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Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned |  | Artist: Prodigy
Label: Maverick
Category: Music
Buy New: $18.98
as of 9/7/2010 16:44 CDT details
Seller: Amazon.com
Rating:  reviews
Sales Rank: 29842
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
UPC: 093624799023
EAN: 0093624799023
ASIN: B0002M5T16
Release Date: September 14, 2004
Shipping: Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Tracks:
| • | Spitfire | | • | Girls - The Prodigy, Barclay, Hubert | | • | Memphis Belle | | • | Get Up Get Off | | • | Hot Ride | | • | Wake Up Call | | • | Action Radar | | • | Medusa's Path | | • | Phoenix | | • | You'll Be Under My Wheels | | • | The Way It Is | | • | Shoot Down | | • | More Girls - The Prodigy, |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
Masters of reinvention, rave stalwarts Prodigy have undergone another remarkable facelift for their fourth album, Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned. For band leader Liam Howlett, this mutation was less about ambitious experimentation and more the result of crucial damage control: the band's disastrous 2002 comeback campaign, spearheaded by "Baby's Got a Temper" found the band stagnant and on the verge of self-parody. Howlett's response was to scrap the sessions, hunker down with a laptop and hammer out an album that held spontaneity as a virtue. And while the old touchstones--the propulsive breakbeats of old-skool hip-hop, the brooding menace of punk-rock and acid-house--are all here sporting a fresh chrome gleam, they're joined by new influences: everything from crunk hip-hop to Aphex Twin's "Windowlicker" bubbles beneath the surface of "Girls." Maxim and Keith Flint are absent, replaced by a bizarre roll call of stars--Liam Gallagher, Juliette Lewis, Twista--and obscurities…anyone remember the Ping Pong Bitches? Not that it matters: this is Howlett's album, and whether he's rewiring Shocking Blue's "Love Buzz" as Middle Eastern-tinged acid techno on "Phoenix" or clashing with Kool Keith on "Wake Up Call," he sounds back on top of his game. --Louis Pattison
Album Description
Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned is The Prodigy's long-awaited follow-up to 1997's double-platinum #1- charting The Fat Of The Land. Returning with a sleazy, funky and far more punk album than anything Liam Howlett has ever recorded, the premier electronica dance act for the alternative masses targets both its core fan base at clubs and a new generation of technofreaks with Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned.
Album Description
This is an album of raw energy where the beats are the stars, & the voices just samples in Liam's sonic armoury. The guests whose vocals have undergone Howlett's subverted cut up techniques include Liam Gallagher, Juliette Lewis, Kool Keith, Princess Superstar, Ping Pong Bitches, Twista, Shahin Bada (better known as the spine tingling chanteuse from 'Smack My Bitch Up') & unknown lo-fi singer songwriter Paul Jackson from Dirt Candy. Written on a laptop in a bedroom in Essex, mixed in London & mastered in New York, 'Always Outnumbered Never Outgunned' is the sound of Liam Howlett reclaiming the Prodigy & putting the beats back in their rightful position - centre stage. & the end result is an album that deserves to be The Prodigy's 4th album, back & fresh. The King of the Beats is back - 2004 style. XL Recordings.
Album Details
Japanese Release featuring a Bonus Track: 'more Girls'.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Somewhat engaging but overall rather clunky... July 2, 2010
Andrew Ellington (I'm kind of everywhere)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I'm a huge fan of Prodigy. I just love that whole techno rave industrial vibe, and while I'm no aficionado, I must say that I soak it up willingly. That said, this offering left me rather cold. It seems somewhat lazy at times, a little uneven, awkward even and even when it hits it lacks the consistency of some of their precious efforts. They layer a few tracks with originality (even if the songs don't fully follow through with their initial punch) but overall the album comes off feeling incomplete.
The album opens with the energetic `Spitfire', a song that packs a wallop musically (that beat is instantly infectious) but never really goes anywhere. That is an issue I have with the bulk of this album. It packs an initial punch but then fades into redundancy and wasted potential. `Medusas Path' is another one. Musically, it is one of my favorite beats on the album, but the three-minute time span almost feels doubled by the time it is over. It just doesn't go anywhere. In a rave setting, this would be ideal, but listening to this over your stereo it comes off lacking. `Phoenix' is slightly better (thanks to the vocals, which are distinct of not a tad underwhelming in retrospect) but it lacks a memorable factor I was craving. `Memphis Beat' has some interesting layers of musicality woven into it, I just wish they had pushed it a little further.
`Get Up Get Off' benefits from liquid fire vocals by Twista, but it comes off feeling very dated.
