician Fatboy Slim, released on 25 February 2002. It is a recording of a performance on Brighton Beach, England.
"The Rockafeller Skank", usually called "Funk Soul Brother" by fans, is a song by English big beat musician and DJ Fatboy Slim. It was released as the lead single from his second studio album, You've Come a Long Way, Baby (1998), on 8 June 1998. The single peaked at number six on the UK Singles Chart in June 1998 and topped the Icelandic Singles Chart for a week the same month and was the second Fatboy Slim single to chart on the US Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number 78. In 2022, Rolling Stone ranked "The Rockafeller Skank" number 199 their list of 200 Greatest Dance Songs of All Time.
"Weapon of Choice" is a song by English big beat musician Fatboy Slim from his third studio album, Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars. It features American funk musician Bootsy Collins. It was released as a double A-side single with "Star 69" on 23 April 2001, as well as a standalone single release, and a 2010 re-release with remixes. The single peaked at No. 10 on the UK Singles Chart.
"Right Here, Right Now" is a song by British big beat musician Fatboy Slim, released on 19 April 1999 as the fourth single from his second studio album, You've Come a Long Way, Baby (1998). The song samples "Ashes, the Rain & I" by James Gang and an Angela Bassett quote from American science fiction thriller film Strange Days (1995). "Right Here, Right Now" reached number two on the UK Singles Chart and became a top-40 hit in Australia, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, New Zealand, and the Walloon region of Belgium. It was voted by Mixmag readers as the 10th-greatest dance record of all time.
The Greatest Hits – Why Try Harder is a compilation album by English electronic musician Fatboy Slim, released on 19 June 2006. In addition to previously released material, the album includes two new tracks: "Champion Sound" and "That Old Pair of Jeans". A collection of music videos titled The Greatest Hits – Why Make Videos was also released in 2006. Hit singles Ya Mama and Star 69 were omitted.
"Champion Sound" is a song by English big beat musician Fatboy Slim from his compilation album The Greatest Hits - Why Try Harder. It features Lateef the Truth Speaker on the vocal track. An alternate version featured on the US version of The Greatest Hits – Why Try Harder features both Lateef the Truth Speaker and Sharon Woolf. It is known for its music video, which features objects falling in a sequence like dominoes. The single peaked at number 88 on the UK Singles Chart.
"Gangster Tripping" is a song by British big beat musician Fatboy Slim. It was released on 5 October 1998 as the second single from his second studio album, You've Come a Long Way, Baby (1998).
"Demons" is a song by English big beat musician Fatboy Slim, featuring Grammy Award-winning American R&B-soul singer Macy Gray. The song was released as a single from Slim's 2000 album Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars, and later appeared on Gray's 2004 greatest hits compilation The Very Best of Macy Gray as well as Slim's 2006 greatest hits compilation The Greatest Hits - Why Try Harder. It contains elements of Bill Withers' 1973 song "I Can't Write Left-Handed". The gospel group The Blind Boys of Alabama covered the song on their 2005 album Atom Bomb. Recently, the song was featured in the Netflix series Sense8.
"Star 69" is a song by English electronic music producer Fatboy Slim, released on 23 April 2001 as the second single from his third studio album Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars (2000). It was released as a double A-side single with "Weapon of Choice", as well as its own standalone release.
Cass Browne is an English musician and writer.
The Fatboy Slim/Norman Cook Collection is a compilation album by British big beat musician Fatboy Slim, released on Hip-O Records in 2000. It was remixed and produced by Fatboy Slim.
Big beat is an electronic music genre that usually uses heavy breakbeats and synthesizer-generated loops and patterns – common to acid house/techno. The term has been used by the British music industry to describe music by artists such as the Prodigy, the Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim, the Crystal Method, Propellerheads, Basement Jaxx and Groove Armada.
The discography of Fatboy Slim, an alias of Norman Cook, an English DJ, big beat musician, and record producer, consists of four studio albums, three live albums, one soundtrack album, two compilation albums, three remix albums, six mix albums, three video albums, five extended plays, 28 singles and 31 music videos.
Big Beach Boutique II was a free concert held on 13 July 2002 by English DJ Fatboy Slim on Brighton Beach, Brighton, England. The concert was attended by over 250,000 people, four times the expected 60,000. Due to the far higher than expected attendance the local authorities were severely underprepared, which lead to many incidents including two deaths, over 170 injuries, and six arrests.
