Palookaville | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | 4 October 2004 | |||
Recorded | 2003–2004 | |||
Genre | ||||
Length | 53:27 | |||
Label | ||||
Producer | Fatboy Slim | |||
Fatboy Slim chronology | ||||
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Singles from Palookaville | ||||
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Aggregate scores | |
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Source | Rating |
Metacritic | 53/100 [1] |
Review scores | |
Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [2] |
Entertainment Weekly | C+ [3] |
The Guardian | [4] |
The Irish Times | [5] |
Mojo | [6] |
Pitchfork | 4.6/10 [7] |
Q | [8] |
Rolling Stone | [9] |
Spin | B [10] |
Uncut | [11] |
Palookaville is the fourth studio album by English electronic music producer Fatboy Slim. It was first released on 4 October 2004 in the United Kingdom by Skint Records and a day later in the United States by Astralwerks. The album was nominated for the 2006 Grammy Award for Best Electronic/Dance Album. [12]
As of 2025, Palookaville is the last studio album Cook has released under the Fatboy Slim name, when asked if he’d make a new album under the alias, he responded with ‘probably not’, while further stating ‘If I ever got around to making another Fatboy Slim album it'll probably be in a time when albums are completely redundant as a format’. [13]
Football club Brighton and Hove Albion F.C. temporarily named their Withdean Stadium after the name of that album following their sponsorship deal with Skint Records. [14]
Palookaville was met with "mixed or average" reviews from critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, this release received an average score of 53 based on 24 reviews. [1]
In a review for AllMusic, critic reviewer David Jeffries wrote: "Palookaville could stand one more trimming pass, but it gives Cook's canon the needed depth. Now there's a Fatboy Slim record for that rainy day and one the long-haired freaky people can enjoy." [2]
No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
---|---|---|---|
1. | "Don't Let the Man Get You Down" | Norman Cook, Robert Leslie Emmerson | 4:01 |
2. | "Slash Dot Dash" | Cook | 2:53 |
3. | "Wonderful Night" (featuring Lateef) | Cook, Lateef Deaumont | 4:46 |
4. | "Long Way from Home" (featuring Jonny Quality) | Cook, Sean Moody | 4:44 |
5. | "Put It Back Together" (featuring Damon Albarn) | Cook, Damon Albarn | 4:36 |
6. | "Mi Bebé Masoquista" | Cook, Sheldon Silverstein, Michael Settle | 4:26 |
7. | "Push and Shove" (featuring Justin Robertson and Sharon Woolf) | Cook, Justin Robertson | 4:27 |
8. | "North West Three" | Cook, Beverley Kutner | 4:30 |
9. | "The Journey" (featuring Lateef) | Cook, Deaumont | 4:36 |
10. | "Jin Go Lo Ba" | Babatunde Olatunji | 4:40 |
11. | "Song for Chesh" | Cook | 4:19 |
12. | "The Joker" (featuring Bootsy Collins) | Steven Miller, Ahmet Ertegün, Memphis Curtis, Jr. | 5:21 |
Total length: | 53:27 |
No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
---|---|---|---|
13. | "What They're Looking For" | Cook | 5:52 |
14. | "Close To Home" | Cook | 3:35 |
Total length: | 1:02:55 |
No. | Title | Length |
---|---|---|
1. | "Slash Dot Dash (DJ Delite)" | 2:27 |
2. | "Wonderful Night (Trash Remix)" | 4:47 |
3. | "Wonderful Night (Wonderful Nightclub Remix)" | 6:35 |
4. | "Jin Go Lo Ba (Jon Carter Mix)" | 7:06 |
5. | "The Joker (Justin Robertson Vocal Mix)" | 5:34 |
6. | "Push And Shove (Acoustic Version)" | 4:06 |
Total length: | 30:46 |
Chart (2004) | Peak position |
---|---|
Austrian Albums (Ö3 Austria) [15] | 35 |
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Flanders) [16] | 54 |
Dutch Albums (Album Top 100) [17] | 83 |
French Albums (SNEP) [18] | 59 |
German Albums (Offizielle Top 100) [19] | 67 |
Italian Albums (FIMI) [20] | 48 |
New Zealand Albums (RMNZ) [21] | 40 |
Scottish Albums (OCC) [22] | 27 |
Swiss Albums (Schweizer Hitparade) [23] | 28 |
UK Albums (OCC) [24] | 14 |
UK Independent Albums (OCC) [25] | 3 |
US Billboard 200 [26] | 149 |
US Top Dance/Electronic Albums (Billboard) [27] | 1 |
Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
---|---|---|
Japan (RIAJ) [28] | Gold | 100,000^ |
United Kingdom (BPI) [29] | Silver | 60,000* |
* Sales figures based on certification alone. |
Norman Quentin Cook, better known as Fatboy Slim, is an English musician 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.
