In the late 1990s, big beat seemed vital: The Chemical Brothers were giving the often-goofy sound a tinge of style, and Fatboy Slim was gatecrashing happy hours, dormitories, and the P.A. systems of sporting events with the sculpted trash energy of singles like "The Rockafeller Skank" and "Praise You". But the sound's blaring populism quickly seemed tiresome, and by the turn of the millennium its whip-crack breakbeats and whooping bottom end had been sold for scrap to Rockstar Games and street luge enthusiasts.
The Brothers and the Boy, Norman Cook, survived the fire sale, returning in the 2000s with less obvious albums that recaptured some of their dance community cred. But unfortunately, many U.S. college kids were still clamoring for catchy new skanks to bump chests and wet tees to. With 2000's Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars, Fatboy attempted to make trance crash with some trademark Slim fervor. But while it lessened the buffoonery, the record still ticked with guest shots (R&B; mercenary Macy Gray), and Christopher Walken danced the smirking loops of "Weapon of Choice" into gimmicky replay on the brains of millions. Fatboy Slim seemed stuck in the loop that made him popular in the first place.
Cook's response is Palookaville, which is precision-built for a polarized and perhaps even less responsive 2004. Perhaps realizing dance music's irrelevance to Americans outside of Fat Joe joints on the broad side, and the house, techno, and IDM heads in the underground minority-- and realizing that the bombast as we knew it in the 90s still echoes in Spike TV promos and shaving cream spots with sick production values-- Cook has returned the Fatboy Slim brand to market. Here, he's backed more by rock than the burble of the 808, but Slim still loves blabbing repetition and dropping yapping vocal samples into the gobs of the dull, and this helps make Palookaville less a reformation than merely his latest and quite bland big beat manifesto.
The album begins with two of its weakest tracks, "Don't Let the Man Get You Down" and "Slash Dot Dash". It's fine for "Man" to cut the defining phrase from the Five Man Electrical Band's "Signs" ("Long-haired freaky people need not apply!") over piano breaks and wiggy percussion-- it's possibly both a rallying cry for a new age of freaks or a snide comment on censorship. But where's the rest of the song? It drifts into squiggling Fatboy Slim generica, sapping whatever power might've been left in the vocal hook. And "Slash Dot Dash"? It's as empty as the vacuum after the dot-com bust, a tinfoil crumple of store-bought spy guitar and a vocal sample that needles three times sharper than the funk soul brother.
But while Palookaville gets off to an unquestionably cauliflower-ear start, it does feature some punchy amalgams of rock and electronic elements towards its center, and some of the live instrumentation that Cook has touted as part of his new routine eventually begins to make an impression. Latyrx's Lateef busts an admittedly toned-down version of his malleable, inventive flow over the concise rhythms of "Wonderful Night", and also lights up the weedy canter of "The Journey". Damon Albarn continues his quirky collaborator streak with the tinkling, hazy "Put It Back Together", on which his slurring soul croon leads sunny backup singers in an oddball Caribbean lilt that's fueled by funk breaks and assorted Fatboy Slim noise that actually works. "North West Three" is also solid, and although most people listening to Fatboy Slim aren't hoping to conjure memories of Love Story, it could double as the theme to an autumnal love affair.
Still, despite its handful of strong moments, Palookaville can't shake its widescreen, broadly accessible feel: Dance Music for Dummies, maybe? "Song for Chesh" feels assembled from leftover cuts and samples; "Jin Go Lo Ba" returns to the blatant NBA highlight film baiting of "Slash Dot Dash". Drop that beat and let the tomahawk dunk montage begin. And if that's not tiresome enough, Cook also taps his old pal Bootsy Collins for a shit-eating tear through Steve Miller Band's "The Joker" that's at least as sugary as Uncle Kracker and Dobie Gray's tepid remake of "Drift Away". A shizzle here or a fizzle there does not make a tired sound fresh. Palookaville avoids booming with tired, late-90s big beat fever, but it's never far away from that genre's vacancy, since it aims so squarely for the same old middle of the road.