I kind of found the whole `Thriller' rip off feel of `The Way It' to be a tad overly cheesy and unsuccessful. They should have really `owned' it if they were going to go this route. Instead it feels a tad too timid and unexpressive. `Wake Up Call' is just obnoxious with no real pay off. It's messy. `Action Radar' is also messy. I found the muffled scream nature of the vocals to be nothing more than annoying.
The rock influence that permeates the album seems overwhelmingly amateurish in my eyes.
But there are some highlights here.
`Girls' is fun, exciting and very different from the rest of the album. I like the playfulness of the beat, but it still has a serious edge. It's funny, because this beat is more engaged and even `heavier' than some of the more rock affluent tracks. The female vocals suit the beats extracted by the duo. I also rather love `Hot Ride'. The salacious vocals provided by Juliette Lewis help capitalize on the aggressive nature of the beats. I only with that the remainder of the album was as focused and attentive as this track. `You'll Be Under My Wheels' understands that a redundant beat has to have variance to make it interesting, and it nails that by layering the beat with nice little tricks that keep it interesting, even in the solitude of your car.
Overall the album is a miss. A handful of interesting tracks make this slightly better than a wasted effort, but in the end this is far less than I was hoping for.
 Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned, A historical review April 19, 2010
David E. Dickey (Virginia, USA)
Prodigy: Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned
If you are unfamiliar with Prodigy, it is a British break beat/hardcore group that is nearly unparalleled in success in the dance music genre. This album, Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned, is a testament to their ability to make hard-hitting beats and catchy electronic hooks.
The album kicks off quickly with their hit song "Spitfire". "Spitfire" certainly has elements of early break beat techniques, using many short, catchy samples to compose their beats. However, Prodigy utilizes modern computers to store many more samples than the early break beat artists ever could, and the product is a versatile song like "Spitfire". The use of almost operatic vocals and very simple, reductive electronic beeps is similar to early computer music (like that of Milton Babbitt). However, Prodigy almost immediately elaborates on this simplistic sound by adding chopped-up electric guitar samples to the mix, bringing both past and present together. Their combination of real, tangible instruments and their electronic counterparts is easily found in "Hot Ride". This combination of electronic sound and symphonic sound vividly reminds me of Risset's work in the computer music field, where the pioneer composer utilized computers to produce the sounds of brass instruments.
"Action Radar" is also very cool song. Here, the song begins with a very simple
melody and progressively unfolds into electronic and distorted noises that still keep the same beat. The overdrive of sound produces a very scratchy sound as the song continues to distort the melody. I can't help but compare this technique to the famous Tenney work, "Blue Suede Shoes". Instead of slowly algorithmically recombining noises to form the Elvis work, Prodigy instead undoes a melody to produce pure electronic sound. This devolution continues until the song slowly fades out into static.
"Phoenix" is a work that is easily recognizable as being a remix and highly intensified version of Michael Jackson's "Thriller". The beat is still recognizable, but Prodigy has managed to produce a harder, more industrial sound out of it. The underlying beat that is produced is so divided and chopped that it almost appears to have a granular sound. They decompose the beat and reorganize it to synthesize a clicky/glitchy sound. Prodigy proceeds to emphasize different parts of the beat throughout the song so the listener can analyze and understand it. They also leave out vocals until the very end to emphasize only the beat.
In contrast to the other works on the album, "You'll Be Under My Wheels" largely uses vocal input to carry the song. Morphed and slowed vocals can be heard throughout the piece. It's likely this song was influenced highly by early tape music, where artists would reorganize the sound by chopping and splicing tape to produce eerie vocal sounds. Prodigy does this electronically, of course, and the product is a much smoother sound. The sound of the voice is overdriven, and sounds scratchy. This is most likely to make it sound more digital, and blend with the rest of the noises in the background.
Overall I would recommend this album. The styles used are variable, and Prodigy really experiments with a variety of sounds. The only detractor is that the album is fairly short. I would give this work four out of five stars.
Industrial pop July 27, 2009
Andrew G. Whitelaw (Baltimore, MD)
I'm a big Prodigy fan. This album is pushing for a niche in a fairly new hard-core pop genre which is only shared by a handful of artists. A bit indulgent and repetitious, but has great hooks and is so deliberate it almost threatens you to start dancing. The vocals are great one-liners which have become the norm for techno.....for the masses. I think it's good stuff, but lacks the layering and subtlety of previous albums. I think they're scared of sharing a stage with anyone soft like Moby, so they're pushing like hell away from that. But the music's very intelligent and original. After six songs in however, your ears may need a break. Great for shuffling.
 Best album to date! March 7, 2009
phix (Illinois)
I cannot say enough about this release! It's hard core and has major beats! I CANNOT see what the whining is about. It's the LEAST tame of all their albums, almost "dirty".
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