The Housemartins were an English indie rock group formed in Hull who were active in the 1980s and charted three top-ten albums and six top-twenty singles in the UK. Many of their lyrics conveyed a mixture of socialist politics and Christianity, reflecting the beliefs of the band. The group's a cappella cover version of "Caravan of Love" was a UK number one single in December 1986.
Beats International were a British dance music band and hip-hop collective, formed in the late 1980s by Norman Cook based in Brighton, East Sussex, England, after his departure from the Housemartins.
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.
Think Tank is the seventh studio album by the English rock band Blur, released on 5 May 2003. Continuing the jam-based studio constructions of the group's previous album, 13 (1999), the album expanded on the use of sampled rhythm loops and brooding, heavy electronic sounds. There are also heavy influences from dance music, hip hop, dub, jazz, and African music, an indication of songwriter Damon Albarn's expanding musical interests.
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.
You've Come a Long Way, Baby is the second studio album by English electronic music producer Fatboy Slim. 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. You've Come a Long Way, Baby proved to be Cook's global breakthrough album, peaking at number one on the UK Albums Chart and number 34 on the US Billboard 200. Praised by critics for its sound and style, the album brought international attention to Cook, earning him a Brit Award in 1999, and was later certified four times platinum by the BPI and platinum by the RIAA. Four singles were released from the album: "The Rockafeller Skank", "Gangster Tripping", "Praise You", and "Right Here, Right Now", all of which peaked within the top ten on the UK Singles Chart. "Build It Up – Tear It Down" was also released as a promotional single.
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."
Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned is the fourth studio album by English electronic music group the Prodigy. It was first released on 11 August 2004 in Japan, on 23 August 2004 in the United Kingdom by XL Recordings, and on 15 September 2004 in the United States by Maverick Records. Recorded almost entirely using Propellerhead Reason and mastered with Pro Tools, the album contrasts with the group's previous releases, and features a larger use of vocals than their previous album The Fat of the Land (1997). Keith Flint and Maxim Reality do not provide any contribution to the official record, which leaves Liam Howlett as the sole band member to do so for the only time in the group's history.
"Praise You" is a song by British big beat musician Fatboy Slim. It was released as the third single from his second studio album, You've Come a Long Way, Baby (1998), on 4 January 1999. It reached number one on the UK Singles Chart and in Iceland, number four in Canada, number six in Ireland, and number 36 in the United States. As of 1999, it had sold over 150,000 units in the US.
"The Rockafeller Skank" 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. It was the second Fatboy Slim single to chart on the US Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number 76. In 2022, Rolling Stone ranked "The Rockafeller Skank" at number 199 on their list of the "200 Greatest Dance Songs of All Time".
"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.
"Wonderful Night" is a song by English big beat musician Fatboy Slim, released as a single from his album Palookaville. It features vocalist Lateef the Truthspeaker, credited mononymously as Lateef on the single release. The song is often played at Staples Center immediately after Los Angeles Clippers home wins and at Madison Square Garden during the second half of New York Knicks games. A shortened version of the song also appears on the video game Dance Dance Revolution Extreme 2. The song was edited for radio due to the brief coarse language used in the middle of the song.
"Slash Dot Dash" is a song by English big beat musician Fatboy Slim, released as a single from his album Palookaville. Cook himself plays bass guitar on the track. It also appeared on Fatboy Slim's greatest hits album The Greatest Hits – Why Try Harder. The single peaked at number 12 on the UK Singles Chart, number six in Spain, and number 27 in Italy. The original version of the track, contained on an advance US copy of the album, uses a different vocal sample which was possibly changed due to sample clearance issues.
"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).
Blade II: The Soundtrack is the soundtrack to Guillermo del Toro's 2002 film Blade II. It was released on March 19, 2002 via Immortal Records, serving as a sequel to Blade: Music from and Inspired by the Motion Picture.
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.
Wild Ones is the fourth studio album by American rapper Flo Rida. It was released on July 3, 2012. Wild Ones had four Top 10 singles on the US Billboard Hot 100, when the singles, "Good Feeling", "Wild Ones", "Whistle", and "I Cry" charted at three, five, one, and six respectively.
"Eat, Sleep, Rave, Repeat" is a song by Fatboy Slim, Riva Starr and Beardyman. It features vocals from Beardyman who improvised all of the lyrics and vocals in one take. It was released on 20 June 2013. Aided by a remix by Calvin Harris, the song reached number 3 on the UK Singles Chart, becoming Fatboy Slim's first top ten hit since "Star 69" / "Weapon of Choice" in 2001. A remix by Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike and Ummet Ozcan was released on 23 December 2013.