6 December 1996
We’re probably catching The Prodigy at the wrong moment here. They’d already had a string of brilliant Irish top ten singles through the ’90s, first with sparkling primary-colour rave, then with murkier hip-hop textures, and most recently before this with the scorching electro-punk of ‘Firestarter’. That latter track was a genuine sensation earlier in 1996, though clearly not sensational enough to squeeze past ‘Aon Focal Eile’ to the top of the Irish charts. Keith Flint, heretofore a dancer in the manner of the lads standing at the back of East 17, was now their bug-eyed, hair-dyed Lydon-esque front person spitting out venomously menacing lyrics. He was a sensation too.
You can’t recreate that sort of initial impact anyway, but ‘Breathe’ really does feel like a consolidation of ‘Firestarter’. Joining Keith on lead vocals is Maxim Reality, which by coincidence are my middle and confirmation names. Maxim gets the best line of ‘Breathe’—the frantic “Inhale inhale – you’re the victim!”—and Keith also treats us to the lairy “Now – play – my – game!” However, ‘Breathe’ is more a collection of set-piece catchphrases than a proper dancefloor banger: the music and beats are relatively subdued this time around. It often happens that an act finally gets a number one after the track that should have been their first number one, and for The Prodigy in the Irish charts ‘Breathe’ is that. Next from them is the moronic ‘Smack My Bitch Up’, where they take an ill-advised punt on short-term notoriety: it’ll be their last Irish top ten hit. Sometimes a number one single isn’t the end of a rise, but the start of a fall.
